From AOA to BLT for $15 (7/10-7/19) updated 9/20

[HuskerFaninIL]

So after many, many, many changes and tons rescheduling we finally made it to our happy place.

Other possible titles:

The PIVOT trip
All the hand sani! Hand Sani for All!
I only gained 1 lb!
So much sweat!

Before I get started on our trip and how it turned out, I’ll introduce you to our cast of characters!

This is me, Michelle. This was our 7th trip since 2011, I didn’t go to Disney for the first time until I was 33, so we’ve been making up for lost time.

https://flic.kr/p/2jpwVDv

Also on this trip is my husband of 19 years, Eric. He loves Disney just as much as I do, we love planning almost as much as going.


our oldest daughter, Lindsay, proves that good things come in small packages. She’s just 5ft tall and will be 16 very soon. She enjoys our Disney trips, but she’s also my nature girl and enjoys more outdoor vacations too.



Our youngest, Lydia, is a sweet 13 year old. She’s not overly into big roller coasters, Big Thunder is just her perfect size, she passes on Everest and Rockin’ Roller Coaster. She hates nature and much prefers all her vacations to be Disney based. She’s also a HUGE LEGO fan, and that’ll come up on day 6.


finishing our crew is my lovely Mother in law, she has been with us on 4 of our 7 trips, and we were so glad to have her. She doesn’t do big rides, so we split off into smaller groups here and there.


Next up is going to be some notes about how our trip came to be!

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[HuskerFaninIL]

Our trip and how it came to be. (warning this post will be a little sad.)

So like many others during this tine of COvid-19 this trip has been planned 8 different times.

Mach of 2019 we went to Disney World for Spring Break and my birthday, we figured we’d get back to the world in 2021, so we planned a Mexican Riviera cruise with a Norwegian for Spring Break 2020.

My in-laws we’re going to go with us, but my father-in-law was unfortunately diagnosed with lung cancer (non-smoker btw) but they encouraged us to still go on our cruise.
Here he is with our youngest on our 2017 trip.

Fast forward a bit to November of 2019 and my beautiful sister in law, age 43, was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. This is my husband’s sister so it was a double whammy on one side of our family. Obviously we were all left reeling.
Because our family was in just a place of turmoil we opted to cancel the cruise while we could get refunded and decided Disney would be good fo Spring Break 2020.
So we pivoted
[
and fully committed to Disney planning in December for March, not our usual timeframe.
We booked my girls, my husband and myself for Pop Century and we were excited because we had never stayed there (and I want to stay EVERYWHERE) and we were doing some new things, like after hours. Clearly you know that’s not where we ended up, location or dates!

Sadly, in late January, my father in law lost his 10 month battle and my mother in law asked to join us on our trip, so of course we said Yes!
Because we now had a 5th person, we moved to a Nemo family suite and we’re excited to try out AOA!

I'm going to leave it there for now, but there’s a couple more changes before we step foot on Disney Property!

 

[erinch]

I’m in!

 

[HuskerFaninIL]

I left off with our plan being Spring Break party of 5 staying at AOA.

Fast forward to 3/12, were set to fly out on 3/14. Disney closes due to Covid .

We are heartbroken, as are thousands of others I‘m sure.

We pivoted once again! We rebooked ourselves for early June at AoA Lion King suite With the Disney Free Dining Covid Canceled discount.

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We assumed, foolishly, that Covid would be in check by then. Spoiler alert: IT WAS NOT.

On our own, we moved our dates to July to separate ourselves a little further from Covid and obviously we must love to sweat! We were still at AoA Lion King with free Q/S dining.

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One night in late May I was fiddling around on the Disney Website and realized that we could move from AOA to Contemporary Garden Wing for an extra $15 total. We made the move! Yes, we were sacrificing some space and a bathroom, but we’d be able to walk to MK and we were going there twice. Plus it moved us to the regular dining plan and we thought having a TS everyday would be a very nice way to get out of the heat.

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We we’re excited! We planned to check in 7/10-7/15 and I finally built a trip that I thought was going to be perfect!

7/10 check in, eat at The Wave and go to Villains After Hours
7/11 sleep in, explore Contemporary and Disney Springs, eat at Morimoto Asia for lunch
7/12 all day Animal Kingdom and eat a nice lunch at Sanaa
7/13 all day at Magic Kingdom and eat lunch at Liberty Tree (my fave)
7/14 Hollywood Studios all day and eat a late lunch at Sci Fi
7/15 Legoland and Legoland Hotel
7/16 Universal and Hard Rock
7/17 Universal and Hard Rock
7/18 Fly home!

I was so excited! I got every FP I wanted, every reservation and I’m sure you already know it doesn’t happen quite like that

You’ve now heard about the $15 and we’ll see really soon how that gets us to BLT 2 bedroom!

 

[HuskerFaninIL]

We left off with us moving ourselves from AoA to Contemporary Garden View.

Fast Forward to early June and Disney releases info on when hotels will open and no Dining Plan. I call in to get my new total minus 35% and am told our Garden Room is good to go. I pay off our trip.

I post my info on Disboards on FB and everyone encourages me to call one more time because the hotel will not be open. So I do callback and find out our room would not be available (at this point it was thought only DVC was opening) so after some moving through a few CMs we were moved to a one bed room Theme park view at Bay Lake Tower for no extra fee

After all that, Disney did indeed open at least the main tower of Contemporary for our 7/10 date, but we were thrilled with BLT.

So our $15 difference from an AoA family suite to a Contemporary garden room has now garnered us a 1 bedroom theme park room at BLT! We were so excited for two bathrooms and the larger space and laundry, but mostly THE VIEW!

With Disneys info on park days we had to do a small bit of shifting but not horrible...

7/10 check in, eat at The Wave and relax (Villains After Hours cancelled )
7/11 sleep in, explore Contemporary and Disney Springs, eat at Homecomin’ for lunch
7/12 all day Animal Kingdom and eat a nice dinner at Sanaa
7/13 all day at Magic Kingdom and Plaza for dinner at park closing
7/14 relax, swim, Disney Springs. Morimoto Asia dinner
7/15 Hollywood Studios, Sci Fi Oga’s, Cantina , check in Legoland hotel
7/16 Legoland and Legoland Hotel
7/17 Universal and Hard Rock
7/18 Universal and airport Staybridge
7/19 Fly home!

Fingers and toes crossed that this plan will stick! We ended up being really lucky that Disney’s reopening days meshed with ours pretty well. Just a bit of shifting and switching our flight home and we were now onto a Plan Z!

(This update was boring! But it sets us up to actually arrive in my next post and I swear the room saga is almost over, but not yet)

 

[HuskerFaninIL]

July 10th was finally here and we held our breath waiting until We actually boarded that plane.

We we’re flying from IND to MCO, the flight took about 2 hours. If you’re interested we found that Southwest did a good job with mask enforcement, we opted not to take our masks off for the snack or water that is provided.

Away we go! (This maskless pic is in my car before we got to airport)

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The flight was smooth and easy and soon enough we were riding the mini monorail at MCO.

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We made sure to socially distance, and I could tell most others did as well. To this point we had not removed our masks.

Pretty soon we saw this gorgeous site! A tear might have sprung up in my eye!

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next post will show you how Magical Express worked and we’ll arrive at BLT!

 

[LovesBelle]

I am really enjoying this report! Looking forward to hearing about the BLT room!

 

[erinch]

Just waiting around for more!

 

[mkmomto2]

I was overcome with joy to see a recent trip report to read! Loving it so far!

 

[HuskerFaninIL]

As I left off we were at MCO approaching the Magical Express. We tapped in with our magic bands and went to our assigned aisle.

They left nice spacing lines for all the groups in the queues. As we approached a new bus pulled up, but do to our party size and social distancing we were cut off at the front of the line.

We settled in for a bit of a wait.

Lydia was not a fan of the N95 mask!

All in all we waited about 30 minutes to board the bus, with fewer resorts, low attendance and social distancing Disney was cranking the buses through. Now, we just made the provided luggage collection cut off, it has since been removed as an ME option (hopefully temporarily)

They show you a seating chart and tell you the exact seats you should fill and then they allow you to board. We ended up in the very back nearest to the bathroom.

This beauty pulled up and we were ready to go!

I love the windows!

We went to our assigned seats, the back 5 seats on the drivers side.

Because the crowds were so small, They added other resorts to our bus too, they were at AKL Kidani and Pop. They did a fantastic job of distancing on the bus.
We were the last group off the bus, no one from our bus was at our hotel.

Traffic was by light and within 25 minutes we saw this.

❤❤❤❤

A couple of drop offs later and we were alone of the bus, all told there were 13 guests on our bus, we were 5 of them.

Soon enough we saw this. The trip was finally real, it was actually happening!

Next time we check in and see our room, stay tuned

 

[HuskerFaninIL]

We’ve finally arrived at BLT and we’re so excited to check into our room. While on Magical Express our room had shown up, so we headed straight up to the 12th floor. Our one request was a high floor and they delivered, 12th floor is the highest floor with our room category.

We were in room 8220. If you don’t speak BLT that’s the 12th floor, I think their numbering system is so weird...

Forgive me the large amount of room pics to follow, but this room was amazing.

The couch area, folds out to a queen bed.

Chair area , also folds to a twin (Stolen pic, my view is way better)

Dining area

kitchen

TV, across from couch and next to dining area

Half bath, directly off door to room

laundry (I stole this pic, apparently I forgot to take one)

Master bed
]

TV/desk area

Master bath tub

Master shower, it has a rain head too, the toilet is in here as well

More master bathroom

So this was what a 1 bedroom villa looks like at Bay Lake tower. As great as it seems we won’t even spend a single night in room 8220. There’s a few more posts before we get to that part of our story.

 

[HuskerFaninIL]

Here are the most important pics, the view! These are all at some point during 7/10 room 8220.

 

[Dismrk155]

We’ve finally arrived at BLT and we’re so excited to check into our room. While on Magical Express our room had shown up, so we headed straight up to the 12th floor. Our one request was a high floor and they delivered, 12th floor is the highest floor with our room category.

We were in room 8220. If you don’t speak BLT that’s the 12th floor, I think their numbering system is so weird...

Forgive me the large amount of room pics to follow, but this room was amazing.

The couch area, folds out to a queen bed.

Chair area , also folds to a twin (Stolen pic, my view is way better)

Dining area

kitchen

TV, across from couch and next to dining area

Half bath, directly off door to room

laundry ❤ (I stole this pic, apparently I forgot to take one)

Master bed
]

TV/desk area

Master bath tub

Master shower, it has a rain head too, the toilet is in here as well

More master bathroom

So this was what a 1 bedroom villa looks like at Bay Lake tower. As great as it seems we won’t even spend a single night in room 8220. There’s a few more posts before we get to that part of our story.

Do they still have carpets?


Great view.
Looks really nice

 

[HuskerFaninIL]

Do they still have carpets?


Great view.
Looks really nice

Yes, the had carpet in the living room and bedroom, kitchen and bath were tile.

 

[erinch]

Waiting.....

 

[HuskerFaninIL]

We dropped off our carry on and took pics of the pristine room and then we headed to Contempo Cafe for lunch, and explored the resort just a little.

Contempo was empty so we grabbed a table and mobile ordered, however you’re supposed to order then wait for it to be ready before grabbing a table.

We admired the mosaic and the monorail overhead.

The menu was limited we had flat bread pizza, cheeseburgers and chicken tenders, it was all prepared fresh for us and was tasty.

We finished up with this beauty!

It was so good! It was cookies and cream icing on a vanilla cupcake, with the white chocolate monorail. Disney cupcakes are my fave, we end up trying a few other flavors throughout our trip.

After lunch we popped back to our room and our luggage had arrived! It only took about 2 hours. Adjusted the A/C, looked out at the Castle some more and wanted to explore.

Eric passed on exploring and went to rest, but the girls, grandma and myself headed out.
We popped into the Community Club to see their arts and crafts and schedule. They are definitely open and so friendly.

BLT and Contemporary are just gorgeous and with the low crowds it was so peaceful. Here are a few pics of the sites.

The bridge that attaches BLT and Contemporary.

]

I have always wanted to see this darn Mickey and had never found him, even though we’ve visited (not stayed at) the Contemporary several times.

The elevator, because why not?!

The girls loved the lizards! I have probably have 50 lizards pics on my phone, I will just share one. He’s hiding and breathing on the plant.

Up against Bay Lake by the Garden wing there were these vultures. This guy leaped out of a bush and we all screamed, thank goodness the Garden wing was closed so no one heard us.

This tree was also full of vultures.

It was warm (read: VERY HOT) so we headed back to see what Eric was up to and relax before dinner at The Wave.

We walked into the hotel and enjoyed the cold burst of refreshing air and took the elevator to the 12th floor. The elevators were very fast, and we had no issue catching one quickly even though it was one group per elevator.

Once at our room we opened the door and were met with a blast of hot air! Yuck! I made Eric check the A/C to make sure I’d turned it down correctly earlier. I had and no air was coming out. I called down to the front desk (though it’s not really the BLT desk, it’s a group call center for multiple resorts.)

They promptly sent maintenance, but with social distancing we had to leave again. So back outside we went and did another loop around the resort.

After our loop we went to the room, he was gone and it was still hot. I felt like they could have left a note or phone message, but there was no information about what was going on. We had dinner in 1 hour and needed to freshen up, so I called again. I didn’t want him returning while I was showering. The call center told us to freshen up and a specialized HVAC guy would be coming at some point, but it would be awhile.

So we went ahead and got ready, the room was approaching 90degrees; heat rises, we were on the 12th floor and the sun sets directly into our wall of windows. My mother-in-law started to feel very overheated and began to feel ill. (she’s not great in heat, so July was surely not our first choice) I had the girls go ahead and take her down to the couches outside The Wave to cool off.

Eric and I finished getting ready and popped by the actual front desk to check in about our problem. We spoke to a CM, I think her name was Grace, but that could be wrong. We expressed our problem and she promised she’d be figuring it out, she told us to have a good dinner and she’d be in touch.

So we headed off to The Wave for dinner. This was supposed to be my birthday dinner in March on my actual birthday, so we were excited to finally be there!

Next up The Wave!

 

[HuskerFaninIL]

Teeny post!
During our exploring we stopped in the stores and bought our first souvenirs. We got a couple Disney masks and these two beauties.

Eric collects coffee mugs from our vacations and he liked this one.
[

I collect Disney Christmas ornaments. I have 3 Disney trees; princess, other characters and Disney parks, I actually want to add a 4th for Villains.

I always get a resort specific ornament and this year I picked this one for the Disney Parks tree.

One tiny complaint, my Poly ornament is a darn trash can

and now it’s adorable!

 

[Shellbells]

Great report so far! I'm dying to know where they moved you too. I hope the view was just as amazing.

 

[KsGiGi]

Enjoying your report so far. Can't wait to hear more...

 

[HuskerFaninIL]

We headed to The Wave, this would be our first sit down indoor restaurant since March so I was a little nervous.
Before we went to Disney we spoke as a family and said if any of else felt uncomfortable we’d let the restaurant know and we’d bail. Luckily, this was never an issue.

They did a great job social distancing tables, so we settled in and ordered our dinner.

Eric had the pork dish, it was pork tenderloin, with grits and broccolini.

The girls and I chose the Grilled beef tenderloin, mine came with potato gratin and asparagus as listed on the menu. Lindsay swapped her gratin potatoes for mashed potatoes, Lydia chose jasmine rice.

Janet ordered the salmon dish and really enjoyed it.

We ordered the Chocolate Flight for dessert and we shared. Amazing, especially the creme Brûlée brownie!

As we were finishing the dessert my phone rang and it was a 407 number. I quickly answered and it was the front desk. Our A/C was shot and we’d need to move rooms.

I had searched while we were at The Wave and I knew there were no 1 bedroom theme park views open, so I was convinced we’d be moving to a lake view the lake is gorgeous, but I just wanted to wake up and see the castle out the window.

But the CM told me, we were moving to a 2 bedroom theme park view ! I about fell out of my chair.

So the original plan of AoA family suite to the Contemporary Garden Wing for $15 more, had now turned into a 2 bedroom villa with a theme park view. Crazy!