Disney Nomads ... 3 Resorts in 8 Nights (March '12) - ALL NEW UPDATED 9/2 About This Page:

[njlaura]

Welcome to the first trip report that I'm going to try to finish. I hope you enjoy it and I'd love to hear from you.

About the title, we were really crazy enough to resort hop twice and you’ll find out how that went later.

(I was informed by a world class trip reporter on another boards that all these initials are annoying so I'm going to edit what I've wrote with nicknames. They may sound strange but they've actually been used in real life.)

But first, let me introduce the characters. There’s me -- wife, mom and art director; my husband Mr. Squid, also a graphic designer; and my 10-year old daughter Monkston. (Aren’t I secretive, especially with my super secret user name njlaura?)

Also along for the ride, but not crazy enough to stay in more than one resort are our friends Sheena, her husband Druid and their 10-year old son Tour Guide Mike (TGM). Sheena was not at all happy about going on another Disney trip (she says that I said I wanted to go to Caribbean) but TGM is completely Disney crazy and not far behind is Druid.

This would be our first trip as DVC members and the only reason we are DVC members this year was because it was too cold to swim on the last day of our trip last year. Huh, you say?

We usually hang out at the resort pool before ME picks us up for the airport but last year it was so cold that we decided to go to Epcot for a few hours. Well, after a week of bussing, walking, fighting crowds, we were just tired. As we hobbled to the American pavilion we happened upon the DVC booth, and out of curiousity, stopped to look at the treehouse pictures.

It was about an hour before we had to catch a bus back to the resort and we were looking at a long walk to Future World and the buses. I elbowed Mr. Squid, and whispered that maybe we should sit down for a chat with this DVC person. They have a van and cookies and ice cream waiting for us. How clever we were!

We had done the whole DVC sit down a couple years before when it was a rainy day and they were offering fast passes and ice cream for an hour or so of our time. We were kind of interested in signing but just couldn’t make such a big financial decision on the fly and said we would think about it at home. Well, you know how it is once you leave the bubble. You see the things you need to do to the house, and think about all the other more practical uses for the money. So, we didn’t do it.

We tell the guy we want to talk and he calls for a van and tells us to go wait by the fence at the back of the pavilion. Wow! We get to go backstage... And backstage is... kind of ugly actually. It looks like a back lot. And I didn't see any shenangagans going on with any of the cast members so nothing really interesting to report.

Upon arrival at the DVC office we get our cookies and coffee and our salesman comes out and seems to know everything about us from our last visit which was kind of creepy. But he was very smooth and didn't really try to do a hard sell. He just had some good arguments about why it would be right for us and gave us a good enough incentive to make it attractive.

After his talk and the tour of the beautiful one bedroom units we were sold. I guess he outfoxed clever us.

We have stayed at mostly moderate resorts and they are really nice, but that week at POFQ we had particularly bad bus service and the close quarters in the room were getting to us. Maybe that pushed us over the edge because the thought of being able to walk to MK or Epcot was looking pretty darned attractive. Not to mention me, the early riser, not having to make and drink my morning coffee in the bathroom vanity area.

In our one “hard-*ss” move in signing, we did get them to drive us to the airport rather than taking ME. Aren’t we tough negotiators?

Back to this trip…
We started planning back in October and we knew we wanted to stay in a 1-BR unit at BLT because it was so sleek and “rat-packy” and has that swanky lounge at the top. But we also didn’t want to use up all our points so we needed to split our stay. We chose AKV for the second half of our trip. Well, after airfares came out we had to change our plans because for some reason the dates we chose came with astronomical airfares. Since it was later in the game we had to get creative so we booked BLT 1 BR for first three nights (cheaper than last three), BWV studio for 2 nights and AKV 1 BR for 3 nights. It all sounds very easy on paper but will it prove to be easy in practice? We’ll see…


Chapter Links

Let's Get Out Of Here!

Everyone Has Baggage

I'll Have a BLT Please

Wishes and Squishes

Tinkerbell's Shot. Now What?

The Happiest Mall on Earth

Coffee and Sympathy

If They Don't Let Anyone In, Why Aren't There More Chairs?

Deluxe Ducks

View From the Top

Ohana Means Expensive Family Pictures

Where's Perry?

How Not to Tour

Dinner at The Wave

Goodbye Bay Lake Tower!

Let Charo Be Your Guide

Who Let the Riff Raff In?

Cheese Please!