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October 7-11, 2005
Boardwalk Villas Resort
The Cast
Steve - Your humble narrator, veteran
of 17 trips and a DVC member since 1999.
Barb - My bride of 32
years (unfortunately, that’s not
her age). Also a Disney fan but slightly less fanatical than her
handsome, dashing spouse.
Planning
The reason for this trip is… wait a minute. Reason? We
don’t need no stinking reason. We tell ourselves, with a
slight wink, it’s to enjoy the Food and Wine Festival but
that’s really only part of it. Truth be told, we simply need
a vacation and where better to go than WDW? Originally, I had suggested
a December trip. Our one and only Holiday trip to WDW was December
2003, the year the Osborne Lights went dark. While we’d love
to get back at that time of year, it wasn’t to be – at
least not this year. Our daughter, Michelle, informed us she’d
be delivering our first Grandchild (Grandson if you can trust the
Ultrasound) in late-November. Barb was unwilling to plan anything
so close to that date so… OK, let’s go to Plan B – early
October it is.
Since joining DVC in 1999, we’ve been pretty good about
getting in 2-3 trips per year. Unfortunately, it’s becoming
more difficult since Barb switched to full-time employment at the
local High School. We’re once again relegated to school vacations
with the inherent crowds, higher prices and higher DVC points.
She did agree to a ‘couple of days’ of personal leave,
sandwiched around the Columbus Day holiday. October also works
well for us since our APs expire on October 30. This will give
us 3 trips on them. It’s just coincidence, I guess, but both
times we’ve had APs we’ve managed to get 3 trips on
them.
We settled on leaving Friday afternoon, October 7, and returning
late Tuesday, October 11. Barb can work a half day Friday (actually
it’s almost a full day considering she goes in at 6:00 AM
) and, because of the holiday weekend, she’ll only need to
use a personal day for Tuesday.
I booked flights, roundtrip from Albany to Orlando , on Southwest
at $289 each. This is quite a bit more than we usually pay but
they were the least expensive available for direct flights. I periodically
checked back on Southwest’s web site (whenever I received
one of their emails) and re-booked the fares twice to take advantage
of lower costs. The end result was right around $199 each which
means we now have around $180 in credits to use for another trip
planned for February 2006 (Barb agreed that February provided enough
elapsed time so we could allow Michelle and Will to raise their
son on their own – at least for a week).
Our DVC home resort (and our absolute favorite) is the Boardwalk
Villas. We love everything about it – especially the short
walk to Epcot. Unfortunately, I’ve had trouble booking a
studio at the Boardwalk Villas for this stay, probably due to the
fact that the F&W Festival is underway and I didn’t call
until May. The first 2 nights were available but there was nothing
for Sunday – and nothing at the Beach Club Villas either.
Until September we were spending 2 nights at the BW, followed by
1 night at Saratoga Springs , and heading back to the BW for the
last night. Eventually (through a cancellation?) the last night
freed up at Saratoga Springs and I was able to switch to 2-nights
at each location so it’s only one move. I’m still ‘wait-listed’ for
the last 2 nights at the BW.
I checked with DVC on September 23 and our wait-list came through.
The only problem is that our first 2 nights are in a Standard View
and the last 2 are in a Preferred View. This would mean we’d
still have to check out and in and probably be without a room for
Sunday afternoon. I’ll see if I can work something out with
the front desk at check-in.
We managed to hit all our favorite attractions (including Universal
Studios and IOA) during our trip with the kids last January. This
trip, we plan on being a bit more relaxed. We’ll visit the
parks but probably without the same ‘let’s ride everything’ mentality.
The only Advanced Reservation made was for Monday night at the
California Grill. We’ve never eaten there so it should be
fun. I booked a 7:10 reservation in the hopes of sipping coffee
(if it’s Nescafe, I’ll probably be sipping something
stronger than coffee) during the 9:00 Wishes show.
In August, I purchased the Disney Dining Experience (DDE) card.
It was something I should have done for our last trip in January
but I procrastinated. It would have saved us a bundle. When I received
the card and documentation, I was surprised to learn that it can
be used at the Belle Vue Room at the BW – my favorite WDW
bar/lounge. I still haven’t decided whether or not that’s
a good thing.
Lastly, the ground transportation. I had booked a rental car,
mostly as a backup. I don’t expect we’ll be going off-site
and WDW transportation has always worked well for us so I really
didn’t think the rental car would be worth the extra money.
I finally decided on using a new (for us) Town Car service – Quicksilver.
It’s recommended on Deb’s Allears site and, by mentioning
Allears, I was able to secure a discount. Round trip from the airport
to BWVR will cost $90. I should mention that we’ve used Tiffany
4 or 5 times now with great success. However, I have read some
recent negative comments – supposedly due to Tiffany now
sub-contracting their drivers – so we’ll try something
new and keep our fingers crossed.
I did consider Magical Express (ME) but, eventually, decided
against it. We’re arriving later in the day (6:05 if we’re
on time) and our plan is to check in and spend some time having
dinner at the F&W kiosks before watching Illuminations. I felt
a little uncertain about ME – and whether we could count
on it getting us to the resort leaving enough time for a trip or
two around World Showcase.
Enough with the pre-trip stuff. On with the show.
Day 1...
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