January 29th
Quick continental breakfast and on the shuttle to the airport – small issue with Delta check in kiosk – printed receipts for baggage check but no boarding passes – quickly fixed – lots of turbulence on the flight but no issues and arrived a bit ahead of schedule. Easy walk up and onto the Magical Express. Bus driver for the express was quite good and very funny. Our daughter K made sure to grab front seat so she could see well.
Dropped at Beach Club and were greeted and name checked by the Beach Club greeter. We have stayed here before and knew that usually they will check the name and if you are at Club Level they will lead you up the 5th floor for check in – if not they will provide you direction to the regular check in area. They do this very smoothly and you wouldn’t even think anything was out of the ordinary if they direct you to the standard check in area. We expected to be directed to the normal check in area as we had booked a standard room. Instead she lead us to the elevator to the 5th floor – we realized immediately we had received an upgrade – which is phenomenal – we had received an upgrade last year and definitely did not expect anything this year so we were quite excited. When we had booked the Beach Club this year we told the kids we would not be able to use the “snack room” (Stone Harbor Club) as with the more expensive than expected Goofy trip we wouldn’t be able to go for the time we wanted and do Club level. So the bump was a great surprise for us. Talking with the club representative in the elevator she indicated that we would be on the second floor – I didn’t know anything special about the 2nd floor so I just assumed a standard room but with access to the club room – still fantastic.
We had a lovely chat with the concierge folks as they checked us in and we bought tickets for the kids. As I was signing the credit card authorization and room agreement I noticed a tag on the room as 2bdrste or something like that – wondered if it meant 2 bedroom suite? I assumed I was just reading things into what I saw and put it out of mind.
After sign in was complete we headed down to the second floor and began the long winding walk to the room – it was quite a trek but we got used to it pretty quick. We walked into the room and saw the standard room and I thought ok, that’s great, that works and then Heather said “Ted, there is a door here…” and I could hear T yelling in the distance “this is so cool!”. Where the hell did he go?
I walked through the door to find a living room and wet bar separating the first room from a second bathroom area and a king bedroom master with views of the Boardwalk area.
Holy crap…what the hell? Eventually was able to check and the room runs around $1600 a night with taxes during value season – we paid around $2300 for 9 nights standard room. Even over a day into it we were still having trouble understanding the logic of the upgrade. What did we do to get upgrades 2 years in a row let alone an upgrade of this magnitude? Is it the Goofy trip followed quickly by a family vacation? Topped with the annual pass (now 2 premium annual passes) and yearly trips? Did the Goofy blog have an impact (even though there isn’t really any traffic where Disney would know about it)? Was it the asking about paying for an upgrade to club while we were around for the Goofy trip? Seriously, what the hell?
The room is nice, some areas need some work and there is some furniture missing that is shown in the room pics on the Disney site but having the second bedroom and a living room area is awesome with the kids. When they share a bed they can get out of control and take a long time to settle down and then wake up way too early. With the second bedroom with 2 queen beds they each get a big special bed to themselves and love it – they fell asleep fast.
Between all the rooms there are 2 Juliette balconies but no full balconies – the lack of a full balcony is a bit of a disappointment but the view is fantastic – pool view along the one side and Boardwalk from the master bedroom. Very cool.
Location is quite a way from the main lobby and does take some time to navigate but we did quickly discover that we could wander out of room and down a set of stairs and take a back way out to the boardwalk near Epcot – we can get to Epcot in about the same time as the lobby or the Stone Harbor Club. Very cool.
After check in we wandered around the room and the hotel and Boardwalk areas – we had snacks in the Stone Harbor Lounge and then went back to the room to see that our bags had showed up. We got changed and hit the main pool area before having one last snack at the lounge before heading to bed.
The kids slept great having the individual beds.
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