Tag: Beach Club Resort

Thinking Disney Thursday – November 14th, 2013 – Stormalong Bay

So we just recently booked a family trip to Disney World for February 2014 – spending a week at the Beach Club Resort.  We love this hotel and when I think of it I always get a feeling of peace.

On our last family trip to Disney World we stayed there too – it was a rough trip down what with driving to Minneapolis through a rough winter storm and then the flight down, etc.  We were a bit stressed but then we got in the pool and all the stress went away – instant vacation mode.

We are obviously looking forward to the next trip – so that we can have moments like these again.

Stormalong Bay at night
Stormalong Bay at night

Disney trips – racing and family – January and February 2014 – Pop for #wdwmarathon weekend and Beach Club in Feb with the kids

So as highlighted on biggoofyrunner.com, my wife and I will be doing a couple only trip to Disney World in January 2014.  We will be participating in the Disney World Marathon weekend (we are both signed up to the Goofy Challenge) and as we will both be running we are not bringing the kids with us.  We decided when we when we booked it we would do that trip as inexpensively as possible while still staying on Disney property.  This led us to booking the Pop Century resort for the 5 nights we will be there – by booking a Disney hotel we are getting the Magical Express which will make it a lot simpler and faster to get to the hotel from the airport (also makes the heading home day a bit less stressful).

When we booked the trip we intended to not buy any tickets and just enjoy non park Disney stuff during this trip as we weren’t bringing the kids.  We are both annual passholders but my ticket expires before we get there and my wife’s expires the 2nd day of our trip.  As we didn’t intend to have a family vacation with the kids to Disney World this winter (due to putting in a pool this past summer) we figured we wouldn’t renew our passes and then on our trip if we couldn’t take not going to a park we would buy a day pass each and just go with that to get our fix.

That was our plan back in September at least.  As time progressed I think we both started feeling guilty about not taking the kids on the Disney World Marathon weekend trip, plus we were both starting to look at Disney stuff as we were getting ourselves pumped for the race trip and frankly I know I wasn’t very good at hiding what I was looking at from the kids.

So long story short we were randomly looking around at flight prices on Expedia and hotel deals on Disney.com and we found some surprising deals that we thought we might be able to deal with financially.  In the end we found flights out of Minneapolis (we will have to drive there from Winnipeg but even with gas, food and hotel rooms for the drive there and back we will save well over $1000).  We have done the drive to Minneapolis before as part of our Winter 2013 family trip to Disney World and the kids did really well – we do have to watch for winter storms coming in but with the timing of the trip we can adjust our driving day going down by a day or 2 and beat the storms.

We are doing the Pop Century as part of the Disney World Marathon trip for my wife and I – we have stayed there before and we found it tight when we were there with just our son – now with 2 kids we are worried about it being too crowded.  Plus the double beds at the Pop are a bit small for me (at 6′ 2″ 218 pounds with wide shoulders I can use a double myself if I am greedy).  So we wanted to bump up to a moderate to get bigger beds and maybe a bit more room – we really were hoping for French Quarter but that didn’t work out with our travel times.  We looked a few of the other moderates online to see what would work and in the end we admitted to ourselves that we have been spoiled our last few trips to Disney World with the family.  We have done our last 2 family trips to Disney World at the Beach Club Resort and we love it there.  A huge part of the draw is the ability to walk right into Epcot and have a short walk to Hollywood Studios (plus the kids love the pool area).

Once we made that admission to ourselves it didn’t take too much to convince ourselves that the club level jump in cost wasn’t too bad considering we know how much we have used the club room (Stone Harbour Club) in the past when we got a bump to club level.  We used it for all breakfasts, snacks, travel cokes and waters and beers for the room – with the discounted room rates this was a cost win bumping to club for the trip.

Yeah…so we went from saying no trip so that we could rebuild our reserves to doing a week club level at the Beach Club…I think we may be very slightly addicted to Disney World.

Magic Memory Monday – Oct 28, 2013

The picture today brings to mind many memories and reminds me of the start of a very good trip to Disney World.  The picture was taken was the first night of the January/February 2013 family trip to Disney World.  We were booked into the Beach Club and had the fantastic surprise of a phenomenal upgrade to start our trip.

After supper we hit Stormalong Bay (the wonderful sand bottomed pool shared by the Beach and Yacht Club resorts) and were basically the only people in the pool.  We had the whole big kids’ area to ourselves and the kids had a blast.  After a rough drive from Winnipeg to Minneapolis through a wicked winter storm and lots of snow to be dealt with in Minneapolis before the trip the massive pool was all the more fantastic.

When I think of this night I think about feeling relaxed and happy to be there while the kids were having such a great time.  We had been on Disney property for less than 6 hours at this point and were already in full on vacation mode.  It was the start of probably our best ever family trip and when I look at this picture I get a whole wave of fun memories from this trip.

Aaaahhhh!

Stormalong Bay pool view at night
Stormalong Bay pool view at night

Thinking Disney Thursday – Sometimes you just have to run on the beach like a maniac – October 24th, 2013

Like the title says – sometimes you just have to run on the beach like a maniac.  There is so much to do at Disney World and it is all so easily accessible if you are staying that the Beach Club Resort like we were on this trip.  But even with Epcot being 5 minutes walk away and Hollywood Studios less that 20 minutes sometimes you just have to ignore that and go with the simple pleasures.

Like running up and down a beach, yelling at the top of your lungs and trying to catch seagulls – ahh to be 5 again like my son is in this picture.

That is one of the beautiful things about Disney World – there are these opportunities to get away from the crowds and do your own thing and just be a kid.  Awesome.

T on the Beach Club / Yacht Club beach
T on the Beach Club / Yacht Club beach

Magic Memory Monday – October 14th, 2013

Disney’s Beach Club Resort at Walt Disney World – the folks there have been very good to us.  We had stayed at the Yacht Club once as the second half of a split vacation – spent 4 nights at Caribbean Beach and 5 nights at Yacht Club.  We ended up picking the Beach Club for our next family vacation after that (just because it was closer to the quick serve meal locations which is important with the kids).  That trip we ended up getting a lovely surprise of a bump up to Club Level which was awesome and helped make the trip.

That helped us decide to go back to the Beach Club Resort again on our next family trip in Jan/Feb 2013.  My wife and I had stayed at the Boardwalk Inn for the Disney World Marathon weekend earlier in January and with the cost of that trip there was no way we could splurge on Club Level but if we really scrimped we could do Beach Club with the family (plus a good deal as Annual Passholders).  So we told the kids that we weren’t going to be able to use the Club Level snack room / lounge (the Stone Harbour Club) but we would have the pool and be super close to Epcot.  They were very happy that we were going to be able to use the big pool at Storm Along Bay and weren’t concerned about the snack room.

When we arrived though we were escorted up to the Club Level for check in – we had apparently been upgraded up to Club Level again!  We were extremely surprised and very grateful as we knew the snack room would actually let us save some money on breakfasts and the ambience on the Club Level is just fantastic.  We were told our room was on the 2nd level (which was a surprise as the Club Level is on the 5th floor but we figured we just given a normal room and access to the Club Level – we were fine with that) so we grabbed the kids and wandered over.  After walking what seemed like miles we got to our room – very far from the snack room but extremely close to the walk way to Epcot – we were happy with the trade off.

We walked into the room and were stunned to find that we had actually been upgraded to a 2 bedroom suite – there was a room with 2 queen beds for the kids, a living room and wet bar area and a separate bathroom for the “master” king bedroom.  The kids’ room had views of the quiet pool as did a balcony off of the living room and although the king bedroom did not have a balcony it had many windows facing south to catch the sun and provide a view of the Boardwalk area.  It was a fantastic view both during the day and at night.  You can see here for a complete trip report for that trip and more pictures for the room specifically here and here.

This picture reminds me of how great the room felt and how magical Disney made the trip this time – we had such a good time being able to walk to Epcot in under 5 minutes and it is hard to put a dollar value on how much more time we had in the parks just from that.

Beach Club 2 bedroom suite view to Boardwalk
Beach Club 2 bedroom suite view to Boardwalk
Beach Club 2 bedroom suite view of path to Epcot
Beach Club 2 bedroom suite view of path to Epcot

 

Thinking Disney Thursdays – A Disney evening doesn’t need to be about fireworks

There are so many cool things about Disney World to see and do even without the signature fireworks displays in the parks.  The picture in this post was taken from the beach at the Beach Club Resort looking across the bay to The Boardwalk.  The gorgeous lighting and the atmosphere are fantastic – grab a pizza and sit and watch some street performers or just wander catching the sights and sounds of the evening.

Too often I think people do the fireworks at the parks and then head straight back to the hotels and crash and don’t take the opportunity to really explore and appreciate all the detail and atmosphere that Disney puts into the various areas at night.  These are things like the light up walk way tiles in Epcot, the lit fountains at the French pavilion in World Showcase or the lights on the buildings on Main Street in Magic Kingdom.

If you can find the time to slow down a bit you can see some very wonderful things.

Night view of the Boardwalk
Night view of the Boardwalk