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2012 WALT DISNEY WORLD PLANS

Welcome to those of you joining from The World of Dee as Magical Blogorail Teal focuses this month on our 2012 Disney World plans!

DISNEY WORLD 2012 PLANS

In 2012, my focus will be on completing my hotel reviews, starting the next round of updating them, and seeing and reviewing the Fantasyland expansion.

There’s also some major housekeeping to do–ranging from updating itineraries to reflect the Fantasyland expansion to re-writing some of my more impenetrable pages–e.g. pages that needlessly use abbreviations like “e.g.” and words like “impenetrable…”!

As always, the summer will be particularly busy. Key price data usually comes out from Disney then, and 2012-2013 school year calendars become broadly available.

From these, updates will come to the 2013 weeks to visit rankings, 2013 Disney World crowd calendar, and 2013 Disney resort price season forecasts, and also to be created is a 2013 week picker like the one that already exists for 2012. Then in the fall it’s on to the first look at 2014!

Sadly, none of these plans are on my bucket list! I’ll have to work harder at that…

[Read more →]

This is the second page of this review of Disney’s BoardWalk Villas. For the first page of this material, click here.

MORE ON DISNEY’S BOARDWALK VILLAS

Disney’s BoardWalk Villas is one of 8 official Disney Vacation Club resorts at Walt Disney World.

However, I have come to count them as ten, because two of the resorts–Saratoga Springs and the Animal Kingdom Villas–have two very different areas.

In order of their appropriateness for first time family visitors to Walt Disney World, they are:

1. The Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
2. Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas–Jambo House
3. Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas–Kidani Village
4. Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort
5. The Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa
6. Disney’s Beach Club Villas
7. Disney’s Boardwalk Villas
8. Disney’s Old Key West Resort
9. Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa, main resort
10. Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort, Treehouse Villas area.

Disney’s BoardWalk Villas comes in 7th on the list. These resorts are available to anyone to reserve through the regular Walt Disney World website or the resort reservations phone number at 407-939-7675.

They also are available to the general public at great discounts through renting points from a Disney Vacation Club member.

All Disney Vacation Club resorts have studio rooms, One-Bedroom Villas, and Two-Bedroom Villas.

Most have Grand Villas as well.

Disney’s BoardWalk Villas has all room types, and floor plans of all its standard room types except Grand Villas are on this page. Grand Villas will be covered on the next page.

STUDIOS AT DISNEY’S BOARDWALK VILLAS

At Disney’s BoardWalk Villas, Studios sleep four and have a microwave and mini fridge.

The microwave is one of several ways Studios are different from regular rooms at the BoardWalk Inn.

• A second distinction is that the second bed is a full fold-out couch, rather than a queen.
• A third is that these rooms sleep one fewer person, and have one less sleeping space, than BoardWalk Inn rooms with two queens and a convertible couch.
• The studios have about 40 more square feet than standard rooms at the BoardWalk Inn, but most of this extra space comes in the entryway and bath area (because of the choice of where to put the closet, which lengthens this area by a couple of feet), not the bedroom.

These studios go for the same price or a even few dollars less than regular standard view five person BoardWalk Inn rooms, but even at those prices, I’d prefer the rooms at the Inn, unless you really need the microwave. The increased flexibility that comes from the Inn’s extra sleeping space, and the greater charm of the Inn, outweigh the microwave.

ONE-BEDROOM VILLAS AT DISNEY’S BOARDWALK VILLAS

One-Bedroom Villas at the BoardWalk have a master bedroom with a king bed.

They have as well a full kitchen/dining/ living space, a washer/dryer, and sleep 4 in about twice the space of a studio.

The two additional sleeping spots are on a fold-out couch in the living room space.

The bath is shared, with access to it from both sleeping spaces. The kids don’t need to enter the master bedroom to get to this bath.

One-Bedroom Villas are among the most comfortable ways to stay at Walt Disney World.

Those at the BoardWalk Villas are more comfortable than those at several other DVC resorts, because they are larger.

See the chart.

The additional space, full kitchens, and living and dining furniture are hard to beat, even though if you are following one of this site’s itineraries you won’t be in your room much to enjoy them!

Depending on the price season, these villas are only 25-40% more expensive than a standard BoardWalk Inn room, for twice the space.

They aren’t for everyone…but the value is there if you can afford it.

TWO-BEDROOM VILLAS AT DISNEY’S BOARDWALK VILLAS

Two-Bedroom Villas add a second bedroom with a queen and a full sleeper sofa, and another balcony, to the amenities of a One-Bedroom, and sleep 8.

Two-Bedroom Villas can be either cramped or comfortable, depending both on how you use them and what you are comparing them to.

Like many DVC Two-Bedroom Villas, in Disney’s BoardWalk Villas Two-Bedrooms there isn’t enough seating space in either the living room or in the dining spaces for all the people these rooms will fit.

(Old Key West Resort, Kidani Village, Bay Lake Tower, the Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian,  and the Treehouse Villas are exceptions.)

The living room chairs will seat four to five people, with two more chairs available at the dining table, and two more at the kitchen’s breakfast bar.

The dining table will seat at most four, taking the two chairs from the breakfast bar and adding them to the two chairs the table comes with.

So if you are filling a two bedroom with 8 people, things can get awkward, especially compared to the ease with which One-Bedroom Villas fit the people they can sleep.

Moreover, these two bedroom villas at the BoardWalk share a design problem with the same room type in The Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge.

The connecting door between the four-person bedroom and the central shared space is deep in the living room.  This can create some awkwardness for people leaving and entering the four-person bedroom if others are sleeping on the fold-out couch.  More recent DVC villas have corrected this flaw, and moved the connecting door to the other end of the kitchen space.

These space and circulation issues are part of the reason why these rooms are only about 40-75% more expensive than One Bedroom Villas, even though they have double the sleeping capacity.

On the other hand, depending on the price season, a Two-Bedroom is between the same price and $170 more than two standard BoardWalk Inn rooms, but provides 50% more space, and, compared to those rooms, all that extra kitchen/dining/living space and furniture.

If your family’s sleeping needs will fit in the bedrooms–that is, if you don’t need to use the fold-out bed in the living space–Two-Bedrooms are a particularly comfortable option.

(To each of the capacity figures above, you can add one more kid under 3 at time of check in who sleeps in a crib.)

GRAND VILLAS AT DISNEY’S BOARDWALK VILLAS

This review continues here.

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OVERVIEW: AUGUST 2012 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews Walt Disney World in August 2012: crowds, prices, deals and discounts, weather, and operating hours; adds a few other notes, and ends with week by week summaries.

[Read more →]

My friends at Destinations in Florida Travel have a deal where if you buy your Universal tickets from them, you can use, for free, their shuttle service from Disney World hotels to Universal and Harry Potter.

For more, and to get your Universal tickets that provide this free deal, see this.

For more on getting to Harry Potter from Walt Disney World, see this.

DISNEY’S BOARDWALK

Disney’s BoardWalk is a Walt Disney World dining and entertainment district along Crescent Lake, largely built as the ground floors of Disney’s BoardWalk Inn and Disney’s BoardWalk Villas.

It’s never really clicked, and for first-time family visitors, isn’t worth a special trip. [Read more →]

OVERVIEW: DISNEY’S BOARDWALK VILLAS FOR FIRST TIME VISITORS

Most room options at Disney’s BoardWalk Villas (an Epcot resort, and a Disney Vacation Club resort) are wonderful places for returning visitors to Walt Disney World to stay.

For typical first-time visitors, I don’t recommend the Disney Vacation Club resorts.

That said, these “DVC” resorts can be a great choice for first time visitors with large families, needing extra sleeping spaces, or looking for a more comfortable place to stay.

Among the Disney Vacation Club resorts, Disney’s BoardWalk Villas ranks seventh-best overall for first-time visitors.

THE DISNEY VACATION CLUB RESORTS

[Read more →]