>Take the Earliest Flight?

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A man gets on a plan in Philadelphia at 8:00 am. His Resort check in time in Walt Disney World is 3:00 pm. If his plane ride takes a little less than 2 1/2 hours, what does he do with himself, if he is using Disney’s Magical Express to get to the Resort? (Disney’s Magical Express was explained in our post of August 11 called “In Disney”) I know this seems like an odd question, but this happens to many people in Disney World as they are either first coming in, or as they are leaving. They book a flight that lands earlier in the morning or one that takes off later in the day. Then they are at the resort without a room. A lot of them sit around the lobby and wait for their room, or for the bus back to the airport, but that seems like a waste of a Day in Disney to me. So, if you are in this situation what should you do? After you have checked in to your Resort and found your room isn’t ready, you can enjoy the Unknown Magic of things to do when you don’t yet have a room.

The first thing you should do is something I mentioned in a post a while back, check out your surroundings. Find out what your resort has and what you can do there. Take the time to look for the Unknown Magics that it has to offer, things like a beach or a playground for the kids. Then you should decide if your park tickets will cover every day that you are in Disney, if you go to a park, now. If they do, you can always go to a park. We have on occasion gone to a park, at this point, but most of the time, we wait until after we have been in the room, so that we can change and freshen up, then we head out to a park (of course if you have a park hopper, which is the best way to go, you could do both). If you are like us and don’t want to do the park without freshening up, or you don’t have enough days on your tickets, then there are plenty of other options available to you that can lead to Magical Experiences.

You can Hotel Hop (as described in my post of August 17) this is a great way to find different places to eat and maybe a different place to stay on your next trip. You can also go over to Disney’s Boardwalk, and have lunch at any of the great restaurants. Our family stops in at Big River Brewing Company, usually our first day in Walt Disney World, for lunch, it is one of our favorite places to eat. While on the

Boardwalk, you can shop in some wonderful places like Thimbles and Threads or the Wyland Galleries. The Wyland Galleries have some very cool art work and the prices are not as extreme as you would think they’d be. There is also a Wyland Galleries in the Polynesian Resort.

The Polynesian Resort is another great place to go if you are waiting to get into your room. The Kona Café is wonderful for lunch and the Waterfall in the Lobby is a very nice place to sit and relax before a busy Disney Vacation starts. Another thing to do while you’re are waiting for your room, is to ride the Monorail. Disney’s Highway in the Sky is a Magical Experience in itself.

And on the Magic Kingdom Loop you can get out at the Contemporary Resort and enjoy the Grand Canyon Concourse, and at the Grand Floridian you can enjoy the piano playing in the lobby. You can also ride the Monorail over to Epcot and get a sneak preview of the park as the Monorail makes its loop around the entrance to the Epcot Station.

Another fun thing to do as you are waiting is to take a boat ride. If your resort is one of the many Disney resorts that offers floating transportation, this is a great way to learn where it goes. Not only that but it gives you a different view of the Walt Disney World Resort you may miss later in your trip.

If you get to Disney World very early and you have an hour or two before your room is ready, you can go play miniature golf. The Fantasia Gardens Minature Golf Course is near the Dolphin and Swan Resorts. To get there you need to take a bus to any Park and then take one to the Dolphin and the Swan. Winter Summerland mini-golf is connected to Blizzard Beach, so to get there you just need to catch a bus to Blizzard Beach.

Which brings up another option for you if you have a lot of time; you may want to go to either Blizzard Beach or Typhoon Lagoon. If you don’t want to purchase the ticket to either of the water parks, or didn’t have it as an add on to your Park Hopper Pass, then you can enjoy one of the most wonderful things to do for the wait before your room is available, Swim in your Resort’s Pool (I talked about the Resort pools in my article Let’s Take a Dip, back in June).

So, now you know, if you get an early flight and have to kill sometime in Disney before you get into your room, there are some great things you can do to create Magical Experience. So, book that early flight and enjoy your extra half day.

>Disney’s Best Kept Secret

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Have you heard about “Disney’s Best Kept Secret?” This used to be heard and seen all around Walt Disney World, a few years ago. Disney doesn’t try to keep the secret; it’s just that many people don’t know about this Magical Experience, so I guess it qualifies as an Unknown Magic. It is one of my favorite Unknown Magics, it is the reason why I am Blogging today and the reason I can Blog about the things I do blog about. This “Best Kept Secret“/Unknown Magic is the Disney Vacation Club. I will not discuss how to become a Vacation Club member or the cost, for that Information you can go to Disney Vacation Club to get more information.

The Disney Vacation Club started in 1991. It was Disney’s foray into the Time Share business. The First Resort dedicated to this venture was the Old Key West Resort. As you drive in to Old Key West Today you notice that this is a standalone Resort, meaning it does not have a Regular Hotel Resort attached to it. All the other DVC (Disney Vacation Club) Resorts, except Saratoga Springs, have a Regular Hotel Resort Attached to them that shares their names and amenities. This might sound confusing, because even as a non DVC member you can stay in any of these Resorts. The difference is the room that you get. The Regular room in the Disney Resorts has two beds, a bath and a view. The DVC Resorts give you four different room choices, and sometimes two or more choices of a view. The Four categories of DVC rooms are the studio, the one bedroom, two bedrooms and a three bedroom Grand Villa. The Studio rooms are the basic Disney Resort rooms, except that they have a small fridge, microwave, and sink. The One Bedroom has a full kitchen, a living room area, a HUGE bathroom, with a Jacuzzi tub and a bedroom with a king size bed. The Two Bedroom basically combines these two. The Three Bedroom obviously has three bedrooms, a Kitchen area, living room and a dining room area. All of them have nice spacious bathrooms and a Washer/Dryer (the Studio doesn’t have the washer). The One great Perk of the Disney Vacation Club is the size of your accommodations. We have a friend that is now a DVC member that went to Disney World with her Family (three young kids with her and her husband). When she came back, she said the room was too tiny for the five of them, other than that they had a great time. Now her oldest at the time was seven. To have your room be too small when your kids are still young is rough. And I know the argument; all you do is sleep there. That is true, but there is something to be said for being comfortable while you are getting ready for the day and winding down at night.

Another Perk of the Vacation Club is the resorts you can stay in. In Walt Disney World, the Disney Vacation Club Villas (as the rooms are called) are in the Beach Club Resort, The Boardwalk Resort, The Wilderness Lodge, the Old Key West Resort, Saratoga Springs Spa and Resort, the Animal Kingdom Lodge, and The new Bay Lake Towers at the Contemporary Resort. If you look on the Official Disney Website, all of these except Old Key West are listed as Disney Deluxe Resort Hotels. The Price range for these Resorts of course vary because of times of the year, but to give you an idea of prices, standard room with a standard view, during the value season costs $340/night. A One Bedroom suite at the same time of year would cost $600/night. That’s a lot of money! But for the size of the room and the locations and views the room is well worth it. But, to spend that much money on one vacation in today’s economy may not be feasible for many people. However, if you enjoy Walt Disney World and think you may visit once a year or even every other year, The DVC may be for you. For the same $4200 it would cost to stay at the beach club at a one bedroom suite, you can put a down payment down on a DVC membership and be staying there or at any of the other DVC Resorts for the next 42 years. Besides the seven DVC Resorts in Walt Disney World, there are the Vero Beach Resort, the Hilton Head Resort, and The Villas at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa. Disney is also building Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa in Oahu. The DVC also has reciprocity agreements with RCI properties and the Buena Vista Trading Company for accommodations all over the world. This means that if for some reason you decide not to go to Disney World, you can still use your Disney Vacation Club to go other places.

The Disney Vacation Club is not a true Time Share. One way it is not, is that DVC uses a point system; you buy so many points when you first start out, and you get the same number of points every year thereafter. The Resort stays are divided into point amounts for a week day, week-end day, and a weeklong stays. At different times during the year, the points may change, because of high volume times (for example the week after Christmas). It seems a little confusing, but all of the DVC Member services people are wonderful at helping you to understand and keep everything straight.

Another way is that you are not locked into a specific time when you can use the Resorts. Or in what size rooms you can stay. This is a very nice feature, as we have stayed in all the different (size rooms except the Grand Villa) at different times of the year. A few years ago now, we took my sister’s family, my parent, and our own family down and had a Magical Family Vacation. The kids loved being in Walt Disney World with their grandparents and there were plenty of Magical Experiences had that week.

My family and I absolutely Love the Disney Vacation Club, then again we love going to Walt Disney World every year. We have stayed in all the sizes of rooms and have taken long weekends and two week trips to Disney, with the Disney Vacation Club. These trips were made even more Magical by the Resorts and rooms we stayed in.

So, now that you know, an Unknown Magic that can lead you to More Magical Experiences is the Disney Vacation Club, Disney’s “Best Kept Secret.”

**I apologize now for the length of today’s post and if it wasn’t really geared towards First Time Visitors. The topic is one that I enjoy talking about. I know this might have sounded like an infomercial, but we do enjoy the DVC very much.