Leslie Blogs

writing about my life on a tiny island

Disney’s Yacht Club – A Short Review

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a 4 day conference to learn about using Alice, software that teaches about computer programming in a 3D environment, in the classroom. I won’t bore you here with details of what I learned (I’ll write a recap on my professional blog though), even though trust me- it was far from boring!

Not only was I excited to be attending the conference, but I was also excited because of where the conference was held! The conference was at Disney’s Yacht Club, which meant that’s also where attendees stayed! An added bonus was that I convinced my mom to join me and add an extra night to the conference covered nights so we could have a bit of a mother-daughter trip.

In our past Disney trips, we’ve stayed at one of Disney’s moderate resorts, Coronado Springs Resort, which we absolutely adored. While I’ve always wanted to stay at the Yacht or Beach club, mainly because of the walking proximity to Epcot, I’ve never wanted to pay the price difference to stay at a deluxe. Thanks to conference rates, the price point was just right for us to stay at the Yacht Club for this trip. I mean look at how beautiful this is.

Disney’s Yacht Club as viewed from the Boardwalk

Our experience at the resort was pretty great! Here are a couple of highlights.

Disney’s Magical Express

If you’re flying to Disney, take advantage of this service! This was the third time we used it, and you just can’t beat the convenience of dropping your luggage at the airport for departure and having it arrive in your rooms after check-in. We were off the plane and on the Magical Express within about 15 minutes (including a pit stop at the restroom). Before stopping at the Yacht Club, our bus dropped guests at Caribbean Beach Resort and then Boardwalk. It still made the trip from the airport under an hour, cheaper than renting a car we wouldn’t otherwise need, and most importantly- stress free! Perfection!

Check-In

I did online check in 60 days before our check-in date, and made no special requests at that time. I did add my credit card to be used for room charges, and set up a 4 digit pin to verify charges at that time. We were greeted by name as soon as we stepped off the Magical Express and ushered to the Online Check-In area. Within just a few minutes, we had added another credit card so that my mom’s Key to the World Card would charge to her card and were pointed in the direction of our room, which was ready when we checked in (around 1:30 pm).

Our Room

Daybed in Yacht Club Room 1079
Yacht Club Room

As part of the conference rate, we booked a Standard Room. I was surprised that when I did online check-in, we saw that we were assigned a Pool/Lagoon View room. Sure enough, once we got to our room, we saw that we had a perfect side-view of the lighthouse right on the lagoon. We also had a daybed, which we were shocked to have since it wasn’t a request and there were just 2 of us. The room was clean and smelled fresh, stocked with plenty of towels and toiletries. I wasn’t sure if I would like having a first floor room, which meant a patio instead of a balcony, but it was nice to walk to the sliding door to get in when I ran to refill our mugs each night! Housekeeping was great, with the exception of one day when our room didn’t get cleaned at all. We never called because we thought maybe they were just running behind, but even when we returned from the parks that night no one had been in. I wouldn’t say this is necessarily a negative at the Yacht Club, because I know that this could happen at any resort. I will say, that after staying at Coronado, we really missed the doors that can pulled-out to partition off the bathroom/sink area. These would have been a nice touch to have on this trip especially since I was getting up each morning to get ready for a conference and mom was sleeping in (and I was staying out at parks later than she stayed up also). I think these were an addition to CSR after the last refurbishment, and I think it would be great to see this at the Yacht Club too! If I’m being completely honest though, our rooms at Coronado have been just as nice (albeit a little smaller) and included the same H20 products as amenities, same queen beds, etc. If we were simply comparing rooms, I don’t know that I would pay deluxe prices to stay at the Yacht Club over Coronado.

Yacht Club Room

Resort Area

This is where you can’t really compare the two! I can’t explain how amazing the location of this resort is. Within 5-7 minutes of leaving our room (and we weren’t speed walking) we were at the bag check area of Epcot. Since Epcot is our favorite park, this really is great, and I can only imagine would come even more in handy during the Food and Wine Festival. Another convenience was being able to either walk or hop on the boat to Hollywood Studios. We also took advantage of being able to walk over to

Boardwalk Bakery for dinner one night! This is where the prices of the Deluxe Epcot Resorts start to make more sense to me. We always get park hoppers (I know actually have an annual pass) because we always end up at Epcot at some point each day. Even on this trip, where we only had evenings in the parks, we still saw Epcot daily- and the convenience alone of walking to or from the park means a lot!

The parks we rode buses to and from were Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. I never waited for more than about 10 minutes for a bus to a park, and never more than 5 on one to take back to the resort. Even with stopping at the Beach Club before heading into the parks, we thought the bus service was great. We don’t have kids, and although I always consult crowd calendars and suggested park days, this location was perfect for our touring style of going with the flow and park hopping. We also really liked the added benefit of the basically having access to 2 resorts at the same time, as the Yacht and Beach Club are right beside each other. 
Yacht Club Lobby entrance from back

Yacht Club view from lighthouse/boat dock

Resort Eats

Bacon Angus Burger from Beaches & Cream
Served with smoked bacon, barbecue sauce,
blue cheese, onion rings, and lettuce and tomato
On our arrival day, we visited the Beach Club Marketplace to purchase refillable mugs and shared a pepperoni flatbread. This was the only thing I had here, and I liked that it was prepared fresh and in front of us. We had reservations one night for dinner at Yachtsman Steakhouse– and it was fabulous! It has become our must do every trip, and they definitely did not disappoint. Since I actually have pictures of that meal, I’ll do a separate review of that. We also ate once at Beaches & Cream Soda Shop. Mom and I split the Bacon Angus Burger and it was delicious! The burger The server was nice enough to bring it out on two plates with a serving of fries on each. The burger was great- but the fries are my new standard to compare all fries to! They were that good! I also found out that my mom had lunch here while I was in my last conference session on our departure day. She had the Beaches Hot dog and while I don’t have pictures, she said it was the best hot dog she’s had in years. There are several other dining options at both the Yacht and the Beach Club, but those are the ones that we tried ourselves.

Storm Along Bay

So this is the part I’m embarrassed to write. We stayed for 5 nights at the resort with what is arguably the best pool on property…and I spent a combined 15 minutes at it (not in it!). In my defense, since my days were taken up by a conference, I didn’t want to waste a minute of park time each night! My mom did hang out at the pool for a bit each day, and I did walk out to say hello to her during my lunch breaks, and the whole area looks great! I will be staying at the Beach Club in October, so I’m already planning to set aside time just to hang out at the pool for a while! Since I can’t say a whole lot about it, here are a few pictures!

Storm Along Bay

Storm_Along_Bay_2

Yacht/Beach Club Beach

Storm Along Bay 3

Slide at Storm Along Bay

So in conclusion, I think the Yacht Club is pretty amazing! While I don’t know if I could ever justify paying rack rate for a room there on my budget, I’m very thankful that I had the chance to stay here! I’m looking forward to comparing it to the Beach Club in October (booked with the runDisney discount for the Tower or Terror 10 Miler).

Which Disney resort is your favorite?

Our Disney Trip Through Instagram

Last week we returned from a vacation my favorite place- Walt Disney World! Even better, we again went during my favorite time at Disney, Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival. Hopefully I’ll do a full recap later, but here are a couple of snapshots of our trip, via Instagram.

After landing in Orlando and catching a ride to our resort, Disney’s Coronado Springs, on the Magical Express, we headed over to Epcot to sample a few Food and Wine booths. My favorite from the day was the Pork Slider from the Hawaii booth. And when the Cast Member serving saw my birthday button, he even added a hidden Mickey!

Hawaii’s Kahlua Pork Slider with Pineapple Chutney 

The next day, we had a behind the scenes tour booked in the Magic Kingdom, but we managed to hop on this before the tour started. Any guesses? It’s Buzz Lightyear’s Spaceranger Spin in Tomorrowland.

You can’t see the numbers…but I won (at least this time).

Another favorite from the trip was convincing my non-roller coaster or “big rides” riding Mom to go on this. It was awesome.

Tower of Terror…even more terrorizing at night!

Two of my favorite times from our trip actually happened on our last night. To begin the evening, we had dinner at Yachtsman Steakhouse, located in Disney’s Yacht Club Resort. Even though we had great meals at other Signature restaurants each night, I’ve got to say, I think this was the best meal on property, and the maybe the best dinner I’ve ever had. The service was excellent, and each course was better than the last, ending with this beautiful dessert. That would be a Lemon Pudding Cake served with a Blueberry Shake, Fruit Leather (homemade fruit roll-up), and Candied Lemon. Paired with press pot coffee, it was amazing! I’ll get around to writing a full review of this dinner as soon as I stop being too lazy to download pictures from my real camera!

The last Instagram shot I’ll leave you with is this one….

If you’ve visited Hollywood Studios in the last year or so, you’ll recognize this as the revamped Star Tours ride. We rode it twice with no wait at all thanks to Extra Magic Hours, and the last time Mom and I got to be on the 1st row!

Now, is it too soon to start planning another vacation?

Disney Planning Tip Highlights

If you’ve spent much time at all with me in the past year, then you know that a new obsession has entered my life. Ever since I can remember, my family has loved to roll their eyes lovingly joke about my list-making, plan everything obsession. Well, while sitting at my parents house over Christmas in 2010, we were discussing vacation plans and somehow decided we’d do an adults trip to Disney in the fall of 2011. We decided on this for a couple of reasons:

  1. My mom has mentioned going to Disney off and on for the past several years. Her last trip was when my brother and I were still in strollers. She wanted to experience the Disney magic without kids in tow.
  2. Dad and I thought Disney sounded great. But Orlando in the heat of the summer? When crowds are at their highest? Umm no. Not happening. Enter fall timetable.
  3. After doing a little bit of online research, I discovered that every fall, Disney holds the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival. It starts at the end of September and goes through the second week of November. My birthday is November 4. SOLD.
So, we booked a trip for November 3-8 to attend the Food and Wine Festival. We booked it on December 31, 2010, which gave me about 11 months to plan (or obsess, depending on your definition of plan). I say me, because other than deciding on dates, my parents told me to plan and they’d do whatever I booked. I never knew there was so much information about there about planning Disney trips! Like I’ve already mentioned, I developed a slight Disney-planning obsession, but once we boarded the plane, it was totally worth it. We had the most relaxing, fun, and perfect vacation we’ve ever had (and this coming from someone whose idea of perfection is laying on the beach doing nothing for a week). Since returning, we’ve booked another trip for this fall, and I’ve had several questions about planning. I thought I’d give an overview here for anyone who is interested. Click through to read more!

Where to Stay

  • There are tons of options. The biggest being on-site or off-site? You can get great deals on timeshares, condos, and rentals off-site. Since we were visiting Disney and no other parks or attractions, we were most interested in staying on-site. Here are a couple reasons why it was best for us:
  1. Magical Express. This is a service that gives you transportation to and from the airport to your resort. Of course, this wouldn’t matter if you’re driving. We flew and it was amazing. We were sent luggage tags to attach before we checked luggage. They really were magic, because doing this mean that once we checked our bags in Charlotte, we didn’t see or worry about them again until they arrived in our room after our arrival. When we arrived in Orlando, we just followed the Magical Express signs, were pointed to the correct bus, and were taken straight to our resort. On check-out day, we took our bags to bell services, they held them all day, and we the bus picked us up from our resort and dropped us off at the airport.
  2. Resort Transportation. The one major stress point of previous family vacations has been driving. Ever driven a rental car in San Francisco, New Orleans, and other busy cities? Not fun for my family. Staying at  a Disney Resort means having the use of Disney transportation. (Of course you can still use your car if you choose.) At our resort, we never had to wait for a bus for more than 10 minutes. Busses pick up at all the resorts and will take you straight to the parks or Downtown Disney. Score! (We did use cabs a couple of times to get to our dining reservations…but taking Disney transportation would have been doable.) If you’re lucky enough to stay at a monorail resort, you can take the monorail to Magic Kingdom!
  3. Extra Magic Hours. Disney Resort guests can take advantage of extra hours at a park everyday, either in the morning or at closing. We never got up early enough to use the early ones, but loved using the evening ones!
  4. Dining Plan. We knew we wanted to add this to our package, and you can only do it if you stay on property. I’ll discuss more about it later.

Booking

  • There are of course several ways to book a Disney trip. Many people utilize travel agents. I didn’t. Not because I don’t like travel agents, but because I wanted all the control. I booked everything myself through Disney’s website. After booking, you can make any changes you want by calling Disney. I did make a change (or several), and never had an issue when calling. If you want to avoid doing much research on your own, and want to put that stress in someone else’s hands, do it through an agent. Before booking, make sure you check out Disney’s Special Offers page to see if there are any offers for your time period. If there aren’t make sure to check back frequently! If an offer is released more than 45 days before you travel, you can call and have it applied to your reservation (as long as it is available for your chosen resort…if not, you can still apply it if you’re willing to change resorts). 
I think that’s long enough for one post! In the next I’ll cover Resort Choice, Restaurant Choices, Park Day Choices, and more about Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival!

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