Spring Escape Pt 8 Continued: The Big Move to Bay Lake Towers

Monday, April 26

Today begins the 2nd phase of our Florida vacation. The first week we always relax offsite and get ourselves readjusted to warm summer climates. Now we must get up early enough to pack and vacate our roomy 2bedroom villa before 10am. All last night it stormed, hard. The sky was alight with lightning strikes. Some 4000 strikes hit the Orlando/Celebration area in one spell. Made it difficult to get to sleep, but at least we felt secure in our strong concrete Marriott building. We just hoped the van survived outside. My wake up call came around 7am. GM was anxious to get moving. He’s always a bit hyper on moving day fretting over forgetting things or how it will all fit in the van again. First thing I do is switch around my luggage so I just need to take my smaller carry-on suitcase up to our room. Our destination is Disney’s Bay Lake Tower for only 3 days. No need to cart the kitchen sink up all whatever of the 15 floors they put us on. Then we pack up all the little stuff we didn’t get to the night before, hop in our respective showers and dress. By 10am we’ve got everything loaded in the van. GM stays behind to do one last obsessive look around the apartment to make sure we have it all. He starts the dishwasher, calls the Front Desk to tell them we’re leaving and we’re good to go. (Of course, we realize later we did forget something. The pop-up hamper I’ve been using and we’ll need for our studio Disney stays. Duh! Oh well, I guess we’ll have to go back to Walmart again this week.) Dave our navigator directs us across Central Florida Parkway (me not believing we didn’t visit Seaworld all week but GM insisting he preferred waiting to buy tickets there in the Fall) and down I-4. Get off on EPCOT Center Blvd, pass the Disney gates and follow the signs to Magic Kingdom. We’re veterans at this route. As we pull up to the Contemporary, however, I tell GM don’t expect me to know too much about our stay. We’ve owned points here since January a year ago but this is the first time we’ve ever stayed. All I have in my knowledge bin are distant rumors and rumblings (i.e. tours of the models, vague room location reports, the story of the construction woes, the family who found a snake nesting in their curtain rod). The guard at the gate looks up our name and welcomes us home. He gives us a pass for our van and directs us around to the Tower for check-in. There a nice fellow named Jason greets us and offers to help us unload our bags. We don’t usually use Bell Services (because we always manage to bring too many little bags), but I don’t fancy hauling all that stuff up whatever many floors with no luggage carts. Besides I’ve packed light this time. Just a small suitcase and a toiletry bag. But then GM starts adding his bags to the list, then the refrigerated food stuff, oh and how about my pillow and blanket? We end up dumping 11 bags worth of stuff on poor Jason. No, the GM crew does NOT know how to travel light. Jason directs us inside the lobby, 2nd desk on the right for check-in, asks us for our keys and tells us just to leave the van there out front while we get our room assignment. Inside the lobby we have no wait at the counter. It seems we’ve arrived at just the right time. CMs are standing around enjoying the lull. One is still getting his Mouse Ears so has a helper guiding him through our check-in. The helper recognizes our home town since he grew up right next door in Wilde Lake, Columbia. He’s another transplant to Florida. Seems to be a lot of Marylanders migrating down here these days. We’re given room 7914, a handicapped accessible studio with roll-in shower on the 9th floor of the Bay Lake Tower. To our surprise the room is ready. So we take our keys, park the van in the mostly empty handicapped lot and go to enter the Forbidden Zone. Since BLT has been open we’ve strolled by the entrance but were always rebuffed by the keycard at the door. Only the worthy are allowed entry. Now we are one of the worthy. The first hurdle for me, however, is just getting the keycard to work. It’s not in a very accessible place. A bit too high. I try three times before I give up and hand my key to GM. By that time a family is coming out and a CM is waiting at the door. A ding for Disney for going so overboard with security they make it inaccessible for the disabled. The double doors slide open and we’re treated to the inner sanctum. Which is really a tiny lobby surrounded in glass. There’s a small DVC kiosk to the left and another desk to the right. The big eye-catching feature is the sweeping vista of the pool complex nestled between the buildings inner C shape. Lots of beautiful landscaping, tall trees and sculptures. But we’re more interesting in checking out our room. My worrywart whenever we travel is assuring I have my roll-in shower like the computer says we should. So we follow the signs and are directed to the north elevators. Up to the 9th floor and out into another elevator lobby with even more stunning views. To your right is Magic Kingdom and to your left is the pool complex and Bay Lake. It’s absolutely gorgeous. Around the corner and we look for our room on the inside rung of the C certain that’s where all the “lake view” rooms are. Instead we find it on the outer rung on the left. Open the door, head straight for the balcony and what do we see? The tennis courts & some backstage area below, Space Mountain & the Castle to the left and the Bay Lake to the right with a forest of trees behind and between. Wow, we can see Space Mountain? Heck that means we’ll see fireworks from our balcony. That can’t be right, can it? Check the bathroom and I find my roll-in shower. The entire room is huge! It takes up about a half to 1/3 of the room. (The same as the model bathroom & kitchen area.) There’s no sliding door. It’s a heavy, wide swinging door. Behind the door on the right is a bathtub with grab bars. In the center is a wide sink cabinet with lots of storage space for toiletries. Next to that is a somewhat small but reasonable roll-in shower and by the door is the ADA commode with grab bars. There’s tons of space in here. Plenty to turn a wheelchair around. Only thing I’m not sure about is the high gloss tile on the floor. Marble bathroom floors make for slippery hazards. The kitchenette area has been relocated along the hall and reduced in size. It makes more sense here than the non-accessible models though. I never liked the idea of the bathroom exiting directly into the kitchen and sharing sinks. The bed has been lowered to an extreme low. It’s pretty much a box spring on the floor with mattress. I find I wish it was just 2-3 inches higher. But at least it’s not the inaccessible 26 inch bed height of the regular rooms. I can get up from a lower bed but it’s impossible to climb into a high one. Next to that is the sofabed which looks like it’s seen better days. The canvas fabric is already showing water stains and there are a few crumbs wedged into the cushions. Across from there is the art deco oval table and Ikea-looking chairs. And at the bottom of the bed is the entertainment center/dresser with widescreen LG LCDTV. (Hmm, Marriott had LG too. Seems to be a popular brand for hotels.) I really like the media center plug-ins. I can hook up my media player, my computer too if I had remembered a VGA or HDMI cable. Families could bring their Wii or other game system too if they like. There’s also a DVD player and iHome on the counter. As GM finishes surveying the place, I call Bell Services for our bags. All 11 of them, plus the odds and ends we carried upstairs from the van. We spent the next half hour figuring out where to put it all. My toiletries bag fits nicely on the counter in the bathroom; my suitcase goes on the ottoman; my pillow on the bed and blanket ready on the floor beside it. I tug my computer accessories bag in a drawer and I’m comfy. GM, on the other hand, has a devil of a time figuring out where to put his suitcase and 2 duffel bags. The closet is jammed with stuff. A vacuum cleaner, pack-n-play, safe on a pedestal taking up the entire middle of the floor. The safe is in a really bad spot. Accessible for someone in a wheelchair but you can’t really put luggage in there or even have space to hang a shirt. There’s actually more drawer space in the entertainment center than at Marriott (we each had 3 tiny drawers and didn’t bother using them). But GM is grumpy. I’m treated to a half hour grumpfest as he complains about the lack of space and how much bigger Marriott is. (Um hello! We did just downsize from a 2bedroom apartment to a studio Dad. It’s supposed to be smaller. Maybe ya shoulda downsized your luggage too like me?) While he grumbles I setup my laptop and get on the internet to post my excitement at having a Magic Kingdom view in a Lake View room. Yeah I have to crane my neck a bit to see the castle but I know I can watch fireworks tonight. And the best bit is that here at Disney I get real wired broadband internet, not that super slow cheap stuff at Marriott. (Is it just me or has Marriott’s internet gotten worse over the years?) At 1:30pm we head out again. I made reservations for us at the Grand Floridian high tea. It’s one of our usual excursions but this is the first time we’ve ever stayed in a monorail resort. We go down to the lobby then realize we’re suppoed to go across to the 4th floor concourse. A CM tells us to take the elevator to the 5th floor here to get the walkway, so up we go. Again the walkways are guarded with keycards but these doors are open. It’s really poor security what with all the foot traffic. The skyway is open on the sides creating a heck of a breezeway. I have to hold onto my hat as we cross. Then we take the elevator up to the monorail platform and board. We meet a couple on their first trip to Disney. They’re staying at the Grand Floridian, just arrived and missed the stop for Magic Kingdom so are going for a little ride. So far they love the place. At the Garden View Tea Room, our table is waiting for us. We both order the Grand Tea which comes with a plethora of sandwiches, scones, tarts, desserts, a pot of tea and champagne with little strawberries as garnishes. I’m loving switching between tea and champagne. I love even more knowing that “home” is just a monorail ride away. At tea we meet up with our favorite server Heather Lynn and sit next to another part time local, landscape photographer Carl. Everyone talks about the wicked storm that blew through last night. Carl’s RV got knocked about a while. He lives in his RV, he tells us. Spends half the year traveling up north in Massachusetts visiting his kids and half the year here in Florida. When he’s here he comes to the tea room at least once a week. Now that’s the life. We aren’t in a hurry to finish tea so we stay, sip and nibble for the next 3 hrs. Half a pot of tea and 3 glasses of champagne later, I’m more than ready to go. With a full stomach and tired of the air conditioning, GM craves the outdoors where the sun is shining. We take a little leisurely stroll around the gardens and to the beach. Meet a nice young family with special needs kids. They have never been to Disney before so ask me for all sorts of accessibility tips. Then we stroll on over to the Wedding Pavilion where some photographers are getting set to film a newly married couple. Across the way and we arrive at the Poly expecting to freeze to death in the Grand Ceremonial House as usual. Up the elevator and back on the monorail. Any ideas I had of going into the park or pool quickly fade. I’m getting sleepy and just want to go back to our home. It’s a bit of a hassle going through 3 elevators to get back when riding the monorail so we hop off at Magic Kingdom and walk the rest of the way. I grab a few extra things from the van (wireless router, for one) and we’re back to the room in minutes. I never did get my nap though. By the time we got back and I checked the internet again (had to configure the wireless nextwork), I’m starving. Alcohol is all out of my system and usually leaves me with a meat craving. The Room Service menu offers a steak for $34, but I’m just not feeling up to the expense. Besides we’re eating at the Wave tomorrow. I’d be all “steaked out”. Instead we pop down to the Café and get some carry out. Potato soup for GM and open roast beef sandwich for me. Carry our meal back upstairs. Surf the TV looking for something to watch. And at 10pm we switch on the Contemporary channel (20) to listen to the fireworks music as we watch Wishes from our balcony. All in all, a good start to our inaugural BLT stay. If all goes well I’m thinking my little 60 point investment was worth it. I’ll know in a couple days. Tomorrow we eat, visit the pool and see what’s what around here.