Who says you can’t plan last minute DVC trip! Updated 10/22

ljcrochet

DIS Veteran
Joined
May 4, 2006
On Thursday evening , DD1 asked what are we doing this weekend and how far are we from Orlando.
We just relocated from New York to Southern Florida. DH checked for a room and texted me SSR and bolder creek has room. Only problem what do we do with the dogs?
 
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Sure you can plan a last minute trip. SOMETIMES. Absolute flexibility is the key.
 
We didn’t book anything Thursday evening since it was 9:30 when we started to think about this trip. I called best friends kennel but they were full.
Most of the boarding places I looked at online either need to meet dogs before they took them or had bad reviews.
I found on that looked nice with good reviews. I called. They were busy and had to call me back.
I think it took over a 1/2 hour for a call back. They had room for the dogs.

It was close to 5 o’clock at the point. Dogs had a boarding reservation. Would we get a DVC reservation?
 


So the night before we wanted to go we were able to get a 1 bedroom villa at boardwalk.
I told my girls to try and make plans with their friend while I texted another friend to let her know our plans for the weekend.
We made fast passes for Saturday evening at Magic kingdom and Sunday at Hollywood Studios.

Plan was to drop dogs off at 9 when they opened and drive to WDW. Which is what we did. I started this post while on the Florida Turnpike.
At some point in our drive we got a phone call from Boardwalk asking if wanted to take an "upgrade" to a one bedroom villa at Grand Floridian since our fast passes were for magic kingdom. We said yes because DD2 loves grand floridian. We probably should have said no. We arrived on property around 12:30 . Disney
Of course villa wasn't ready. Instead of leaving luggage in the car, we left it at bell services.
We headed to Epcot. I might be in the minority but i'm not a fan of monorail resorts. We ate at some of the food and wine booths. We rode soaring. Sign said 40 minute wait, but it was less.

At some point we decided to head to Magic Kingdom. Notice how I didn't mention going back to room. We were in our villa for maybe 8 hours. We took the monorail to the ferry to Magic Kingdom
 
. . . I might be in the minority but i'm not a fan of monorail resorts. . .

Monorail resorts are IMMENSELY POPULAR, and I own at two of them. But the fact is, that as a way to travel, the Monorail is one of the worst choices. It is fun, but not efficient, and not fast. 90% of the time, if you had a choice between a Monorail and a Bus, to go to the same place, the Bus would come out the winner on time spent. However, at the Monorail resorts, you don't have that choice. I love Poly and BLT, but my favorite is probably AKV, and if you look at a list of Travel Times that I posted on another thread, AKV consistently comes out ahead of EVERY monorail resort, when you consider travel times to all four theme parks.
 
Monorail resorts are IMMENSELY POPULAR, and I own at two of them. But the fact is, that as a way to travel, the Monorail is one of the worst choices. It is fun, but not efficient, and not fast. 90% of the time, if you had a choice between a Monorail and a Bus, to go to the same place, the Bus would come out the winner on time spent. However, at the Monorail resorts, you don't have that choice. I love Poly and BLT, but my favorite is probably AKV, and if you look at a list of Travel Times that I posted on another thread, AKV consistently comes out ahead of EVERY monorail resort, when you consider travel times to all four theme parks.

When BLT first opened, we did a split stay between BLT and VGF. I said when we got home that AKV was much easier to travel back and forth.
I found a website that listed travel times from each resort and shared it in the trip report i started at the time. It was so interesting to see the how with the except of getting to Magi Kingdom, AKV was shorter travel times.
 


We love last minute trips. Do them all the time and are sometimes the most fun of all.
 
We love last minute trips. Do them all the time and are sometimes the most fun of all.
It was a lot of fun. It is nice to be able to just go for a day without planning. Only planning is getting dogs a safe place to stay while we are away.
 
I'm going to use this thread to update out the rest of our last minute trips.

When we went on the first trip, we were trying to think about when we could go back. Girls are off from school on 10/19. This was around 9/10. Could we go again? We had to hold off booking since both girls are on a soccer team. We were waiting till their schedule came out, but we booked some fastpasses just in case. October 5th we found out their first game is 10/27. Now could we get the DVC room?
 
You are no where near my last minute trips:
DW and I several times have been at DTD for the day and decided we wanted to stay the night. Called the resorts directly (back before MS was open on Sundays) or MS and checked in within 15 minutes.

At MK for the day in Feb ’14 for our anniversary, called MS @09:00, and booked a room at BLT for that night. Checked-in @11:00 and the room was ready. We did not plan on this day going like this until @05:00 while still in bed.
 
When booking these last minute trips, it is better to stalk online or give MS a call? DW has decided that we are leaving a day earlier for our upcoming trip, so I am looking for 1 night on Sat 3/23 (any WDW DVC resort, studio/1BR/2BR all acceptable). There is currently nothing available online. Keep trying or call in? Or it doesn't matter?
 

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