We just arrived home last night after a week at the resort. It was 13 months since our last stay, which is (I think) the longest time we have gone between visits.
This was our first time staying during the month of March, and it was both March Break week for many Canadian families (those that live in Ontario, in particular), as well some of the local Orlando schools .... so the resort and the theme parks were VERY busy. Check in on Saturday, March 11th was a hot mess: our villa still wasn't ready at 6 pm, and when we did get the all-clear (and they keys), we arrived to a room that was still filled with cleaning staff.
Apparently, the resort had more than 550 families checking in on Saturday alone. I'm sure ongoing staffing challenges made this particularly impactful.
Once we did finally get in the room, we were happy to note that a few small things had been updated since our last stay. There are new coffee makers, which unfortunately are still not Keurigs but do have the ability to serve a cup while still brewing. There was also a new knife block in the kitchen, and new furniture on the balcony.
There was also all new furniture on the pool deck and at the Tiki Bar patio.
Considering how busy the resort was, the stay was very smooth. Guests behaved well, and there was no rowdy behavior despite the crowds. We stayed mostly on the Fountains/Lakes side of the resort, and met some great folks in the hot tubs. We had drinks twice at the Tiki Bar, and they were expensive ($14 for a cocktail) but very strong ... the bartenders were free-pouring and were extremely generous. I highly recommend the blood orange margarita!
The wifi was abysmal, and most of the time we just used our cell data. At least 75% of the time, we couldn't get connected to the wifi regardless of whether we were in the villa or the recreation areas.
For some reason, I didn't get emailed a final folio after checkout, and had to call today to request one.
The credit card hold at check-in was indeed $25 for each night's stay, for a total of $175.
I have some photos of our villa and the resort that I will share in a separate post.
In the meantime, if anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.
