Trip Report Pop & Hop, Snack & Shop, Graduation Celebration - Sept 2016

fractal · Mar 28, 2017

Leaving us in suspense...

Figment Forever · Mar 29, 2017

fractal said:
Leaving us in suspense...

lol Yes - I have to finish up the girls' 3rd quarterly reports, so I'm off the boards for a few days!

Figment Forever · Apr 6, 2017

Day 8: September 19th

We woke up to a beautiful morning. This was our pool day – our non-park day. Our original plan was to eat at the food court and then hang out at the pool and walk down to POFQ and swim there too.

That was the plan…. But plans change.

There was an offer left in our room for DVC. If you took the tour, you would receive a $100 gift card. To us, that was impressive. We had looked into DVC a few years back and while it seemed like a dream, we just did not have the financial means to pull it off. To be honest, we still knew we could not afford it, but that was a tempting offer. Ross called and asked a few questions. They didn’t seem to care if we had predetermined that we weren’t going to buy, so he booked a tour for this morning. They would be picking us up at 10am, we would take the tour and then they would drop us off anywhere we wanted. They told us it would take approximately 2 hours. Ross also asked if we could trade the $100 gift card for a pass to see the DVC lounge above Imagination. But sadly, the answer was “no”.

So off we went.

They picked us up at the front of POFQ and took us to Saratoga Springs - DVC Headquarters.

Figment Forever · Apr 6, 2017

When we got there, breakfast was waiting. Muffins, fruit, cupcakes, coffee, juice…. It was nice – and in Ross’s vocabulary – it was FREE which made it better. Lol

Apparently, Hope was too young to go on the tour – but they have it all set for families. There was a playroom, unlike any other I have ever seen. Hope calls it “the preview playhouse” lol I was a little nervous. Up until this moment, Hope has NEVER been left with someone who wasn’t family or “like” family. Plus, she also had never been left in a “daycare” type of place.

I was hoping that Julia could remain with her, but they said Julia was too old to stay. So we had to make a decision. I really felt she was up for the challenge. Not to mention, everyone seemed fine and willing to have her, so let’s go for it!

I explained that she was Autistic and went over some things they would need to know to understand her. The CMs were excellent. We hung around a little bit to make sure she was comfortable but it was obvious that she LOVED this place. So after making sure that they had my phone number to call in case of anything, we were off.

We went into a theatre room – with more food. They showed a short video - which was okay.

Then a CM came out and took us to talk the numbers and show us a model room.

We wanted to be honest with the young lady and we told her that financially we could NOT purchase today. But we said that we really would like to perhaps in the future, if it worked for us. So we really did want to get a better understanding of it all. She was very nice and soon, she was in full sales pitch mode. It was comical that when we first began, all we needed was $3000 to put down today. When we said we didn’t have it, it went to $2000, then $1500, then $1000 and finally she said we didn’t have to leave anything down today.

Well… I sure many of you know how tempting it was! The rooms they showed us were of the Poly and that’s what they said would be our “home” resort. Of course, that made me happy because I LOVE the POLY. Just think @Tuvalu, we could be neighbors! Lol They were gorgeous! But in the end, as much as we would have loved to just go for it, we knew we were not able to make it work financially. We promised that we would keep it in mind if our financial situation changed.

After the CM knew she was defeated, she thanked us and took us to pick up Hope who did NOT want to leave! She was having a blast. They said she led everyone in a dance party! Lol She also left with a loot bag with 2 or 3 princess doll/figures! From there we were taken to the ice-cream parlor where they gave us our gift card, 3 anywhere FP and FREE ice-cream. Ross was in heaven!

We enjoyed our ice-cream and talked about the whole DVC possibility. It was hard not to run back in and say we changed our minds! But we remained strong until our “magic carpet” aka van pulled up to take us wherever we wanted to go.

We said our goodbyes to the DVC world and hopped on board so we could go somewhere we have never been before…

Tuvalu · Apr 6, 2017

Thank you for your honest description of the DVC sales pitch. I wondered what was involved and it sounds like what I expected.

DisneyJeff · Apr 6, 2017

Ah yes... the DVC vans, or as I like to call them, the Brainwash Buses!!!

(Note: They got me!! we bought into DVC on our last trip!

)

Figment Forever · Apr 6, 2017

Tuvalu said:
Thank you for your honest description of the DVC sales pitch. I wondered what was involved and it sounds like what I expected.

I thought you owned a DVC? lol It was okay. They never made us feel uncomfortable or like we were wasting their time and I appreciated that. The funny part is that I would probably do it again if they offered the gift card. It helped out with a down payment for our next adventure.

Figment Forever · Apr 6, 2017

DisneyJeff said:
Ah yes... the DVC vans, or as I like to call them, the Brainwash Buses!!!

(Note: They got me!! we bought into DVC on our last trip! )

lol We were close - it was really tough! Congratulations on your new "home".

disneypearl · Apr 6, 2017

Very interesting to read about the DVC tour. I would love to buy into DVC, but it just isn't going to happen for me. I can still dream of doing it though. :geek:

Congrats to Hope for loving her independent Disney time. She is such a cutie!

Courtney6682 · Apr 7, 2017

That's so great that Hope liked the playroom!!!

SweetEvangeline · Apr 7, 2017

We did the DVC tour when we were there in August. After looking the cost, we decided to buy through resale. We lose some of the benefits (like the discounts and lounge privileges) but the cost difference was more than worth it. We closed on points at Animal Kingdom Lodge over 2 weeks ago and now we are just awaiting our official package from DVC! If you really want to do it, you might want to research the resale option.

Figment Forever · Apr 7, 2017

disneypearl said:
Very interesting to read about the DVC tour. I would love to buy into DVC, but it just isn't going to happen for me. I can still dream of doing it though. Congrats to Hope for loving her independent Disney time. She is such a cutie!

Yes - we can all dream! lol Thanks for following along!

Figment Forever · Apr 7, 2017

Courtney6682 said:
That's so great that Hope liked the playroom!!!

It was very cool - but now she wants to go back! lol I think there's one at Poly - Lilo's Playhouse? But I think that's probably just for POLY guests.

Figment Forever · Apr 7, 2017

SweetEvangeline said:
We did the DVC tour when we were there in August. After looking the cost, we decided to buy through resale. We lose some of the benefits (like the discounts and lounge privileges) but the cost difference was more than worth it. We closed on points at Animal Kingdom Lodge over 2 weeks ago and now we are just awaiting our official package from DVC! If you really want to do it, you might want to research the resale option.

Good to know - thanks! I think we may check that out. It seems good to do since we vacation there every year. But we can't seem to make it work because of the FREE dining that we take advantage of. The thought of paying for food seems like a tremendous cost!

Figment Forever · Apr 7, 2017

Day 8: September 19th Continued…

We went to play golf at Winter/Summerland!

We always get the FREE coupon in our package and have never taken advantage of it. Mostly because I don’t think I’ve knew quite how to get there and we never wanted to waste a lot of time trying to figure it out. But since our DVC van offered to take us anywhere on Disney property, that’s where we went.

As we went up to pay, I thought that the coupons were loaded onto my magicband. Of course, the guy said that we needed the coupon! Needless to say, hubby was NOT happy. You think all the FREE goodies he got this morning he would be fine – but no he was cranky as could be. The guy took pity on me and said he would charge it to my magicband, but that we should take the coupon to POR and tell them to credit the charge back to me. I was a little skeptical, but I took him at his word. Ross felt a little better and off we went to play golf. The girls decided to play the winter course. Actually, Hope wanted to play both winter & summer but we only had time for one – and only one FREE coupon.

It was lots of fun…

Figment Forever · Apr 7, 2017

Figment Forever · Apr 7, 2017

I read on a couple of TRs that there were snakes here, so I was a little freaked out and constantly checking around.

We promised Hope we would return on a future trip to play the summer course.

Then we had to figure out how to get back to POR. First we walked the way the DVC guy dropped us off – but that was completely wrong. We had to backtrack to the entrance and ask. We were told to walk to the front of Blizzard Beach, but here’s where it got odd. When we reached the bus stop, they told us the only bus that comes is AK & DS. DS would have been awesome because we could take the boat back to POR. As we were waiting, we noticed a sign that says the DS bus doesn’t start operating until 4PM. Since it was only around 2PM, that wasn’t happening so off to AK we went.

From there, we found a bus to POR.

We wondered if Pandora would ever be completed.

Tuvalu · Apr 7, 2017

Figment Forever said:
It was very cool - but now she wants to go back! lol I think there's one at Poly - Lilo's Playhouse? But I think that's probably just for POLY guests.

Nope.

Anyone can use Lilo's Playhouse.

Figment Forever · Apr 7, 2017

Tuvalu said:
Nope. Anyone can use Lilo's Playhouse.

Okay - I may have to fib to Hope. Don't rat me out. lol

Figment Forever · Apr 7, 2017

Once back at the hotel, we got our swimsuits on and headed to the main pool. This was really our first visit to the main pool because of the rain on our first day there.