Trip Report Just What We Ordered... BLT & a Side of Summer!

We’re back home, and had an awesome trip! I cannot wait to share with you all!

Pre-Trip Report linked here, if you are interested…

Pre-Trip - BLT?! & a side of summer? Yes, Please!

BLT?! & a side of summer? Yes, Please! A trip! A trip!!! We’re going to Disney!! SB and I on our June 2019 trip! Hello! I’m back! And, I have LOVED reading all of your trip reports through 2020. It has helped with the Disney withdrawal immensely. Soon, it’ll be my turn again! Here we...

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Just as a quick refresher…

WHO: Me, my sister (SB), brother-in-law (IZ), and our dad (R, but I may just refer to him as dad)

WHERE: Bay Lake Tower in a 1BR Villa

WHEN: June 16-22, 2021

WHY: Who needs a reason to go to Disney?! But really, we have missed it SO much in the past year, and this trip was much needed. We lost my mom in August 2020 to a long and hard fought battle with Ovarian Cancer. It has been a very hard year between that and dealing with the pandemic, so we were so ready for a break from real life.

Up Next… Arrival & Day 1!

 

[Loco_driver]

Following along. So sorry to hear about your mom, I seriously hate cancer. I’m glad you guys were able to get a vacation finally!

 

[fizzieee]

Following! I'm so sorry that you lost your mom, especially during such an already stressful time. I hope you guys had a great time and were able to finally relax / honor her on your trip.

 

[ToInfinity]

Following along. So sorry to hear about your mom, I seriously hate cancer. I’m glad you guys were able to get a vacation finally!

Glad to have you! Thank you. It is awful, awful, awful. We definitely needed it.

Following! I'm so sorry that you lost your mom, especially during such an already stressful time. I hope you guys had a great time and were able to finally relax / honor her on your trip.

Thank you! It has been just such a weird time dealing with it all. It was a wonderful trip. I’m looking forward to sharing with you!

 

[ArmoredRodent]

LoL! The title stumped me for a minute, but then I saw where you were staying. Looking forward to reading it.

 

[ToInfinity]

Day 1: Arrival & Exploring

Before I start this, let me say, we arrived 1 day after Disney lifted the mask and social distancing restrictions. We are all thankful to be fully vaccinated, so we were excited to not have to keep putting a hot mask on and off all day! I followed things closely before this trip with regards to queue lines, barriers on rides, etc. and I will give updates on how things have changed in this TR!

So, let’s begin!

We live close enough to drive, so we left very early in the AM and arrived around 12:00 PM.

My phone buzzed when we were about 30 minutes away and…..


It was the “your room is not ready” text. I wish they would just not send anything at all, if that is the case!

We were so excited to be staying here!

We checked with the front desk just to confirm we still didn’t have a room, and it indeed wasn’t ready. So, we headed to the main tower for lunch.

I LOVE these murals!

And the monorail!


We mobile ordered at Contempo Cafe. No pictures because we were starving but we all either got the “spicy chicken sandwich” (which was NOT spicy) or the hot turkey sandwich (which was quite delicious!).

While it might not have been necessary, I did like how they boxed the meals. It was so organized!

Might we be going to one of these places later this week??? Stay tuned to find out!

 

[ToInfinity]

After lunch, we wandered around the gift shops a bit and then walked to MK. We LOVED being able to walk there throughout the week. One of the biggest perks of this resort!

The plan was to take a bus to the Swolphin and go mini golfing at Fantasia Fairways. Dad was really excited for this!
Surprise. We couldn’t find a bus for the Swan or Dolphin. I guess there isn’t one? We took one to the Boardwalk instead.

On the bus we go…

We stayed at the BW many years ago and loved it, so it was fun to walk around and relive some memories.

The path to Fantasia was complicated due to construction in the area on the new Swan tower, but we made it eventually.

Notice the sky in the background? Yeah, it started raining and lightning was in the area as we arrived. We waited a bit but then decided to give up after looking at the radar. No golf for us today.

I did find this nice wall to take a picture at on the way back to the BW bus stop, though. Never been to Jellyrolls, but the building is cute.

We were on a new bus, and it had the charging ports!

 

[Bullseye1967]

Following Along!! Great start!!

 

[LisaBelle]

I’m enjoying your report so far. So sorry to hear about your mom. My sister and I went to Disney after our dad passed away and it was exactly what we needed.
We’ve stayed at the Contemporary twice and we absolutely loved walking to MK.

 

[MickeyCB]

Following along and so excited to hear about your adventures!

 

[Katiekitten]

I'm here looking forward to hearing all about your trip!

 

[amjt660]

Your report is off to a great start
Following

Max

 

[ArmoredRodent]

Fantasia mini-golf!!! So much fun ... especially if you like the more difficult courses (the theming actually makes up for the higher difficulty holes for mini-duffers on plain Fantasia Gardens). And if you want a really challenging course, try the Fairways. Back when they had an actual Professional Mini-golf circuit, I believe they had an event on this course (though, I will say the pro course in Calgary was better ). Don't be scared off by the harder pro courses; most of them are really nice even for beginners, if you are willing to accept a higher score and don't want to just race through on a hot day.

Sorry you weren't able to get there. There used to be a bus route from where you were to the Swan, but it starts ... in front of the MK. So you had to walk the path to MK first. Don't know if they're still doing that.

Or, you could get a bus to DHS, then the boat to the Swan. The dock at the Swan is a short walk to the golf courses.

 

[Tuvalu]

Sorry I’m late!

Swan/Dolphin buses no longer use the MK depot, their buses pick up/drop off at the TTC. I believe this is due to a contract dispute between Disney and Marriott.

Good call on taking the Boardwalk bus, but sorry weather interrupted your golfing plans. Florida in the summer…..

 

[ToInfinity]

Following Along!! Great start!!

Thanks! Glad to have you!

I’m enjoying your report so far. So sorry to hear about your mom. My sister and I went to Disney after our dad passed away and it was exactly what we needed.
We’ve stayed at the Contemporary twice and we absolutely loved walking to MK.

Thank you. Disney has always been our happy place! Walking and having access to buses that go everywhere was wonderful!

Following along and so excited to hear about your adventures!

Glad you’re here!

Following

Max

Excited to share!

Fantasia mini-golf!!! So much fun ... especially if you like the more difficult courses (the theming actually makes up for the higher difficulty holes for mini-duffers on plain Fantasia Gardens). And if you want a really challenging course, try the Fairways. Back when they had an actual Professional Mini-golf circuit, I believe they had an event on this course (though, I will say the pro course in Calgary was better ). Don't be scared off by the harder pro courses; most of them are really nice even for beginners, if you are willing to accept a higher score and don't want to just race through on a hot day.

Sorry you weren't able to get there. There used to be a bus route from where you were to the Swan, but it starts ... in front of the MK. So you had to walk the path to MK first. Don't know if they're still doing that.

Or, you could get a bus to DHS, then the boat to the Swan. The dock at the Swan is a short walk to the golf courses.

Wow I didn’t know mini golf was ever done professionally! That’s cool! We never made it back to golf on this trip, but definitely want to next time!

Sorry I’m late!

Swan/Dolphin buses no longer use the MK depot, their buses pick up/drop off at the TTC. I believe this is due to a contract dispute between Disney and Marriott.

Good call on taking the Boardwalk bus, but sorry weather interrupted your golfing plans. Florida in the summer…..

So glad you’re here! I hope your trip is going great! I’m enjoying your live updates. That makes sense about the bus. I thought for sure that they used to pick up at MK!

 

[ToInfinity]

I forgot to mention, we got the room ready text while we were on our non-mini-golfing adventure. That worked out great since it was raining.

The text said we were on the second floor, so I was a bit disappointed. I believed that a higher floor might turn out to have a better view, since we had just booked standard for this trip.


BUT….


We walked in to room 7220 and THIS was our view!!!

WOOHOO!

I had read that a small number of standard view rooms were on lower floors but facing MK, but I so did not think we would get one since I put in no room request at all.


Our trip was off to a magical start! ️


Some room pictures….

I cannot get over the view!!

We spent some time unpacking and taking it all in, and then got ready for our dinner ADR.

 

[ToInfinity]

We had dinner reservations at The Wave at 7:10. We were ready early and the rain stopped so we left and did some resort exploring!

IZ and Dad played chess…

They ended up calling it a draw. ♟

SB and I played giant Connect Four.

I am no good at that game. She won 4/4 times.

We noticed these strange looking trees. IZ is into plants and looked up what it was called, but I can’t remember. The dark hanging things were just really thick wood!


We couldn’t stay at BLT/Contemporary and not get pictures with Metal Mickey!

 

[ShookieJones]

Wow! Love that room. What a view! Following along.

 

[ToInfinity]

Wow! Love that room. What a view! Following along.

Yes! We were THRILLED! The room was absolutely wonderful. So, so nice. Glad to have you!

 

[ToInfinity]

We were very hungry at this point and it wasn’t quite time for our ADR but we went to the check-in and they sat us almost immediately. We were excited to eat here since we never have and I heard it was getting remodeled very soon so we wanted to experience the original.

I was curious to see if things were still “distanced”. While things didn’t appear to be specially distanced, we weren’t right up on top of our neighbors either.

I got the steak dish.

Dad got the fish of the day, which was salmon.

SB got the chicken gnocchi.

I’m not sure what IZ got, and I don’t have a picture, but he definitely had a Blue Moon to match his shirt.

This was a great meal! I hope they don’t change it too much. The service was excellent as well. Our server thanked us at the end for coming back to Disney, so that he could have a job! He was great.

After dinner…

So excited to come back in this awesome room!

We had a quiet evening hanging out and playing uno.

We went to bed early so that we could be up and ready for our first park day. MK here we come!