Florida Welcome Home Trip & Family Reunion (12 Nights, 20+ people)

[NVDISFamily]

Sorry for the delay in posting this, work and life has kept us busy for the past few weeks. We had our first trip to Florida with our DVC points in June 2023. Our first stay was in 2022 for a few nights renting points to stay at SSR studio to check out WDW and “kick the tires” on the various DVC resorts we were considering. Overall, we had a great time, learned a few lessons for our future trips, and we are so glad we have taken this journey into DVC membership.

We had our first “welcome home” trip to Disneyland at the Grand Cal in the spring of 2023 -(https://www.disboards.com/threads/our-california-welcome-home-trip-plus-a-detour-to-knotts.3917243/).

First Resort – Kidani Village (AKV) Grand Villa and 1BR

AKV is a magical resort. Family loved the animals, the lobby in both Kidani and Jambo house, the food, etc. A big plus for some of the teenagers in the group was the better than average community room at Kidani and the pool at Kidani. It was ranked by most of the younger kids and teenagers as the resort they would like to return to for future family reunions.

Renting a car and being able to drive up to our area’s elevator made the long walks of the hallway manageable.

The grand villa at Kidani has amazing storage everywhere.

Our room request was not granted, and we were at the very end of the hallway on the Zazu elevator side. It was a nice view, beautiful room, and we also appreciated having no neighbors. With that said, that walk sucked and even the younger ones didn’t like it. It did have the advantage of increasing our step count. For future trips to Kidani, I think I’ll request everyone in our party to be near a specific elevator and not on the same floor if this will get us a bit closer to the lobby. The elevators seem to be very quick and efficient at Kidani.

A less major issue but I’ll post it here, the lobby and Jambo and the better gift shop are amazing. It sucks you must make that trade off, but you do.

Overall, we loved the grand villa at Kidani and the 2 on-suite bathrooms in the guest rooms are a huge plus. The pool received high marks from the family on the Kidani side. For most of the family, they liked the Kidani rooms more due to the extra bathrooms in the 1 and 2BR units.

We already have a grand villa on Jambo side for next summer to let us try that side and make the comparison.

 

[NVDISFamily]

Second Resort – Wilderness Lodge - CCV Grand Villa, CCV Studio and BRV 2BR

I just love the vibe at Wilderness Lodge. The family loved the resort, and it was fun to just sit in the lobby and relax. We also own at the Grand Cal and WL and Grand Cal have a similar vibe but WL get’s a bonus point for being a bit more relaxed than the Grand Cal lobby because it’s bigger but also not being right in the middle of the madness you get a few less visitors than some of the other resorts.

Everyone in our party gave high marks for the food at the resort from Roaring Fork to Geyser Point (sadly I couldn’t make it to GP to try the buffalo burger this trip, but we’ll be back…).

From our online stalking of YouTube videos and virtual room tours, @MrsNVDISFamily and I voted this Grand Villa as our favorite of those at WDW and it did not disappoint. From the theme, location, etc. it’s an awesome room. Yes, it’s a few square feet smaller than some of the others, but we had no problem having 20+ people in there. We also loved the massive dining room table.

We didn’t know how lucky we were to get our request granted to have our parents in a studio on the same floor as there is only one non shower studio on the upper floors and it’s the larger “corner” ones. It was a great room for the points, and I’m going to try and get those on future trips.

In trying to fulfill my role as the crazy/cool uncle I offered to take the family on an adventure to buy some dole whips for everyone at the Poly and I planned the trip to try and align with the fireworks show. We got our timing right and the show started as our boat left the WL docs. It was an awesome experience. Going around the loop and seeing the poly was fun and it just added to the feeling of being in the bubble.

The family loved both pools.

We did a tour of the cabins. Some debated if it was better than having the grand villa… It would be a good alternative “magnet” room for hosting a party but I’m not sure if it would hold 20+ people as easy as the CCV grand villa.

So far, my opinion that if we had to limit our DVC points to one WDW resort it would be Wilderness Lodge holds true.

 

[NVDISFamily]

Third Resort – Riviera – Grand Villa, 2BR, 1BR, and Studio

This is the leg in the trip when the last family join us, and our party was at full strength of 25 people.

Riviera didn’t disappoint. The food was great, we loved the Skyliner, and it was also fun to visit other resorts in the area.

We only had one evening where the weather killed the Skyliner and gave us some heartache. I’ve learned my lesson and will just uber in the future. I didn’t realize how easy it was to order an uber on property. GIVE us Skyliner status in the APP please! Or at least put status screens in key areas of the resort so we know.

The grand villa is an amazing room. We would rank it just below the CCV GV, but not by much. Overall, most of the family ranked the Riviera GV the best. Storage was great in the room and overall, no complaints about functionality. I do wish the room had a 4th bathroom. Would gladly trade some of that dead space and make that master bath a bit smaller to get an extra bathroom.

We did not get the poolside grand villa as originally requested due to trying to keep us all on the same floor. I think they could tell I wasn’t super excited about this, and they made a great effort to get us into our room as soon as possible. We had a check in time of around 1:30 which was nice. We ended up liking the Skyliner side grand villas with a bonus being that it’s easy to exit the room and go down the stairs to get to the Skyliner. Going up I’ll walk and take the elevator.

The other rooms also got high marks. All my sisters-in-law said they would gladly move in. The extra bathrooms from Kidani were mentioned a bit as desirable for early morning prep for the park.

The banana bread was okay. Too much chocolate. I ordered it a few times as a treat, but I like my recipe at home just as well. Primo Piatto food was always on point. I did bring my own Dijon mustard to try it on the ham and cheese after being disappointed that it wasn’t offered there on our 2022 visit…. It was as good as I thought it would be. The fact they don’t have Dijon there is a failure IMO. Come on Disney. I’ll just pick up a small Dijon on future trips.

 

[NVDISFamily]

Holding for Trip Photos and Other Thoughts

 

[🍀TwinsMom]

You're who I want to be when I grow up! LOL. You're doing all the GVs I love and would want to try out. Keep us posted. These are great!