Grand Californian Stay

[samIam]

Spent 5 nights in a studio at the Grand Californian (3510). The room faced out over the California Adventures park and had portions of the parades visable. There were also tantilizing trial runs of the World of Color show that we could see from the balcony...reminded me of fantasmic but smaller. Jets of water shooting into the air to music with pictures projected onto the water screen. It was a nice stay...the entrance into the California Adventure park was very convienient. It was a pain having to scan into the pool each time. Overall it was nice stay, the castmembers wer nice and halpful...and the resort was nice... but overall the effect was not as AMAZING to me... The was not much DVC emphasis either, few perks. I am happy to call Animal Kingdom Villas home.

[dizfan]

Im glad you enjoyed your stay at Disneyland.

You must have seen a small testing of World of Color, the show's water screens and shooting jets are much larger than Fantasmic's. I think the largest one is 50 ft x 300 ft.

[idratherbeinwdw]

Sam I feel the same way about DL. It does not awe me the way WDW does. The one thing I love in CA is knowing "Walt Walked Here" and that DL was the original Disney Park.

I did enjoy the GC, one of the nicest resorts I have had the pleasure to stay in.

[jkm8113]

We stayed at VGC in January, and I was totally wowed. We were in a studio, and I thought they were just lovely. I loved the mission style furniture and the fabrics and I thought the size of the studios was larger than any DVC resort at WDW. I actually think that VGC is the WLV with more class and polish where WLV is more rustic.

We will get to try out a VGC one-bedroom in a couple of weeks, and I am very excited about checking them out.

Sorry you were somewhat underwhelmed. I think I knew I wasn't going to like VGC, and that is probably why I ended up liking it so very, very much.

[dizfan]

I was wowed as well during my stay last November in a Studio. The view at night was beautiful and the room was as well.

I am staying in a Grand Villa in Sept, and I can not wait.

[AFMom]

We were also wowed - but I understand the sentiment that there wasn't much "DVC" there. There was hardly any DVC merchandise, and nothing for the Villas themselves that I found. We stayed in January and you could tell the CM's really didn't understand the needs of DVC members yet. They were all very friendly and helpful - but, for example, the housekeeping staff couldn't understand that we needed soap for the dishwasher because they weren't used to even having dishwashers in the rooms. I ended up having to go to the front desk to get it. Anyway - I think it will improve with time there. It's the 1st west coast DVC, and will take some adjustment.

[dizfan]

With only 50 villas, demand for merchandise must be limited. They should have something though, besides the generic DVC logo merch.

[worldfanatic]

There's plenty of merchandise with the Grand Californian logo.
But I suppose not really with the DVC logo included.

I guess I'm different, I only care that the actual resort logo is there.
DVC is just my way & means of staying at that Resort.

[AFMom]

Yeah - that is the complaint now even at the WDW resorts - that there is no longer any DVC merchandise specific to each resort. Tons of resort specific stuff - but not with DVC on it.
I had thought that maybe with the GCV's being so new, they would have something.... I didn't find a thing.

[DisneyGeek]

There's plenty of merchandise with the Grand Californian logo.
But I suppose not really with the DVC logo included.

I guess I'm different, I only care that the actual resort logo is there.
DVC is just my way & means of staying at that Resort.

I agree that just having the resort's logo, even if it isn't explicitly DVC @ xxx resort, is nice and I certainly bought DVC with staying affordably at a resort in mind, as you describe. I think how separate the DVC brand is also varies from resort to resort. In many instances the Villas feel like just another part of a single larger resort, and I agree in that I joined DVC mainly to stay at the resort. BWV, BCV, and VGC fall into that category I think (haven't stayed in the Villas section of any of them yet though).

Jambo house rooms @ AKV definitely are joined! VWL seem more 'same resort' than not, but it is a separate building. Kidanai is certainly a separate and kind of isolated building, so I'm not sure how I'd classify those.

BLT is the only 'hotel resort attached' DVC location where I feel like they explicitly tried to make it distinct. It is a prominently and separately named section at the resort, not "The Villas at Disney's Contemporary resort" or something like that. Why the naming change? I have no idea.

Soooo, based on that logic, it would seem reasonable for BLT, OKW, and SSR to have DVC resort specific merchandise, and I did get a BLT T-shirt that they made. It follows that Disney would have general DVC/non-DVC joint merchandise at the other resorts. Unfortunately, in many cases they don't even have that.

I'd certainly like to have the option of DVC stuff that is distinct for every resort, but in some cases I just don't see the line being as sharp as at others...