Just returned from a week at Vero and took a side trip to WDW for one day.
Vero was lovely as ever. We got in quite late Saturday night, so we checked into the Vero Best Western just to put our heads down. I got up early on Sunday and was checking in to Vero DVC at 8:35 AM. Good call to wait until Sunday to check-in. The cast member told me that they had 142 checkouts that day. So, had we checked in on Saturday, I think we may not have had a great choice of rooms.
After check-in, the CM's kindly brought out the two chairs and umbrella from the chair swap that Starbox organized (thanks Starbox!).
I put those into the back of the car, and drove off to hit Target for some essentials. By 10 AM, was back at the Best Western to pick up DH and head back to Vero DVC. DH was hungry, so we went to brunch in Shutters. Brunch was so good that DH said he wanted to have brunch again on our departure day (who would I be to say no?)
After brunch, we hit the restroom, put on our swimsuits, grabbed our chair swap chairs and hit the beach. Have I mentioned that Vero is as lovely as ever? At 2:30 PM, we checked to see if the room was ready and surprise! It was ready!
We were assigned room 2425 - great room. It's a fourth floor corner ocean view room on the north side of the inn. It was a beautiful room. Windows on two sides. The layout is slightly different than the other rooms. The kitchenette is separate from the rest of the room. It's in the entry, and then the short hallway leads into the room. The window facing the north side had a view of Villa 12 and the ocean. This area by the side window was also indented, so you could store luggage there, or even put an aerobed, and it was sort of hidden from the rest of the room. The ocean view from the east facing window was stunning. The balcony was tiny, though. You couldn't open the door to the balcony without it hitting one of the two patio chairs. But, I'm NOT complaining. I'd happily take this room every trip, if I could! Vero appears to be done on a room ready system, and the CM said that since we were checking in so early, there was a decent chance of getting into the room before 4 PM because they clean them in the order that they are assigned that day. I am just passing on what she told me, this is just hearsay.
Weather was quite unstable. Not the usual afternoon rain shower, but a few days where it started raining early in the day and then just kept on raining. One day during one such rain storm, the resort lost power so we went to the movies. At least once per day, the pool was closed as was the patio for the Green Cabin room due to inclement weather (read lightning in the area). Luckily, we still managed to get in a good amount of beach time.
We had dinner at Shutters once, and Sonya's twice. The second time we actually wanted to eat at Shutters, but it was an hour wait, so we opted for Sonya's (ahh, the sacrifices we must make). Both meals at Sonya's were very good. I was a little bit disappointed with the menu, though. There were sooo many red meat dishes on the menu, but not one chicken dish. There were three steak dishes (prime rib, filet mignon and NY strip), as well as a pork dish and a lamb dish. There were a couple of fish dishes, but no chicken or duck. I had the fish dishes, and they were very good, but I feel that the menu could be a little bit more well-rounded. I love steak, but not really when it's 90 degrees out. It's just such a heavy meal. If it had been cooler out, I'd have been diving into the steak.
We also enjoyed our dinner at Shutters. I was worried that I wouldn't based on some of the comments I had read here on the DIS before our trip. I had the rotisserie chicken, and it was great. DH had the steak, and I know he really enjoyed it.
We finally made it to the Ocean Grill, and you Vero experts were right. This place is great! DH sucked down a Painkiller, then ordered one more (he managed to finish a quarter of the second one and then realized that any more Painkiller might be DH-Killer
, so, he let that one go un-ingested 
). We had the calamari appetizer - it was so yummy. DH ordered the mixed kebab grill special, and I ordered the cobin special. Both were quite good. Sadly, we were much too full for dessert, even though they looked incredible (they brought the tray out for the table next to us).
As for our our one day side trip to WDW (for the purpose of dining at Jiko). We had a studio at BWV, because that's where DH said he wanted to stay. When we got there, he was confused because he thinks of SSR as having a boardwalk, due to DTD. So, actually, he wanted to stay at SSR
Some pixie dust was sprinkled on us, though. We had reserved a preferred view and waitlisted for BW view. Waitlist never came through, but at check-in, I asked them if they could see if a BW view happened to have opened up, and the CM told me that we had received a complimentary upgrade to BW view!
So, I guess we received a dream. On top of this fabulous luck, we were told our room was ready (it was about 2:30 PM), so I practically dragged DH up to the room so I could see this view that I had heard so much about (we've never stayed at BWV before). We had a great view and could clearly see the golfball. Sadly, we weren't in our room for the fireworks, because we were eating dinner at that point. But, I digress. We had the afternoon to kill before dinner, so we figured we'd hit the BW pool.
Did I mention the WDW resorts were crowded? We had a mango margarita at the pool bar and then ran away from the BW pool because it was so packed it was like people soup. We pool hopped to SSR. Even HRS was pretty crowded. So, we mosey'd on over to the Grandstand pool and Heaven
It was not crowded, there were plenty of chairs, and the pool bar was open! We have now found our favorite pool in all of WDW. A feature pool that is quiet and relaxed that has a bar (we're not big drinkers but like that we don't have to schlep our own sodas or run back and forth to another area to get something).
Pretty much, I think that's it for DH. We'll be staying at SSR when we're at WDW. DH would like to try the VWL at some point, but other than that, he's now a SSR groupie (at WDW, that is - he still really prefers the beach DVC's - I guess he'd get along with Rob
).
Valet was no problem at BWV or AKV. I can't put my finger on it, but for some reason, Jiko was not quite as good as it had been on previous visits. Don't get me wrong, it was still very good, just not quite the same. In the future, we won't be making a special trip from Vero to dine there
We checked out out of our OVIR on Friday morning, and into a studio. I was worried that the move would be a big PIA, but I learned a few things about room moves at Vero. The CM who checked us in on this day told me that they do try to get you into your next room right away when you are doing a room change, so that you aren't "homeless" but that sometimes it can't be helped. I was shocked. I had no expectation that you would receive any different treatment from anyone else checking in, but apparently, they do give some consideration to those who are doing room changes so that it isn't too disruptive. In addition, I was shocked when she said we didn't have to move ourselves. Bell services handled the whole thing. We didn't even have to be in the room when they picked up our stuff. They transferred our things into our studio room, and it went without a hitch, even though we also had the boxes from the chair swap and a bunch of shirts on hangers that were laid flat on the bed. We were told to check back at 1:30 PM to see if our room was ready. Since it was pouring rain, we checked at 1:20, and the room was ready! I couldn't believe the unbelievable good luck we had on this trip with rooms being ready well before 4 PM. We were assigned room 1241 in villa 12. Again, more good luck. This was the studio portion of a lockoff on the top floor or the building. It was a corner room, so we did have a very decent partial ocean view. Again, we had a window facing north, and the balcony facing northeast.
To sum up, we really received a lot of pixie dust. All three of our rooms were ready before 4 PM, and in each case, we ended up with a great view. We had not made any requests, other than that we prefer to be on an upper floor if possible.
It was a great trip. Did not want to return to work, but hey, now I can start planning our next trip, right?
Vero was lovely as ever. We got in quite late Saturday night, so we checked into the Vero Best Western just to put our heads down. I got up early on Sunday and was checking in to Vero DVC at 8:35 AM. Good call to wait until Sunday to check-in. The cast member told me that they had 142 checkouts that day. So, had we checked in on Saturday, I think we may not have had a great choice of rooms.
After check-in, the CM's kindly brought out the two chairs and umbrella from the chair swap that Starbox organized (thanks Starbox!).
I put those into the back of the car, and drove off to hit Target for some essentials. By 10 AM, was back at the Best Western to pick up DH and head back to Vero DVC. DH was hungry, so we went to brunch in Shutters. Brunch was so good that DH said he wanted to have brunch again on our departure day (who would I be to say no?)
After brunch, we hit the restroom, put on our swimsuits, grabbed our chair swap chairs and hit the beach. Have I mentioned that Vero is as lovely as ever? At 2:30 PM, we checked to see if the room was ready and surprise! It was ready!
We were assigned room 2425 - great room. It's a fourth floor corner ocean view room on the north side of the inn. It was a beautiful room. Windows on two sides. The layout is slightly different than the other rooms. The kitchenette is separate from the rest of the room. It's in the entry, and then the short hallway leads into the room. The window facing the north side had a view of Villa 12 and the ocean. This area by the side window was also indented, so you could store luggage there, or even put an aerobed, and it was sort of hidden from the rest of the room. The ocean view from the east facing window was stunning. The balcony was tiny, though. You couldn't open the door to the balcony without it hitting one of the two patio chairs. But, I'm NOT complaining. I'd happily take this room every trip, if I could! Vero appears to be done on a room ready system, and the CM said that since we were checking in so early, there was a decent chance of getting into the room before 4 PM because they clean them in the order that they are assigned that day. I am just passing on what she told me, this is just hearsay.
Weather was quite unstable. Not the usual afternoon rain shower, but a few days where it started raining early in the day and then just kept on raining. One day during one such rain storm, the resort lost power so we went to the movies. At least once per day, the pool was closed as was the patio for the Green Cabin room due to inclement weather (read lightning in the area). Luckily, we still managed to get in a good amount of beach time.
We had dinner at Shutters once, and Sonya's twice. The second time we actually wanted to eat at Shutters, but it was an hour wait, so we opted for Sonya's (ahh, the sacrifices we must make). Both meals at Sonya's were very good. I was a little bit disappointed with the menu, though. There were sooo many red meat dishes on the menu, but not one chicken dish. There were three steak dishes (prime rib, filet mignon and NY strip), as well as a pork dish and a lamb dish. There were a couple of fish dishes, but no chicken or duck. I had the fish dishes, and they were very good, but I feel that the menu could be a little bit more well-rounded. I love steak, but not really when it's 90 degrees out. It's just such a heavy meal. If it had been cooler out, I'd have been diving into the steak.
We also enjoyed our dinner at Shutters. I was worried that I wouldn't based on some of the comments I had read here on the DIS before our trip. I had the rotisserie chicken, and it was great. DH had the steak, and I know he really enjoyed it.
We finally made it to the Ocean Grill, and you Vero experts were right. This place is great! DH sucked down a Painkiller, then ordered one more (he managed to finish a quarter of the second one and then realized that any more Painkiller might be DH-Killer
, so, he let that one go un-ingested ). We had the calamari appetizer - it was so yummy. DH ordered the mixed kebab grill special, and I ordered the cobin special. Both were quite good. Sadly, we were much too full for dessert, even though they looked incredible (they brought the tray out for the table next to us). As for our our one day side trip to WDW (for the purpose of dining at Jiko). We had a studio at BWV, because that's where DH said he wanted to stay. When we got there, he was confused because he thinks of SSR as having a boardwalk, due to DTD. So, actually, he wanted to stay at SSR
Some pixie dust was sprinkled on us, though. We had reserved a preferred view and waitlisted for BW view. Waitlist never came through, but at check-in, I asked them if they could see if a BW view happened to have opened up, and the CM told me that we had received a complimentary upgrade to BW view!
So, I guess we received a dream. On top of this fabulous luck, we were told our room was ready (it was about 2:30 PM), so I practically dragged DH up to the room so I could see this view that I had heard so much about (we've never stayed at BWV before). We had a great view and could clearly see the golfball. Sadly, we weren't in our room for the fireworks, because we were eating dinner at that point. But, I digress. We had the afternoon to kill before dinner, so we figured we'd hit the BW pool.Did I mention the WDW resorts were crowded? We had a mango margarita at the pool bar and then ran away from the BW pool because it was so packed it was like people soup. We pool hopped to SSR. Even HRS was pretty crowded. So, we mosey'd on over to the Grandstand pool and Heaven
It was not crowded, there were plenty of chairs, and the pool bar was open! We have now found our favorite pool in all of WDW. A feature pool that is quiet and relaxed that has a bar (we're not big drinkers but like that we don't have to schlep our own sodas or run back and forth to another area to get something).Pretty much, I think that's it for DH. We'll be staying at SSR when we're at WDW. DH would like to try the VWL at some point, but other than that, he's now a SSR groupie (at WDW, that is - he still really prefers the beach DVC's - I guess he'd get along with Rob
). Valet was no problem at BWV or AKV. I can't put my finger on it, but for some reason, Jiko was not quite as good as it had been on previous visits. Don't get me wrong, it was still very good, just not quite the same. In the future, we won't be making a special trip from Vero to dine there
We checked out out of our OVIR on Friday morning, and into a studio. I was worried that the move would be a big PIA, but I learned a few things about room moves at Vero. The CM who checked us in on this day told me that they do try to get you into your next room right away when you are doing a room change, so that you aren't "homeless" but that sometimes it can't be helped. I was shocked. I had no expectation that you would receive any different treatment from anyone else checking in, but apparently, they do give some consideration to those who are doing room changes so that it isn't too disruptive. In addition, I was shocked when she said we didn't have to move ourselves. Bell services handled the whole thing. We didn't even have to be in the room when they picked up our stuff. They transferred our things into our studio room, and it went without a hitch, even though we also had the boxes from the chair swap and a bunch of shirts on hangers that were laid flat on the bed. We were told to check back at 1:30 PM to see if our room was ready. Since it was pouring rain, we checked at 1:20, and the room was ready! I couldn't believe the unbelievable good luck we had on this trip with rooms being ready well before 4 PM. We were assigned room 1241 in villa 12. Again, more good luck. This was the studio portion of a lockoff on the top floor or the building. It was a corner room, so we did have a very decent partial ocean view. Again, we had a window facing north, and the balcony facing northeast.
To sum up, we really received a lot of pixie dust. All three of our rooms were ready before 4 PM, and in each case, we ended up with a great view. We had not made any requests, other than that we prefer to be on an upper floor if possible.
It was a great trip. Did not want to return to work, but hey, now I can start planning our next trip, right?
I prefer cow. As for lamb (or veal)... DW does not allow baby animals to be eaten in our family. 
I dont mind the heat but it effects people differently.....
Of course, like Rob, we do find the pull of the OVIR to be compelling...Hmm...decisions decisions decisions...
)
