The DVC Accommodation Advantage

Ah, the good old days. Staying in a 'regular' hotel room at a moderate resort. Sleeping in and skipping rope drop, long, lazy dinners at signature restaurants.

And then came Ronan.

When they say a baby changes everything, they aren't kidding. Most of the changes are good, of course, but if you think sharing a hotel room with an infant or toddler is easy, you're dreaming.

When Ronan was five months old, he and I traveled to Florida - first to visit family and then spend a few days at Walt Disney World. Which meant he'd be my 'roomie' for more than a week.

All things considered, he did OK. Much better in the rental crib at Grampa D's house than in the Pack and Play at Disney - which is why we now rent a full size crib from Kingdom Strollers for our Disney trips.

But what REALLY makes our Disney vacations awesome are the DVC (Disney Vacation Club) properties. With Ronan, we have stayed at Bay Lake Tower, Boardwalk Inn and Wilderness Lodge, all in 1-bedroom accommodations.

Why spend the money? First, we have only paid rack rate for two of these trips. Check out dvc-rental.com and dvcrequest.com for big savings (note: you have to pay extra for daily Mousekeeping and you CANNOT CANCEL YOUR TRIP).

Another reason is the separate bedroom and extra-large, split (or sometimes two) bathrooms. To boot, there's a separate bedroom for Ronan and his parents sleep on the pull-out. So our toddler, in a crib, is using the room with the king-size bed and we're on the queen pull out with a thin mattress. Not always the best plan, but I digress...

Our 1-bedroom at Bay Lake Tower (October 2014) had two full bathrooms - which meant hubby had his own space for his 'man things' and I had room for my stuff, plus baby. We also like having the full kitchen set up...you know from another recent post that eating three meals a day at restaurants is my own version of hell. And when Ronan was still 'doing' bottles, we really needed the space to spread out.

I realize that most folks don't want to spend the money for what is essentially a small apartment. But we really are able to maintain our family's routine and sense of normalcy while on vacation. These things are very important to us - and worth the investment.