Originally Posted By RoadTrip OK. So it wasn't really anything like the Bataan Death March at all. But at times it felt like it. When you are staying at a DVC resort and you have a dozen or so buildings that all pretty much look the same you should be really, really sure of how to get to the one that is yours. Usually I spend considerable time studying the resort map to make absolutely sure I know how to get from our villa to the bus stop, to the main building, etc. This time I didn't bother. Our room was in a building that was about 150 feet from the bus stop, and the bus stop was directly across the street from the main building and pool. No way you could get lost, right? Wrong. We had come back from Epcot our first night there and picked up some supplies from the Saratoga Springs store. It resulted in a couple of bags that were pretty darned heavy. We started with a bottle of wine we'd bought at Epcot. Then we added a two-liter of Coke, a half-gallon of milk, another bottle of wine, and miscellaneous other grocery items from the SS store. So the bags were kind of heavy, but we didn't have far to go. We left the Saratoga Springs store at about 10:30. We finally arrived at our room totally frustrated and exhausted a little after 11:30. There are two buildings in "The Springs" section of SS that are near the bus stop we used. One is a little bit left of the stop, on is a little bit right. Well, we started off wrong by going to the left instead of the right. But that ended up being just a very minor portion of our stupidity. When we saw the building we went to was not ours, we set off to check out the surrounding buildings. How hard could it be to find, right? We went looking for the 3500 building... our room number had been 3547. We went to building after building trying to find the 3500 building. When looking at a map later I discovered that we went way beyond "The Springs" section and had been wandering about "The Paddock" section trying to find our room. This was really getting ridiculous. The building was right by the bus stop. But NONE of the buildings near the bus stop was the 3500 building. We were in a building with rooms numbered 33XX and we were in a building we rooms numbered 41XX. You would think our building HAD to be close to one of those. It was getting extremely frustrating. I'm actually rather surprised that my wife hadn't pulled one of the wine bottles out of the bag and bashed me over the head with it! We were just about to call 404-WDW-DISNEY on our cell phone because that was the only Disney number we knew. I figured they could get us in touch with Saratoga Springs and we could tell them what building we were at and they could send someone out from Bell Services to rescue us. We must have looked pretty forlorn, because just when we were about to make the call a woman got out of her car, looked at us and said that she would drive us to our room if we had a long way to go. We said that we had absolutely no idea how far away it was, that we had become hopelessly lost. She had a map of the resort in her car and she said it looked like our building was the one directly across the parking lot. We couldn't imagine how we had missed that building during our search, but we must have somehow. So we went in and once again saw rooms numbered 33XX but not 35XX. At this point we were really bummed, but then we noticed the sign showing that the building we were at had rooms numbered 3300-3700. Thank GOD!! We were finally home. Of course it was right then that we discovered that we had been total idiots. That we had been in that very building not more than 5 minutes into our search. We just didn't recognize it because we were looking for 35XX rooms. We never found them because 35XX was for third floor rooms. Our building had rooms numbered 33XX for first floor, 34XX for second, 35XX for third and 36XX for fourth. DUH!! I absolutely could not believe how stupid we (mainly I) had been. Welcome Home.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros The morale of the story: The location of Trippy's room is the real Disney's Best Kept Secret!
Originally Posted By FerretAfros So, yah, I would could definatley use an edit function right now to take of a certain unwanted "e"... : )
Originally Posted By bobbelee9 Don't know if they still do it, but years ago at the Poly, if you were in room 1408, it meant floor #1, building #4 and room #08. There were more than 9 buildings, so I don't know how they handled that.
Originally Posted By blueharvest82 They should have my pal mickey for the resorts "Hiya pal, you look lost!, walk 10 feet, make a left, have a magical day!"
Originally Posted By jonvn " I'm actually rather surprised that my wife hadn't pulled one of the wine bottles out of the bag and bashed me over the head with it!" Why potentially damage a good bottle of wine?
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Heheh...I read that as "Why damage a potentially good bottle of wine?" I guess it works either way...
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom SS is a large resort. Heck, I can get lost in POR let alone a resort with taller buildings such as SS. I really don't chalk this one up to being stupid. Disney is building larger and larger DVC that can be confusing for adults let alone children or seniors. ( No I'm not calling you a Senior RoadTrip ). I just am not that surprised you got lost given the sheer size of SSR.
Originally Posted By Mickeymouseclub I always feel like leaving a bread crumb trail at the Grand Californian resort. The halls are long and winding.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad The worst resort for having to go on an expedition to find your room is easily Coronado.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<Trippy, tell the truth, you were drunk again.>> I'm totally insulted you would say such a thing. Yes, I had two margaritas at the San Angel Inn with dinner. Then I had a glass of Riesling at Germany. But you know Riesling... it has a really low alcohol percentage so I'm sure no damage was done there. And then it is a great tradition of ours to sit at the one of the tables at the edge of the Showcase lagoon in France. It wouldn't be polite to sit there next to the wine booth and not at least sample their product. So being a proper gentleman I purchased a glass of champagne. In a bit I decided that I should be even more polite, so I purchased a second glass of champagne. So no, I was not drunk. I had hardly anything to drink at all. ;-)
Originally Posted By vbdad55 are we sure a side trip to the Adventurers Club wasn't in there somewhere
Originally Posted By DlandDug We stayed at Saratoga Springs our last trip, and found the long walks somewhat less than magical. And trudging through the Florida humidity was an added treat!
Originally Posted By RoadTrip To be fair, I should mention the only time we've had any problem at Saratoga Springs was that one night. We've stayed there twice; both times we asked for a room close to the main building and a bus stop because we would not have a car. The first time we were given a room in the Grandstand, which was a very pleasant 5-7 minute walk from the main building and about a 2-3 minute walk from a bus stop. This last trip we were given a room in the Springs, which is ideal if you don't get lost. We had about a 2 minute walk to the bus stop and a 3-4 minute walk to the main building. Admittedly both Saratoga Spring and Old Key West are most convenient for people with cars. At those two resorts you can park your car just steps from your building, where at most other Disney resorts you are in a remote parking lot at least a couple of blocks away. Although we found the Grandstand and the Springs to be convenient for walking, in most of the other three areas you would probably want to have a car. For the record... our drinks didn't cause our being lost, but I will admit it probably resulted in our trying to find our room in a more random way than if we had really stopped and thought it out. We were walking along the sidewalk at the back of the buildings, which is closer than the sidewalk in front. Unfortunately the signs indicating the room numbers are at the front of the buildings, and we did not have benefit of that very valuable information. We were left walking in a back door, looking at a room number, and then moving on. Obviously, because of the numbering system that didn't work terribly well. Oh well. All's well that end's well. And the margaritas were really good.
Originally Posted By deephil Does anyone know if you can find your room using the sat nav? If so we will bring ours when we come in Sept. lol
