This is a follow up to another posting a few weeks ago about using DVC confirmed reservations that some brokers and DVC owners offer. Ever since we made a trip to WDW earlier this year my wife & I have been discussing how neat it would be to plan another visit in 2018 during F&W which we’ve never attended. Then a couple of weeks ago I saw a confirmed reservation at David’s DVC Rentals at the GF just 10 days away. Sooo we made a completely impulsive, spur of the moment decision, and decided “Oh why not.” It worked perfectly, even with such a last-minute reservation, and wanted to share that experience for the benefit of others wondering if that was a good idea or not. The GF is very expensive, but renting DVC points was a substantial savings compared to what Disney charges, even on sale or bounce back. There were other less expensive options available, but at locations we didn’t prefer and for stays that didn’t fit our schedule. So we went this route.
In our case the DVC owners made our Magic Express reservations for us, and Disney managed to expedite our ME confirmation letter along with park tickets so we had all that before leaving for Orlando. We even make (and modified) Fast Pass and ADRs as late as Saturday before flying to Orlando on Sunday. No joke. I mention all that so anyone contemplating a last-minute reservation knows that it is possible to line up that sort of stuff, when conventional wisdom for WDW trips says all that should be made many months in advance. In fact, we even asked the GF concierge at 11 AM on our last day to see of a luncheon reservation was available at the Biergarten restaurant, which she made for 12:15 PM. Yeah, I know, Biergarten during the F&W festival … don’t ask 
. My point is, anything is possible. In this case, the last-minute risks were well worth the effort.
It was a blast! The F&W festival was everything it was cracked up to be. It was our first time there. I see now why it is so popular. Had some wonderful conversations with people we met there. Weather was great. Even got to go swimming in the resort pool … in November!! And of course, our GF DVC room was a lot like Mary Poppins: “practically perfect in every way.” It even had a remote controlled TV screen inside the bathroom mirror so you could watch TV while taking a bath. Seriously, I’ve never seen that before.
Speaking of our room, I was brushing my teeth one morning in the bathroom and happened to glance down at the floor. Tell me Disney didn’t embed a “hidden Mickey” in the floor tile of a GF guest room!?!
An unexpected treat while we were there this week was watching Disney Chef Erich Herbitschek (the gray-haired gentleman pictured below) and his crew construct the Ginger Bread house in the GF lobby for the upcoming Christmas season. In addition to his pastry crew decorating the house, a cast member (complete with gingerbread cake on hand for guests to sample) was standing by to explain the whole process for those who walked by. The whole house, and I mean WHOLE house is made out of eatable ginger bread and frosting. I learned that after the Christmas season the gingerbread and frosting is donated to a local bee farm where bees feed off the sugar in the food for use in their own hives. So cool.
So anyway, that’s the long and short of it. We had a great time.