My Favorite Disney Resorts - and booking tips!
When you go to Walt Disney World, you have a plethora of options with where to stay. In a prior blog post I talked about your options for staying on-property or off. This one is all about staying ON property and which Disney resorts are my favorite.
Disney has three levels of resorts to pick from - Value, Moderate and Deluxe. And as the names suggest, the price and amenities increase with each option. Below are the pool areas at a Value (All Star Movies), a moderate (Coronado Springs) and a deluxe (Beach Club).
Value resorts include: Pop Century, Art of Animation and the All-Star Resorts (Movies, Music & Sports). Values are like your basic chain hotel - except guaranteed to always clean, comfortable and heavily Disney themed. There is typically one large pool near the main building as well as one bus stop there so you may have some walking involved to the bus stop and/or main building depending on where your room is. You’ll get a bar by the pool and a food court in the main building.
Buzz & Woody at the value All Star Movies Resort
Moderates are: Coronado Springs, Caribbean Beach and Port Orleans which includes both Riverside and French Quarter. The Cabins at Fort Wilderness are also grouped into the Moderate category. Moderate rooms are a nicer version of the values but the amenities definitely increase. In addition to one large pool there are usually one or two smaller pools throughout the property. You’ll have multiple restaurant choices - a counter service and a sit down as well as a bar near the pool area. There are also multiple bus stops around the property as well as an internal bus sometimes that will take you to the main building as opposed to walking.
At the moderate Port Orleans, you can take a boat to Disney Springs
The Deluxe Resorts (which is also where you’ll find the Disney Vacation Club rooms) are Riviera (the newest), the Contemporary, the Polynesian, Grand Floridian, Beach Club, Yacht Club, the Boardwalk, Wilderness Lodge, Saratoga Springs, Animal Kingdom Lodge and Old Key West Resort. A lot of the deluxe rooms have interior doors and are accessed via the main building. A lot of the deluxe resorts also have rooms that can have room for 5 people and a small kitchen area with a full size coffee maker, toaster, microwave and fridge. Depending on the resort set up, you may have one bus stop or multiple. The pools are typically large and epic.
The pool area of the deluxe Boardwalk Resort. RIP to the creepy clown slide which has been upgraded to be Mickey themed.
My favorite value is technically two - and they are Pop Century and Art of Animation. I say both because of what they share at their location. Pop Century recently went through a full renovation so the rooms seem brand new and Art of Animation (the most recently built value resort), in my opinion, the best theming of the values. It has 4 areas of rooms based on classic Disney movies - Lion King, Finding Nemo, Cars and Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid rooms are only the basic two bed rooms. The other three areas aren’t basic rooms but are all family suites (one bedroom with a sofa bed in the living area). What I love best about these two resorts is that they sit across from each other around Hourglass Lake. While this makes for a good morning jog around the paths - it’s what sits at the edge of Hourglass Lake that is the best - and that is a Skyliner station! The newest and, I think, coolest form of Disney transportation can be boarded in between the resorts and taken to Hollywood Studios, Epcot, the Boardwalk area as well as Caribbean Beach and the Riviera Resorts. Up until the Skyliner opened, the only Disney transport you got at a value was the bus. While the value resorts only have the food court for meals, the access to the Skyliner makes it easier to vastly open up meal opportunities - even without stepping foot in the parks. I’d eat at the quick service at the Riviera a million times in a row over the value options.
My favorite moderate resort is Caribbean Beach. It has recently gone through a HUGE renovation which seemed to take forever but is finally finished. They always had my favorite moderate pool but the renovation of the main building around it has made it really nice. They have a great pool bar now with a large outside - but covered - area adjacent to the pool. The sit down restaurant is now themed after Sebastian the crab. While the moderate rooms are similar to the values, here you get queen beds and a ceiling fan (important in Florida!). In addition to the quick service food spots you’ll also have at least one sit down restaurant. And a legit coffee spot. I am a coffee snob and only drink espresso now so I won’t drink any coffee at the Values. Caribbean also has some specialty rooms that are pirate themed with a nod to Pirates of the Caribbean. Personally, I’m partial to the overall theme of this resort and love how the names of the buildings are Caribbean islands. And, for one of the reasons I selected my favorite values, a bonus of Caribbean Beach is that it too is on the Skyliner system. And, what is best about this one is that it is the home to the Skyliner hub - with its own Joffrey’s! When traveling from the values to anywhere else, you must change Skyliner cabs at the hub. Same if you are coming from Epcot or the Riviera to get to the Values or Hollywood Studios. It is a large resort so walking to the Riviera Skyliner station might be closer than walking to the hub. And with the Riviera right next door, as well as the Skyliner access, your dining options are greatly increased and easily accessible.
How do you pick a favorite deluxe resort?!? The Contemporary has the monorail going through it, the Polynesian has over-the-water bungalows, the Beach Club has an epic sand bottom pool, the Riviera has Skyliner access and the Grand Floridian is majestic and stunning. Honestly, they are all really awesome and I never pass up an opportunity to stay at one when price allows. And, due to price, I have not yet gotten to stay at the Grand Floridian, Polynesian, Yacht Club, Wilderness Lodge or Saratoga Springs - but that one is getting checked off later this year! I stayed in the Riviera a few weeks ago and while it was absolutely gorgeous and awesome amazing views AND on the Skyliner, I still have to say that my favorite is Animal Kingdom! I’ve been lucky enough to stay there twice and while the only park it’s close to is Animal Kingdom and it’s the furthest out resort in general, the Savannah View rooms is what makes this place for me. I adore animals so I love having them right outside my room. You can wake up and have your coffee on the balcony as giraffes eat their breakfast. And when going to sleep for the night you can watch zebras bedding down too. Even if you don’t have a Savannah View room the hallways have windows where you can stop and watch the animals. And balconies and patios surround the main building - including views from some of the restaurants (like Sanna in Kidani Village). Speaking of restaurants, the food is SO good. They have Boma, a buffet, and Jiko, an amazing spot with the largest selection of South African wines in the United States. The pool area is surrounded by rooms as well as lots of plants and flowers. It really does make you feel like you are in a secluded resort and far removed from some of the craziness that can be Disney.
Savannah view rooms at the deluxe Animal Kingdom Lodge
Price certainly dictates where we stay when we choose to stay property - one of the biggest cons I listed about staying on property in this blog post, was price. I have no idea how families come to Disney for a week AND stay at a Deluxe resort. The total cost of the vacation must be astronomical. My sister and I stayed at the Contemporary when we were little back in 1984. It was $100/night then. Now? If you get it for $500/night, that is cheap. Even back in 2009, when we first got annual passes, you could book a value resort for $80. Now you are lucky to get one for $150 and that is WITH the passholder discount.
Our first time staying on property (as adults) was in 2009 at the value All Star Music Resort
If you are a passholder (or someone you are going with is) definitely use that option when booking rooms as passholders get the best discounts. However, only a certain number of rooms are set aside for this - and other - discounts. So if you want a certain resort and/or room type and it’s not showing up, change your search parameters. Passholder rates also aren’t available all the time - you can’t book a room with a passholder rate a year in advance. With this scenario we’ve often booked a room at a regular rate just to ensure we get what we want and then, call Disney to change it when the passholder rates are released. Also, when you book a multi-night stay, you only need to put a deposit down for one night and you get up to 5 days before your trip to cancel the reservation. This makes it pretty easy to book a room without worrying that you might find a better deal later. Because if you do, Disney will likely change the rate for you or you can cancel that room and book the other and get that deposit refunded. Disney will occasionally put their extra rooms on Priceline and you may find additional options or lower prices than Disney’s website. You’ll have to pay in full this way but it can be worth it as you can often get a better deal. When you book with them you’ll get a confirmation email with two confirmation numbers - one for Priceline and one for Disney. Be sure to copy that Disney reservation number into your My Disney Experience account so you can link it to your Disney app (VERY important when you still need to book a park reservation as resort guests get first dibs).
My most recent stay was at the deluxe Riviera resort - thanks to a Passholder discount.
If you want the Deluxe experience and not with the $500+/night price tag, Animal Kingdom, Old Key West and Saratoga Springs tend to be the least expensive around $300/night at times. You can also find them on Priceline like the other Disney resorts. Another option - which takes some planning ahead, is to ‘rent’ Disney Vacation Club points. The Disney Vacation Club is somewhat misconstrued as a timeshare. It is, but it isn’t. It took me moving to North Carolina before my sister and I finally went on a DVC tour (IDK why we didn’t earlier, you get free stuff like Disney gift cards and snacks). I assumed it was only for people who didn’t live close by and I was so wrong. I won’t go into all the details (listen to this podcast for some good info - but also take a tour!) but I desperately wish I could go back in time to 2009 when we first got passes and tell myself to become a DVC member. Because by this point, we’d be basically staying for free - in all Deluxe resorts! However, since I don’t own a Tardis, I’ll rent DVC points with David’s Vacation Club Rentals. People who aren’t using all their points will ‘rent’ them out to try and recoup some of their expenses. The reason why this option takes planning is because people who are DVC members can book anywhere from seven months to one year out. So if you wait too close to your trip, your options will be limited and likely not worth the price. Typically you can get one of the base DVC rooms for what a moderate (or depending on the time of year, a value) would cost. Another cool thing about using David’s Vacation Club is that they’ll make sure everything else is all set for you - they make sure the reservation gets linked to your My Disney Experience, they get your Magical Express set up (at least for the remainder of 2021) and they’ll get you your magic bands. The last time we got free magic band decals with them as well - we got to pick from hundreds of designs to customize our solid color magic bands.
Old Key West (deluxe) is typically an easy one to book direct with Disney or through a Disney Vacation Club rental - and then you’ll get views like this as you prepare to board a boat to Disney Springs.
Regardless of what resort you end up staying, you’ll get a magical experience. Definitely check out the resort pages on the Walt Disney World website and on the All Ears website. You’ll be able to see what type of amenities they have available (besides just the pool), what the rooms look like, what dining options are available and, if you’ll get a transportation option besides the bus.