My daughter and I are taking a trip to Disney at the end of August when she’ll be about 3.5 years old. We have a three night stay with plans for 1.5-2 park days at Magic Kingdom and 0.5-1 day at Animal Kingdom or Epcot. (The half day being our arrival day.)
I’m debating between a room at the Contemporary in the Garden Wing or at Polynesian. We prefer the style of the Polynesian, but I’m wondering if the proximity of the Contemporary gives it the edge. We’ve only visited the resorts and never stayed the rooms.
Personally I would lean Poly - I find the Contemporary a little bit antiseptic, although the monorail running through is cool. I think the Poly tends to typically be cheaper too. The one big advantage for the Contemporary is you can walk to the MK easily. But that’s probably only a huge advantage when there’s a line for transportation which really means the end of the night if you’re staying for fireworks. If you plan to stay that late with a 3.5 year old, then good luck & the Contemporary may make more sense. If you don’t see that as likely, I’d just go with the Poly. And even end of night the wait for the GF/Poly boats isn’t that bad and often you’re tired enough not walking is somewhat a virtue even if it is a wait although a sleepy or worse, cranky, 3.5 year old may skew that perspective somewhat…
We stayed in Garden Wing in February and really enjoyed our stay. The walk is literally 10 minutes pushing a double stroller from the Garden Wing to MK. I think the two deciding factors for you are price and how much resort time you plan on spending.