Original Thread What is Your Favorite Resort

My favorite resort is …

The Grand Californian.

Yep, I went there, even though this is a WDW thread. But how can you beat walking out of the resort directly into California Adventure and Downtown Disney, and being steps away from Disneyland park? You can’t. And it’s a beautiful resort - magnificent lobby with a huge fireplace, comfy chairs, and a quiet yet bustling energy that radiates around the atrium. The minute you walk in, you know you’re home.

I have stayed at four of the resorts in WDW (GF, POFQ, WL, and OKW) and of those my favorite was WL since it reminded me the most of GC. :slight_smile:

I’m going to stay at three resorts I haven’t tried before in May and I’ll report back.

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POFQ. I love the small feeling, the theming, the beignets - everything about it.

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Why did it fall from #1 for you?

If I could only stay in one resort forever and ever, never staying anywhere else, it would be AKL Jambo. It is 100% the atmosphere for me. When I’m there I truly feel like I belong. It’s home.

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This probably isn’t the thread for me, because I’ve only stayed at AKL and Beach Club. I loved them both, but if I had to go back to one of them it would be Beach Club - AKL was beautiful but it just took too long to get everywhere, I got tired of being so reliant on the buses.

My dream resort, though, is the Poly - I badly want to stay there on our next trip, whenever that is.

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Ha! Three years later I still have the two night CL voucher. You know those hair dryers they kept in bags under the sink? I think the final, there goes my heart was when I was told (!with eye roll - what is scum like me doing on their resort) that if I wanted a hair dryer in the room I should have requested one at check in “they don’t leave them in the room as an energy savings initiative”…as I sat their sobbing. They made it clear I did not meet their standards.

The conversation started that I booked a cash club level room and they “gave my room away

  • we can get you a savannah view tomorrow”. The voucher is that they never refunded me the down grade. I also got an official apology, and that is all I wanted.

I have eaten at Jambo once and stayed at Kidani once since then.

We can all have a nightmare experience at any resort. That split stay I then went to WL. It is why I bought CC and outside of AKL that trip was amazing.

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I feel every Disney hotel has their own plus and minuses. Every one I’ve stayed at thus far has been a great experience (thankfully). So it’s such a hard choice. But if someone said “any hotel, anywhere on property, for free…” then there’s a clear winner for me, and that’s the Contemporary.

I HATE the contemporary’s lack of Disney theming…I mean, I loathe it. I find it borderline offensive the quintessential Disney hotel, the one used in allll the marketing back in the day, is also the most anti-Disney hotel. It’s also has a ton of other negatives going for it. It’s stupid expensive. If you get a lake-view you hear the pool music and activities all the friggin time. The elevators take forever, and if it’s crowded you could end up waiting for an elevator for a while. The balconies are so tiny.

But despite all of that, ALL of that, I love the hotel. So much so that I am able to overlook the Beige Assault™ and the other shortcomings. Waking up to a close view of the castle as well as a view of the Electrical Water Pageant (when’s that coming back, anyone hear?), that morning walk to Magic Kingdom, a short elevator ride to Chef Mickey’s (shut it, I like the restaurant for breakfast :rofl: ) or contempo cafe, … I just can’t think of a better experience. And for DVC, Bay Lake Tower also fixes most of those complaints.

However, a super strong contender is French Quarter. It’s beautiful and small so there’s only 1 bus stop (which is a huge bonus for me when I’m tired at the end of the day). You can also quickly run over to the food court and take advantage of your Dining Plan’s mug multiple times without it feeling like it’s a chore. And the boat ride (when covid isn’t screwing things up) to Disney Springs is slow, but fun. It’s also nice that it doesn’t break the wallet.

now for a quick offtopic rant

I would agree with this, but PL needs to give you the same amount as you get at the parks. Only ONE time I’ve gone there, I’ve gotten what I feel is a decent “pour”. And considering it’s the same cost as the parks, it’s really irritating.

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We’re new DVC owners and I’m looking forward to staying at Contemporary at some point - but am a bit concerned that BLT ‘theme park view’ is actually ‘car park view’ - do you not find that?

At the moment GF is my favourite - I know a lot of people don’t like the ‘stuffiness’, but for me has a great relaxing feel. Also amazing for MK - never waited more than about 2 minutes for the monorail to get there, and then a nice boat ride back - and now the walkway as a third option.

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Yeah, you see the parking lot, but my photo above is directly from a BLT themepark view. I find it pretty easy to overlook. And when you’re in the room itself, the balcony covers up a lot.

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I haven’t stayed at too many but I’ll go with the Poly. Stayed there on our last trip. Had a great time. Wasn’t a huge fan of the food but also wasnt able to try all the restaurants. Just can’t beat the vibe and the location. Loved the pool and theming. Excited for the refurb.

Planning our next trip and I am tempted to try something new—because if all of your trip reports! But we keep coming back to the Poly! I think we would just head over to GF for some dinners.

Facts.
My nightmare resort stay was Coronado in 2019. I also have a voucher, but for a free meal at any restaurant on the hotel grounds. Don’t know that I’ll ever use it.
Did use the 5 free 1 day park hopper passes though.

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You beat me to this :wink: for all the reasons you stated. There isn’t a WDW resort that comes close for me… well maybe the CS. I stayed at CS, Poly in the 70s (CS later adult too) and they are the quintessential Disney resorts… the originals. Disney wanted to transport us away to a different place and time… the new Star Wars resort will be taking a page from the founders thinking there too. And if you look at the original plans Disney was going to build other resort destinations around the lake that were themed by destination not by toons.

We do like PO for its beautiful grounds, POFQ for the size and beniets (sp?), ASM for the over the top character theming and CSR for is quiet pools and the fact that my DH and I were married at that resort in a quiet garden.

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@Randall1028 I think you nailed it about Contemporary. Yet I still love it

Oh you are so very right about Grand Californian. Worth every cent. I tried Disneyland Hotel one trip and nope.

Disneyworld so far it’s Boardwalk for me. So many I haven’t tried though including AKL. I’ve stayed at BLT, WL, BCR, ASMusic, AoA, CSR, CBR, Treehouse so far and eaten at Contemporary, GF and Poly. And rode horses and shot arrows at Fort Wilderness which I think I would love to stay at with a car and some time to just relax. I find that place gorgeous

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I have limited experience with resorts.

Stayed at Dixie Landings (aka Port Orleans Riverside) in 1995. Didn’t stay on-site again until 2020. In August, we stayed at Pop Century, and in December, we did a split stay…one night at BLT, and the remainder of the time at Boardwalk. During our December trip, we also were able to do a bit of resort hopping to see portions of Beach Club, Wilderness Lodge, Old Key West, Grand Floridian, and Poly.

From just a visual aesthetics perspective, I would say my favorite was Wilderness Lodge. It was jaw-droppingly gorgeous inside. I could have just looked around there for hours.

Our room (a 1-bedroom villa) at Boardwalk was amazing. Felt like home. And the location was superb for access to HS and Epcot. I would have loved to experience it when the Boardwalk was in full operation. Still, early morning walks around the lake was a great way to start the day.

For a relaxing grounds vibe, I did love POR.

BLT was nice from an access to the Monorail resorts and MK perspective, but I doubt I’d go back there. We were glad that it was our arrival day and not our final day. This allowed us to enjoy experiencing The Contemporary vibe before finding out how much better staying at Boardwalk was. I think if we had done it in reverse, we would have found ourselves disappointed. (Still, seeing the monorail going through the hotel is just so incredibly cool, to this day!)

Deluxe:

  1. My first love is definitely AKL: Kidani. It was my first experience staying at a deluxe resort, and I love the theming, the savanna views, and the quiet, peaceful atmosphere. The only downside for us was the bathroom setup–it only allowed one person to get ready at a time, and this was difficult with a teenage girl taking a long time every morning and night. I’m looking forward to trying it again sometime when it’s just DH and me.
  2. Our most recent trip was to SSR, and I fell in love with it (although that might have a lot to do with the fact that we got a surprise upgrade from a studio to a preferred one bedroom!). The newly remodeled rooms are gorgeous, and the horse theming is appealing to me, as I’m originally from Kentucky. The only downsides here were that the lobby isn’t grand or exciting and the dining options didn’t work well for us.

Moderate: CSR. Beautiful resort, nicely updated rooms, grand lobby, great dining options (I love Three Bridges!!).

Value: ASMovies. While I love the skyliner option at POP, I like the theming better at Movies. It’s a cute resort, and you can get some great deals on a room.

We’ve stayed at Pop, AoA, POR, Contemporary 2x, and Boardwalk. We liked all those but Contemporary is our current favorite mostly due to proximity to MK (and the kids love the monorail and Chef Mickeys). We’ve also visited several others and love WL and AKL but haven’t actually stayed there to get the full comparison.

Boardwalk was also great but we were there in November and everything but the DVC wing was closed. Proximity to Epcot and HS was amazing and we’re staying there for our next trip (September).

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That is absolutely horrible and completely unacceptable. I am so mad they made you feel that way. I have no words.

I will get over it…someday😉

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You’re a better person than me because I would carry that anger to my grave. It didn’t even happen to me and I’m really mad.

I would say Poly is my fav. Some of that is nostalgia as it was one of the first Disney experiences I had as a kid. Or at least when I was old enough to remember. I like it because it feels different to me. I live in the Mountains and in the South so the GF and WL are really not much different for me than other resorts like staying at the Greenbrier or Grove Park Inn or a Cabin in the Smokies. But Poly certainly is different and feels like vacation. We are pretty big Boardwalk fans as well. Just like the convenience and the ability to walk around. Great place. We had a great pre-COVID experience at CSR in a Club Level room in Gran Destino. It was arguably the nicest Disney hotel property. Not convenient to much though. And much to my surprise, I really have enjoyed Pop Century lately. The Skyliner is such a great selling point and my kids love it (DD5 & DD19MO). It is so different in every way but good experiences.