The Complete Idiot's Guide to Walt Disney World, 2012 Edition

by Doug Ingersoll

  Another advantage to location is the view. Looking out your resort room to see Cinderella Castle is not just a nicety; it can heighten the excitement for kids of all ages. Looking out onto one of the area lakes, catching a nearby park’s fireworks from your room balcony or a hotel public space, and just being in the middle of it all adds immeasurable value to your overall experience.

  Dining Options

  The increased dining options that you will find in a Deluxe resort are another underestimated value. You’re going to be tired after a day at the parks. Being able to dine at your own resort instead of having to go elsewhere to forage is amazingly important. These resorts have more table-service restaurant options, ranging from fine dining to more casual offerings. They have counter-service food courts as well, and also feature lounges, character meals, and a more complete room service menu.

  Bottom line: The features go on, but these few give you an idea of how you can improve your stay with a Deluxe hotel reservation. These resorts will cost you more, but they make for an entertaining stay that complements any Disney vacation.

  Deluxe Resort Pros

  • Significantly wider menu of amenities, both in room and resortwide

  • Better locations that shorten your travel to the theme parks

  • Larger rooms

  Deluxe Resort Cons

  • Extremely expensive rooms

  • Less luxurious rooms than in similarly priced national chains

  The Walt Disney World Deluxe Resorts

  Let’s look at the Deluxe resorts. Review the themes, features, and benefits of each of these unique resorts. Don’t underestimate how much the theme of your resort can make your stay even more special.

  Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge

  Overall Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

  Location: Animal Kingdom area

  Price Range: $250–$615 for a standard room

  Transportation: Buses to all theme parks, water parks, and Downtown Disney.

  Special Features: The savannah animal-viewing areas, warm and inviting public spaces intended to get guests to socialize.

  Room Types: Large rooms sleep 4 to 5, with two queen-sized beds and a day bed or one king-sized bed and a day bed, or a queen-sized bed with bunk beds. Suites for up to 8 guests also are available.

  Best Room Locations: Stay as close to the main lobby as you can. The further you get out on the wings of this hotel, the more walking you have to do. The rooms that overlook the savannah animal-viewing areas cost extra but are popular. Realize that the resort can’t guarantee that you will see animals at any given time; they kind of work on their own schedule. But it can be a unique experience when you’re enjoying a room service breakfast and a zebra trots by. My personal opinion is that you can see them down the hall in the public viewing areas as easily as you can from your own veranda, so save the extra dough. Just make sure you’re not in a room overlooking the Uzima pool if you can help it, as the added noise can be a distraction.

  Dining: The lodge has three restaurants and a great lounge. The high-end Jiko—The Cooking Place is one of the best fine restaurants in all of Orlando, providing African-inspired cuisine and a range of South African wines. Boma—Flavors of Africa is a wildly popular and better-than-average buffet that has both kids’ standards and some African-flavored choices making it a great deal of fun. The Mara has food-court dining and is located adjacent to the pool. The Victoria Falls lounge just off the lobby is a nice place to grab a cocktail after a long day at the parks, with several fruity drink specials and cushy seats that you can sink into and relax.

  Atmosphere: The Animal Kingdom Lodge is like staying in an extremely large African safari outpost. The entry hall is a massive, multistory space decorated with colorful tribal masks, native art, and safari artifacts. The hall opens upward for several stories, and one entire side is made of windows looking out onto an African plain.

  This savannah area really makes this a unique resort. A variety of animals roam free just feet from guest rooms and a public viewing area. Animal guides are regularly around to talk to guests about the care of the different animals, as well as provide interesting facts about their species.

  Animals roaming the Animal Kingdom Lodge savannah.

  Photo © Disney.

  The theme is carried throughout the rest of the resort, with occasional animal-viewing verandas, fireplace-gathering areas, and a pool that is reminiscent of an African watering hole. As ambiance goes, it’s one of the warmer, better-themed resorts in all of Walt Disney World, and it has won numerous awards. It doubles both as an ideal place to stay with kids and as a high-quality resort for adults. The theme and special features make it fun and exciting, keeping kids in a Disney mood. For adults, it has a kind of “rough” elegance that can’t be denied and is certain to be appreciated.

  Despite winning numerous awards as a top resort destination, the Animal Kingdom Lodge only scores a 4 out of 5 rating largely due to it only having bus service within the Disney transportation system. That, and the resort’s remote location, make it a sometimes less than ideal choice for first-time visitors to Walt Disney World. It is, however, still one of my favorite resorts, due to the great atmosphere, superb dining, and unique animal vistas.

  Special Activities: The Animal Kingdom Lodge has a lot of great added features. The Arusha Rock Savanna Outlook provides great views into the animal habitat and is often manned by staff who can answer questions, and sometimes even have night vision goggles that you can borrow to get a better view of the animals. The Simba Clubhouse child activity center is a great place to entertain your 4- to 12-year-old for a few hours at night. For only $12 an hour they get supervised care and activities, as well as dinner, while you take a well-deserved adult night out. Finally, guests of the lodge can go on special dawn or dusk safaris to get some great animal-viewing experiences.

  Disney’s Beach Club Resort and Yacht Club Resort

  Overall Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

  Location: Epcot area

  Price Range: $335–$555 for a standard room

  Transportation: Walk to Epcot and the BoardWalk; boat to Hollywood Studios; buses to all other theme parks, water parks, and Downtown Disney.

  Special Features: These two intertwined resort hotels are in walking distance to Epcot and the BoardWalk, and are just a boat ride away from Hollywood Studios. This alone is of great appeal to any guest. The real highlight here, however, is the pool. Shared by the two resorts, it’s the best one in all of Walt Disney World. It’s like a wandering river, meandering around to create numerous private areas where you don’t have to have other guests constantly walking through your lounging area. There’s also a section of the pool with a sandy-beach entry for a near-oceanlike experience. A nearby shipwreck serves as the scenic start to a great water slide, too.

  Room Types: Large rooms sleep 4 to 5, with two queen-sized beds or two double beds or a king-sized bed. Other rooms have the same configurations with a day bed as well. Suites for up to 8 guests also are available.

  Best Room Locations: Rooms to the Epcot side (east) of the Beach Club Resort are quieter and allow you to avoid public spaces when leaving for the BoardWalk or Epcot. For the Yacht Club Resort, you are best served getting rooms to the far west side to avoid public space noise.

  Dining: These two hotels are lucky, in that they have not only a good complement of their own restaurants, but also the restaurants of the BoardWalk, the Swan and Dolphin hotels, and the pavilions of the Epcot World Showcase all within a short walk. It’s an embarrassment of riches. But let’s focus on the restaurants in these two resorts. The most popular is the Cape May Café, which starts the day with a character breakfast buffet and then serves a seafood buffet at night. The Yachtsman Steakhouse serves a decent steak, and the Beaches & Cream Soda Shop makes for a more casual food stop. The Captain’s Grille (formerly the Yacht Club Galley) also offers nice standard American fare. The food court experience that you get at most other Disney resorts is not as fu
lly featured here, but still good for some grab-and-go dining.

  Atmosphere: These two resorts are reviewed together because they are essentially the same resort, sharing many of their facilities and amenities. But once you’re inside, certain decor and atmosphere nuances create slightly different moods for your stay.

  The Beach Club provides a great middle ground between formal and fun as the decor provides an understated elegance to your stay. The muted colors help set the tone in one of the best stays in all of Walt Disney World. The cozy registration hall leads to quiet halls and well-appointed rooms.

  Where the Beach Club decor is a bit more muted and relaxed, the Yacht Club has a very upper-crusty New England look that is very appealing. Elegant hues of blue and gold accent the bead board trim, while ship models and nautical items decorate the public spaces.

  The bottom line is that the conveniently quick transportation to two theme parks and the BoardWalk means that I can avoid lots of the transportation headaches, and the decor in the Yacht Club makes me feel like I’m staying at an elegant resort commensurate with how much I’m spending on the room. Oddly enough, however, the Beach Club is very popular, and the Yacht Club is the least popular of all Deluxe resorts. Go figure.

  Special Activities: The Sandcastle Club child-care center is great for any 4- to 12-year-olds whose parents need a few hours of peace and quiet at night. Per-child charge is $12 an hour and includes a buffet dinner. The Albatross Pirate Cruise for 4- to 10-year-olds is another daytime excursion that can be an unexpected and thrilling surprise for any budding pirate.

  Disney’s BoardWalk Inn

  Overall Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

  Location: Epcot area

  Price Range: $345–$620 for a standard room

  Transportation: Walk to Epcot and the BoardWalk; boat to Hollywood Studios; buses to all theme parks, water parks, and Downtown Disney.

  Special Features: The resort’s location is just about perfect. You can walk or take a boat to both Epcot and Hollywood Studios. You also have the BoardWalk and all of its perks right outside your door. There’s a public hall for games, separate from the standard hotel arcade.

  Room Types: Large rooms sleep 4 to 5, with two queen-sized beds or a king-sized bed. Other rooms have the same configurations with a junior-sized day bed as well. Suites for up to 8 guests also are available.

  Best Room Locations: Garden-view rooms offer the best blend, giving you peace and quiet in your room, and the fun of the BoardWalk just a few paces away. If you have teens, they may get a treat from a view of the BoardWalk, but it might not be worth the trade-off for the evening noise level.

  Dining: All the dining is on the BoardWalk, with a good array of choices. At the high end is the Flying Fish Café, offering the best seafood at Walt Disney World. Kouzzina (formerly Spoodles) takes care of more of the daily needs of a family, with newly updated cuisine inspired by the cultures of the Mediterranean, particularly Greece. There are also other choices, like the pub environments of the Big River Grille & Brewing Works and the ESPN Club, as well as counter foods at the BoardWalk Bakery and in stands along the walk itself.

  A special benefit here are the bar choices, starting with a nice, small lounge inside the resort that is a perfect and quiet escape from a long day. You also have the nearby bars of the BoardWalk, like Jellyrolls and the Atlantic Dance Hall. This is a far better selection than at any other resort hotel.

  Atmosphere: The BoardWalk Inn harkens to a quieter day, transporting you to the Atlantic seaboard resort towns like Coney Island. This truly unique resort sits astride the actual BoardWalk that serves as a relaxed nighttime diversion in the Walt Disney World landscape. The promenade of bars and restaurants gives you a nice retreat from your room, especially if you’re traveling with just adults. But families will also find this to be an ideal spot, with the G-rated entertainment and great dessert offerings.

  Inside, the decor carries the theme further, with a whitewashed elegance that doesn’t get too frilly. The registration hall is smaller than found in most Deluxe resorts, making it a cozier gathering place, with interesting curios like a miniature carousel. The pool is also very fun, decorated in bright reds and whites, with a circus theme that makes it better than most.

  Special Activities: The BoardWalk Inn special activities are largely based on the location, with all the action going on at the BoardWalk. But also remember that many of the activities at the nearby Yacht and Beach Club (like the Albatross Cruise) are ones that guests of the BoardWalk can enjoy as well.

  Disney’s Contemporary Resort

  Overall Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

  Location: Magic Kingdom area

  Price Range: $300–$675 for a standard room

  Transportation: Monorail to the Magic Kingdom and Epcot; buses to all other theme parks, water parks, and Downtown Disney.

  Special Features: Are you kidding me? A hotel with a monorail running through it—how cool is that? Being located just minutes away from the Magic Kingdom is a huge perk. You can walk or take a monorail there. You can even monorail to Epcot, making it one of the more park-accessible resorts. The resort also has a marina, complete with a lot of water sports.

  Room Types: Large rooms sleep 4 to 5, with two queen-sized beds and a day bed or one king-sized bed and a day bed. Suites for up to 8 guests also are available.

  Best Room Locations: I prefer the view to the west toward Seven Seas Lagoon and the Magic Kingdom. But views to the east and Bay Lake are very serene and beautiful, too, so it’s hard to go wrong. Either way you want to be in the main tower, as opposed to the less expensive but less fun Garden Wing rooms. If you are going to spend the money to stay here, you want to spend a bit more and be in the atmosphere of the tower.

  Dining: Two of the best restaurants of their respective types are found here. California Grill, perched atop the hotel, is a fantastic high-end restaurant with excellent food and views to match. Chef Mickey’s is a character meal spot with a top-notch buffet that has better food than most buffets. There’s a food court as well, for that quick bite or to grab some snacks. The Wave restaurant adds another table-service dining choice that is inconsistent in its experience, but has a larger, easier-to-access bar setting.

  Atmosphere: I don’t care how old you are; it’s pretty hard not to be impressed when you see the monorail running through the middle of the hotel. That really sets the mood for the modern ambiance that the hotel conveys. The recent extensive lobby and public area refurbishment has not warmed up the somewhat cold ambiance, but the stores are better and more fun to browse. The halls are sparsely decorated, but the view down into the main area is better than some cheap abstract art on a wall. The rooms, once decorated like they were out of a bad 1970 sci-fi movie, have now been completely renovated, with a classic new look that is more, well, contemporary. The completely revamped rooms have flatscreen TVs, dark-wood furniture, and more comfortable beds of the kind that most major upscale chains are rolling out. The rooms seem more like what you should be getting for the price paid. Bottom line is that this legendary hotel is one that will amaze kids with its public spaces, despite the cold ambiance, and comfort you with its rooms.

  Special Activities: There are not a lot of special resort-specific events here, but the views, marina-based boat rentals, and the location really makes up for that.

  Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa

  Overall Rating : ★ ★ ★ ★

  Location: Magic Kingdom area

  Price Range: $440–$865 for a standard room

  Transportation: Monorail to the Magic Kingdom and Epcot; buses to all other theme parks, water parks, and Downtown Disney.

  Special Features: Marina, full spa, monorail, specialty meals, and more high-end dining options. Considered the luxury resort of all Deluxe hotels, it has the top shops, rooms, suites, and everything else of any resort here.

  Room Types: Large rooms sleep 4 to 5, with two queen-sized beds or one king-sized bed. Most rooms also include a da
y bed. Suites for up to 8 guests also are available.

  Best Room Locations: Any room with a view of Cinderella Castle is nice but comes at a premium, as there are not very many. If you can choose a building, choose the lake views from Conch Key or Sago Cay, and then Boca Chica.

  Dining: Why are there so many restaurants here? Because you’re paying for them, so you deserve them! Victoria & Albert’s is the most elegant of all restaurants at Walt Disney World, with personalized menus and cuisine that is beyond compare. Citricos (Mediterranean) and Narcoossee’s (seafood) prove that the premier resort has more than one quality restaurant for your enjoyment. 1900 Park Fare brings a series of unique character experiences at breakfast, dinner, and even high tea. The tea is extremely special for your little princess—and expensive, at more than $200 for one adult and one child. The Garden View Lounge proves that the resort really thinks that everyone should enjoy high tea. For more casual dining, there is the Grand Floridian Café. Then there’s the standard counter-service site (Gasparilla Grill & Games) that all Disney resorts have. There are even a few small lounges for evening drinks with great views of the lake. Your restaurant selections are numerous, the quality is mostly excellent, and if you pay to stay here, you earned it.

  Atmosphere: This is the flagship resort at Walt Disney World. The expansive resort is a pristine sight to see, with its contrasting white walls and windows set under the vivid red rooftops. The Victorian structure is decorated inside with muted light hues and a frilly elegance that makes it a perfect stay for families with a budding princess. It can seem a bit antiseptic to me, but the decor is undeniably elegant and well executed.

  Taking its inspiration from the Atlantic seaside resorts that popped up along the Florida coastline during the 1800s, the amenities and particularly the shopping certainly honor that spirit of a high-end resort destination. Every detail is done to perfection.