Coronado Fans-PLEASE POST WITH REVIEWS & RECENT PHOTOS!

[disney-super-mom]

Oh my gosh, that ring is GORGEOUS!!!! WOW!!!!!:woohoo: :cool1: :woohoo:

Congratulations Michelle!:hug:

[GOOFYsince71]

Love Love Love the live report!!
Did you ever get the other 4 bags?
Congratulations on your Engagement!:)
Geez......you're at Coronado.......Lucky Lady!!:yay:
Have fun, can't wait to hear more.
Hope the weather clears up for youpixiedust: :beach:

[Buzz2001]

hello - we just returned from CSR Castitas 5 & I loved the resort. I plan to stay there again next visit which hopefully will be Nov 2009. enjoyed the Pepper Market food and the way it was set up. Did not make it to Maya Grill - rushing around every morning.

We also saw the unloading of the mattresses when we left for the parks the one morning.

The resorts did an awesome job of keeping guests updated on the storms by sending messages to the phones with park hours and plans - maybe too good a job cuz the MK was jammed on Monday with people trying to "get it in" before it hit. We went out again anyway on tues to DS and MK again in the evening. Fantasyland can be done in an hour if theres a good amount of rain and wind. We had a blast anyway - won't ever forget it!!Thanks for sharing!

[Buzz2001]

All I can say is PERFECTION....It was like two vacations..one at Disney and one at an amazing Mexican Resort. Maria the bar tender is amazing, the pool fab and the Pepper Market...YUMMY.

Our room was SPOTLESS and I mean SPOTLESS after a few reports I looked. Trust me. We were in Cabanna's 8B with a wonderful water view. (pictures coming soon).

I am sure all the Disney resorts are amazing but Buzz has a reason for devoting a website to this place. Thank you Thank you!

Pictures coming soon.Thanks for a great review!

[Buzz2001]

I just wanted to say I just returned from CSR this past weekend and we/family loved it. This is our new favorite resort, we will be staying there on our next trip as well, we have already discussed this on the plane trip back home.

Everything was perfect. I was hoping for a Casita or Cabana section, but we got Ranchos and it was just fine, we were very close (less than 5 min walk) to Bus Stop 4 and the quiet pool was right outside our door, and the Dig Site was about a 5 minute walk, the only walk we had was to El Centro which was maybe 15 minutes, if that. But no big deal, we love to walk, so this was no issue.

We saw people in suits, but it does not effect us, we are on vacation and that does not bother us.

The Pepper Market is one of the best places to eat, we probably ate there three or four times. Best counter service meal you can get.

The buses were perfect, we did not wait for a bus longer than 10 minutes and they never were full, except at night coming back from the park, we just had to stand.

Saw lots of people with the Dream Fastpasses, we were not so lucky, maybe next time, if they do that again.

I can not say enough about CSR. WE JUST LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:thumbsup2 :thumbsup2Thanks for sharing!!

[LOLA2]

Couple of questions, we are staying here using our DVC points.
Which builing should I request to be close to Pepper Market? What time does Pepper Market close?

How much for rollaway bed per night? I just don't think we will be comfortable with 2 people in a double bed.

[rie'smom]

There's a good chance that by the time of your trip that there will be queen size beds in the room.

[Buzz2001]

Couple of questions, we are staying here using our DVC points.

Which building should I request to be close to Pepper Market? What time does Pepper Market close? casita 1 and/or 3. It closes at 10pm (maybe 11PM) and Cafe Rix is open until midnight.

How much for rollaway bed per night? I just don't think we will be comfortable with 2 people in a double bed. $16.71 per night (tax included)

[LOLA2]

Thanks for the responses!!;)

[Buzz2001]

No problem

[PaulaSB12]

We got to the resort at about 5.40 on 10th august. We got two ajoining rooms in cabanas 9b BUT my nephew managed to lock out his mother and him because he walked out of the hotel room without the room key!!! So we ended up going back down to conciege getting let back in and moved to casitas 5 rooms 5333 and 5334 connecting rooms, we asked for a roll out bed but this wasn't delivered and not only did we get our luggage delivered to the room we got some one by the name of Derek Keysers cases as well. I walked his cases back to the conseige desk and asked when the roll out bed we asked for about 5 hours earlier (this was about 10.30 pm) we where told because of the inconvienience and brining the luggage back there was no charge for the bed!!!!!!! I did love the hotel but am planning on going to the beach club next time

[Buzz2001]

We got to the resort at about 5.40 on 10th august. We got two adjoining rooms in cabanas 9b BUT my nephew managed to lock out his mother and him because he walked out of the hotel room without the room key!!! So we ended up going back down to concierge getting let back in and moved to casitas 5 rooms 5333 and 5334 connecting rooms, we asked for a roll out bed but this wasn't delivered and not only did we get our luggage delivered to the room we got some one by the name of Derek Keysers cases as well. I walked his cases back to the concierge desk and asked when the roll out bed we asked for about 5 hours earlier (this was about 10.30 pm) we where told because of the inconvenience and bringing the luggage back there was no charge for the bed!!!!!!! I did love the hotel but am planning on going to the beach club next timeHow come you switched rooms Paula? Did you have queen beds in Casita 5? Was this your first time to CSR?

[Buzz2001]

http://i36.tinypic.com/mc68u1.jpg

[Buzz2001]

http://i35.tinypic.com/2i0ufbr.jpg

[GOOFYsince71]

Wow,,,on a hot humid day like it is today in Chicago,,,
That really looks refreshing!!
Thanks Mr. Coronado:flower3:

[Buzz2001]

http://i38.tinypic.com/2is89r9.jpg

http://i35.tinypic.com/14japo5.jpg

[Buzz2001]

http://i38.tinypic.com/2j4prp0.jpg

http://i34.tinypic.com/2zhmru9.jpg

[Buzz2001]

Wow,,,on a hot humid day like it is today in Chicago,,,
That really looks refreshing!!
Thanks Mr. Coronado:flower3:http://i34.tinypic.com/1es3d0.gif

[Buzz2001]

http://inlinethumb47.webshots.com/30190/2697325570103672636S600x600Q85.jpg
http://inlinethumb15.webshots.com/35150/2887151370103672636S600x600Q85.jpg
http://inlinethumb34.webshots.com/41441/2429977710103672636S600x600Q85.jpg
http://inlinethumb41.webshots.com/30056/2951925680103672636S600x600Q85.jpg
http://inlinethumb14.webshots.com/31693/2571934060103672636S600x600Q85.jpgNice pics!! Thanks for sharing!

[FlavioP]

Great photos buzz!

[FlavioP]

Since this blog helped me decide on a WDW resort hotel I want to give something back to help future travelers. The CSR was great. A beautiful resort. We stayed in Casitas 5. Not only did our receptionist throw in a complimentary roll-away bed(with a nice wink of the eye), we were pleasantly surprised with 2 QUEEN beds in our room. (We noticed the Serta Mattress truck delivering dozens from the parking lot near bus stop 2). The Serta Poturepedics make a big difference! The room is not that big but fine for us, a family of 4, for the time we spent in there. Everyone at the CSR was great. The walking was fine, actually enjoyable. The grounds are relaxing and unless you HATE walking or are terribly lazy, the walking is fine. Casitas 4 would be almost equadistant to both the EL Centro and Dig Site. There were no crowds anywhere at CSR. We neber waited in a line. The Disney buses were incredibly quick. They take you directly to the resorts and we never waited more than 10 minutes and usually 5 for our bus. This included waiting at the parks for a bus to return to the CSR. The Maya Grill was superb.(we were on the dining plan) We ate there twice..Kids and all. They allowed us to get a kids menu meal(Chix tenders) as an adult sized meal. We traveled to other resort hotels and only found the AK Resort Hotel to be better than CSR. If you have any questions reply to this disboard and I will gladly help. We even avoided Tropical Storm Fay as it only spit light rain on us at EPCOT on Tuesday! The CSR is VERY nice.Thanks for sharing!

[Lilolvr]

Love those pics of the quiet pools buzz!! :thumbsup2

[Lilolvr]

We just came back from CSR almost exact dates...8/11 to 8/18.

We requested Cabana 9b from info on the boards got 9a and were just as happy!! We booked standard view got a corner room with a water view!! I am a huge fan of WL but for saving 800.00 I thought CSR was great! The kids loved the pool and the resort is soooo Pretty. We certainley were not bored.

Seems they have just as much to do as WL to me?? That being said I have to admit I like an inside room and just bus transportation doesn't thrill me. But you get what you pay for and for the price I think CSR is as close to a deluxe as you are going to get!!:thumbsup2Welcome back! I agree with your last comment!

[kaysmommie]

Great pics Buzz!!

[Lilolvr]

Just back from a wonderful vacation! We enjoyed csr. Yes it is big, but very beautiful. I requested cabana/but got rancho..was alittle sad. We were in room 7612 building 7b. We were in the back of the building,parking lot view..in the end it was a great location..short walk to bus stop#4. the quiet pool was in our building. A short walk to the dig site.
The pool is great/always a seat. My kids loved the slide and hot tub.
The busses were crowed....we did always get a seat....bus stop#1 many had to stand. never waited more that 15 min.
Our room was clean. We never did get any towel animals:mad:
The resort seemed very busy. but never overcrowed.
any questions i'd be glad to answer
I'm glad i read all the info on the dis for the csr.
thanks all you csr disers:thumbsup2Thanks for sharing!!

[Lilolvr]

Since this blog helped me decide on a WDW resort hotel I want to give something back to help future travelers. The CSR was great. A beautiful resort. We stayed in Casitas 5. Not only did our receptionist throw in a complimentary roll-away bed(with a nice wink of the eye), we were pleasantly surprised with 2 QUEEN beds in our room. (We noticed the Serta Mattress truck delivering dozens from the parking lot near bus stop 2). The Serta Poturepedics make a big difference! The room is not that big but fine for us, a family of 4, for the time we spent in there. Everyone at the CSR was great. The walking was fine, actually enjoyable. The grounds are relaxing and unless you HATE walking or are terribly lazy, the walking is fine. Casitas 4 would be almost equadistant to both the EL Centro and Dig Site. There were no crowds anywhere at CSR. We neber waited in a line. The Disney buses were incredibly quick. They take you directly to the resorts and we never waited more than 10 minutes and usually 5 for our bus. This included waiting at the parks for a bus to return to the CSR. The Maya Grill was superb.(we were on the dining plan) We ate there twice..Kids and all. They allowed us to get a kids menu meal(Chix tenders) as an adult sized meal. We traveled to other resort hotels and only found the AK Resort Hotel to be better than CSR. If you have any questions reply to this disboard and I will gladly help. We even avoided Tropical Storm Fay as it only spit light rain on us at EPCOT on Tuesday! The CSR is VERY nice.Glad to see you had some of the new QUEEN BEDS!! How did you like them. I can't wait to see what happens with the whole rehab.

Flat panel TV's, club level rooms, new furniture!! It's all so exciting!! :cheer2:

[materguy]

Great pics and reviews everyone! Thanks for sharing!!

[Buzz2001]

http://i36.tinypic.com/2le2e5f.jpg

[Buzz2001]

I can't wait to see what happens with the whole rehab.

Flat panel TV's, club level rooms, new furniture!! It's all so exciting!! :cheer2:Me too!! :thumbsup2

[rie'smom]

Good morning!!
Do y'all know if all of the rooms or just the club level rooms are going to have the flat panel tvs and new furniture.

[Lilolvr]

Back from our trip, loved every minute at CSR!! Will have to post a "review" and some pics later. We stayed in Casitas 3. Saturday morning on our way out to the bus stop there were quite a few Sealy trucks there and people unloading all those new queen mattresses.

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/IMG_1823.jpg

I want to know what type of mattress we slept on all week, (not the new ones, the full size ones) I know it's a Sealy because we looked at the tags (lol) but I don't know specifically what mattress it is. DH and I want to get one for our bed at home, the beds there are so comfortable!!Thanks for sharing!!

[Buzz2001]

Back from our trip, loved every minute at CSR!! Will have to post a "review" and some pics later. We stayed in Casitas 3. Saturday morning on our way out to the bus stop there were quite a few Sealy trucks there and people unloading all those new queen mattresses.

I want to know what type of mattress we slept on all week, (not the new ones, the full size ones) I know it's a Sealy because we looked at the tags (lol) but I don't know specifically what mattress it is. DH and I want to get one for our bed at home, the beds there are so comfortable!!Welcome back and thanks for sharing! Also, thanks for the info on the beds. Glad to see CSR is moving right along with the QUEEN BED exchange!

[Princess_K]

Are the rooms in all three sections going to be getting the queen beds? I requested the Cabanas section for our December trip, but if they are just in the Casitas, I may have to consider changing over!

[KatMark]

Are the rooms in all three sections going to be getting the queen beds? I requested the Cabanas section for our December trip, but if they are just in the Casitas, I may have to consider changing over!

Ranchos already has them in their section, Casitas are being worked on now, then the Cabanas.

[GOOFYsince71]

Ranchos already has them in their section, Casitas are being worked on now, then the Cabanas.

Hi Kathy,
Glad that you are back:)
I am off to work but wanted you to know we missed you:flower3:

[Buzz2001]

We had a great experience at CSR last week. We went on our honeymoon and were excited to get to the parks. it took us all but 15 minutes to check in and get everything done. Our front desk person was SOSOSO nice. He handed us our Just Married buttons and then another handed us a complimentary champagne toast. Our room was clean and everyday we were surprised with different little touches like our washcloths made into ducks or puppies. Our leis from the luau were draped across our bed and my Disney Towel as well. The only complaint I could have were the buses BUT i think that was due to Fay. we didn't spend more than sleeping hours at the resort though so our interaction was small with CM's.Thanks for sharing!!

[GofFreak]

Thanks for the great pics everyone!

[Lilolvr]

Thanks for sharing Honey81808.

[KatMark]

Hi Kathy,
Glad that you are back:)
I am off to work but wanted you to know we missed you:flower3:

Thank you! :)

[Lilolvr]

Maya Grill at CSR!! Ribs served daily

Mixed Grill - filet mignon, fresh catch and St. Louis Style ribs, includes choice of potato and mixed vegetables
http://i38.tinypic.com/2hf7xg6.jpg

St. Louis Style Ribs - includes choice of potato and mixed vegetables
http://i34.tinypic.com/2e5886v.jpg

[Princess_K]

Ranchos already has them in their section, Casitas are being worked on now, then the Cabanas.

That's so exciting! I know the other people in my room will be very happy with queen beds :)

[TheSilverTherapist]

Just how quickly are they proceeding with this upgrade to queen beds? How soon do you think they'll be done?

[Buzz2001]

http://i37.tinypic.com/b52kvk.jpg

http://i37.tinypic.com/nbew5j.jpg

http://i35.tinypic.com/1zebnzr.jpg

[Buzz2001]

Just how quickly are they proceeding with this upgrade to queen beds? How soon do you think they'll be done?I'd bet my the end of September or mid October they will be done because the rehab starts in October.

[sleepingbean]

thanks for the food review! We are torn about if we want to try dining at the Maya Grill so any food reviews there are welcome!
I am leaning toward the Grand Floridian Cafe, though, for the night in consideration :goodvibes

[Buzz2001]

Wednesday was our first full day and that evening the kids were anxious to get to the pool and my husband and brother in law were looking forward to
just relaxing by the pool with a drink.

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/IMG_1615.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/IMG_1635.jpg

A shot I took before it got too dark:
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/IMG_1625.jpg

The kids noticed the little card in the room said our housekeeper was Carmen.
My daughter & my nephew both decided to leave her little notes the next morning, just saying hello and they added drawings to them.

Thursday we went to AK. We'd gotten rained on, on and off Wednesday so
it was nice to start the day off dry. Well, nephew got wet on Kali River Rapids (not drenched mind you, just wet lol) and wanted to go back to the resort to change before we hopped over to Studios. We came back to the room around 2:45 and Carmen was just finishing up, so not only did we get to
say hello in person, we were greeted by:

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/IMG_1697.jpg

That night my daughter REALLY tried to make a towel animal to leave for Carmen, but it wasn't as easy as she thought, and she's pretty artistic. She settled for leaving a thank you note for the beautiful swans. The next day we returned to the room to find this:

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/IMG_1779.jpg

A night shot from one our strolls around Lago Dorado:

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/IMG_1997.jpg

We did have some sun during our trip:

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/IMG_2039.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/IMG_2040.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/IMG_2059.jpg

My daughter took these, the first one is my favorite:

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/DDisneyWorld2422.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/DDisneyWorld1005.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/DDisneyWorld2432.jpg

She also took this one, and they all thought it was pretty funny to see the gator hanging out with the turtles & said that one of the turtles BIT the gator when he got too close, LOL!
Guess that's how they keep them in line!

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/DDisneyWorld2396.jpg

a few more I took:


http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/IMG_1987.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x195/LifeOfAPirate/IMG_1803.jpg

We loved every minute we spent at CSR. Like I said in another post, the beds are so comfortable my DH and I are wanting to go shopping for a Sealy mattress.
Having the roll-aways was perfect, with everyone having their own bed to sleep in we didn't have any sleep issues. Housekeeping was great, no complaints from us at all. The kids were thrilled with the towel creations and left notes for Carmen every day before we left for the parks. On our last full day we returnedfrom the parks and there were some "flowery" towel creations on the bed, hanging on the towel rack, and in our room even on the side of the bath tub.

We love Pepper Market. Because we do counter service at the parks rather
than use up park time at sit down restaurants, we really enjoyed having so
many selections for dinner every night. Everyone we encountered during
our stay were so pleasant and helpful. On our check out day, we were
at the resort until our 12:15 DME pick up time, and we enjoyed a last walk
around the resort as well having breakfast at Pepper Market. It was really
hard to leave, we all enjoyed our stay so much!

Buses were hit or miss. For the most part, they came very quickly and were rarely crowded. Sometimes there were about ten people total on a bus, including the 6 of us! We had two times where buses took way too long. Friday morning we waited a half an hour for a bus to Studios. Three EPCOT buses came, two in a row and then one bus for Typhoon Lagoon and then another EPCOT bus. The bus did eventually come, and after we were on a bus a family who'd gotten to the bus stop ahead of us told us they'd waited 45 minutes total. That bus was the most crowded bus we saw all week, as we were at bus stop #2 which is the first one they stop at and the bus was filled up by the third stop and we still had people pile on at the 4th stop. Saturday morning we waited a half hour for a bus to MK. Not sure how long the total wait was before we arrived at the stop, but it was another case of everyone waiting so long the bus quickly filled up. As soon as our bus filled up another MK bus arrived, too late. Other than that we had great bus service all week and each and ever driver we had was great. :biggrin:Thanks for sharing!

[rie'smom]

Gorgeous pictures y'all!

[GOOFYsince71]

Hi everyone,,
I am typing and watching the DNC on CNN!
Give me an idea of what you paid to stay at Coronado in Aug or Sept. during free dining.
We are staying 7 nites and bought the 7 day base tickets...
I hope I wasn't "had" or taken advantage of...I would hate
to think that I am actually "paying "for free dining:scared1:

[bayoumama2]

Great pics. Love the pic with the gator and turtles. DS15 immediately asked can I fish. Sounds like you had a wonderful time.

[KatMark]

Love the pictures...making us all the more anxious to be back there. We're looking at pictures while watching our Cubbies come from behind against Philadelphia. Our oldest is sitting in a bar in New York and he and his friend are jumping up and down and they are looking at them like they are nuts. :lmao:

[Buzz2001]

Just back from a five day stay at CSR! This resort is beautiful!! We were in cabanas 8a. It was very close to bus stop #4 and the main pool. We didn't mind the walk to the food court because we didn't go there nearly as often as we went to the bus stop. Plus, the resort was so amazing to look at, we didn't mind the walk. The buses were great, never waited more than 15 minutes and they never seemed full. The CM’s are terrific, always very helpful and friendly. We saw that they are adding the new beds but they were in our area yet. We absolutely loved CSR and it’s now our favorite of the moderates. More after I get all the bags in to the house. Any questions, let me know.Welcome back and thanks for sharing!

[Lilolvr]

Great review and pics!! Thanks for sharing!!

[GOOFYsince71]

Cher,
Those were great pictures, I especially enjoyed the one with the
alligator and turtle...What great timing to snap that one!!
The resort looks beautiful. I stayed there in '06 and am going
back in 16 days!! Can't wait...
Thanks for the pics and report:flower3:

[GOOFYsince71]

Herc166 and Cher,
Seeing that you have just gotten back,,,No one is mentioning
the "loveBugs" that were everywhere last year,,,,,any sight of
them , or did Disney figure out how to " evict" them from the
property????:lmao: ;)

[Buzz2001]

We just returned from our 2 night stay at CSR and we were amazed at the resort. We checked in at 10:30pm on 8/23/08 and checked out at 7:00am 8/25/08. It was a quickie trip, but the resort left a BIG impact on us. So much so that we confirmed our December trip at CSR so we're very excited (if AKL comes available we may do a split stay, but we're definetly doing CSR). We even got to use the CFC code for 40% off the room. I called CRO at 9:43pm while driving from Fort Lauderdale (flew from san antonio to ft. lauderdale then drove to Orlando - i know, i know) and was able to apply the bounceback code even though I had NOT checked in. I just gave the CM my reservation number and explained my situation and she applied the code. Got it litterally with just a few minutes to spare before CRO closed for the night. Of course this deal was over at 10pm as the free BB Dining offer was introduced the next day.

We got to explore the main building and checked out the dig site when we returned to our room to have DD3 take a quick nap before heading to MK for the rest of the evening. The pool was awesome and the entire resort was just gorgeous. We unfortunately didn't get a room with queen beds even though we had made this request about a week ago, but we still didn't mind the double beds. We were in Cabanas 9a (#9180) and the room was real close to the bus stop even though we didn't utilize it as we had a rental car. The resort was quiet and peaceful and I'm still marveling at the beauty of this resort.

The restaurants were nice and the desserts at Cafe Rix were awesome. It was cool the CSR has its own mugs which I thought was a unique touch. Had breakfast at Pepper Market and enjoyed the food, however our server failed to advise us on how breakfast works. We were sitting down for 10 minutes thinking the waiter would come back to take our order. Someone sitting next to us had to tell us how it worked. We were thankful and told them that it was our first time here. We got our b'fast and then headed out to the parks. I can't wait to spend more time here to fully utilize the pool and the surrey bikes.

I'm somewhat of a closet resort snob :snooty: and only thought we'd only stay at AKL exclusively for some time. Well this resort has definetly given us a different outlook on that philosophy. Anyone on the fence about CSR should definetly just do it. I really do NOT understand people who have a bad time here as everyone at the hotel was great, the rooms were nice, mousekeeping kept everything neat (even though they made the bed up with the remote buried underneath the covers - took 30 minutes trying to find it LOL) and the grounds were drop-dead gorgeous along with the natural beauty of the resort. Definetly two thumbs WAAAYYYY UP!:dance3:Thanks for sharing!!

[Minnie&Nana]

Hi everyone,,
I am typing and watching the DNC on CNN!
Give me an idea of what you paid to stay at Coronado in Aug or Sept. during free dining.
We are staying 7 nites and bought the 7 day base tickets...
I hope I wasn't "had" or taken advantage of...I would hate
to think that I am actually "paying "for free dining:scared1:

:wave:

Maybe it depends on the size of the family, but we do not do free dining because in order to get it, one must pay rack rate and we prefer to pay a discounted rate and pay for DDP - for two (for us) it comes out a better savings. :)

Others may feel differently, as Free Dining certainly is popular!!

Have a great trip!!:goodvibes

P.S. in Aug/Sept, but we could have gotten a room for $105.75 inc tx (we held this before we cancelled) a ngt at CSR during free dining. Did a quick check - std rack rate would be $167.65 per ngt, so for 7 ngts a total of $1173.38 + apprx 266 for dining + 485.64 for 2 adult 7 day base tkts = $1925.02 rack rate or $1492.39 with our discount, a savings of $432.63. (although in reality, when staying 7 ngts we would get a 5 day hopper, rather than a 7 day base tkt).

[SRICE100]

Cher,

Awesome pictures. Thanks so much for sharing your trip. Sounds like you had a great time!

[GOOFYsince71]

:wave:

Maybe it depends on the size of the family, but we do not do free dining because in order to get it, one must pay rack rate and we prefer to pay a discounted rate and pay for DDP - for two (for us) it comes out a better savings. :)

Others may feel differently, as Free Dining certainly is popular!!

Have a great trip!!:goodvibes

P.S. in Aug/Sept, but we could have gotten a room for $105.75 inc tx (we held this before we cancelled) a ngt at CSR during free dining. Did a quick check - std rack rate would be $167.65 per ngt, so for 7 ngts a total of $1173.38 + apprx 266 for dining + 485.64 for 2 adult 7 day base tkts = $1925.02 rack rate or $1492.39 with our discount, a savings of $432.63. (although in reality, when staying 7 ngts we would get a 5 day hopper, rather than a 7 day base tkt).


Thanks so much for at least giving me an idea of the options..
I have been going to WDW for 25 years now and never believed
that there were "codes" or discounts...Think of all the money
I could have saved if I had know about the Dis before 2006 !
I was one of the "old timers" that believed in the mantra
"Disney Doesn't Discount"..
I guess they HAVE to nowadays to keep their heads above water.
(that is such an old "saying" that it is aging me!!!!!!!!!:rolleyes:

[Minnie&Nana]

Thanks so much for at least giving me an idea of the options..
I have been going to WDW for 25 years now and never believed
that there were "codes" or discounts...Think of all the money
I could have saved if I had know about the Dis before 2006 !
I was one of the "old timers" that believed in the mantra
"Disney Doesn't Discount"..
I guess they HAVE to nowadays to keep their heads above water.
(that is such an old "saying" that it is aging me!!!!!!!!!:rolleyes:

You're welcome!

We've been going for the same length of time (27 yrs here :) ) and until 2004 we never paid attention to those postcards we got in the mail. :eek:

We'd glance at it and think, oh, we're not going those dates....not once considered changing our dates!!! Live and learn...or is it that age brings widsom... Oh!!! Join DIS and become code savvy???:rotfl:
(p.s. Gotta ask - where in IL? I was born in Chicago and still have loads of family there - actually, all my family except DD!!)

[GOOFYsince71]

You're welcome!

We've been going for the same length of time (27 yrs here :) ) and until 2004 we never paid attention to those postcards we got in the mail. :eek:

We'd glance at it and think, oh, we're not going those dates....not once considered changing our dates!!! Live and learn...or is it that age brings widsom... Oh!!! Join DIS and become code savvy???:rotfl:
(p.s. Gotta ask - where in IL? I was born in Chicago and still have loads of family there - actually, all my family except DD!!)
I was born and raised in Chicago,,,Harlem and Irving Park area
just East of Park Ridge.
I am now 5 minutes from Stratford Sq. in Bloomingdale, in the Western
Suburbs....
Thanks for the response!!:)

[CindiF]

We were at CSR from August 17 to the 24.

The Good stuff:

Very pretty grounds. Loved the pool. My daughter couldn't stay off the slide. We liked the food court -- very good food. Expensive, but at Disney that isn't a shock. And sometimes the rest of my family would be done for the night before I was, and I liked that I had plenty of ground to stroll around. Very pretty when it's lit up at night.

The Not-so-Good Stuff (nothing was actually bad!):

We wanted the Cabanas, but got Casitas 2. A little inconvenient, although the Casitas are very pretty, with all the fountains. Thank God we didn't get the Ranchos. They are REALLY out of the way.

Not enough drawer space in the room.

We didn't mind the walking ... but I think I like resorts that are more central, with a lobby you can hang out it in (like AKL). CSR was nice, no real complaints ... but AKL is still our all-time favorite.

The cashier at the take-out place (Rix?) was a snot-and-a-half -- very irritable. I will say, though, that she was the only one. Everyone else was very nice and helpful.

When you drive your car toward your building, you have to go through a gate. You have to slide your card to get it to open ... but it takes about 30 seconds after you slide your card for it to start moving. When you're sitting there in the pouring rain (Fay ... the ultimate water ride) with an open car window because you're not sure if you're going to have to slide your card again... it's a big PITA.

All in all, we liked CSR. I would recommend it -- my negatives aren't that negative and it's a very nice-looking, comfortable resort with a great pool.

[KatMark]

We were at CSR from August 17 to the 24.

The Good stuff:

Very pretty grounds. Loved the pool. My daughter couldn't stay off the slide. We liked the food court -- very good food. Expensive, but at Disney that isn't a shock. And sometimes the rest of my family would be done for the night before I was, and I liked that I had plenty of ground to stroll around. Very pretty when it's lit up at night.

The Not-so-Good Stuff (nothing was actually bad!):

We wanted the Cabanas, but got Casitas 2. A little inconvenient, although the Casitas are very pretty, with all the fountains. Thank God we didn't get the Ranchos. They are REALLY out of the way.

Not enough drawer space in the room.

We didn't mind the walking ... but I think I like resorts that are more central, with a lobby you can hang out it in (like AKL). CSR was nice, no real complaints ... but AKL is still our all-time favorite.

The cashier at the take-out place (Rix?) was a snot-and-a-half -- very irritable. I will say, though, that she was the only one. Everyone else was very nice and helpful.

When you drive your car toward your building, you have to go through a gate. You have to slide your card to get it to open ... but it takes about 30 seconds after you slide your card for it to start moving. When you're sitting there in the pouring rain (Fay ... the ultimate water ride) with an open car window because you're not sure if you're going to have to slide your card again... it's a big PITA.

All in all, we liked CSR. I would recommend it -- my negatives aren't that negative and it's a very nice-looking, comfortable resort with a great pool.


Thanks for your review and your honesty. I will agree with you...that sliding your car thing is a real pain in the neck at times (sometimes we get lucky and we get in right behind a bus! :))

[Disney_Tall_Mommy]

If you stay in the Casita section are the entrances to the rooms still all outside or can you get to some rooms from inside the resort? I am planning a solo trip and want to look for the "safest" location. Thanks for any advice.

[Buzz2001]

We had our third trip to the world this July and our second stay at CSR! Our room was in Cabana 9b, the room was 3616, around the back on a corner and faced the pond. Initially I was disappointed by the "water view" as I was hoping for a view of the lake, but I came to love our local. The room was very quite and the large trees on the corner blocked the view of the main buildings and made the room feel very secluded. It was a two minute walk to the pepper market and main bus stop, and a 5 minute walk to the dig site pool. :banana:

Day one: we arrived at the hotel at about 12:30 via Magic Express from MCO. Magic Express was great!, the bus was there when we arrived, we got right on and after a 5 minute wait, we left for the World! Upon our arrival, there was no line at check in, the lobby is beautiful, the cast member asked who was celebrating a special date which got my wife her birthday pin(i dont know if they always ask or if it was due to my fax). Our room was ready, we dropped off our carry on bags, had lunch at the Pepper market and went to Hollywood Studios. It rained verly lightly while we were at the studio, but we had the ponchos and had a great time riding rides with very little waits.

Day two, Magic Kindom for our first full day at the parks. The bus arrived shortly after we got to the stop, however, the folks that got on before us wouldnt move back and we couldnt stay on,:mad: Lucky for us a cast member was there and asked what happened, we explained, he made a call and got us a van to drive us to the MK. Very nice:yay: way to start our day, we got fps for space mountain and did buz lightyear, then rode space m. headed back to the liberty square area, heading for tmrr and decided to do Haunted Mansion first. got back to tmrr at about 1030am and while we waited on the line I saw the dream team, but we were on the wrong side of the tracks, (the story of my life) lo and behold, the train returned to the other side and we won a castle stay, (I reported on that).

Day three[/B] Julia's Brithday! we went to Animal Kingdom. Our touring plans were a little skewed as part of our winning a castle stay was breakfast at the cyrstal palace the next morning. So we were considerably later arriving at AK than we planned so we skipped the Safari and saved it for our second trip to the world. We went from MK to AK via the Trans. Center, got fast passes for Everest and did the disnosur ride. Its a favorite of ours. We made our way to the primeval whirl and I lost my hat on the ride, got it back the next day at the lost and found at the Trans Center. As we were exiting Prieval whirl, we won fast passes!:wizard: pretty amazing luck. we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon at AK, returned to the hotel for a rest and a swim and then went to downtown disney for diner.

We at at Wofgang Puck's cafe, :rotfl: the dinner was great:banana: everybody loved thier entres:dance3: I would reccomend this resturant to anyone going to the world. After dinner my son and I left my wife and dtr to shop and went on a secret mission to get my wife a pearl {from the oyster booth} as a surprise birthday present. Joey picked an oyster that yielded an nice gold toned 7mm pearl that we had set in a white gold pendent. Julia, my wife, loved it when we gave it to her. Joey and I had a good time taking the water taxi from one end of DTD to the other and we accomplished our mission!Thanks for sharing!

[steery1]

Haven't been on this thread for a while because of a new addition to the family..... Jude, born 30th July 2008

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/348193247_v8hLh-L.jpg

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/348177870_7UWvb-L.jpg

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/348187117_d5N67-L.jpg

Heres a couple more of Coronado..........................
(I've a few questions to ask you guys about our next trip with baby Jude but I'll put them in another post. :thumbsup2 )

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/337555748_DsVkb-XL.jpg

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/337896170_sera8-XL.jpg

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/337896118_96i4W-XL.jpg

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/339160546_M78fm-XL.jpg

[Buzz2001]

Congrats on the new addition! Very cute!!

Thanks for the new CSR pics too!!

[GOOFYsince71]

Hey Jude!!!!!!!
What a Beautiful Baby!!
Congratulations to all:flower3:

[steery1]

OK, now for the questions................
I read somewhere in this thread that someone will be staying at Coronado using DVC points. Anyone know how many would be required (for a suite or a standard room) dates approx. June 28th - July 16th 2009. (I may be able to rent some points from a DVC'er)

Have a new addition to the family - Jude (as pictured above) so was considering a suite. Do I have to go through Disney to get these? I've never seen these on any sites I've looked at. I only knew Coronado had suites from this thread.

Suites I believe are two connecting rooms tweaked a little. In what way are they tweaked. - ie whats in each room? I've seen a couple of photos but they dont tell me much. Oh and are the suites limited to any particular section of Coranado?

I was also considering AKL Villas (Again on rented points). I've never stayed there but visited and ate at Jiko a few times. I "think" I prefer Coronado. (I like the food choices) A lot of people love AKL. Anybody stayed at both AKL and CSR give me a pointer who would like to talk me out of AKL? ;)

[steery1]

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/339668379_xu6QL-XL.jpg

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/339669162_LSHZe-XL.jpg

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/339159370_VoE2u-XL.jpg

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/339668520_rGfcb-XL.jpg

[GOOFYsince71]

I see you are on Kathy,
just wanted to say,,,,I would much rather
be in Disney in 90* weather than here in
Illinois in 90* weather...You are getting out of
Dodge before the Heatwave Hits!
I tried calling Rix to buy a "round":woohoo: of
drinks for the happy couple,,,,,couldn't get past
someone who kept saying...."WHO"?:rotfl:
At least you know somewhere out there,,,
someone's thinkin' of you!
Happy Silver:drinking: :drinking:

[tlrotzoll]

Steery1 What a beautiful baby! Congratulations.

[GOOFYsince71]

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/339668379_xu6QL-XL.jpg

]

OH, to be just standin' around in the water,,,talkin' and
standin' and talkin';)

Love the pics!

[tlrotzoll]

Kathy - have a wonderful trip. We'll be thinking about you!

[KatMark]

Steery1--congratulations on the new baby--absolutely beautiful!!!! :love:

[KatMark]

I see you are on Kathy,
just wanted to say,,,,I would much rather
be in Disney in 90* weather than here in
Illinois in 90* weather...You are getting out of
Dodge before the Heatwave Hits!
I tried calling Rix to buy a "round":woohoo: of
drinks for the happy couple,,,,,couldn't get past
someone who kept saying...."WHO"?:rotfl:
At least you know somewhere out there,,,
someone's thinkin' of you!
Happy Silver:drinking: :drinking:

You are too funny. I could just order a drink and tell them to bill it to your room when you arrive on the 15th! :lmao:

Kathy - have a wonderful trip. We'll be thinking about you!


Thank you. We are so ready for this trip.

[Buzz2001]

Suites I believe are two connecting rooms tweaked a little. In what way are they tweaked. - ie whats in each room? I've seen a couple of photos but they don't tell me much. Oh and are the suites limited to any particular section of Coronado?Jr suites are just basically two rooms together.

http://i2.tinypic.com/vmu2af.jpg

http://i2.tinypic.com/vmu3qt.jpg

http://i2.tinypic.com/vmu42h.jpg

The rooms will all be redone in October with the rehab.

Read this thread:
http://disboards.com/showpost.php?p=23422902&postcount=3

http://i37.tinypic.com/2ia7alu.jpg

[steery1]

Thanks Buzz. Great info.
Looks like two rooms are cheaper than a suite.

[Buzz2001]

Thanks Buzz. Great info.
Looks like two rooms are cheaper than a suite.Yes, they are a bit cheaper but not guaranteed.

[steery1]

Coronado Springs photos.............
http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=5841441&AlbumKey=Mcvo7

[Buzz2001]

Coronado Springs photos.............
http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=5841441&AlbumKey=Mcvo7Nothing happens when I click on the link

[steery1]

Nothing happens when I click on the link

Wierd. It brings you to a slideshow of my CSR photos. :confused3
Anybody else wanna try the link for me?

[Worfiedoodles]

I tried the link and got the slide show, great pics! I cannot wait to try one of those hammocks....I'm just hoping I find the pool warm enough to get in in January. We were at POR last January, and I just couldn't quite do it. But that water slide is a great incentive!

Maria

[Minnie&Nana]

So sorry, but must share my excitement with my new CSR friends - my daughter is in labor so we might have a Labor Day baby!!

She's home relaxing (she's having a very natural water birth) and will not go to the Birthing Center for at least a few hours.

And on top of that - I just booked my first CSR stay for next year!! :cool1:

Kathy, all packed and ready to go tomorrow? Hope you have a safe flight , not impacted by the hurricane. I know your dad will be with you all the way. :hug:

For all our friends in the track if Gustav, our prayer is with you and hope you are safe.

Take care everyone!
Christine

[Buzz2001]

Wierd. It brings you to a slideshow of my CSR photos. :confused3
Anybody else wanna try the link for me?Works in IE but not in Firefox 3.0.

ps - Great photos!!

[tlrotzoll]

Coronado Springs photos.............
http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=5841441&AlbumKey=Mcvo7

Great pics! I will look at them over & over again!

So sorry, but must share my excitement with my new CSR friends - my daughter is in labor so we might have a Labor Day baby!!

She's home relaxing (she's having a very natural water birth) and will not go to the Birthing Center for at least a few hours.

And on top of that - I just booked my first CSR stay for next year!! :cool1:

Kathy, all packed and ready to go tomorrow? Hope you have a safe flight , not impacted by the hurricane. I know your dad will be with you all the way. :hug:

For all our friends in the track if Gustav, our prayer is with you and hope you are safe.

Take care everyone!
Christine


Congrats. Keep us informed!

[gr8tdame]

Coronado Springs photos.............
http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=5841441&AlbumKey=Mcvo7
Beautiful photos and congratulations on the new addition. You make beautiful babies. We took over one hundred photos last year on our trip to CSR to celebrate ds's birthday and our wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, on our last night at CSR.... bags all packed and ready to go....the room next to us, set off the sprinklers in their room and our luggage and my leather backpack acted as sandbags to stem the flood to our room and were completely soaked.
My camera was in my backpack and I turned it on to see if it worked and by doing so completely fried my SD card. No camera store or photo shop has been able to retrieve my pictures.
I purchased a new camera with a waterproof SD card and am also going to use photopass this year.
If we weren't checking out, CSR said they would have moved us to a suite but instead I ended up arriving home with a 10 days worth of laundry and all our souvenirs and gifts soaked.
I hope we can recapture the magic this year without the drama of our last trip and have some pictures to share. My dh wanted to stay at anoyher resort but I finally convinced him... lightning rarely strikes twice in the same spot.

[Buzz2001]

So sorry, but must share my excitement with my new CSR friends - my daughter is in labor so we might have a Labor Day baby!!

She's home relaxing (she's having a very natural water birth) and will not go to the Birthing Center for at least a few hours.

And on top of that - I just booked my first CSR stay for next year!! :cool1:

Kathy, all packed and ready to go tomorrow? Hope you have a safe flight , not impacted by the hurricane. I know your dad will be with you all the way. :hug:

For all our friends in the track if Gustav, our prayer is with you and hope you are safe.

Take care everyone!
ChristineCongrats DGM!!

[Minnie&Nana]

Thanks, everyone - meant to put this on the CSR official thread - sorry!

[KatMark]

So sorry, but must share my excitement with my new CSR friends - my daughter is in labor so we might have a Labor Day baby!!

She's home relaxing (she's having a very natural water birth) and will not go to the Birthing Center for at least a few hours.

And on top of that - I just booked my first CSR stay for next year!! :cool1:

Kathy, all packed and ready to go tomorrow? Hope you have a safe flight , not impacted by the hurricane. I know your dad will be with you all the way. :hug:

For all our friends in the track if Gustav, our prayer is with you and hope you are safe.

Take care everyone!
Christine

How exciting, Christine! I will probably be gone and won't know or see picture of baby until I return...but I can't wait!!! A new beginning...what a beautiful thing.

Hooray for you for booking the CSR--hope you love it as much as we do.

Yes, I'm all packed and ready to go. Now, I just have to get through the flight (I hate flying) and we'll have a blast--no matter what the weather--rain or shine--we'll be at Disney.

Thank you again, and congratulations once more on the grandbaby.

Kathy

[Buzz2001]

Just got back last night. Had a wonderful week stay at CSR. Stayed in cabanas 8B. Was great...the bus stop was right out our door practically and the quiet pool was right around the corner. We saw all the Seally trucks in the parking lot....we still had the double beds but it looked like they were working on getting the mattresses in the casitas right now.

We ate at Maya grill 2x for breakfast...good food and not at all crowded even during free dining.

Bus service was great getting to the parks...probably a bus every 5 min. However, getting back was a nightmare especially from the water parks and downtown disney. Waited between 45 min to an hour at each of those places for a bus.

Will definitely rent a car next time.Thanks for sharing!!

[GOOFYsince71]

So sorry, but must share my excitement with my new CSR friends - my daughter is in labor so we might have a Labor Day baby!!

She's home relaxing (she's having a very natural water birth) and will not go to the Birthing Center for at least a few hours.



Hi Christine!
How are things this beautiful "Labor" day morning!!
Hope all is well with mama and Hope to hear news soon
of the little "disser"
Can't wait to see pix of the little one in full Disney wear!!:surfweb: :flower3:

[Lilolvr]

Haven't been on this thread for a while because of a new addition to the family..... Jude, born 30th July 2008

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/348193247_v8hLh-L.jpg

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/348177870_7UWvb-L.jpg

http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/348187117_d5N67-L.jpgVery cute Stephen. Congrats to the newest mouseketeer!!

[Minnie&Nana]

Congratulations!! What a gorgeous baby!!

[buffalogirl]

steery1- Congratulations! Jude is adorable! :cloud9: Those pictures are beautiful.

Thanks for sharing your CSR pictures, too! You're a great photographer. :thumbsup2

[kaysmommie]

Steery1, Congratulations on that gorgeous baby!! Enjoy, they grow up so fast.

[Worfiedoodles]

What a beautiful baby! I hope you are feeling well and I'm sure he's thriving.

I love seeing the newest DISers!

Maria

[steery1]

Very cute Stephen. Congrats to the newest mouseketeer!!

Congratulations!! What a gorgeous baby!!

steery1- Congratulations! Jude is adorable! :cloud9: Those pictures are beautiful.

Thanks for sharing your CSR pictures, too! You're a great photographer. :thumbsup2

Steery1, Congratulations on that gorgeous baby!! Enjoy, they grow up so fast.

What a beautiful baby! I hope you are feeling well and I'm sure he's thriving.

I love seeing the newest DISers!

Maria

Thanks everyone. Jude is thriving and I'm exhausted but there you go. :laughing:

[steery1]

Works in IE but not in Firefox 3.0.

ps - Great photos!!

Thanks Buzz, Haven't upgraded to FF 3.0 yet but going to soon. :)

[Buzz2001]

Thanks Buzz, Haven't upgraded to FF 3.0 yet but going to soon. :)A coworker asked me to try it. It's great but doesn't work with everything yet.

[adaygaby]

Coronado Springs photos.............
http://reflectionsby.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=5841441&AlbumKey=Mcvo7


Steery1 -

Awesome pictures!! You have captured great images from CSR.

Congrats on the new member of the MickeyMouse Club!

[Minnie&Nana]

Hello, my friends,

After 3 days of very intense labor, not so little Sophia Maria arrived at 8:59 p.m., September 2, weighing in at 8 lbs, 8 oz, 19 in - dark hair and skin - guess all that Italian and Greek heritage is showing! Mia looked just like that at birth, but became a fair skinned strawberry blond, so who knows!

Mia said little Sophia is "curious" and wide-eyed, taking in the new world around her. I could hear her squeaking in the background!! :love:

I cannot thank you enough for the good thoughts and prayer - I have no doubt this helped Mia through what turned out to be a very difficult birth. Somehow, she managed to do this with nothing more than some Chinese Herbs. God bless her!

Hopefully will have a photo to post this evening - they are on the way home now.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!:flower3:

[buffalogirl]

Hello, my friends,

After 3 days of very intense labor, not so little Sophia Maria arrived at 8:59 p.m., September 2, weighing in at 8 lbs, 8 oz, 19 in - dark hair and skin - guess all that Italian and Greek heritage is showing! Mia looked just like that at birth, but became a fair skinned strawberry blond, so who knows!

Mia said little Sophia is "curious" and wide-eyed, taking in the new world around her. I could hear her squeaking in the background!! :love:

I cannot thank you enough for the good thoughts and prayer - I have no doubt this helped Mia through what turned out to be a very difficult birth. Somehow, she managed to do this with nothing more than some Chinese Herbs. God bless her!

Hopefully will have a photo to post this evening - they are on the way home now.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!:flower3:

Congratulations!!!! Thanks for sharing your wonderful news! Sophia is such a pretty name, too. :cloud9: Can't wait to see the picture later. :lovestruc

God bless, Mia, too! I required much more than some Chinese herbs when my children were born. ;) I hope she has a quick recovery.

[Buzz2001]

We just returned from our trip to Disney and CSR. We had another great trip, missed all the hurricanes, gave up our seat on Thunder Mountain to Michael Phelps, the crowd level wasn't bad, had some great meals and thoroughly enjoyed another stay at CSR. We booked the bounce back free dining for next year at CSR. I requested Cabanas 9A but when we checked in they had us down for Ranchos (can't remember the building) I asked if Cabanas 9B was available and it wasn't, so I asked about Casitas 4 since I knew from this thread that it had a quiet pool and a exercise room and new queen size beds and it was available. The beds were very comfortable, we brought a twin size air mattress for DS 15 and moved the bed closest to the bathroom against the wall and had enough room between the bed and the air mattress for my other DS to get out of the bed to use the bathroom. We had a room in the back on the corner with double windows which was nice to have. We were on the 4th floor and I walked around to the front to see the Epcot fireworks one night. The casitas are very pretty, and we enjoyed several meals in the pepper market. Yesterday we were sitting at the dig site pool for our last day soaking it all in before heading home back to reality and back to school tomorrow. I did see the beds outside of Casistas 2 so they must be doing that building now. The trucks of beds are sitting in the parking lot. The service we received at CSR was fantastic everyone was so helpful and friendly what a great resort. Linda :)Thanks for sharing!

[adaygaby]

Hello, my friends,

After 3 days of very intense labor, not so little Sophia Maria arrived at 8:59 p.m., September 2, weighing in at 8 lbs, 8 oz, 19 in - dark hair and skin - guess all that Italian and Greek heritage is showing! Mia looked just like that at birth, but became a fair skinned strawberry blond, so who knows!

Mia said little Sophia is "curious" and wide-eyed, taking in the new world around her. I could hear her squeaking in the background!! :love:

I cannot thank you enough for the good thoughts and prayer - I have no doubt this helped Mia through what turned out to be a very difficult birth. Somehow, she managed to do this with nothing more than some Chinese Herbs. God bless her!

Hopefully will have a photo to post this evening - they are on the way home now.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!:flower3:


Congrats Grandma!!

[Twoboysnmygirl]

Congratulations!!!! :lovestruc

The pics of CSR are GREAT! I'm so close to picking this resort for our 2010 trip!

[GOOFYsince71]

Hello, my friends,

After 3 days of very intense labor, not so little Sophia Maria arrived at 8:59 p.m., September 2, weighing in at 8 lbs, 8 oz, 19 in - dark hair and skin - guess all that Italian and Greek heritage is showing! Mia looked just like that at birth, but became a fair skinned strawberry blond, so who knows!

Mia said little Sophia is "curious" and wide-eyed, taking in the new world around her. I could hear her squeaking in the background!! :love:

I cannot thank you enough for the good thoughts and prayer - I have no doubt this helped Mia through what turned out to be a very difficult birth. Somehow, she managed to do this with nothing more than some Chinese Herbs. God bless her!

Hopefully will have a photo to post this evening - they are on the way home now.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!:flower3:


Hi Christine!!!
Can't wait to see pics of the lil' Disser!!!!!!!!!:flower3:

[Buzz2001]

Just returned from our 1st WDW trip and we stayed at CSR. It is a beautiful resort and I want to thank everyone on this thread for the great information. I did request to be in Cabanas about 3 weeks before our trip with a preference of Cabanas 9B because I wanted to be close to Pepper Market, bus stop and Dig site. When we arrived they had us in Ranchos building 7 which is one of the FARTHEST buildings from all of the above. I asked if we could be moved and stated that I had requested Cabanas. The CM was helpful in that he called and asked for us to be moved. We eventually were moved to Casitas building 5. This was a GREAT area as we were close to bus stop #2 (which is actually the 1st place the bus stops in the morning and almost always the 1st place for drop off) WE LOVED THIS as we had a large stroller with us and the people who were at bus stop #1 were often the ones who had to stand because there weren't anymore seats.

Casitas 5 was also fairly close to the Dig site which was nice as we spent a lot of time swimming during our breaks from the park. We also had refillable mugs and so we could run over and get them filled.
The only downfall to Casitas 5 was that it was quite a ways away from Pepper Market and so it made it a little inconvenient to go a grab a snack but we didn't mind because having the pool and bus stop close was great!

The resort is BEAUTIFUL and truly feels like you are in Mexico. Our room was nice but a little run down so it is definitely time for a remodel. I think we would definitely stay there again on our next trip!Welcome back!

[Lilolvr]

We just returned from our trip to Disney and CSR. We had another great trip, missed all the hurricanes, gave up our seat on Thunder Mountain to Michael Phelps, the crowd level was'nt bad, had some great meals and thoroughly enjoyed another stay at CSR. We booked the bounce back free dining for next year at CSR. I requested Cabanas 9A but when we checked in they had us down for Ranchos (can't remember the building) I asked if Cabanas 9B was available and it was'nt, so I asked about Casitas 4 since I knew from this thread that it had a quiet pool and a exercise room and new queen size beds and it was available. The beds were very comfortable, we brought a twin size air mattress for DS 15 and moved the bed closest to the bathroom against the wall and had enough room between the bed and the air mattress for my other DS to get out of the bed to use the bathroom. We had a room in the back on the corner with double windows which was nice to have. We were on the 4th floor and I walked around to the front to see the Epcot fireworks one night. The casitas are very pretty, and we enjoyed several meals in the pepper market. Yesterday we were sitting at the dig site pool for our last day soaking it all in before heading home back to reality and back to school tommorrow. I did see the beds outside of Casistas 2 so they must be doing that building now. The trucks of beds are sitting in the parking lot. The service we received at CSR was fantastic everyone was so helpful and friendly what a great resort. Linda :)Thanks for sharing!!

[Lilolvr]

Overall, I have to say we LOVED Coronado Springs! It was beautiful and we really enjoyed it. The pool was awesome and my 5 yo could not get enough of the water slide.

Some general comments:

Location - We got an awesome room in Cabana 9B - I had requested it when we made our reservation, we had a water view, which was just great. We were close to everything and I cannot complain about that a bit.

Mousekeeping - overall, I thought they were great, the room was always nice and clean. We got one towel animal which was a bummer (we tipped every day) but the one we got was adorable- they took my dd's Belle dress and hung it in the window and made a "towel Belle"

Pepper Market - while I do not have any major complaints, I did not love it, I liked the options but I thought the quality of the food overall was not so hot, eventually I will do dining reviews but if you have any specific questions feel free to ask.

Bus transportation - this, to me, was the one major thing that bugged me, I am guessing that because we were in the Cabanas we were at a disadvantage in that we were the last stop in the morning. More often than not the bus was full before it even got to us and more often than not, we stood, this was the case almost every morning. The afternoons were better, but coming home for the night was a bit of a mess too. We also found ourselves waiting for a long time in the morning for buses to Magic Kingdom, we would see 2 buses for each of the other parks before we saw 1 for Magic Kingdom!

I would say the pros outweighed the cons and I would definately stay there again.Thanks for sharing!!

[Buzz2001]

We got home on Saturday from our week-long stay at CSR. We checked in on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, and there was a lot of activity going on - a lot of people milling around. It had been raining, so that probably had something to do with it. We only waited about 5 minutes to check in, and while we were waiting, one of the CMs came over to tell us someone would be with us shortly, and gave each of our boys a huge string of those Mickey stickers they hand out. We got to the desk and a pleasant guy checked us in. We were given a room in Ranchos, which wasn't my first choice, but I didn't ask to be switched, knowing it would have the queen beds. We were in building 6A, on the 2nd floor. We were 2nd from the end near the stairs and it was a short walk across the parking lot to the bus stop, which is ideal when traveling with small kids. We did have the queen beds and they were very comfortable and really didn't seem to take up much more room than the doubles. The new beds are on metal frames with sides, not the movable frames that have space underneath.

Our room was very clean and we only had one issue with housekeeping. We came back one day, late, to find that our room had been totally skipped. I called the next morning and the lady I spoke to was very nice. She said she'd tell the manager and make sure our room was cleaned early that day. We never had another issue and most days we came back to our room for a rest about 2:00-3:00, and it was cleaned. Our first day, we came back to find that our son's Mickey was sitting up in bed, with the remote in hand! :rotfl:

We went to the Pepper Market one day for breakfast, before we went to Sea World for the day. Our waitress was good at explaining what we could have on the DDP. She didn't bring my 2nd drink, though, and I asked one of the managers up front to get it for me, which she did right away.

We've decided to wait a couple of years before heading back to Disney World. Our 2-year-old is at the age where he's mad about not getting to ride the same things as his big brother, so we need to wait until he can ride most everything. When we go back, CSR will definitely be one of our top choices again!Thanks for posting!!

[tink771]

I just have to vent. We have been trying all summer to get a room at CSR for our upcoming trip, no luck. We were booked at POP then changed to CBR and really I'm over the new pool at CBR thing. We love to come back from the parks and hit the pool and hot tub, well the CBR pool supposedly closes at 10pm. Now I'm really upset because we have always been able to use the CSR hot tub until 2am! I keep trying and trying for CSR, I just hope at the last minute I finally able to get my AP rate at CSR and forget about the Nemo room and new pool with a gate!!

Question:
I know they have the new queen sized beds in Casitas and Ranchos. We usually request and stay in the Cabanas. Are there corner rooms in the Casitas with the two windows?

[Buzz2001]

I know they have the new queen sized beds in Casitas and Ranchos. We usually request and stay in the Cabanas. Are there corner rooms in the Casitas with the two windows?Yes, all buildings have corner rooms because of the building configurations.

[DawnF]

I just have to vent. We have been trying all summer to get a room at CSR for our upcoming trip, no luck. We were booked at POP then changed to CBR and really I'm over the new pool at CBR thing. We love to come back from the parks and hit the pool and hot tub, well the CBR pool supposedly closes at 10pm. Now I'm really upset because we have always been able to use the CSR hot tub until 2am! I keep trying and trying for CSR, I just hope at the last minute I finally able to get my AP rate at CSR and forget about the Nemo room and new pool with a gate!!

Question:
I know they have the new queen sized beds in Casitas and Ranchos. We usually request and stay in the Cabanas. Are there corner rooms in the Casitas with the two windows?10pm? That's early.

[tink771]

OMG........We got it! Coronado here we come........ Now I'm really excited about our trip!!!!!!

Yes, 10pm is really early to us.
Thanks for the info Buzz2001

[Buzz2001]

OMG........We got it! Coronado here we come........ Now I'm really excited about our trip!!!!!!

Yes, 10pm is really early to us.
Thanks for the info Buzz2001Have a great trip!!

[Buzz2001]

We stayed at CSR from Aug. 10 -Aug. 15. I loved everything about the resort, except the bus. We were at the bus stop that was at El Centro. It was usually very crowded, but except for one time the bus was there within 15 mins. I really enjoyed the quiet at CSR. My only regret is that I didn't have enough time to really enjoy the resort.Welcome back and thanks for sharing!

[Buzz2001]

I don't give good reports so I'm just going to give some notes from my first time staying onsite - just back on Wednesday 9-10-08

First - If you're not sure about staying on-site, I'll say it's worth it (if you're not paying full rack rate). I paid the AP rate at CSR but would have felt a little jipped if I had paid full price.

The best thing about on-site to my family was the Disney transportation. It ran early and often (and ran late into the evening as well). After using the Disney buses we dreaded any time that we had to get into our car.

The bad thing about Disney Transportation is the Value resorts. Fortunately staying at CSR our bus was never crowded. We looked over at the lines for the Values and they were always packed, and people were standing on most buses. We decided after this trip that we will never stay at a value for this reason (unless we plan on driving to the parks ourselves).

We did notice the golf carts running around the resort with guests on them, we saw a lot of these. We never took advantage of them.

We enjoyed the perk of being able to send our purchases from the parks back to our resort. This saved us from lugging items around all day. The only bad thing is that some of our items were damaged (not extensively) when we picked them up.

The grounds and the pools were immacualate. We were very impressed. We visited my DSIL's pool at the Liki Tiki at one point on our trip. If we had never seen the pool at CSR we would have liked the Liki Tiki pool. But there is no comparison, the main Liki Tiki pool looked run down and in need of repair next to any pool at CSR.

The rooms were just like any hotel room, the only difference was the central air. Although we did enjoy the queen beds. (We noticed they had started putting queen beds in the Cabanas while we were there)

The cable TV was a disappointment because half of the channels were Disney channels, and half of those in Spanish. Although my son did love the channel that played classic Disney cartoons 24/7.

The service was great. We got towel animals. We asked for extra towels almost every day and within minutes they were there at our room. We asked for a crib for our baby (they forgot about it on the first request, but after the 2nd request it was in our room immediately).

Only 1 complaint about the service. Our next door neighbor was constantly smoking out in the walkway and the smoke was billowing into our room. We are pretty non-confrontational so we called the front desk to have them do something about it. Unfortunately they never did anything :( even after several calls.

We never took advantage of the onsite dining but we did look at the food and it looked very good.

Overall a great stay and I will definitely stay here again, I'm glad I chose this resort over Pop Century. This is not about the resort but I don't think I'll go back in September, it was more hot and humid than I had imagined, and I'm from Hotlanta. Even the wind from the hurricane didn't help.

The only bad part about our stay was that Hillary Clinton was speaking at the conferece center one of the days we were there ;).

I'll be glad to answer any questions.Thanks for posting!!

[Buzz2001]

We arrived at the CSR on Monday, September 1, at around 12:30 p.m. Check-in went very smoothly--no one else in line. We had terrific CM's who were laughing and joking with each of our parties (you'll remember that my best friend and her DH went with us). The Assistant Manager personally came out to talk to the four of us, ask if we had any questions, gave us a list of all of our dining reservations and gave us his phone number in case of any problems or issues. He indicated our room was not ready, but that it would be soon. We were then given anniversary buttons and balloons and Shleley was given a birthday button (her birthday is September 26) and Tom was given a 1st Time Visitor Button. Shelley and Tom originally asked for Ranchos but were put in Casitas to be close to us which they were delighted with--they got upgraded to a water view room. Since our room was not ready, we went to Pepper Market where we all had something from the deli and shared by each couple as we had a 5:00 dinner at Mama Melrose for the Fantasmic Package. Just as we finished lunch, the Assistant Manager called to say our room was ready. Our friends were in Casitas 3 -- 3133 and we were in 3225. I was a little disappointed as we really like 4 and 5, but then we walked into our room. We were upgraded to a suite (what a treat it was having two bathrooms and two televisions). There were more balloons, autographed photos of Mickey and Minnie and a huge bouquet of flowers. We were also given robes for our stay and turn down service every night. We both had beautiful views of the Lake.

Every CM we dealt with was as friendly as could be. Although we only ate at Pepper Market twice, the service was good and friendly and the food outstanding. I saw one of the Mangers' helping several people who were obviously new to the PM and di not understand the set up. We had breakfast there one morning and wanted American Cheese omelets. They did not have American Cheese at the station, but the cook went and found it for us. Analia at the coffee bar was outstanding every morning I went for my cappucino--friendly, chatty. The lifeguards were very good and friendly and joking with the kids in the pool. Francisco was superb as always (and yes, Shelley and I had a few Pina Coladas at the pool). A large convention came in Saturday night/Sunday morning and we saw ONLYtwo people in suits--the rest were dressed casually (mostly in shorts) as they wen tot their meetings and always said hello when he passed us. Mark and I went to the Dig Site/Hot Tub on three nights. It was just us and two other people in the hot tub when the convention people were there and maybe 10 people in the Dig Site. During the afternoons when we were at the Dig Site, there were no more than 50 people in the pool. We even went down the Jaguar slide twice.

Mousekeeping was great and we received towel animals one day--a puppy dog and a peacock.

Shelley & Tom were given a Magical Dream the day they check out--they were asked to open Panchitos and were given a certificate for doing so. The four of us also won a Year of a Millions Dream prize. As we were exiting Splash Mountain one morning, we were each given Mickey Mouse Year of a Million Dream ears. We each kept one and then the men gave the other two to little children that we saw in the park.

As for the parks, the longest we waited for a ride was Tower of Terror--which was about 20 minutes and that was our own fault. We went right after Fantasmic ended and Rock & Roll Roller Coaster was not running, so this was our fault. Other than that, we waited an average of five minutes for every single ride, and ten at the most (including Soarin'). The CM's at the park were very friendly--always saying Happy Anniversary, Happy Birthday, etc. We received three "Happy Anniversary/Birthday phone calls) in the parks. We saw only one large group of travelers from Brazil and they were loud, but I saw no other issues with them.

We visited two other resorts during our stay and we will stick with the CSR--thank you very much (we've already booked our bounceback for next year). We went to the Wilderness Lodge for dinner at the Whispering Canyon Cafe (the worse meal of our trip--I'll write about it on the Dining Board) and talked to two different CM's--one at the desk and one who was walking around--and we felt like we were being a huge bother to them by asking them a question; we also went back to the Caribbean to give their food court a second try--sorry it was just as bad as the first time (but we felt better giving it a second try).

The second portion of our trip at Daytona Beach was very nice and relaxing (although I either got food poisoning or the 24-hour flu and spent Friday in the room all day).

As many of you know, this was a difficult trip as I lost my dad the week before we left. I walked into Epcot and broke into tears and when we went on Spaceship Earth (which I really like the new version) I couldn't stop crying on the first ride through. I bought a balloon which I was going to release into the sky. But as we were getting ready to release it, I heard my dad in my head saying "why would you spend $7.00 and then just let the balloon go--that is such a waste of money (this from the man who told me to stop buying him cards at holidays because Hallmark had enough money). So instead I found a little girl in a stroller and gave her the balloon. I explained, with tears streaming down my cheeks, to the parents why I was doing this--that my dad had died and I know he would have wanted me to give the balloon to someone as he always bought them for his grandchildren (those poor parents must have thought I was nuts).

The trip was just what we needed after the last seven months with dad in the hospital/nursing home/hospital and then passing on.

We had a wonderful trip and can't wait to go back next year--God willing.

P.S. When we got home, there was a box from Disney--I assumed it was one of the two shipments I sent home. It was not. We won a "specialized Disney Dreams Prize Pack" which consisted of a stuffed Mickey and Minnie, a tote bag, a coffee cup, a photo album, picture frame, tin of candy and a Deluxe Pin Trading Starter Kit and a DISNEY GIFT CARD. What a way to end the trip!

I will add pictures later.That's great Kathy! I'm so happy for you!! You deserved all of it.

[Buzz2001]

HI,.

Back from CSR and we had an awesome time! I have to say I read all the good and bad reviews about this resort before we went and was a little leary about it. BUt we had NO bad experiences at all. We were in Cassitas Bldg 2 Rm 2274 . And here is what we thought.

1. Conventioners--yes there were many , they were polite and actually looked envious that we had our Mickey Garb on and they were in suits and wished they were not. Were they loud and obnoxious ,,No not at all ,, yes they were drinking by the quiet pool and socializing but we just went on our way and paid no attention to them.

2. Resort is absolutley Gorgeous, the grounds are very well kept ,, the room was spotless ,,, and the whole feel of the resort was RELAXING.

3. Transportation for us was not a hassle we used Bus Stop # 1 never waited more than 15 minutes which was no big deal I was not in a hurry I was on vacation. From the parks also was not bad 20 minutes tops from the Magic Kingdom. And the bus 's for this resort Never over crowded, maybe time of year is why that was.

4. I think and this is my personnel opinion this is more of an Adult resort, yes there were kids , buts it seemed more adult like which is what we were looking for we traveled with no children.

5. Pepper Market and Maya Grill definatley great eating choices , even if I wasnt on the Free Dining plan which we were. I felt it would have been worth the money, the food was fresh and a wide selection and the wait staff was great.

6.It is a Big resort to walk around but nothing that is not managable, my DH is 66 and didnt have a problem and we walked it a few times because it was so pretty I am 41 and we both walk alot so maybe this is why.

7. All in all we loved the resort had no bad experiences , Magical Express was great , and the CM's all were very nice and accomodating to anything we asked. I think sometimes its the way people are approached that makes them act in a bad way , I have read that some think the CM's here arent disney like ,, we didnt see that at all. I will post pics by the weekend I took a ton!

8. MNSSHP----LOVED IT! Best time we ever had !:cool1: Thanks for sharing!!

[Minnie&Nana]

xbonnie38, can't wait to see some photos!

When we went to MNSSHP in 2004, never expected to enjoy it, but with an 11 & 13 yr old it was part of the plan for the trip. I figured MVMCP had to be better (course, we love the holidays).

To my surprise I absolutely LOVED MNSSHP more then MVMCP - who knew? :confused3

Have never even been a big fan of Halloween - oh, the kids are cute etc, but would never dress up or attend an adult Halloween party. My gosh, MNSSHP was so much fun!:)

Will not attend MVMCP again, but it wouldn't take much to talk me into MNSSHP one more time! ;)

Glad you had a great trip!

[Jazzygirl72]

Reading all these new reviews is making me just so excited again! Not that I stopped being excited but you know, life has to continue on while I'm waiting for my trip. :upsidedow
I really hope I get a renovated room (petty, I know)! I do know we have a king bed room so I guess it will totally random where we get since they are increasing the number of king beds. It was the only room I coud get when I did the switcheroo from Pop to CSR.
Speaking of which...not sure this is the right place to ask but I was wondering something. I have a ressie for Hoop Dee Doo on Sunday, Dec. 28th, the day we get there. I read that for the shows, you get your tix from the concierge. Well, we had the reservation at Pop when it was originally booked. Do I have to call and tell them we're staying at CSR now? Or are the tix electronic and therefore they can pull them up from any resort?

Still on the fence with keeping the rental car. I know the buses seem to be great at CSR but we're going during the busiest week of the year. Anyone go during the week between Xmas and New Year's?
Thanks!! :flower3:

[Buzz2001]

Reading all these new reviews is making me just so excited again! Not that I stopped being excited but you know, life has to continue on while I'm waiting for my trip. :upsidedow
I really hope I get a renovated room (petty, I know)! I do know we have a king bed room so I guess it will totally random where we get since they are increasing the number of king beds. It was the only room I coud get when I did the switcheroo from Pop to CSR.
Speaking of which...not sure this is the right place to ask but I was wondering something. I have a ressie for Hoop Dee Doo on Sunday, Dec. 28th, the day we get there. I read that for the shows, you get your tix from the concierge. Well, we had the reservation at Pop when it was originally booked. Do I have to call and tell them we're staying at CSR now? Or are the tix electronic and therefore they can pull them up from any resort?

Still on the fence with keeping the rental car. I know the buses seem to be great at CSR but we're going during the busiest week of the year. Anyone go during the week between Xmas and New Year's?
Thanks!! :flower3:You will be all set with your ADR's. You don't have to tell them that you switched resorts. The rental car is good if you will be leaving WDW.

[KatMark]

My goal this weekend is to try to get all of my pictures uploaded and add all my CSR pictures that I took on our recent trip. :)

[lrf92984]

We will be at CSR (1st time) from 12/25 - 12/30 and are looking forward to it. This will be our 11th trip to WDW having stayed at WL, Poly, CBR, ASMu, Pop, Contemp, and a few others that I can't remember. Anyway, we're looking forward to our stay at CSR but now are concerned about the renovations. From what I have read on these boards it will begin in October -will there be a lot of noise and disruption b/c of the work??? Does anyone have any info? Thanks

[KatMark]

We will be at CSR (1st time) from 12/25 - 12/30 and are looking forward to it. This will be our 11th trip to WDW having stayed at WL, Poly, CBR, ASMu, Pop, Contemp, and a few others that I can't remember. Anyway, we're looking forward to our stay at CSR but now are concerned about the renovations. From what I have read on these boards it will begin in October -will there be a lot of noise and disruption b/c of the work??? Does anyone have any info? Thanks

From what I understand, it is mostly interior work and there should not be a lot of noise or disruption. They will be doing one building at a time in one section.

[Buzz2001]

My goal this weekend is to try to get all of my pictures uploaded and add all my CSR pictures that I took on our recent trip. :)Can't wait Kathy!!

[Buzz2001]

We will be at CSR (1st time) from 12/25 - 12/30 and are looking forward to it. This will be our 11th trip to WDW having stayed at WL, Poly, CBR, ASMu, Pop, Contemp, and a few others that I can't remember. Anyway, we're looking forward to our stay at CSR but now are concerned about the renovations. From what I have read on these boards it will begin in October -will there be a lot of noise and disruption b/c of the work??? Does anyone have any info? ThanksThe building being worked on will be closed for the rehab. No one will be staying in a building begin worked on so it should limit noise.

[Buzz2001]

Here are some CSR x-mas pics!!

http://i13.tinypic.com/4uyr9u0.jpg

http://i12.tinypic.com/62z0i9g.jpg

http://tinypic.com/dfkhex.jpg

http://i14.tinypic.com/2exlax0.jpg

http://i18.tinypic.com/507dhe1.jpg

http://i19.tinypic.com/53emzw4.jpg

http://i7.tinypic.com/44vxd9w.jpg

http://tinypic.com/dfkk7l.jpg

http://tinypic.com/dfkkd0.jpg

http://tinypic.com/dqspvm.jpg

http://i15.tinypic.com/62fslk9.jpg

http://tinypic.com/dqsolu.jpg

http://tinypic.com/dqsokp.jpg

http://i9.tinypic.com/5z4jip5.jpg

http://i13.tinypic.com/34o6mxf.jpg

http://i15.tinypic.com/6wyebk3.jpg

http://i9.tinypic.com/6peuu5j.jpg

http://i8.tinypic.com/816ae5e.jpg

http://i7.tinypic.com/6t4etdt.jpg

[Minnie&Nana]

CSR is absolutely gorgeous decorated for the holidays! Equal to any deluxe for sure! ::yes::

[TSMAMI]

stunning!

[Buzz2001]

CSR is absolutely gorgeous decorated for the holidays! Equal to any deluxe for sure! ::yes::It really is.

[Minnie&Nana]

Buzz2001, would you mind if I use one your CSR Christmas photos for my desktop during the holidays?

[Buzz2001]

Not at all.

[Minnie&Nana]

Thank you!!

[Buzz2001]

We just returned last night from a week at CSR and could not be happier. We stayed in Ranchos and found the distance minimal if we cut across the lake bridge to El Centro. Bus Stop 3 was within 1 minutes walk and we rarely needed El Centro anyway. The pool was beautiful but we did not use it. Bus service was consistently great. Our only issue was with using the resort check in for the airline and it was a mess from start to finish. ME was lovely, we will just check in at the airport next time. Bell Services was happy to keep our lugage after check out for a trip to DTD.

We had 2 queen beds (I think, DH and I each took one!), no towel animals, fridge and coffeepot are standard. I tried tipping mousekeeping but the envies (clearly marked) remained each day :confused: and I never saw our mousekeeper to thank him or her in person. In any account the room was clean the whole time. :thumbsup2 DSAs were hard to find at the resort but plentiful (but sunny) at each park.

Thanks to everyone for all the information we used in planning our first trip to Disney!Welcome back and thanks for posting!

[Buzz2001]

Some may be repeats from my report, but I couldn't remember all that I had posted earlier.

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/DSC04013-1.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/DSC04019.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/DSC04159.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/DSC04161.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/DSC04164.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/DSC04166.jpg


http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/IMG_1511.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/IMG_1514.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/IMG_1518.jpg


http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/IMG_1539.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/IMG_1544.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/IMG_1550.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/IMG_1553.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/IMG_1556.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/IMG_1561.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/IMG_1641.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/IMG_1646.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/IMG_1736.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/DSC04319.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/DSC04318-1.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/DSC04253.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/DSC04254.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/DSC04255.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/DSC04316.jpg

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb136/Luvwrestling/DSC04320.jpgThanks for sharing!

[hinodis]

Does anyone have pictures of a rooom with the new beds? After looking at these pictures I might not want to leave and go to the parks! Thanks to all who posted pictures, I loved them all.

[Christine9125]

Well, I have looked at all 60 pages and I have to say I have changed my mind of where I want to stay when we go back in 2011. We have been debating between POP and The Beach Club or a Vila, but after reading and seeing all the pictures, this is where I want to stay. It will be my bil and I's 40th birthday and my 10th anniversary trip. Can't wait

[pigletto]

Oh Kat those are great pictures!!
It's so weird to look at them. I just left there yesterday and it feels like it was weeks ago. It was back to school and back to work for us all today and I feel like we've been home for weeks.
Sigh.:guilty:

I'll get working on the trip report tonight. I know we'll be back again someday:)

[JoyMouse]

We have our first stay at CSR later this week. These pictures make me want to leave right now! Thanks for letting us share them!:yay:
Joy

[KatMark]

Oh Kat those are great pictures!!
It's so weird to look at them. I just left there yesterday and it feels like it was weeks ago. It was back to school and back to work for us all today and I feel like we've been home for weeks.
Sigh.:guilty:

I'll get working on the trip report tonight. I know we'll be back again someday:)

Thanks, Pigletto. I'm glad you enjoyed them. I get homesick every time I look at them myself.

Okay now...school and work are NOT excused for no trip report. Waiting anxiously to read it and what you thought. :)

[KatMark]

We have our first stay at CSR later this week. These pictures make me want to leave right now! Thanks for letting us share them!:yay:
Joy

JoyMouse, enjoy your trip. Hope you like CSR half as much as we do and we love it!

[Buzz2001]

Have a great trip!!

[Minnie&Nana]

Kathy, love the pics - so glad you had a wonderful trip. ::yes::

Buzz, fabulous night photos! Thanks! :)

[Lilolvr]

Great pics buzz. I wish I could take them like that.

[buffalogirl]

Great pictures, Kathy and Buzz! :thumbsup2

Can't wait to go back again.:cloud9:

[caryrae]

We have our first stay at CSR later this week. These pictures make me want to leave right now! Thanks for letting us share them!:yay:
Joy

At least you don't have to wait a year still like we do. :sad2: It will be our first time to. We leave in exactly a year from today.

[tlrotzoll]

Thanks for sharing the pics Buzz & Kathy.

Buzz - do you mind if I save these to my desktop? They are incredible!

[Lilolvr]

Pics of our very clean room.

http://i38.tinypic.com/fny2k5.jpg

http://i36.tinypic.com/n7094w.jpg

http://i38.tinypic.com/2jfc0bc.jpg

Cabana beach pics

http://i33.tinypic.com/2yuk3gn.jpg

http://i38.tinypic.com/dff6ol.jpg

[Buzz2001]

Buzz - do you mind if I save these to my desktop? They are incredible!Not at all

Nice pics lilolvr!!

[Buzz2001]

http://i36.tinypic.com/263xxtc.jpg

http://i37.tinypic.com/2lo4zgx.jpg

[Singinglizzie]

Wow Katmark & Buzz2001 your pictures are amazing! Lilolvr thanks for posting your room pics. How could anyone be unhappy with CSR as it looks beautiful? If you travel in Mexico, the hotels there have so many imperfections but you accept that since it is Mexico and call it "character". I imagine CSR to have a little bit of that San Diego Charm, mixed with a thread of the SW and Florida all tied together. Is it just me, or does looking at all these pics make you feel relaxed too? Here's a funny story. The Christmas before we traveled to Guatemala and stayed in Antiqua in a lovely resort that was charming and beautiful. On check-in, the front desk receptionist was so drunk it was like a comedy of errors! We would have gladly settled for "rude" as at least he would have been coherent:rotfl:! Had this happened at Disney, folks would have been up in arms vowing never to come back again, but then again we are fairly experienced travelers. I think I already love CSR, even though we haven't visited yet :goodvibes and can't wait to be able to post my own trip report.

[tlrotzoll]

Not at all

Nice pics lilolvr!!


:thanks: They are beautiful!

[tlrotzoll]

Wow Katmark & Buzz2001 your pictures are amazing! Lilolvr thanks for posting your room pics. How could anyone be unhappy with CSR as it looks beautiful? If you travel in Mexico, the hotels there have so many imperfections but you accept that since it is Mexico and call it "character". I imagine CSR to have a little bit of that San Diego Charm, mixed with a thread of the SW and Florida all tied together. Is it just me, or does looking at all these pics make you feel relaxed too? Here's a funny story. The Christmas before we traveled to Guatemala and stayed in Antiqua in a lovely resort that was charming and beautiful. On check-in, the front desk receptionist was so drunk it was like a comedy of errors! We would have gladly settled for "rude" as at least he would have been coherent:rotfl:! Had this happened at Disney, folks would have been up in arms vowing never to come back again, but then again we are fairly experienced travelers. I think I already love CSR, even though we haven't visited yet :goodvibes and can't wait to be able to post my own trip report.

I haven't been yet either, but I feel the same way. I can't imagine not loving it!

[Lilolvr]

http://i36.tinypic.com/263xxtc.jpg

http://i37.tinypic.com/2lo4zgx.jpg

http://i35.tinypic.com/5meh39.jpg

http://i33.tinypic.com/2m7bvcl.jpg

http://i35.tinypic.com/16j5946.jpgGreat pics!

[orlosipher]

http://i35.tinypic.com/ostjs3.jpg

http://i33.tinypic.com/2igcfa0.jpg

http://i34.tinypic.com/2vijc02.jpg

Oh my gosh! Buzz, I can't tell you how beautiful these pictures are:worship: ! I was just thinking about maybe, maybe switching to a Value for our upcoming trip because the new NYB code makes a Value resort cost less than half of what we're paying for CSR, but after seeing these pics, I don't think there's any way I can possibly do it!

Thank you!

[Buzz2001]

Oh my gosh! Buzz, I can't tell you how beautiful these pictures are:worship: ! I was just thinking about maybe, maybe switching to a Value for our upcoming trip because the new NYB code makes a Value resort cost less than half of what we're paying for CSR, but after seeing these pics, I don't think there's any way I can possibly do it!

Thank you!Great choice! You'll love it!!

[KatMark]

Wow Katmark & Buzz2001 your pictures are amazing! Lilolvr thanks for posting your room pics. How could anyone be unhappy with CSR as it looks beautiful? If you travel in Mexico, the hotels there have so many imperfections but you accept that since it is Mexico and call it "character". I imagine CSR to have a little bit of that San Diego Charm, mixed with a thread of the SW and Florida all tied together. Is it just me, or does looking at all these pics make you feel relaxed too? Here's a funny story. The Christmas before we traveled to Guatemala and stayed in Antiqua in a lovely resort that was charming and beautiful. On check-in, the front desk receptionist was so drunk it was like a comedy of errors! We would have gladly settled for "rude" as at least he would have been coherent:rotfl:! Had this happened at Disney, folks would have been up in arms vowing never to come back again, but then again we are fairly experienced travelers. I think I already love CSR, even though we haven't visited yet :goodvibes and can't wait to be able to post my own trip report.

Thanks....glad you liked them. I'm not a great photographer, but I wanted to get as many "decent" ones as I could to post. I had my little digital camera and also ahd a friend's. Good lord...if anyone greeted a guest at Disney the way you were greeted Antigua all he** would have broken!!! :rotfl:

[Buzz2001]

Wow Katmark & Buzz2001 your pictures are amazing! Lilolvr thanks for posting your room pics. How could anyone be unhappy with CSR as it looks beautiful?They would have to actually stay there to enjoy it ;)

[pattyw]

Anyone have anymore details about the club rooms?? We're booked for Feb 09 in a club room and curious to get some more details. We :love: looooove :thumbsup2 CSR. We'd rather stay there than a deluxe.

[Buzz2001]

Anyone have anymore details about the club rooms?? We're booked for Feb 09 in a club room and curious to get some more details. We :love: looooove :thumbsup2 CSR. We'd rather stay there than a deluxe.

"Business Club Level services include personalized Front Desk and Guest Services, turndown service and a lounge with continental breakfast, midday snacks and evening wine (additional fee) and cheese. All Business Club Level Rooms have two queen-size beds or one king-size bed, desk and chair, vanity area with sink, a ceiling fan and a bathroom. All rooms are non-smoking. Amenities include DVD player, in-room wall safe, voice mail, data port, hairdryer, iron, ironing board, mini-fridge, robes and coffee maker. A crib is available upon request. Wheelchair-accessible rooms are available. These rooms offer views of the lake, courtyard or parking lot."

[nikki'smom]

Great pics everyone!

[TheSilverTherapist]

So my wife and I just returned from 6 days in WDW at CSR.

In a word, it was fantastic.

This was my wife's first trip to WDW and the first time I had ever stayed at CSR for more than just an overnight. CSR was originally the last on my list of moderates to stay at, but I couldn't have been more pleased with how the stay there turned out.

From the moment we stepped into CSR things were just excellent. Our CM at registration was friendly and helpful and the whole process was quite quick. She even gave us incredibly specific directions to the exact corner of the particularly large building we stayed in.

We ended up in Rancho 7A, not what I specifically requested, but we were right across from the bus stop and had the brand new queen mattresses, so I was pleased with our placement.

The room itself was very nice. Comfortable and clean and pleasantly decorated. We loved the new mattresses and slept wonderfully each night.

Housekeeping did a wonderful job. We began to notice tiny little things she had kept clean for us and while we're not messy people, we can get slightly cluttered and our housekeeper did a great job helping us keep out space organized.

The buses were as good as I could have hoped. The buses always showed up at both the resort and park stops in 20 minutes or less and we almost always had a seat, except for whenever we left MK. That one was always packed, no matter what time we decided to leave. We lucked out being at bus stop 3, which is usually the second stop. By the time we reached the El Centro stop, the bus usually got packed and those people were frequently either standing or waiting for the next bus early in the mornings.

Funny little note, I almost always stayed at OKW with my parents growing up. I love that resort and my only complaint was the bus service, especially in regards to being picked up from the parks. OKW's stop is next to CSR's at every park and let me tell you, every time we walked up to the CSR stop an OKW bus was just pulling up, taunting me. One time two even came in ten minutes before the CSR bus pulled up after about a 15 minute wait. The transit times to and from the parks were also much better than expected. I always pictured CSR as being way out on its own in the middle of nowhere. I was pleased to see it's actually quite centrally located. It took 5-10 minutes to get to HS, Epcot, and AK, and maybe 15 to get to MK. Much better than what I was used to at OKW.

The pool is absolutely fantastic. We only got to spend one afternoon there, but we loved it. The theming was spectacular. It was elaborate and fanciful without being cartoony or over the top. I also thoroughly enjoyed the slide... what can I say, I'm a kid at heart.

We had some time to explore. The grounds are beautiful. Vibrant and elaborate but, once again, not over the top. The Ranchos really evoked a desert feel and I loved the beachfront at the Cabanas. We took a ton of pictures of shots of the resort from various points across the lake.

Our last day we ate at Pepper Market and really enjoyed it. I found the whole process fairly simple and the beef quesadilla I had was far better than what you could find at any other counter service site. I would definitely eat there again.

Overall, I couldn't be happier with how our resort stay turned out. Apparently, inspired by my trip my parents bought a ton of pre-owned DVC points with the intent to pass some on to my wife and I in a few years, so it seems like we may be looking at staying at villa resorts more often than CSR, but if a trip ever calls for a return to a moderate, it will be at the top of our list.

Our original plan was to stay at Pop. When we heard about free dining, crunched the numbers and realized it'd be cheaper to stay at a moderate during free dining than at Pop paying for dining, we decided to do a moderate. My first two choices at the POs were booked for free dining and my third choice CBR was supposedly undergoing a pool refurbishment while we were going to be there (it finished ahead of schedule shortly before we arrived) so we settled on CSR. After our six days staying there, my last choice was clearly the best choice.

I'll post some pictures in the next post.

[snyderla]

I spent a few years as a child living in Phoenix, then Tucson as an adult. When I spent a few days at CSR last December it was wonderful! I'm taking my family there for a couple of days next month to show them a little slice of Arizona (without mountains) in Florida!

[TheSilverTherapist]

Okay here are some shots we took of CSR.

Our first CSR Sighting
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/mousewithattitude/CoronadoSpringsEntrance.jpg

We go where?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/mousewithattitude/WhichWaytoLosRanchos.jpg

Los Ranchos
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/mousewithattitude/Ranchos.jpg

Our Rancho
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/mousewithattitude/Rancho7A3.jpg

Our Room
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/mousewithattitude/OurRoom.jpg

The Dig Site
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/mousewithattitude/DigSite3.jpg

Las Casitas from Laguna Bar
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/mousewithattitude/Casitas3.jpg

We have more, but that's good for now.

[KatMark]

Okay here are some shots we took of CSR.

Our first CSR Sighting
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/mousewithattitude/CoronadoSpringsEntrance.jpg

We go where?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/mousewithattitude/WhichWaytoLosRanchos.jpg

Los Ranchos
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/mousewithattitude/Ranchos.jpg

Our Rancho
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/mousewithattitude/Rancho7A3.jpg

Our Room
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/mousewithattitude/OurRoom.jpg

The Dig Site
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/mousewithattitude/DigSite3.jpg

Las Casitas from Laguna Bar
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/mousewithattitude/Casitas3.jpg

We have more, but that's good for now.

Thank you for the great pictures and the super report. We are so glad you liked CSR...it makes us happy when we have a new one join the ranks! Welcome back and, again, glad you had a great time.

[buffalogirl]

TheSilverTherapist- Thanks so much for posting your review and pictures, glad you liked CSR :thumbsup2 .

[Buzz2001]

So my wife and I just returned from 6 days in WDW at CSR.

In a word, it was fantastic.

This was my wife's first trip to WDW and the first time I had ever stayed at CSR for more than just an overnight. CSR was originally the last on my list of moderates to stay at, but I couldn't have been more pleased with how the stay there turned out.

From the moment we stepped into CSR things were just excellent. Our CM at registration was friendly and helpful and the whole process was quite quick. She even gave us incredibly specific directions to the exact corner of the particularly large building we stayed in.

We ended up in Rancho 7A, not what I specifically requested, but we were right across from the bus stop and had the brand new queen mattresses, so I was pleased with our placement.

The room itself was very nice. Comfortable and clean and pleasantly decorated. We loved the new mattresses and slept wonderfully each night.

Housekeeping did a wonderful job. We began to notice tiny little things she had kept clean for us and while we're not messy people, we can get slightly cluttered and our housekeeper did a great job helping us keep out space organized.

The buses were as good as I could have hoped. The buses always showed up at both the resort and park stops in 20 minutes or less and we almost always had a seat, except for whenever we left MK. That one was always packed, no matter what time we decided to leave. We lucked out being at bus stop 3, which is usually the second stop. By the time we reached the El Centro stop, the bus usually got packed and those people were frequently either standing or waiting for the next bus early in the mornings.

Funny little note, I almost always stayed at OKW with my parents growing up. I love that resort and my only complaint was the bus service, especially in regards to being picked up from the parks. OKW's stop is next to CSR's at every park and let me tell you, every time we walked up to the CSR stop an OKW bus was just pulling up, taunting me. One time two even came in ten minutes before the CSR bus pulled up after about a 15 minute wait. The transit times to and from the parks were also much better than expected. I always pictured CSR as being way out on its own in the middle of nowhere. I was pleased to see it's actually quite centrally located. It took 5-10 minutes to get to HS, Epcot, and AK, and maybe 15 to get to MK. Much better than what I was used to at OKW.

The pool is absolutely fantastic. We only got to spend one afternoon there, but we loved it. The theming was spectacular. It was elaborate and fanciful without being cartoony or over the top. I also thoroughly enjoyed the slide... what can I say, I'm a kid at heart.

We had some time to explore. The grounds are beautiful. Vibrant and elaborate but, once again, not over the top. The Ranchos really evoked a desert feel and I loved the beachfront at the Cabanas. We took a ton of pictures of shots of the resort from various points across the lake.

Our last day we ate at Pepper Market and really enjoyed it. I found the whole process fairly simple and the beef quesadilla I had was far better than what you could find at any other counter service site. I would definitely eat there again.

Overall, I couldn't be happier with how our resort stay turned out. Apparently, inspired by my trip my parents bought a ton of pre-owned DVC points with the intent to pass some on to my wife and I in a few years, so it seems like we may be looking at staying at villa resorts more often than CSR, but if a trip ever calls for a return to a moderate, it will be at the top of our list.

Our original plan was to stay at Pop. When we heard about free dining, crunched the numbers and realized it'd be cheaper to stay at a moderate during free dining than at Pop paying for dining, we decided to do a moderate. My first two choices at the POs were booked for free dining and my third choice CBR was supposedly undergoing a pool refurbishment while we were going to be there (it finished ahead of schedule shortly before we arrived) so we settled on CSR. After our six days staying there, my last choice was clearly the best choice.

I'll post some pictures in the next post.Welcome back! Thanks for sharing!!

[tlrotzoll]

TheSilverTherapist - welcome back!:wave2:

Thanks for sharing! I can't wait to go in November!

[Buzz2001]

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0670.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0661.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0671.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0668.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0672.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0673.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0674.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0675.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0676.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0677.jpg

Close up of slide
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0678.jpg

Where the slide dumps ya
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0679.jpg

Cabana quiet pool
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0680.jpg

Cabana 9A
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0681.jpg

View from our room, #9625
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0682.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0684.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0683.jpg

Our messy room, we were packing to go home:sad1:
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0686.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0685.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0687.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z263/danny1381/102_0087.jpgWelcome back and thanks for sharing!!

[sleepingbean]

can anyone explain where to find that little bush of the three cabalerros? I wanted to do a photo opp there, but couldn't find it last time!

[Mickey23]

Great photos DannyDisneyFreak & TheSilverTherapist!!

The Three Caballeros topiary is located in the courtyard of casita 1 & 3.

[adaygaby]

TheSilverTherapist thanks for sharing! Glad to see you enjoyed your trip.:thumbsup2

[Buzz2001]

http://i35.tinypic.com/5meh39.jpg

http://i33.tinypic.com/2m7bvcl.jpg

http://i35.tinypic.com/16j5946.jpg

[Buzz2001]

http://i35.tinypic.com/ostjs3.jpg

http://i33.tinypic.com/2igcfa0.jpg

http://i34.tinypic.com/2vijc02.jpg

[Buzz2001]

Thank you everyone!!!! We really appreciated the generosity!!!!

Second Bedroom
http://inlinethumb44.webshots.com/43819/2996471320103672636S600x600Q85.jpg (http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2996471320103672636mEYHyu)
http://inlinethumb19.webshots.com/7250/2405588570103672636S600x600Q85.jpg (http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2405588570103672636vDAMVA)
http://inlinethumb19.webshots.com/44178/2561871820103672636S600x600Q85.jpg (http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2561871820103672636iqiwxi)

Second Bathroom
http://inlinethumb04.webshots.com/44291/2170863750103672636S600x600Q85.jpg (http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2170863750103672636TxUqQN)
http://inlinethumb29.webshots.com/40796/2443316280103672636S600x600Q85.jpg (http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2443316280103672636QDtkES)Thanks for sharing!

[Buzz2001]

Based on the excellent recommendations listed here, we booked our stay at Coronado Springs. We had an amazing time!!!

For starters, the bus service was phenomenal. The longest wait we had going to or coming from the parks was FIVE minutes. I'm not kidding. At least 75% of the time, the bus we needed to catch was pulling into the stop just as we were arriving. I think someone asked about renting a car in another thread...totally not necessary. The longest bus ride was to the Magic Kingdom and that was maybe 10-15 minutes tops.

We ate at the Pepper Market 3 times, mostly due to our lack of securing other reservations. I was really pleased with the menu. They had so many choices..I really can't imagine that counter service could be any better at a different resort. My only "complaint" is that I wish they had some other options for side dishes for the kids...maybe a fruit cup or even some veggies as a side. My kids ate way too many chips, fries, etc... on this trip, but I guess that's what vacation is all about!

We stayed in Ranchos 6B. Looking at the mpa, it seemed so far from the Pepper Market but we were able to walk there easily. We were very close to the bus stop and able to walk to the Dig Site pool easily. My kids loved the water slide..it was pretty fast! We were able to get adjoining rooms with queen beds and housekeeping was excellent.

I can't imagine staying anywhere else. This was my first trip to Disney, but I can't imagine what a deluxe resort could offer that would top Coronado Springs. I assumed we would be at a bit of a disadvantage due to the location of the hotel and its proximity to the parks, but we got everywhere we needed to be within a few minutes. I can't wait to go back again in a few years!!Thanks for sharing!

[stitch7878]

Great pics! Thanks for posting!!

[Piglet08]

These are great pics!! Thanks for sharing!!

[disneymomoftwins]

We stayed at CSR from 10-4-08 to 10-11-08. Everything was wonderful. Check in took about 3 minutes, Pepper Market was wonderful, our housekeeper(s) was very good. We really enjoyed the atmosphere. We stayed in Cabana 8A and it was very quiet. It had queen sized beds already. We never ran into any cast members that were'nt nice. We had an excellent waiter at the Pepper Market, I think his name was Nelson. We ate at Maya Grill and it was very good. Our trip was great until the last day--we had to leave!

We booked bounce back for next year and it saved us a lot of money!:yay:

[KatMark]

We stayed at CSR from 10-4-08 to 10-11-08. Everything was wonderful. Check in took about 3 minutes, Pepper Market was wonderful, our housekeeper(s) was very good. We really enjoyed the atmosphere. We stayed in Cabana 8A and it was very quiet. It had queen sized beds already. We never ran into any cast members that were'nt nice. We had an excellent waiter at the Pepper Market, I think his name was Nelson. We ate at Maya Grill and it was very good. Our trip was great until the last day--we had to leave!

We booked bounce back for next year and it saved us a lot of money!:yay:

Welcome back. So glad you enjoyed your stay at CSR and that you bouncebacked. :cool1:

[Buzz2001]

We stayed at CSR from 10-4-08 to 10-11-08. Everything was wonderful. Check in took about 3 minutes, Pepper Market was wonderful, our housekeeper(s) was very good. We really enjoyed the atmosphere. We stayed in Cabana 8A and it was very quiet. It had queen sized beds already. We never ran into any cast members that were'nt nice. We had an excellent waiter at the Pepper Market, I think his name was Nelson. We ate at Maya Grill and it was very good. Our trip was great until the last day--we had to leave!

We booked bounce back for next year and it saved us a lot of money!:yay:Thanks for sharing!!

[wintergreen]

We just returned from a three night stay at CSR, 10/10 to 10/13. It was really nice! We stayed in Ranchos 6A, room 6313. Nice room, good location, had the queen beds (although DH thought it was too soft!). Had breakfast at the Pepper Market twice. DH and I went to Rix Lounge one evening, and I had a VERY good Pomegranate Mojito. The bartender was a bit miffed when I asked whether their mojitos were made from a mix (had a really BAD one at the bar in the Wilderness Lodge a couple of years ago), but it was great. We loved the Dig Site pool! May be one of the best pool areas at any WDW resort we have stayed at. The resort was a bit quiet, but the parks were CROWDED! (Note to self, never again on Columbus Day weekend!). Busses were jammed in the mornings, and not very frequent, which kind of messed up our schedule, but we dealt with it. All in all, a very nice visit!

[KatMark]

We just returned from a three night stay at CSR, 10/10 to 10/13. It was really nice! We stayed in Ranchos 6A, room 6313. Nice room, good location, had the queen beds (although DH thought it was too soft!). Had breakfast at the Pepper Market twice. DH and I went to Rix Lounge one evening, and I had a VERY good Pomegranate Mojito. The bartender was a bit miffed when I asked whether their mojitos were made from a mix (had a really BAD one at the bar in the Wilderness Lodge a couple of years ago), but it was great. We loved the Dig Site pool! May be one of the best pool areas at any WDW resort we have stayed at. The resort was a bit quiet, but the parks were CROWDED! (Note to self, never again on Columbus Day weekend!). Busses were jammed in the mornings, and not very frequent, which kind of messed up our schedule, but we dealt with it. All in all, a very nice visit!


Welcome back. Glad you had a great trip and that you enjoyed CSR!

[tink771]

We just returned from a three night stay at CSR, 10/10 to 10/13. It was really nice! We stayed in Ranchos 6A, room 6313. Nice room, good location, had the queen beds (although DH thought it was too soft!). Had breakfast at the Pepper Market twice. DH and I went to Rix Lounge one evening, and I had a VERY good Pomegranate Mojito. The bartender was a bit miffed when I asked whether their mojitos were made from a mix (had a really BAD one at the bar in the Wilderness Lodge a couple of years ago), but it was great. We loved the Dig Site pool! May be one of the best pool areas at any WDW resort we have stayed at. The resort was a bit quiet, but the parks were CROWDED! (Note to self, never again on Columbus Day weekend!). Busses were jammed in the mornings, and not very frequent, which kind of messed up our schedule, but we dealt with it. All in all, a very nice visit!

Glad you had a nice stay. We also enjoyed those Mojitos, a little too much in fact.

[Lilolvr]

Welcome back! Thanks for sharing!!

[Buzz2001]

We just returned from a three night stay at CSR, 10/10 to 10/13. It was really nice! We stayed in Ranchos 6A, room 6313. Nice room, good location, had the queen beds (although DH thought it was too soft!). Had breakfast at the Pepper Market twice. DH and I went to Rix Lounge one evening, and I had a VERY good Pomegranate Mojito. The bartender was a bit miffed when I asked whether their mojitos were made from a mix (had a really BAD one at the bar in the Wilderness Lodge a couple of years ago), but it was great. We loved the Dig Site pool! May be one of the best pool areas at any WDW resort we have stayed at. The resort was a bit quiet, but the parks were CROWDED! (Note to self, never again on Columbus Day weekend!). Busses were jammed in the mornings, and not very frequent, which kind of messed up our schedule, but we dealt with it. All in all, a very nice visit!Welcome back! Thanks for posting!!

[rosiep]

Are there lockers by the main pool? Is there a fee?

Thanks everyone-2 days!!! Just 2 days!!!

[Buzz2001]

So sad to be back. The resort is as beautiful as always. We stayed in the Casitas this time (Casitas 3, room 3130 - perfect location!). We were close to El Centro, the walk to the pool was longer than we'd had in the past when we were in the Cabana's but not a problem as it was a beautiful walk!

We were there 10/8 - 10/13 and the place was PACKED!!!! I've beent here 3 or 4 times before and never seen it so busy with families! I think the secret is out!!! Usually the halls are empty and the pepper market is too, but the place was hopping! It was festive and nice to see all the activity, but it was definitely different than I had seen in the past.

One of the things I love about CSR is the bus service. We've never in the past had to even stand on a bus. This trip, we were heading out to Epcot on Friday 10/10, and 2 busses came by and told us they were FULL. We couldn't even get on! Another family told us they had watched 3 busses stop and tell them they were full. Fortunately we had our car, so my DH decided to go that route instead. We'd already waited 25 minutes and couldn't get on a bus, so we decided to drive.

A big HR Block convention came in later in the weekend, so maybe that helped thin out the crowds ....

Still, it was lovely. The resort was beautiful as always... and even with the crowds, it was quiet and peaceful in the rooms.Welcome back! Thanks for sharing!! That's why I love it when there is a large convention, it definitely helps with the pool and buses.

[Jen72]

Well, after reading Buzz's site and this site for the past year and being convinced that CSR was for me, I am happy to report that I was right! We loved the resort. Any negative comments I've ever read about CSR just did not apply.
Even during Columbus weekend, the buses were incredibly frequent. Almost every 10 minutes for all parks! Always timely. The first morning we left from Bus Stop 1 because we thought it would be quicker, but we then used Stop 4 (very close to our room) and it was excellent.
We stayed in Cabanas 8A (room 8151) and found it to be very convenient to the bus stop, Dig Site and the main building. I was dumbfounded that anyone ever complains about walking here. Yes, the resort is large, but it is so beautiful and you'd have to be really lazy and miserable to not enjoy it!
The pool was a huge hit with my kids, especially the fabulous waterslide! I even went down about 100 times!
The staff were all courteous and friendly. People have complained about the Pepper Market being hard to learn, but I found that after one time, it was incredibly easy. And the staff is so helpful and used to people on the dining plan that they made it really easy. The only negative would be the food choices for the kids (under age 9 on the dining plan). But, on the other hand, all they really eat at home are the same choices - pasta, hotdogs, fruit. And my husband and I let them use our dessert credits every night to pick out something from the bakery which they enjoyed. The Rix Cafe is a wonderful place to pick up pastries and sandwiches.
I will admit that the rooms need to be updated, but they are in the process of doing that. Even with the outdated theme, they always had very clean linens and the bathroom was very clean. I'm picky and there was no mold or anything gross.
So, a fabulous time and we will return! I just read about the bounceback. Is that something we can call for since we just got home? Did not realize we could do that. Is it just for certain dates? Any info. appreciated!

[Buzz2001]

Well, after reading Buzz's site and this site for the past year and being convinced that CSR was for me, I am happy to report that I was right! We loved the resort. Any negative comments I've ever read about CSR just did not apply.
Even during Columbus weekend, the buses were incredibly frequent. Almost every 10 minutes for all parks! Always timely. The first morning we left from Bus Stop 1 because we thought it would be quicker, but we then used Stop 4 (very close to our room) and it was excellent.
We stayed in Cabanas 8A (room 8151) and found it to be very convenient to the bus stop, Dig Site and the main building. I was dumbfounded that anyone ever complains about walking here. Yes, the resort is large, but it is so beautiful and you'd have to be really lazy and miserable to not enjoy it!
The pool was a huge hit with my kids, especially the fabulous waterslide! I even went down about 100 times!
The staff were all courteous and friendly. People have complained about the Pepper Market being hard to learn, but I found that after one time, it was incredibly easy. And the staff is so helpful and used to people on the dining plan that they made it really easy. The only negative would be the food choices for the kids (under age 9 on the dining plan). But, on the other hand, all they really eat at home are the same choices - pasta, hotdogs, fruit. And my husband and I let them use our dessert credits every night to pick out something from the bakery which they enjoyed. The Rix Cafe is a wonderful place to pick up pastries and sandwiches.
I will admit that the rooms need to be updated, but they are in the process of doing that. Even with the outdated theme, they always had very clean linens and the bathroom was very clean. I'm picky and there was no mold or anything gross.
So, a fabulous time and we will return! I just read about the bounceback. Is that something we can call for since we just got home? Did not realize we could do that. Is it just for certain dates? Any info. appreciated!Welcome back!! Thanks for sharing!! Glad you enjoyed CSR!!

[CU82]

We just returned from a three night stay at CSR, 10/10 to 10/13. It was really nice! We stayed in Ranchos 6A, room 6313.

It's a small world after all! We stayed in that very room in Sept of this year :rotfl:

[Singinglizzie]

So, a fabulous time and we will return! I just read about the bounceback. Is that something we can call for since we just got home? Did not realize we could do that. Is it just for certain dates? Any info. appreciated!

I believe you need to take advantage of the bounceback offer on the last day of your stay. It is not always offered to every guest, but I have read on these boards that there is a phone number you can call and ask for this promotion, (even if you did not get a flier) before your check out. I know the search engine on the Dis board is sometimes slow, but if you can find the number I would call immediately to see if you can still take advantage. I have not bouncedback, and only know what I've read about it on these boards. Good luck. Glad to hear that you enjoyed CSR.

[KatMark]

Well, after reading Buzz's site and this site for the past year and being convinced that CSR was for me, I am happy to report that I was right! We loved the resort. Any negative comments I've ever read about CSR just did not apply.
Even during Columbus weekend, the buses were incredibly frequent. Almost every 10 minutes for all parks! Always timely. The first morning we left from Bus Stop 1 because we thought it would be quicker, but we then used Stop 4 (very close to our room) and it was excellent.
We stayed in Cabanas 8A (room 8151) and found it to be very convenient to the bus stop, Dig Site and the main building. I was dumbfounded that anyone ever complains about walking here. Yes, the resort is large, but it is so beautiful and you'd have to be really lazy and miserable to not enjoy it!
The pool was a huge hit with my kids, especially the fabulous waterslide! I even went down about 100 times!
The staff were all courteous and friendly. People have complained about the Pepper Market being hard to learn, but I found that after one time, it was incredibly easy. And the staff is so helpful and used to people on the dining plan that they made it really easy. The only negative would be the food choices for the kids (under age 9 on the dining plan). But, on the other hand, all they really eat at home are the same choices - pasta, hotdogs, fruit. And my husband and I let them use our dessert credits every night to pick out something from the bakery which they enjoyed. The Rix Cafe is a wonderful place to pick up pastries and sandwiches.
I will admit that the rooms need to be updated, but they are in the process of doing that. Even with the outdated theme, they always had very clean linens and the bathroom was very clean. I'm picky and there was no mold or anything gross.
So, a fabulous time and we will return! I just read about the bounceback. Is that something we can call for since we just got home? Did not realize we could do that. Is it just for certain dates? Any info. appreciated!

Welcome back. I'm so glad that your being convinced that CSR was for you turned out to be true. Glad to have another CSR lover amongst us--welcome!

[bas71873]

Subbing because CSR is on my consideration list.....am trying to decide on a girls trip in February (the last week of Feb) for me, DD5, my mom, my aunt and my 85 year old Grandma (who keeps saying she wants to do Disney one more time before she dies....cryptic, I know :)

This resort looks HUGE...we would book a Jr. Suite and Granny might need a wheelchair...she's convinced she won't but she also does not realize how SLOW she walks now, nor does she remember how much walking she is in for...she has not been to WDW since I was in the 6th grade....I'm 35 now.


So, I guess all of that being said, it would be nice to be in room near busses and near the food areas?

[KatMark]

Subbing because CSR is on my consideration list.....am trying to decide on a girls trip in February (the last week of Feb) for me, DD5, my mom, my aunt and my 85 year old Grandma (who keeps saying she wants to do Disney one more time before she dies....cryptic, I know :)

This resort looks HUGE...we would book a Jr. Suite and Granny might need a wheelchair...she's convinced she won't but she also does not realize how SLOW she walks now, nor does she remember how much walking she is in for...she has not been to WDW since I was in the 6th grade....I'm 35 now.


So, I guess all of that being said, it would be nice to be in room near busses and near the food areas?


Castias 1 is right by the main building and there is a bus stop outside the main building doors (however, this is the last of the four bus stops to be picked up), but it is a distance from the main pool. We always stay in Casitas 4 or 5. It takes me five minutes to walk to the Main Building and about eight minutes to walk to the main pool. The Ranchos are furtherst from the main building, but relatively close to the main pool. The Cabanas are close to both the main building and main pool, depending on which building you are in. I don't know what area they will be rehabbing when you get there in February. Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions.

[Buzz2001]

Subbing because CSR is on my consideration list.....am trying to decide on a girls trip in February (the last week of Feb) for me, DD5, my mom, my aunt and my 85 year old Grandma (who keeps saying she wants to do Disney one more time before she dies....cryptic, I know :)

This resort looks HUGE...we would book a Jr. Suite and Granny might need a wheelchair...she's convinced she won't but she also does not realize how SLOW she walks now, nor does she remember how much walking she is in for...she has not been to WDW since I was in the 6th grade....I'm 35 now.


So, I guess all of that being said, it would be nice to be in room near buses and near the food areas?sent a PM

[tlrotzoll]

I am almost there! 19 more days!!!!!!!!!:woohoo:

[Buzz2001]

:tink: Just wanted to send a thanks to everyone who said so many nice things about CSR...and to Buzz for his great web site on the resort. Because of all the posts we decided to stay at CSR for our first trip to Disney in 10 years, and our first on-site stay.:cool1:

We couldn't have been happier with the place...we were in Cabana 8A...we had queen beds (not sure if everything is updated now or not)...for us, this was a perfect location...very close to The Dig Site (our 8 year old absolutely loved the pool and slide!). And close to Bus Stop 4...and the walk to the Pepper Market really was not too bad...felt this was a perfect place for us.

Everyone was great from check-in, to cleaning room, to the lifeguards and bartenders, CMs at Pepper Market, etc. I mean we absolutely had not one bad experience while we were there. And I must say, they make a mean margarita at the pool. Yum! :banana:

We never had to wait long for the buses...going to or coming from parks. The convenience was amazing. It was the absolute best vacation for us. We spent lots of time at the parks, at DD, and at the pool. Just incredible. Thanks to everyone for all your input and suggestions. Seriously, you helped make our vacation just awesome.

I went with no expectations one way or the other, but came away with a definitely "Disney Magical" Vacation! :woohoo:

THANKS!!

T.Welcome back and thanks for sharing!!

[Buzz2001]

Hello - Just came back from a weekend trip to Disney. We stayed Friday and Saturday night. I loved the hotel it was very pretty. We paid for the water view and when we checked in we were given a pool view. My husband mentioned that we thought water view would be the main lagoon, not a little pool and were changed without question to a "real" water/lagoon view, which had a breathtaking sunrise. There were 4 adults in our room, it was roomy enough and the beds were comfortable. The bus rides were very easy and fast. We were in building 4, which was an easy walk to the main building. Friday night we sat outside in the bar/lounge area and had the best Sangria.. yummy

I'd highly suggest it to anyone who is interested in staying there. (see my review on Pepper's market)Welcome back!

At Disney, waterview can be a fountain, lake, pool, river or any body of water.

[Lilolvr]

Welcome back ratherbe@Disney!

[Mickey23]

Welcome back everyone!! Thanks for sharing!!

[princessmom29]

thirty five days to go!!!

[tlrotzoll]

thirty five days to go!!!

I'm dancing for you!:woohoo:

[hinodis]

WOOO HOOO look at my ticker!:cool1:

[Buzz2001]

We stayed at CSR from 10/15 thru 10/20 for an Adult Only vacation. This was our first stay at this resort and it is now our favorite moderate. I had requested Casitas, but we ended up in Ranchos 6A and loved it. We were traveling with another couple and had connecting rooms which was great. The grounds were beautiful, the staff was very friendly, mousekeeping was great, and we loved the Pepper Market. We ended up booking the bounceback for next year.Welcome back and thanks for sharing!!

[Lilolvr]

Welcome back GrumpyLuver!!

[Minnie&Nana]

At Disney, waterview can be a fountain, lake, pool, river or any body of water.

So true...and can be a sliver of a peek of water through dense trees! Disney does not always get around to updating view catagories as foliage grows tall and/or dense. ;)

[KatMark]

So true...and can be a sliver of a peek of water through dense trees! Disney does not always get around to updating view catagories as foliage grows tall and/or dense. ;)

:rotfl2: :rotfl: :rotfl2:

[dburg30]

WOOO HOOO look at my ticker!:cool1:

Me too..

[hinodis]

Me too..

That makes three of us arriving on the same day here. Maybe we need a disboard meet and greet!

[Buzz2001]

That makes three of us arriving on the same day here. Maybe we need a disboard meet and greet!That would be a great time!!

[bayoumama2]

30 days left. :cool1: We're doing a dance over here.

[Buzz2001]

Well, it took me a week to recover from our WDW vacation but I wanted to post my review of our first stay at CSR. Warning: this is LONG! Sorry!

First impressions: We arrived at the resort around 6:15pm on Wed, Oct 8th. Pretty amazing because our plane landed at 5:10 and we walked right on the ME bus and they got us there within the hour!
Wow - the resort is BEAUTIFUL! We were blown away by the gorgeous landscaping. Super clean, nice colors. Everyone we passed said hello. We strolled through the main building and the HUGE gift shop. We liked the little "to-go" bakery and thought the lounge looked really nice.

"Hugeness" of Resort: It tickles me when I read about the "hugeness" of ANY Disney resort because, HELLO, WDW IS huge! :rotfl2: Is CSR big? Well, sure - it isn't made up of a couple of buildings and one pool. If I had to walk from Ranchos to Pepper Market and back and wanted to keep my coffee piping hot and my to-go waffles warm, well, I just wouldn't be a happy camper every morning! I stayed at GF and had to walk quite a bit each day to the main building to get to the monorail so a few extra yards at $300 less a night didn't bother me at CSR. ;) Seriously, anyone who has restrictions could totally stay at CSR at the Casitas or Cabana 9B, be close to all the action, and be able to navigate their way without a lot of extra walking. We just took it in stride (no pun intended!) and enjoyed the strolls next to the lake to see the alligator and the turtles. :goodvibes

Check-in: I had read on the boards that some people felt the CMs at the front desk were less than friendly so I was prepared to walk up with my usual smile and friendly attitude to set the tone for check-in. :) We were greeted warmly by Stephanie from Barbados. She was fantastic! We talked for awhile as there were no other people in line to check-in. She said we had just missed the rush. By the way, the foyer of this resort is amazing! The tall ceilings and fountain made me think I was in a 5-star Mexican resort!

Anyway, Stephanie answered all our questions and was engaging. I had requested Cabanas 9B and connecting rooms. The resort must have been pretty full because they only had rooms in Cabanas 8A and Ranchos left. No worries. My next request since we were unable to get 9B was queen beds. She wasn't sure about the queen bed thing. We were assigned to rooms 8521 and 8522. There were several manager-types in suits hanging around in the lobby making sure people were being attended to. We asked Stephanie if we could tip her and she said sure as long as we put it in an envelope. We felt she deserved it!

Rooms: We took a nice stroll around the lake to get to our rooms. Again, the grounds are beautiful. I totally got the "Disney-feel" of the resort but at the same time, it felt like we were away on a Mexican vacation. Several golf carts passed us on the way - not one tried to run us over and everyone said hello. ;)
The room was spacious and well-appointed. Love the granite counter-tops on the bathroom sink! Fridge is large enough for 4 1/2 gallons of milk and lots of other items. Ceiling fan is FANTASTIC for us as we must sleep with them at home. The room was clean and smelled fresh. The only problem was: no queen beds in Cabanas 8A. We called down and the only rooms available with queen beds were Ranchos. We looked out our window and we were about 30 yards from bus stop 4 so we decided we could live with full-size beds and be close to the bus stop, pool and pepper market. WE WERE HAPPY! The bus stop being close to our room ended up being the best choice for the rest of our vacation. More about Transportation later....
One more note: At first, we thought being at the back of the building would be a pain. NO WAY! We were right by the bus stop and it was super quiet in the back.

Dig site pool: We are night-time swimmers after a day in the parks so we didn't get to see the pool until day 3 because of the nightly thunderstorms. The pool is AWESOME! Our entire family and our friends loved the water slide! My 2 year old hung out in the baby pool and she had a blast! The lifeguards were so nice - they interacted with all the kids at the pool and joked around with everyone. I know most pools have towels but it sure felt like a luxury for us not to schlep a big pile of towels down to the pool! The pool is HUGE and would easily hold a lot of guests.

Quietness of resort: The resort was pretty busy while we were there but it did not feel like it at all. I did not hear doors slamming at anytime during our vacation. Every once in awhile I heard water running but that was only when I was in the bathroom. We pulled the room-darkening shade tight each night and we didn't even realize it was morning until our alarms went off - it was that quiet. The rooms seem to be well insulated. We couldn't even hear our friends through the connecting doors!

Suits AKA conventioneers: We saw just a few convention guests throughout our vacation. Didn't bother us in the least and didn't make the resort feel "un-Disney" to us. We just felt bad that they had to stay at boring meetings while we got to go have FUN at the parks! :cool1:

Pepper Market: We loved the pepper market! We are commando types that stay in the parks from dawn to dusk so honestly we didn't eat there everyday, but when we did, we found it pretty easy to figure out and the food was great. My family is pretty picky on any given day so we really liked the variety of food available. I couldn't stop going to the Asian stir-fry station! Bourbon chicken - YUMMY! Great variety, good food - usual Disney prices but you felt like you got a pretty big portion for your money. And the 10% surcharge? A bargain for someone to get me drink refills, extra napkins, clean up my table, etc.

Pepper market employees: Going into this I knew that pepper market was not managed by Disney and that some people felt the employees were less than friendly. Well, they weren't your usual perky Disney CMs but we felt they were fine. I'm not trying to make excuses but we really felt a lot of it is language barriers. Most of the employees we encountered did not speak English fluently. Not that this excuses behavior, but it is a factor, IMO. Another thing I noticed is that they are WAY understaffed. I don't know what it is like during the breakfast rush or in peak times but there was only one person working at each station and that is just not enough to prep, cook the numerous items on the spot, etc. That would make me kind of grumpy if I had to do all that work by mself! Again, there is no excuse for rudeness but maybe Disney needs to rethink this.

Each waitstaff that waited on our table was friendly and got us everything we needed. A couple of times, I did overhear some families complaining (loudly) to a manager about the bad service. Poor manager - it looked like this was something he was used to hearing! I think the Pepper Market is a GREAT DEAL if you are on the Disney Dining plan - big portions and great variety. My husband got the steak and it was WONDERFUL!

Panchitos Gift Shop: HUGE gift shop! Best of the resorts, IMO. They also had a great variety of groceries and the milk prices were the same as what we got at Walmart.

Other amenities: We didn't do the spa or workout room - We walked about 7-10 miles a day so we felt we were good in the exercise department. I did use the laundry facilities and they were great.

Would I stay at CSR again?: ABSOLUTELY! We thought we got a STEAL on this "Mod-DELUXE" resort! The grounds are beautiful, it is so quiet, great food court, room-size perfect for our family of 4, did I mention the hot water in the shower is FANTASTIC!?!?! We are so missing Disney that we may go back in January or over Spring break before our next "big" trip in December 09. We want to stay at CSR again! My kids said they want to stay here every time because of the pool!

Okay, the tiny bit of negative but it is really not an exclusively CSR problem:

Transportation (and did I say it is not just a CSR problem?): Okay, so you know when you get that survey from the best company in the world and they make you list just one tiny thing they could do better even though you couldn't possibly think of one little thing? Well, my one little thing I would like to see change is Disney Transportation. Okay, so it's not little - it's BIG! A big problem! It wasn't that bad at CSR except for our first day. So you walk out of your room on Day 1 of vacation, excited to get to the castle, get your ears, get your popcorn - start the vacation you've saved for all year! Well, we get to bus stop 4 on day 1 and waited 45 minutes for a Magic Kingdom bus! We were not happy. I do have to say that after the snafu on Day 1, the most we waited on any given morning or evening for a bus was maybe 10-15 minutes which isn't bad at all. So, overall, the buses at CSR were pretty good.

Warning for those who stay in Cabanas 9A and 9B: It sure is nice to be in these preferred buildings but the wait at Bus stop 1 can be brutal. On the day the MK bus was 45 minutes late at Bus stop 4, we then went to bus stop 1 and there were no less than 75 people waiting at this bus stop. AND of course, they didn't get on our bus that was standing room only. That day it was really bad but every other day, there were tons of people waiting for buses at Bus stop 1. Just something to think about especially during peak season.

Magic Express: Great on the way to CSR, HORRIBLE the way back. After waiting 50 minutes for our bus to the airport, I went to the front desk and they had "Chisy" the CSR porter take us in a private bus to the airport for FREE. CSR manager Anna was great and apologized profusely. Again, like Pepper Market, the problems with ME are not the fault of CSR. Anna told us to please contact Disney transportation to report this problem. We had the same thing happen to us with ME on a trip in '06. After they picked us up at our resort, we were on the bus for 2 HOURS resulting in our plane having to be held for us at the gate. Needless to say, no more ME for us. We will just take a cab.

SORRY THIS IS SO LONG BUT I COULDN'T HELP IT! WE LOVE CSR AND HAD TO SHARE! :goodvibesThanks for sharing!!

[wendyinaustin]

Thanks for posting my review on this thread, Buzz! AND, thank you for your great CSR site. We might have missed this truly wonderful resort if not for your thorough, fair, and super CSR website!

[Buzz2001]

Thanks for posting my review on this thread, Buzz! AND, thank you for your great CSR site. We might have missed this truly wonderful resort if not for your thorough, fair, and super CSR website!Your very welcome! Thanks for the feedback!! :goodvibes

[Buzz2001]

Unfortunately I arrived home yesterday and Michigan is feeling extra cold right now after a week in Orlando. It was awesome meeting you as well JamesLynn. I hope I wasn't too chatty with all that wine in me. I loved Coronado Springs. I stayed in Casitas 1(1272) a junior suite. I loved having two rooms and two bathrooms. The walk was short to El Centro and Bus Stop 2. The walk was a little longer to The Dig Site, but very enjoyable.
My family loved the pool. My son and I competed to see who could go down the slide more times. I still have the sun-kissed shoulders as a reminder.Welcome back!!

[chimo2u]

Hi Guys, so the last long review was wonderful, I always enjoy hearing that people had a great stay and it makes me excited to try this new resort next Sept.... However, that being said, I am getting a little worried about the bus transportation.... We are going to be staying Club level...Cabanna 9b, hopefully and from what I've been reading lately, Bus stop 1 is pretty crowded lately. Is there another bus stop close to the Cabanna section that would be better if we walked to it, and not too far of a walk? I don't mind walking a little to a bus stop if it will gaurantee us a better chance of getting a seat and not overly-crowded bus!! Thanks for the help,
Marie

[wendyinaustin]

Hi Guys, so the last long review was wonderful, I always enjoy hearing that people had a great stay and it makes me excited to try this new resort next Sept.... However, that being said, I am getting a little worried about the bus transportation.... We are going to be staying Club level...Cabanna 9b, hopefully and from what I've been reading lately, Bus stop 1 is pretty crowded lately. Is there another bus stop close to the Cabanna section that would be better if we walked to it, and not too far of a walk? I don't mind walking a little to a bus stop if it will gaurantee us a better chance of getting a seat and not overly-crowded bus!! Thanks for the help,
Marie

If I can remember right, Bus stop 4 would be the closest to Cabana 9B and it's not that close. It would require some extra walking each time. We were next to that bus stop last week and there was never a big crowd at any time of the day. Bus stop 1 was the next stop and there was always a crowd waiting - sometimes a huge crowd. I noticed it was the most crowded from 9am-10am each morning. Maybe if you left earlier or later each day you would miss the crowd? The only bus that seems to be a big problem at CSR is Magic Kingdom. Every other bus we took stopped at BS #1 and we were able to pick up several people. It was rare to stand on the bus but it did happen. We have had the same issue at other resorts so this is not just a CSR problem. Good luck and have a great trip!

[Buzz'sBetterHalf]

If I can remember right, Bus stop 4 would be the closest to Cabana 9B and it's not that close. It would require some extra walking each time. We were next to that bus stop last week and there was never a big crowd at any time of the day. Bus stop 1 was the next stop and there was always a crowd waiting - sometimes a huge crowd. I noticed it was the most crowded from 9am-10am each morning. Maybe if you left earlier or later each day you would miss the crowd? The only bus that seems to be a big problem at CSR is Magic Kingdom. Every other bus we took stopped at BS #1 and we were able to pick up several people. It was rare to stand on the bus but it did happen. We have had the same issue at other resorts so this is not just a CSR problem. Good luck and have a great trip!Bus stop 1 is the closest to 9b but it is sometimes crowded. It depends on the size of the conventions going on at the resort. If there is a large convention, then the bus stops are usually empty. If you vacation during a small convention, it's more likely to be crowded at the bus stops.

[Buzz2001]

I just got back and stayed at Coronado Springs.

I never stayed in a moderate. I am only used to the basic value resorts and I was surprised at the difference between the value and moderate resorts. Moderates are very peaceful and more laid back.

Coronado Springs is my new favorite and it's going to be hard for anything to top that - very good experience there.Welcome back!!

[DisneyBride'03]

So I checked Buzz's List of conventions....looks like some Plastic people, (lol) will be there during our time, at least 3 different conventions from the time we arrive and depart...I am hoping this affects our stay in a positive way:) less folks on the bus and at the pool:)

What do you all think??

[Buzz2001]

So I checked Buzz's List of conventions....looks like some Plastic people, (lol) will be there during our time, at least 3 different conventions from the time we arrive and depart...I am hoping this affects our stay in a positive way:) less folks on the bus and at the pool:)

What do you all think??The more the merrier. The more convention folks, the less people on the buses and at the pools. They will be in meetings all day.

[DisneyBride'03]

These conventions actually have to do with recylcing plastics...thinking enviroment friendly folks:) lol

[Singinglizzie]

Hi everyone, I know this isn't a picture of CSR, but I finally added a photo to my tag-line, my dogToby Juan! Also, check out my new ticker! :banana:

[KatMark]

Hi everyone, I know this isn't a picture of CSR, but I finally added a photo to my tag-line, my dogToby Juan! Also, check out my new ticker! :banana:

What a cutie pie!!!! And love the new ticker! :cool1:

[DisneyBride'03]

Great! I just commented on the other thread about Toby Juan!
Nice ticker!

[Buzz2001]

Pic of the new queen beds.
http://i38.tinypic.com/sgh91t.jpg

The only space lost is under the bed because the new beds sit on a solid base that doesn't allow anything to go underneath.

[Minnie&Nana]

The new queens look great! Also means new bedding so that's a nice addition as well. ::yes::

Thanks for the photo!

[Buzz2001]

http://***************************/article/555861/coronado_springs_resort_in_orlando.html

[tinknme]

http://***************************/article/555861/coronado_springs_resort_in_orlando.html

Great article, I will be there in 31 days :yay:

[blanq]

I have just spent quite a bit of time reviewing this thread and Buzz's site (excellent, Buzz!!) and I have decided to take the plunge and stay at CSR for our upcoming January vacation. We have always stayed at deluxe or DVC properties, so the experience of a moderate will be new to us. The deciding factor for me was the new queen beds. I love my DH dearly, but after 24 years of marriage, I need my sleeping space! Really, when you compare the amenities of CSR to the other deluxes, they seem awfully close to me. I am really excited to give CSR a try!

[Buzz2001]

I have just spent quite a bit of time reviewing this thread and Buzz's site (excellent, Buzz!!) and I have decided to take the plunge and stay at CSR for our upcoming January vacation. We have always stayed at deluxe or DVC properties, so the experience of a moderate will be new to us. The deciding factor for me was the new queen beds. I love my DH dearly, but after 24 years of marriage, I need my sleeping space! Really, when you compare the amenities of CSR to the other deluxes, they seem awfully close to me. I am really excited to give CSR a try!You made a great choice!! Have a great trip!!

[KatMark]

I have just spent quite a bit of time reviewing this thread and Buzz's site (excellent, Buzz!!) and I have decided to take the plunge and stay at CSR for our upcoming January vacation. We have always stayed at deluxe or DVC properties, so the experience of a moderate will be new to us. The deciding factor for me was the new queen beds. I love my DH dearly, but after 24 years of marriage, I need my sleeping space! Really, when you compare the amenities of CSR to the other deluxes, they seem awfully close to me. I am really excited to give CSR a try!

Congratulations. Be sure to let us know what you think when you get back.

[wendyinaustin]

I have just spent quite a bit of time reviewing this thread and Buzz's site (excellent, Buzz!!) and I have decided to take the plunge and stay at CSR for our upcoming January vacation. We have always stayed at deluxe or DVC properties, so the experience of a moderate will be new to us. The deciding factor for me was the new queen beds. I love my DH dearly, but after 24 years of marriage, I need my sleeping space! Really, when you compare the amenities of CSR to the other deluxes, they seem awfully close to me. I am really excited to give CSR a try!

We just got back from our first visit and we just loved CSR! In fact, we missed it so much that we just booked another stay for Dec 21-26th! I hope you love it as much as we do! Have a great vacation!

[Buzz2001]

Congrats, Jamey! We just returned from CSR but missed meeting you. We checked in with Mike (I think) after midnight on the 28th. I probably should have asked where you were :goodvibes

We had a very relaxing trip thanks to all the info here. The best tip I'd say we had from this thread was about bus stop 2 being the first to pick up and drop off. That was really nice! This was our first time using Disney transportation instead of a car, and it worked out very well.

We were in Casitas 2 and loved the queen beds - very comfortable. And the grounds were beautiful.

All we were missing on the trip was some warmer weather! Only packing shorts and arriving on a night of record October cold wasn't the brightest idea. I apparently missed the forecast.

All in all, I'd say we have a new favorite in CSR!

:thanks: :mickeyjum :donald: :tigger: :dumbo: :banana: :tink::smickey:Welcome back!!

[Buzz2001]

I just posted some more CSR pics on my TR.

These are from the quiet pool in the Casita section. It's funny that I never knew this existed on our last trip because we never looked around.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g122/sherreis/WDW%202008/20081016013-1.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g122/sherreis/WDW%202008/20081016016.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g122/sherreis/WDW%202008/20081016017.jpgNice pics!!

[DisneyBaby2004]

Thanks for the pics.

[bayoumama2]

Doing a :dancer: today. Picked up our travel documents today. 15 days til we leave and I'm so excited. I don't know what I'm more excited about, seeing Mickey or staying at CSR. Just had to share my excitement with ya'll. I promise I'll come back with plenty of photos to share.

[Buzz2001]

Doing a :dancer: today. Picked up our travel documents today. 15 days til we leave and I'm so excited. I don't know what I'm more excited about, seeing Mickey or staying at CSR. Just had to share my excitement with ya'll. I promise I'll come back with plenty of photos to share.Have a great trip!

[tlrotzoll]

Doing a :dancer: today. Picked up our travel documents today. 15 days til we leave and I'm so excited. I don't know what I'm more excited about, seeing Mickey or staying at CSR. Just had to share my excitement with ya'll. I promise I'll come back with plenty of photos to share.

:woohoo: :woohoo: I am excited for you! Have a great trip!

We leave tonight!!! I can't believe it is finally here. We go directly to US/IOA tonight & then over to CSR on Monday for a week. Thanks for all the pics & info to keep me going over the months. I will definately post some pics & info when I get back! Pray for sunny skies & a healthy family while we are there!

Thanks everyone!:disrocks:

[bayoumama2]

Thanks Buzz2001 and congrats on you Feb trip. tlrotzoll thanks also and have a wonderful trip.

[Buzz2001]

Thanks Buzz2001 and congrats on you Feb trip.Thanks!! Can't wait to get there and see all the changes and meet Jamey!

[Lilolvr]

Thanks!! Can't wait to get there and see all the changes and meet Jamey!I can't wait to see the new pics!!

[bianey11]

After reading this thread, my mom, sister and I decided to book our first trip to WDW. We will be staying at CSR feb 8-15. We are so excited!!!!

[KatMark]

After reading this thread, my mom, sister and I decided to book our first trip to WDW. We will be staying at CSR feb 8-15. We are so excited!!!!

Congratulations!!! Hope you like it half as much as we do (and we LOVE IT)!

[AnnMarie3]

We can't wait to stay at CSR again. We will be there Feb. 7-15 for dd's b-day. We have been twice before, splitting our stay at AKL. This time we will be at CSR for our entire trip.
We have been in Cabanas 9B and Ranchos 7B. Any suggestions on another location? We want to be near the Dig Site and bus stop.

Thanks!

[tofubeast]

We stayed at CSR back in Oct. 2007. (Note: TR in signature with CSR pics etc..) We had such a wonderful time, but I was kind of sad we didn't have enough time to just "chill" and enjoy the resort. I vowed to hubby that next time we would have not need to see the parks commando style and could just chill.

Flash forward to today and the 7 nights for 4 nights deal. Knowing I could cancel if we have to (45 days in advance without a penalty), I decided to book. Going to break the news to hubby tonight. I just wanted to lock in the price before it was gone. I sure hope DH is down. We are also considering a cruise etc (instead of WDW) for our spring vacation, but it all depends on price and the ECONOMY. :scared1: So, at least I have something booked and if I have to cancel, I can. I just hope DH is excited like I am!!

We loved the CSR! Last time we stayed in the Cabanas, and this time I requested Casitas 3. Thought we would try something new.

Ok ...let's see if I will resume joining this thread again like I once did last year. Crossing my fingers! :rolleyes1

[Singinglizzie]

Can't wait until January, so we can personally check out the new business club rooms. Dying here for photos! Come on resort snoops - bring us some pictures!!!

[dr28326]

Can you walk to any of the parks from Coronado or is it bus only? TA told me you could walk to AK or Epcot.