which club level is the best?

[mickeyluv'r]

Originally Posted by loveshak22

Are there any other perks to a CL room other than the free foods and drinks?

Yes. You get a couple of small perks like nightly turn down, and a collection of DVD's you can borrow. You also get a slightly higher level of service. It's hard to put into words exactly what that level of service is. The extra service is variable depending on the personality of the staff and what your needs are. At the most basic, they book ADR's for you if you ask. Perhaps little more. If you have a problem, they may not be able to do anything, or they may simply know who to call (a huge time saver), or they may save the day! It's quite variable, but usually they are helpful.

Once we lost a purse. The CL knew exactly who to call. Getting the purse back quickly saved our day. Who knows what would have happened otherwise. It could have been a disaster.

Typically if you use Magic Express, CL staff will greet you at the bus at most resorts. They escort you to the CL floor for check-in at the CL desk. You don't have to stand in any lines!

At most resorts, the club level area is room key access only. With kids and a big family, that's nice. Sometimes though it's a little akward if strangers on anohte floor are in the same elevator.

I've stayed CL in BC, BWK, AKL, CR (boththe 12 and 14th floors), Poly, GF (sugarloaf) GF has two club levels: the Royal Pacific CLub is in the main building, while sugarloaf, or outer club, is the SF building. CR a has two club levels: the 12th floor Atrium club, but the 14th floor Tower Club is being renovated Jan through summer 2013. The ones I haven't tried are YC, WL, and CSR business CL.

It's hard to rate them. Much depends on personal preference and the staff. Having stayed at one resort several times, even individual staff has good/bad days.

Still another aspect is the building itself. Your room might be a few feet from the desk, or a healthy walk from the lounge. Close to the pool, or far away. Obvioulsy, that's going to impact your experience. The Lounge at Poly has a magnificent view of the caslte, but it is large. The food is above average, but I found the staff to be very impersonal. Part of that is simply the lounge building set up, but maybe it was just luck of the draw.

One of my personal favorites is the Beach Club. The lounge itself doesn't have a great view, but it's intimate (some say, "too small"). The food is quite good, and both stays we had super nice staff.


Hmmm...all are good. They all have pros and cons. GF had great food, but no view, and it's the most pricey. CR has a great view, but the resort theming is dull, medium food. My AKL stay was a while ago, so it's probably not fair to say too much, except the lounge view is fun.

[mickeyluv'r]

Originally Posted by Anonomom

Plus, I loved the coffee machine at CR. Sounds like a small thing, but it was so nice to have good latte every day.

Ah, yes the latte machine!

That's one of my favorite perks of the CL!

All the CL have latte machines. There are two kinds.(maybe more) The kind they have at CR and GF actually tends to break quite frequently. The kind they have at BC, BWK is more reliable and easier to use. One push of a button and you have a latte!

It's so nice being able to get decent coffee so easily! A great way to start any WDW day!

[elaw]

Originally Posted by mickeyluv'r

... GF (sugarloaf) GF has two club levels: the Royal Pacific CLub is in the main building, while sugarloaf, or outer club, is the SF building...

RPC actually stands for Royal Palm Club

There are two levels of concierge at the Grand Floridian. Royal Palm Club is in the main building on floors 3 through 5 above the Grand Lobby and Sugarloaf Concierge is in the Sugarloaf Lodge building, on the 1st floor.

[mickeyluv'r]

Originally Posted by elaw

RPC actually stands for Royal Palm Club

There are two levels of concierge at the Grand Floridian. Royal Palm Club is in the main building on floors 3 through 5 above the Grand Lobby and Sugarloaf Concierge is in the Sugarloaf Lodge building, on the 1st floor.

Thanks for clarifying...I can never remember the wacky names of the club levels.

I'll also go one better...

The Sugarloaf Club rooms are the entire Sugarloaf building, not just the first floor. The lounge and help desk are on the flirst floor, but entire building is club access only.

If you look to book a room on the Disney website, and even when you talk to booking CM's, they use the terms "Outer Building Club Level" and "Main Building Club Level".

The 14th floor of CR is being remodeled right now, but it doesn't show up on the Disney website. Pretty much the only way to see if it's available is to book it over the phone. The Disney website does use the term "Atrium Club Level".

Also, the big very expensive suites don't come up (for booking) on the website either. I'm talking about the big multi-bedroom individually named suites that are often the top floor of the deluxe resorts. (as opposed to the DVC suites) If you are asking which are the very best rooms, those are better then the regualr concierge level rooms. If you want to stay in one of those however, you have to be prepared to shell out over $1000 per night. I think they are all club level though!

[loveshak22]

Originally Posted by mickeyluv'r

Yes. You get a couple of small perks like nightly turn down, and a collection of DVD's you can borrow. You also get a slightly higher level of service. It's hard to put into words exactly what that level of service is. The extra service is variable depending on the personality of the staff and what your needs are. At the most basic, they book ADR's for you if you ask. Perhaps little more. If you have a problem, they may not be able to do anything, or they may simply know who to call (a huge time saver), or they may save the day! It's quite variable, but usually they are helpful.

Once we lost a purse. The CL knew exactly who to call. Getting the purse back quickly saved our day. Who knows what would have happened otherwise. It could have been a disaster.

Typically if you use Magic Express, CL staff will greet you at the bus at most resorts. They escort you to the CL floor for check-in at the CL desk. You don't have to stand in any lines!

At most resorts, the club level area is room key access only. With kids and a big family, that's nice. Sometimes though it's a little akward if strangers on anohte floor are in the same elevator.

I've stayed CL in BC, BWK, AKL, CR (boththe 12 and 14th floors), Poly, GF (sugarloaf) GF has two club levels: the Royal Pacific CLub is in the main building, while sugarloaf, or outer club, is the SF building. CR a has two club levels: the 12th floor Atrium club, but the 14th floor Tower Club is being renovated Jan through summer 2013. The ones I haven't tried are YC, WL, and CSR business CL.

It's hard to rate them. Much depends on personal preference and the staff. Having stayed at one resort several times, even individual staff has good/bad days.

Still another aspect is the building itself. Your room might be a few feet from the desk, or a healthy walk from the lounge. Close to the pool, or far away. Obvioulsy, that's going to impact your experience. The Lounge at Poly has a magnificent view of the caslte, but it is large. The food is above average, but I found the staff to be very impersonal. Part of that is simply the lounge building set up, but maybe it was just luck of the draw.

One of my personal favorites is the Beach Club. The lounge itself doesn't have a great view, but it's intimate (some say, "too small"). The food is quite good, and both stays we had super nice staff.


Hmmm...all are good. They all have pros and cons. GF had great food, but no view, and it's the most pricey. CR has a great view, but the resort theming is dull, medium food. My AKL stay was a while ago, so it's probably not fair to say too much, except the lounge view is fun.

Thanks for all the info! I went ahead and upgraded to the CL room at AKL for our stay at the end of January. We had booked the Arusha view and had a PIN that also applied to the CL rooms. I got advice on here that since I was already paying for Arusha I might as well upgrade since it's only like $30 extra bucks a night at that point. Even though the cost difference wasn't huge I didn't feel like it would be worth it because we also have the dxddp and didn't think we'd need any more food!

However, there are a couple of mornings were we were going to use snack credits for breakfast and now we can stop by the lounge. And we can grab waters for the park. Plus I saw they had alcoholic beverages at night so after dinner we can stop by for a night cap. The extras you mention above will just be the icing on the cake then. Again, thanks

[Disneyfreak616]

My vote is Yacht Club. Club level there was like a dream.

[mickeyluv'r]

Originally Posted by mickeyluv'r

Also, the big very expensive suites don't come up (for booking) on the website either. I'm talking about the big multi-bedroom individually named suites that are often the top floor of the deluxe resorts. (as opposed to the DVC suites) If you are asking which are the very best rooms, those are better then the regualr concierge level rooms. If you want to stay in one of those however, you have to be prepared to shell out over $1000 per night. I think they are all club level though!

I need to correct myself here...the OLD website never listed the big suites. the new Disney website lists some of them. I was very surprised!

Then again, the new website seems to be all about upselling! Good idea to take advantage of the club level now. If they sucessful in upselling it, it will become more popular, less available, and more pricey.

Feel free to vacation as you wish, but feel I should warn you, the club level combined with regular DDP is FAR more food than my family could eat, unless maybe we were going to use a substantial number of the credits for room service.

You mention a PIN code, so maybe you are getting a deal that makes it worthwhile. When I have priced out the reguar DDP for 2013, it doesn't save any money. Plus, it was just WAY too much food for us with club level. I haven't priced out the deluxe plan, but I can't imagine it is a good deal.

The other thing...and again, you may have very different ways of vacationing than I do, but most TS meals easily take 1 1/2 - 2 hours, between the time you arrive and when you leave. (since so often you have to wait for your table). Then you need to add in transportation time. One TS is nice, three means spending six hours a day in restaurants.

The CL at AKL had a beautiful view, and the food there was very good. The CL lounge there also has a bathroom. (Not all of them do) It's especially helpful on arrival and departure days, when you don't always have access to your room. Enjoy your vacation!

[loveshak22]

Originally Posted by mickeyluv'r

I need to correct myself here...the OLD website never listed the big suites. the new Disney website lists some of them. I was very surprised!

Then again, the new website seems to be all about upselling! Good idea to take advantage of the club level now. If they sucessful in upselling it, it will become more popular, less available, and more pricey.

Feel free to vacation as you wish, but feel I should warn you, the club level combined with regular DDP is FAR more food than my family could eat, unless maybe we were going to use a substantial number of the credits for room service.

You mention a PIN code, so maybe you are getting a deal that makes it worthwhile. When I have priced out the reguar DDP for 2013, it doesn't save any money. Plus, it was just WAY too much food for us with club level. I haven't priced out the deluxe plan, but I can't imagine it is a good deal.

The other thing...and again, you may have very different ways of vacationing than I do, but most TS meals easily take 1 1/2 - 2 hours, between the time you arrive and when you leave. (since so often you have to wait for your table). Then you need to add in transportation time. One TS is nice, three means spending six hours a day in restaurants.

The CL at AKL had a beautiful view, and the food there was very good. The CL lounge there also has a bathroom. (Not all of them do) It's especially helpful on arrival and departure days, when you don't always have access to your room. Enjoy your vacation!

Since I upgraded to the CL I have been deciding whether I should cancel the dxddp and just pay OOP. Like you point out, it seems like a lot of food! When I did the math, planning on about what I thought we'd order for meals the dxddp and the OOP costs were about even (we're eating at a signature restaurant every night) so I figured with the dxddp the snack credits were the "freebies" for us. It's not much but it was a little something. Plus on the DV we get 6 months 0% financing plus the 2% Disney Rewards made it more do-able. I didn't think we'd need the 0% financing but then we had some major car repairs so the 0% financing makes paying off the trip a little easier. Even though we could pay it all off now, with the car repairs, it'd make it a little tight without dipping into savings and I try to avoid that at all costs!

The basic plan is to do a quick breakfast at the CL lounge around 8:30 or 9:00 and head out for the day. Then we have a sit down TS lunch around 1:00 and then dinner between 7:30 - 8:30, depending on the day. It's just my DH and me and we're going at the end of January so I think we'll be able to get around the parks pretty quickly. We don't have hoppers and won't be going back and forth to the hotel in the afternoons so I think the timing will be O.K. Then after dinner I hope we get back in time to hit the CL lounge for some adult beverages before bed. And with the CL we'll stock up on bottled water for the park.

That's probably TMI but I figured I'd lay out sort of what we're looking at. I told my husband last night that this is the first time we're doing dxddp and we may never want to do it again because of all the food but we'll see! We're big eaters but even so, it still seems like a ton of food! I'm really hoping the signature restaurants have smaller, but high quality, portions!

In the end I paid $180 extra for 5 nights in a CL room. I'm hoping the few breakfasts, waters, and alcoholic beverages at night make up for that extra cost and then we'll get the other CL experiences to see if it's worth it for us in the future or not.

We get to AKL in 15 days...so excited!!

[mickeyluv'r]

Originally Posted by loveshak22

Since I upgraded to the CL I have been deciding whether I should cancel the dxddp and just pay OOP. Like you point out, it seems like a lot of food! When I did the math, planning on about what I thought we'd order for meals the dxddp and the OOP costs were about even (we're eating at a signature restaurant every night) so I figured with the dxddp the snack credits were the "freebies" for us. It's not much but it was a little something. Plus on the DV we get 6 months 0% financing plus the 2% Disney Rewards made it more do-able. I didn't think we'd need the 0% financing but then we had some major car repairs so the 0% financing makes paying off the trip a little easier. Even though we could pay it all off now, with the car repairs, it'd make it a little tight without dipping into savings and I try to avoid that at all costs!

The basic plan is to do a quick breakfast at the CL lounge around 8:30 or 9:00 and head out for the day. Then we have a sit down TS lunch around 1:00 and then dinner between 7:30 - 8:30, depending on the day. It's just my DH and me and we're going at the end of January so I think we'll be able to get around the parks pretty quickly. We don't have hoppers and won't be going back and forth to the hotel in the afternoons so I think the timing will be O.K. Then after dinner I hope we get back in time to hit the CL lounge for some adult beverages before bed. And with the CL we'll stock up on bottled water for the park.

That's probably TMI but I figured I'd lay out sort of what we're looking at. I told my husband last night that this is the first time we're doing dxddp and we may never want to do it again because of all the food but we'll see! We're big eaters but even so, it still seems like a ton of food! I'm really hoping the signature restaurants have smaller, but high quality, portions!

In the end I paid $180 extra for 5 nights in a CL room. I'm hoping the few breakfasts, waters, and alcoholic beverages at night make up for that extra cost and then we'll get the other CL experiences to see if it's worth it for us in the future or not.

We get to AKL in 15 days...so excited!!

I know for us, by about day four, my family is begging to avoid buffets!

It make s a BIG difference if you are eating Signature meals! Signature is a bit like room service! (in terms of value) It sounds like you know what you are doing, especially in terms of thinking through the value/prices.

I think you will see a difference between the signature places and the regular TS. One of my favorite signatures is Narcoosee's.

Enjoy!