Just back from a 3-night stay at CSR and overall, had a great experience there.
We arrived Friday night just as the Star Wars fireworks were going off, so we stopped in the parking lot to watch for a few minutes, which was a great way to start our short stay. We were traveling with family members, and neither one of us received a text with our room number despite doing the online check-in a couple of weeks in advance. So we went to the online check-in counter and waited a few minutes, and another CM, Evelyn, came over to assist us. We told her our names, that we were traveling together, but that neither one of us had received text messages. She pulled up our reservations in the computer and said that the CM that originally made our reservations did not note that we were together (same guy, we called together and he had told us that he linked them). We weren't in the same building. She picked up the phone and called the room assigner and asked if we could be at least in the same building. After a few minutes, my family was moved from a room in 7A to be in the same building with my sister in 6A. They were on the 1st floor, while we were on the 2nd floor. Not a problem. We thanked Evelyn for her help, and drove around to the building, unloaded and found our rooms. I went up the stairs with my bag and found the room first. When I opened the door, it was not clean. The beds were still unmade, towels laying in the floor, juice bottle on the counter. I turned around and went down to my sister's room and my family stayed there with our stuff while I walked back to El Centro. I looked for Evelyn again, but she must have been in the back, but another lady whose name started with an E, helped me. I explained what had happened and she immediately went to a computer and picked up the phone to call the room assigner again. This time the room assigner gave us a room almost directly behind my sister's, on the first floor of 6A facing the parking lot. I called my husband and had him go open up the room to make sure it was ready for occupancy, which it was. So by the time I walked back to the room, my family had moved our stuff to the new room and were getting settled. I really appreciated both of the CMs in helping to get our travel parties in the same building. Although it took a good half-hour or more to get situated, it all worked out in the end.
The next morning, my older son and I drove around to El Centro to pick up breakfast for the family. I thought Pepper Market opened at 6:30, but it doesn't open until 7:00 so we had about 15 minutes to wait. That was totally my fault. The bonus to being there early was that we were among the first through the gates, food was hot and fresh and ready.
We were very convenient to Bus Stop #3 (Ranchos). We were at the bus stop at 8:00 Saturday morning to go to DHS. We noticed the new screens that show supposed bus times, but we never found them to be accurate. At 8:00, it said the next Studios bus was 8:20.. then 8:21, 8:23, 8:24. One arrived about 8:12. We had already seen 2 buses for MK (which weren't shown on the screen at all), 1 for AK (earlier than listed), 1 for DS (earlier than listed), and 1 for Epcot (not listed). The next morning we took the bus to DS, and had waited about 15 minutes when one arrived, but had to load a wheelchair first. While that was loading, another DS/TL bus pulled up right behind it, so we got on that one. Just the 4 of us, plus one other couple were on it, and we were all going to DS, so the driver took us directly there instead of stopping at TL like the other bus would have. We waited probably 15-20 minutes for the return bus to CSR a few hours later, but it wasn't horrible. The late-night buses from the parks were typical - very full, but I didn't think we had any excessively long waits.
My sister spent quite awhile lounging by the pool on Sunday and enjoyed it. I took my kids to the pool after we came back from DS, and my younger son went down the slide about 30 times. My son and my sister played some bingo (each won a prize), and I played the Disney trivia game (and won). Also swam a bit and went down the slide once.
This was such a short stay and mostly park-focused, so we didn't spend a lot of time hanging out at CSR. Our room was very clean and in good working order. We never heard our neighbors. Thanks to lots of posters on the DIS, I had thought to take an air mattress so our 2 sons didn't have to share a bed, and that worked out great. We moved the ottomans to be in front of the connecting room door and put our suitcase on them, then put the air mattress between the desk and the window and it fit perfectly. We propped it up between the bathroom wall and the bed during the day. On Sunday, we did have maid service later than we'd like. While I was at the pool with the boys, my husband had to take an extra trip around the resort to vacate the room while it was cleaned when he would have liked to be resting. But I know they have to do them all day long, so it was just luck of the draw as to when ours was serviced.
Overall, great stay again at CSR, with pretty good bus service.
