Never did my review for the POLY, with all the craziness of school beginning, back to work...
We went to POR for 11 nights with
Free dining, then the POLY for 5 nights 40% off code, Aug. 15th-31st, this was a very long stay for us, next time it will just be our usual 14 nights.
At the POLY we had 2 full days to just enjoy all the POLY resort had to offer, plus our departure day was spent by the pool and every day we went to a park we had a long break in the middle of the day.
My 5th trip to DW and 3rd family trip with family, will only stay on property and have stayed at BC once for a split stay and POR 3 times.
So I will take the time to give a review now because others reviews were so helpful with my obsessive condition around this subject
This is just a review for the POLY:
Check in and out was easy and all staff at all times were friendly. We got our request Samoa 3rd floor added pixie dust was the Volcano side. The man who checked us in laughed when he heard me squeal with delight that we got our request, this was the first time it happened for us that our request was met and honestly this was the only resort that it mattered to me that we got our request.
Here are the things we loved:
Basically everything on the outside!
Loved the volcano pool-was never too crowded for us and we loved it so much never made it to the quiet pool. We did not have an issue getting chairs but it they were snatched up immediately. My DD's loved the pool games.
Loved the slide!
Loved the beach!
Loved watching the electrical parade/wishes how enjoyable it was due to the ease of no fighting crowds and just walking up to your room afterwards. Plus we would all share a lovely dole whip snack while we waited.
Liked taking the boat from MK back to the resort
Looooooooooooooved the hammocks!
This may be silly but we loved the tropical oil painting in the room with the hidden Mickey’s.
Loved seeing the castle change colors on walks on the beach or waiting for wishes or seeing the castle in the day by the pool.
Loved the beautiful the grounds, gorgeous! and the tiki torches
Loved the animals, ducks , bunnies, but at the same time the ducks sometimes grossed me out when they were by cooks and there were about 20 of them in the pool. Yeck, but my kids liked them and who does not love a cute bunny? Did get attacked, by a few big bugs, and a few biting bugs on the beach.
Loved the size of the room, storage space for our clothing...was wonderful.
Loooooooooooved the balcony, probably one of my favorite things about my stay here.
Loved the dole whips
Loved Kona, Ohanas and yes, we even enjoyed the Luau (maybe not the food so much, but it was an overall good experience) We will not do the Luau again, once was enough for 2 dining credits. If I was paying out of pocket I would have not been happy.
Ohanas love it, but this is my 3rd time eating here and I always feel like they pile the food on too fast in an effort to turn the table. I always feel rushed, however, this time I did not allow that to happen and told the server as much when I felt this was happening yet again. Our favorite was Kona this trip, the desserts are divine.
Things we did not love:
Captain Cooks, very annoying the whole cumbersome process. Staff was always polite and pleasant. Captain Cooks does not seem to be the right size for the resort and food choice was lacking at best IMHO. I was prepared for this because of all that I had read.
Cook's Seemed to be always out of some breakfast item that my DD’s wanted, like plain bagels or chocolate chip muffins…the cinnamon rolls here had a lot to be desired, IMHO. The cinnamon rolls at POR are to die for and give the main street bakery a run for their money.
I know deluxe resorts tend to have low quality CS areas, because they would rather you dine, but Cooks was worse than poorly planned convenient store. The whole process felt very cheesy. On a positive note my DD’s loved the noodles and that was a good thing since they did not have adult chick nuggets here. We will not eat the children chicken nuggets in DW because they are such a poor quality. I thought the noodle dish was o.k., if I wanted Asian noodles I would eat at the wonderful Yak n’ Yeti, YUM! But, I digress…
The room was clean and not perfect, but that was O.K. with us, we do not expect it to be perfect. However, there was a big nasty shiny spill of something on the carpet that had hardened that grossed me out when I walked on it by accident in my bare feet. We did not ever have a problem with the fridge and DH who it 6'4 never complained about the shower height (surprisingly) because it was perfect for me 5'1
Our mouse keeper hung our leis on the lights and that is when we took them of clumps of dust rained down, not just a little dust, but very dusty.
Mousekeeping was o.k., never replenished my coffee
Now, this fact did bother me!
Not crazy about the bathroom set up, like BC and POR set up better. Sometimes this was a pain to get around when you are trying to get a family of 5 to rope drop.
Our safe was broke when we first tried to use it and this was very concerning to my DH. It involved calls, and waiting for it to be fixed and we HAD to be present for them to do this, which was annoying when you have 3 kids dyeing to go to the pool.
Tried the Tonga toast, not my cup of tea, loved the sausage. I love sweets, and do not shy away from sugary stuff but just did not feel like the combo of flavors in the Tonga toast were that good. The bananas were a bit sour, that may have been the reason, not sure if this is always the case.
Looked for the movie at night could not seem to find the location, but that was o.k. with us.
Did not see pool hoppers, but did share the beach with people who were not staying at the POLY not a plus, for this resort. Nor, will I go to this resort to see the fireworks when not staying there.
One last thing if there had been a renovation on the volcano pool, I would have hated our stay here and that is a fact for our family, not a dramatization of how we feel.
I am glad I had no pool hopper encounter, I would have been very peeved. Thanks to all who helped dispel the false rumors of the pool renovation. For us it was all about the pool, and the beach.
Now to tie this up in a bow....I feel like I wrote about a lot of negatives, but felt I needed to give a true account of my experience here, because others honest reviews helped me in my planning. All in all the positives outweighed the negatives. We loved the POLY especially my DH, he wants to stay there always, he loved the ease of it all, keep in mind we had a lot of resort time here so that would scue his ease factor perception. However, since I pay for the trip this will not happen any time soon. Why stay here for one night, when I can stay elsewhere for several nights WITH free dining for a family of 5? We will not even talk about the club level prices…if you have the money to burn, I say that is great for you, but we do not and this is our one big deal vacation in our family so cost is a huge factor.
I loved being able to get back to the resort quickly for a break due to the shorter distance to travel. However, I can honestly say that I did not find the transportation to be that much easier than POR. Still had to walk quite a bit(in the rain), and actually I had a shorter walk to the bus at POR and about the same wait time, still have to take a bus to 2 parks, and did not even try DTD due to reports on the DIS. So, the transportation aspect is not a big seller for me on the price tag of the room. I have been reading reports of having a car on property and how quickly you can get back to your resort. I believe this will be what we do next trip and then we can venture off property to a few locations that we have always wanted to go to. For me the beauty of the location is being able to see the castle & wishes.
For me what does sell me on the POLY is the feel of two vacations in one. You get the feel that you in the Caribbean. Not only are you at Disney but you also are on a tropical get away and I am a New Englander so I love feeling as though I am in an exotic tropical vacation. I believe this is the reason why people love this resort so much.
Will we stay here again maybe, if the price was extremely low. I do not believe it is worth the high price tag. We paid about 200 a night and that was still steep IMHO, but it is Disney and it is costly anyways I know, but it is only the outside that I would stay at the POLY. For our family a longer vacation at a moderate suits us more. I am glad I was able to stay at my dream resort finally and have no regrets scrimping and saving an entire year to go on this vacation. However, next trip it well more than likely be the BC/POR split stay.
The rooms at BC feel deluxe to me, unlike the POLY.
I have tried to give a truthful review, but it is just my opinion and I have appreciated others posting their reviews good and bad it really helped with my planning. I did not have rose colored glasses on when we went to the POLY so that helped. So in a nut shell, loved the outside offering of the resort, but would not pay an obnoxious amount to stay here.
I would like to thank everyone for all the helpful information and beautiful pictures on this thread, everyone here has been nice and it was a pleasure to share my planning journey with you, and I know my trip was all the better because of my time obsessing here on this forum. So, I sincere thanks to all and especially Breezy and GuitarRob!
I did take lots of pictures of resort merchandise, I have a new camera with a smaller photo card so I cannot just insert it into my computer. When I get a thingy for my computer to read this card I may e-mail Rob and give him the photos, because posting pictures are beyond me. That will be in the next few weeks, if people want to see them.
My one piece of advice is if you are going to pay the money to stay here, give yourself the gift of a few resort days to just enjoy all the POLY itself has to offer. We saw the tiki lighting ceremony it was great, the water parade was cute, wishes on the beach barefoot in a hammock with your little ones-magical!, the pool, the slide, go for walks on the beach with you spouse, cheer your kids on in a game of dodge ball on the beach, these are the things that make the POLY special in it’s own right.
Mahalo! and thanks again!
) we are going back in Nov. after all. Once we were booked for this year he admitted that he didn't want to go back because the "Poly Plummet" had felt so bad that he didn't want to go through it again. Fortunately he's totally excited for our return trip now.
I could have spent our entire trip at EPCOT last year just eating and drinking my way through the countries. 
We just paid our 11 day Poly vacation in full and early!!!
, DH, DD10 and DS8) were able to add 4 nights at the Poly onto our DVC BCV vacation this November and I can hardly stand the wait! It has always been my dream to stay at the Poly, since as far back as I can remember, but we just have not been able to until this year! We are all so excited! I feel like we are going to get the best of both worlds this trip, with our 4 days at the Poly, focusing on the MK, and then moving to the BCV to focus on Epcot and DHS. Thanks again, I hope to keep posting, I will definitely keep reading! 
