Best moderate Disney hotel?

[Gehrig1B]

If you don't mind leaving your resort for food options. If you do, then that reaffirms my choice of the Swan

You do realize Riviera’s restaurants are closer to most CBR rooms than Sebastian’s…

 

[Ronaldo17]

POFQ is our favourite, nice and compact, great pool area and kids splash zone, boats to DS and easy walk to PO Riverside for a second option.

 

[maxiesmom]

You do realize Riviera’s restaurants are closer to most CBR rooms than Sebastian’s…

But you are still leaving the resort. At the Swan you have multiple restaurants a very short walk away.

 

[Devil13]

Another vote for Tower at Coronado Springs. The best “value” of all hotels on property.

 

[kylenne]

I've only stayed at 2 moderates, POFQ and CSR (in the tower), but CSR wins hands down and I actually prefer Gran Destino to some of the deluxes I've stayed at (BC & YC). The tower rooms are lovely and CSR's sprawling nature is negated when you stay there because everything is centralized to the tower, the main pool is like a 5 minute walk, Three Bridges, etc. It really felt like a deluxe at a mod price with the amenities. The internal bus isn't an issue. I stayed over July 4th weekend last year and never had an issue getting on the bus, the tower is the last stop on the way to the parks. After MK fireworks it was a mess but that could happen at any resort tbh. Literally the only thing POFQ has going for it is the boat to Disney Springs imo. The small footprint is meaningless because they share buses with POR a lot of the time. I found the food court mediocre at best (though to be fair I am not a food court person), and there's no TS on site. And if you keep late hours at the parks you're pretty much hosed if you want a late bite to eat unless you go to Disney Springs.

Unpopular opinion time: I would never stay at a Skyliner resort because one too many times, I've seen the chaos that happens when it goes down. It's not like staying at the monorail resorts, where if there's an issue you have multiple alternatives like walking or taking a resort launch. If the Skyliner goes down (and it does, frequently, for weather) you get directed to buses, and given the sheer number of rooms the Skyliner services you are jockeying with a ton of other guests. I'll never forget staying at BC for a Food & Wine weekend trip, the Skyliner was down all night and was still down after Epcot Forever was over. The sea of cranky, confused humanity being herded to BWI for buses made me very thankful I had a 5 minute walk back to my room. It's a fun novelty for park hopping between EP and HS to me but I would never rely on it as a primary mode of transport. Buses may not be glamorous but they are generally reliable and CSR is much more centrally located on property than it appears at first glance. Door to door it took about 10 minutes to get to MK.

 

[RoseGold]

Swoplhin swing wildly in price. I can't think of any other hotels that swing as much. You might try pricing out Dolphin again. You might be surprised.

 

[Betsyp]

I’m staying at CSR tower in a couple of weeks - this thread has me even more excited !

 

[HopperFan]

Stayed at the all, some many times.

#1 Coronado Springs, it is the deluxe of moderates by far. Hands down. And that was before the tower, now it is way up there.

#2 and #3 are interchangeable depending on what you are looking at CBR and POR.

#4 POFQ is the value of moderates without a full array of amenities, it's overpriced.

I do not consider the cabins a moderate, they are in a very large campground.

 

[DISness Casual]

The truth is that there is no BEST moderate resort. Its all speculative. Ask 10 people which is the best and the reason why and you will end of with 10 different answers.

With that said, I have enjoyed various stays at POR. It has very beautiful grounds to take a stroll through when taking a break from the parks and very convenient boats to Disney Springs.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

Hi everyone,

After recently coming back from a Disney trip I have unfortunately caught the Disney bug and currently looking at my next trip, I’m hoping I’m not alone on this.. Anyway I am looking to go around November time next year or the year after. I stayed at the dolphin hotel which was pretty disappointing to me for the price I paid ( will try not to rant) but the location and transportation options were perfect. I was wondering If there were any options near the broadwalk that have good transport like the dolphin and around the same price for two weeks? As that’s really my main concern as well as having good pool too!

TIA

I like Swan and Dolphin but of the two, Swan is our favorite. Dolphin is a much larger resort and the smaller beds are a negative for us. We also had a few issues with Dolphin when we last stayed in April, nothing horrible but I do prefer Swan. No other walking hotels besides the disney resorts in that area or Swan Reserve, which are all going to be priced higher than swan/dolphin. As another location option, you can look at renting points for BWV, but that comes with a whole other set of not issues per se, but parameters that make your stay a little more complex. You will have a third party company (rental agency), in the middle of your reservation so you're not dealing with Disney directly and cancellation/change policies will vary greatly amongst agencies so be sure you are aware of that if you go that route. You can save some money renting points but there are not that many good deals out there unless you can travel last minute so you can gobble up someone's unused points and they discount them dramatically. We've tried to go this route a number of times and it's hard given we don't plan trips very far out and we don't want such strict change/cancellation policies. It's just not a good fit for us.

There are no moderates that are within walking distance to any parks. If you want an amenitized moderate that has something other than just bus transport, look at Caribbean Beach and values- Pop/Art of Animation. These have Skyliner access to DHS/Epcot which is a transport advantage that the other mods/values don't have. If you're ok with a bus, we like Port Orleans Riverside a lot. When we do stay here, we will throw in some uber trips or minnie van splurges to avoid always taking the bus. The multiple bus stops do get old after a while and some times, POR shares a bus with PO French Quarter so that can add one more stop.

As far as a good pool, Beach Club/Yacht Club has a great pool area and probably one of the best pools for kids on property. All the other pools for the moderates/values are pretty similar.

I will say, more times than not over the last several years, we end up at Swan/Dolphin just out of sheer location advantage and value. I can't justify paying the same amount to stay at a moderate disney resort and sit on a bus more than I would want to. I love the disney resorts but I also love paying less to get a lot more.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

No moderate will come close to having the great location of the Dolphin. Maybe try the Swan next time? What didn't you like about the Dolphin? The Swan has larger beds, and larger bathrooms. And is a much smaller, easier to get around resort.

I love Coronado Springs but you have to bus to all 4 parks. CBR has the skyliner, but is my least favorite of the 10 Disney resorts (not counting the Swan and Dolphin) I have stayed at. CBR is huge, and the food offerings are meh.

I 100% agree with you, there's not a single moderate that comes close to what swan/dolphin/swan reserve offer in terms of amenities, location and value. It's a deluxe at a moderate disney price with walkability/boat access to two parks. CBR is our least favorite too. The size, the buses, the accommodations and food are all are least favorite too. We liked walking or taking the skyliner over to Riviera to eat/walk around/browse, but it's not enough of a selling point to make me stay at CBR again.

 

[Hitchhiking Ghost]

Gran Destino Tower at Coronade Springs is a moderate. Lovely!

We used to book moderates until we worked up the courage to rent DVC, and haven’t looked back. Moderates are $300/night now and we’re renting DVC for $200-$300/night. We would’ve never paid the high cash rates for monorail and Epcot resorts but now that’s all we stay at.

If it wasn’t for the decent value we get out of DVC we would’ve dropped our WDW habit for all the other price increases. But deluxe makes trips alot more manageable and alot more fun.

I was hoping to do this for an upcoming trip, through one of the rental stores. One, there was no general availability for our time frame, second there were no confirmed reservations that we could take over that would work and three, seemed like the price per point didn't make it cheaper than a mod. If there is no availability, not sure that even going to an individual vs one of the rental stores would make a difference.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

I was hoping to do this for an upcoming trip, through one of the rental stores. One, there was no general availability for our time frame, second there were no confirmed reservations that we could take over that would work and three, seemed like the price per point didn't make it cheaper than a mod. If there is no availability, not sure that even going to an individual vs one of the rental stores would make a difference.

We've tried for years and renting points has never worked for us either. All of the above, prices are never that deep of a discount, even compared to reduced/special offer deluxe rooms I can book direct through disney or at Swan/Dolphin and dates don't line up with what we need. We've looked at agencies and points individuals have posted, nothing's ever come together so I've chalked it up to it's not worth it for us if I have to conduct a special ops investigation to make it happen for our vacations.