I've stayed at the BWLBV twice now. I give it a thumb's up, with stipulations. Rough thoughts:
We paid $59 per night once (via DW's government card) and $30 per night via Priceline. Also, our stays were in September and early November. This can greatly change my view on the hotel.
Problems: The pool, which we felt was great, could be small when the hotel is full. I don't think they approached even fifty percent capacity the two times we were there, and we were never at the pool with more than a dozen other people. Put fifty down there and I might change my original opinion that the pool area was great.
Price: for reasons listed below, I find the Mendoza line for the BW at about $70 per night. At $70, I'd take it. From about $70-90, I'd look for a better deal. Above $90, I wouldn't do it.
The hotel is old and worn, but getting a lot of facelift. The "commons" areas, meaning the lobby, restaurants, and bar area, are brand new and very nice. There's a very nice, low-priced hot breakfast buffett (last time we were there, it was five bucks for hotel guests, seven for others). There's both a
Disney Store and a convenience store. The help is adequate, but somewhat young. They tend to get that doe-in-the-headlights look if there are more than five people in line.
The rooms are old and worn, but clean and fairly large in comparision to ASA, which is why we choose the BW over ASA as a budget hotel. We felt clean and safe in the BW. The types of things we noticed, squeeky door, some chipping paint on the balcony, a drawer that didn't open right; we consider these minor difficulties. If I was paying four bills a night at the Poly, I'd scream bloody murder, but nothing there disturbed us at the prices we were paying.
So in short, the minuses didn't bother us when weighed against the pluses, at least not at $70 or under. At $30 per night, we we very happy.
The plusses:
The rooms are fairly large by budget standards.
The views: Get a DTD view, preferably floor 8 or above. The view of DTD and Epcot are spectacular. Two nights when we called an early night, we watched Illuminations from the balcony. Fantastic! If possible, get a corner room. Due to the odd shape of the hotel, the balconies on the corner rooms are about 50% larger than a non-corner room.
The location: We like to spend most of our time in Epcot, MGM, BW, and DTD. For this, you can't beat a DTD location. We're big PI rats. The walk home from PI at 2 AM was safe, and took less than fifteen minutes.
DTD transporation, although we only used it once to see what it was like, was adequate DURING THE OFFSEASON. I've heard complaints about full busses in season. Note that it will take a while to get to your destination. Each bus stops by each hotel, plus MK, EPCOT, MGM, and DTD (I think DTD has an AK bus seperate, but I"m not sure).
All and all, I call it a major winner at $30, a good low-budget alternative up to $70, questionable after that.
HOpe that helps!
Pat
