Just got back yesterday from our week long stay at CSR. We'd never stayed there before and wanted to try it since it had queen sized beds. I booked a "preferred" room and when we checked in at 10:30am (I had told them when we'd be there) our room was ready (Casitas section - 1st floor). Well, we get to the room which faced the courtyard and there were SIX manlifts in the courtyard doing some type of construction (one right outside the door). Needless to say that I was not pleased. One of the CMs had also left their coat in the room laying on the bed. I called the "front desk" (I know it goes to CRO and not the hotel front desk) and asked about getting a different room. My wife wasn't feeling good and I didn't want to her have to listen to all the noise if she wanted to lay down.
The person on the phone offered me another room in the Casitas section! I told her that I wanted to be AWAY from the construction and she said she would check with maintenance to find out and call me back. Well, I waited and waited and waited but she never called back. So we grab all our stuff and head back to registration and I get the same person who checked me in. I told them I didn't care about "preferred" rooms because that was where the construction was going on. I asked about a room in the Cabanas section but was told, "Those are never available." I tell them that I want a new room and they eventually get me one in the Rancho's section. The manager said the room was ready but the CM said it wasn't showing ready by housekeeping. I said no problem because we were heading to DTD for lunch. They said it should be ready shortly and they would text me. This was about 11:30am or so.
Well, 3:00pm comes and goes and still no text so we head back to the resort to see what's up. This time they tell me that it's not ready and probably won't be ready for another couple hours. At this point my wife (I call her my bulldog) has had enough and so she goes back in and comes back out with a room in...WAIT FOR IT....the Cabanas (section 8B). Which is where I wanted to be in the first place!
My wife came away with the impression that they had mistakenly given our Ranchos room to someone else. I wasn't standing there for that conversation so I can't say for sure. In any case, the whole situation was much more frustrating than it should have ever been. They did credit us the additional charges for the "preferred" room. The 8B location was very close to the main pool.
Overall, the room was fine - nothing special other than having queen beds. We only ate breakfast at the Pepper Market and it was extremely average. The french toast seemed like it had been heat lamped to within an inch of it's life! The cooked to order eggs were good, my daughter really liked her waffle (made fresh) and my son liked his breakfast burrito (also made fresh).
Would I stay here again? Probably not unless I REALLY, REALLY wanted the queen beds. Otherwise, I'd choose CBR hands down. Housekeeping was OK, nothing special. We had to ask for additional towels and wash cloths because they only had two of each in the room (makes no sense) and those were delivered within about 20 minutes. The one comforter had lipstick on it and we asked to have it changed (and we tipped every day) but it took several days before they changed it. No towel animals or anything like that either. Our room was always made up when we got back from the parks. I can't comment on the bus situation because we rented a car (I hate using the buses).
The pool was nice and the kids enjoyed the slide. The wife and I each had one drink at the pool bar and the tab was $18.00 with tip. The kids wanted to check out the arcade so we headed over there with our arcade coupon that came in our WDW package. The 100 arcade points were good for TWO games (each cost 50 points) so that was kind of a joke. We'd never bothered with the arcade before so maybe this is normal.
Overall, I'd rate CSR as slightly above average. Your mileage may very.
Oh, how is CSR in Dec? We are leaning on going then 
