My husband and I just returned from our 1st Disney World trip together (my first visit ever and his first in 15 years) staying at CSR for 7 nights. I enjoyed almost everything about it, so I will first list what I didn't enjoy.
Just for comparison sake, we booked a standard room (2 queens, standard view, no special requests).
The biggest issue I had with the resort was the staff. We did come across a couple of very friendly employees but they were few and far between. When we checked in, they were fairly friendly but did not seem to want to help you understand the process of checking in/the dining plan/etc, and we could hardly understand what the employee was saying because her accent was so thick. 95% of the other employees there are not friendly at all and you we felt like we were inconveniencing them for just being there. Not once did we ask for anything and we still felt like a burden. The worst was when we ate dinner at Pepper Market, but we did have a wonderful server at the breakfast buffet and her tip reflected that. The employees clearly do not enjoy their jobs at CSR so if you are expecting "Disney service", you probably want to stay elsewhere. They will not go out of their way to help you. I knew that in advance from reading reviews, but I chose to book there anyway.
The only other real cons I can think of are that the resort IS quite large and it is not very Disney-themed like some of the other resorts. I didn't want tacky printed bedspreads, etc so this was actually a bonus for me but I know it might bother some people. The resort itself is very relaxing and as long as you don't mind a 5-10 minute walk from your room to the main building (El Centro), you will probably appreciate the size of it and the toned-down decor after spending so much time in the parks. We were in Casitas 5 and walked 2-3 times per day to refill our mugs at Cafe Rix in El Centro, which was about a 5 minute walk each way. Several times we strolled around the entire lake just to look around, which is probably about a mile all the way around if I were to guess. Oh, the other con was the bathroom-- they really need new tile in the bathrooms, and they are tiny. The sink area is awesome but the bathroom itself feels like a cheap motel and kind of brought my mood down.
Now, on to the wonderful things! We had awesome Mousekeeping during our stay. Upon our arrival (our room was even ready at 8am which we were not expecting!) we had an elephant towel animal in our room. My husband loved it, LOL! We had Mousekeeping come every other day and I did tip $2 each time. I left a note asking for more tissues because the box was almost empty and also asked for more shampoo & conditioner on the 2nd day of our stay. We got what we requested and even extra lotion & soaps. They had left a whole bag of the toiletries which was waaaay too much, but nice so we didn't have to request more. On Valentine's Day, we had them clean our room again and we got a sweet handwritten note from Mousekeeping wishing us a wonderful V-Day (Thank you, Jessica!) and it made us feel special. The only thing Mousekeeping didn't do during our stay was vaccuum our room which would have been nice, but we don't make messes so it wasn't like our room was dirty. We tried to use our bath towels over and over by hanging them, but they kept replacing them anyway even though they weren't on the floor!
We loved the breakfast buffet at Pepper Market. They have real bacon! And, lots of choices...biscuits and gravy, waffles, pancakes, French toast, fruit, cereal, muffins, potatoes, made-to-order omelettes, etc. Just about everything you could possibly want for breakfast. We don't eat big breakfasts but the
DDP was too much food for us so we had the extra credits to burn and took it easy one morning and ate there. I wish we would have eaten there more than once. Dinner, we chose not to do again. The food was okay, not great, and the service ruined it for us. We got the steak burrito and the fish tacos. The tacos were really good but the steak burrito had mostly rice and beans in it and not enough steak. But, I would recommend the breakfast buffet. I also didn't care much for the dinner options.
The resort itself is wonderful and we enjoyed the relaxing feel. The bus system was great most of the time. A couple of days were not so good, but still no longer than a 20 minute wait. AK and HS are the closest, and MK and Epcot are farther but no more than a 15 minute bus ride...it goes by so fast. We were at bus stop 2 which gets picked up 1st so we always had a seat...if you get picked up last, don't expect to get a seat every time. It goes stop 2, 3, 4, 1 in that order. You get dropped off in the same order. Stop 1 is El Centro.
All in all, if the staff were more friendly, I would stay there again. If we ever did DW again (which we won't), I would maybe spring for a Deluxe resort just to have friendlier staff...but, it is over $1,000 more over the course of a week to do deluxe during our dates...so, I don't really know. The staff and the PM dinner were the only negatives that would keep me from staying there again. I actually loved seeing the conventioneers because it meant the buses wouldn't be as crowded. They did hang around Laguna Bar at night, though, making it hard for my husband to grab a quick drink to take back to the room. He made up for that at Epcot, though! LOL!
I was a little disappointed in the beds at CSR as I had read about how comfortable they were and I didn't feel that way at all; they felt cheap like most middle-grade hotel beds where you could feel the coils as you turned, and they made noise if you moved. Our room did not have an iHome alarm clock as pictured in the CSR thread either. The fridge was awesome to have to keep things cold and my sister surprised us with an edible arrangement so I was thankful to have the fridge! The room is really dark until the lights are on for 10 minutes or so because they are fluorescent but once on, there was more than adequate lighting in the room. Overall, we had a wonderful stay!
PS: the Coconut Gelato is AMAZING at Cafe Rix! $3 for a small, and it was HUGE and rich! Yummy!
She told me she was required to check to make sure everything was OK, when the room hadn't been accessed in several days. I told her I was fine, just had been ill, so hadn't left the room. She apologized, asked if there was anything she could get me, dropped off a bag of toiletries and towels, and left. Later that evening, I got a call from the head of housekeeping, saying she'd heard I wasn't ill, asking if I was feeling any better, and if would I be in the room for awhile as she had something she wanted to bring me. A few minutes later two housekeepers arrived with a really, really ornate clown towel animal and also a large WDW tote bag full of fresh fruit, candy, a cake in a tin, several bags of cookies, a tin of shortbread cookies, a couple of tins of cheese and crackers, and several bags of chips. No way could I have eaten all that stuff in a week, but the two housekeepers said they wanted to make sure I had something in case I didn't feel like going out. One of them also insisted on taking my ice bucket and filling it, telling me I had to stay hydrated. She just wouldn't take no for an answer.lol I usually don't bring towel animals home, but did bring that clown home to remind me of the really nice CSR CMs I met that trip. He still sits on a chest in my computer room.
). We like the layout of the rooms and think the beds are very comfortable. Like Aubriee, our worst beds at WDW were at AKL (although I still love the resort) and Beach Club. We always sleep very well at CSR.
