Resort Thread Disney's CARIBBEAN BEACH Resort

[Amberleefuta]

Congrats on the upgrade!!! We love the resort. We are enjoying our stay however we really did not like how many people they crammed on bus back from MK tonight. As a nurse I am always thinking safety and that situation had way too many red flags for my piece of mind. Glad we were the 1st stop.

 

[followyerbliss]

I just got home from our week at The CBR and cried, The worst resort stay ever. We had multiple problems with the room, wasted hours with maintenance, always with their apologies, and settled for a room in disrepair. Keeping a stiff upper lip, thinking "no whining on the yacht". I wish I had just asked for another room but, did not want to be ungrateful, I feel like an idiot. It was exhausting and found it difficult to enjoy any of it. The week started out unseasonably hot, the air conditioner never cooled the room and on the last evening quit entirely. We are all cold natured, freeze everywhere inside even in the florida summer, I live in florida and have a sweater at arms reach all year round. The room was warm, I found myself fussing at innocent children for any slight holding of the door open. We could not get the room to cool down on arrival, called maintenance, they came in took the brown facade off the A/C unit, looked terrible the unit underneath was missing parts of the grates. I was told by the kind maintenance worker it was a problem they were in the process of taking care of, I just accepted it but, it stressed me out the entire stay until it quit working last night and waited for service instead of enjoying our last night of family vacation.
The resort grounds are beautiful, the walk was wonderful. It was a long walk, we were a good distance from the OPR at Barbados 12 but, I love to walk and did it several times in under four minutes.
The buses were terrible, I do not have the energy at this time to elaborate but, the bus service at the CBR are deal breaker for future stays.

 

[oj01]

I just got home from our week at The CBR and cried, The worst resort stay ever. We had multiple problems with the room, wasted hours with maintenance, always with their apologies, and settled for a room in disrepair. Keeping a stiff upper lip, thinking "no whining on the yacht". I wish I had just asked for another room but, did not want to be ungrateful, I feel like an idiot. It was exhausting and found it difficult to enjoy any of it. The week started out unseasonably hot, the air conditioner never cooled the room and on the last evening quit entirely. We are all cold natured, freeze everywhere inside even in the florida summer, I live in florida and have a sweater at arms reach all year round. The room was warm, I found myself fussing at innocent children for any slight holding of the door open. We could not get the room to cool down on arrival, called maintenance, they came in took the brown facade off the A/C unit, looked terrible the unit underneath was missing parts of the grates. I was told by the kind maintenance worker it was a problem they were in the process of taking care of, I just accepted it but, it stressed me out the entire stay until it quit working last night and waited for service instead of enjoying our last night of family vacation.
The resort grounds are beautiful, the walk was wonderful. It was a long walk, we were a good distance from the OPR at Barbados 12 but, I love to walk and did it several times in under four minutes.
The buses were terrible, I do not have the energy at this time to elaborate but, the bus service at the CBR are deal breaker for future stays.

Sorry, to hear you had such a disappointing stay. Obviously, room issues can happen anywhere, but how the issues are dealt with are key.

As for the busses, and this is just to illustrate different points of view, we stayed at CBR 10/25 - 11/1 and thought the bus service was very good. In fact, we were just talking about it last night, saying how the bus service was one of the key factors in the decision to stay onsite again in the future.

 

[SullyWully]

Wanted to see if anyone had a similar situation to what we had checking in today. Received the email saying we may get a text to go straight to our room. Got to the resort around 3:45 today and never got a text. Went to check in and after several minutes of waiting the CM asked if we would accept a complimentary upgrade...to the Grand Floridian! Um, I guess that will work! It threw us for a loop since for 6+ months we had been planning for CBR, but we'll take it. Spent the rest of the evening acquainting ourselves with the resort. Looking forward to a great week!

It happened to me too. I had reserved a water view but upon check in, they advised they did not have any available and asked if I would be willing to go to the Polynesian. My son was freaking out because he wanted to hang at CBR pool and water slide. Haha. Loving the free upgrade and has made my day planning easier since I don't need to wake up as early and can use different modes of transportation. Now the question is can I ever go back to a moderate resort. Then I remember the price of a deluxe and I am sure I will be back to a moderate. Lol.

 

[Kevin355]

Do they have Powerade for the refillables? Can't see it in the pics but they had it at ASMusic back in 2011 and it was our son's drink of choice.

They did in September. Blue I believe.

 

[dreamit]

It happened to me too. I had reserved a water view but upon check in, they advised they did not have any available and asked if I would be willing to go to the Polynesian. My son was freaking out because he wanted to hang at CBR pool and water slide. Haha. Loving the free upgrade and has made my day planning easier since I don't need to wake up as early and can use different modes of transportation. Now the question is can I ever go back to a moderate resort. Then I remember the price of a deluxe and I am sure I will be back to a moderate. Lol.

Congratulations on the upgrade! That, to me, would be the ultimate pixie dust!

 

[Ninja]

On our way to the airport, I peel an orange in the front seat, and my son, in the back seat says, "What smells like Soarin'?" Lol! We are ready for Disney! Check in tomorrow!

Ha love that, I really hope Soarin is reopened for when we go in July

Wanted to see if anyone had a similar situation to what we had checking in today. Received the email saying we may get a text to go straight to our room. Got to the resort around 3:45 today and never got a text. Went to check in and after several minutes of waiting the CM asked if we would accept a complimentary upgrade...to the Grand Floridian! Um, I guess that will work! It threw us for a loop since for 6+ months we had been planning for CBR, but we'll take it. Spent the rest of the evening acquainting ourselves with the resort. Looking forward to a great week!

Oh wow that's a fab upgrade, I love the look of the GF, went for a look round & to see the gingerbread house when we went in 2011 mmm I can almost smell it now

Yes they do. My son had it for breakfast today Fuel haha

They did in September. Blue I believe.

Thanks, didn't want him using all our SC up on the bottles of it

 

[aprilp]

Can anyone confirm that the bridge is indeed open and is going to stay open? Going tomorrow, so I'm curious to know it advance! Thanks!

 

[5kidsmommy]

Just want to thank everyone for all their advice. We got a text once about an hour outside of Orlando that our room was ready and we bypassed check-in. Straight to the room, we got Martinque, second floor, corner room near the parking lot which is what we wanted. It's dead over here and we were able to park right next to the walkway. The resort is gorgeous, the room is huge and very clean. Looking forward to a wonderful trip.

 

[Fairy Lyn]

My family and I are staying at CBR in late February and we've been trying to figure out if it will even be warm enough to swim in the pools during that time of year. Any one know what it will be like then? I've done some research and seen that it can get up to the 70's but I wasn't sure if that was the norm or not.

 

[wdw4rfam]

Just want to thank everyone for all their advice. We got a text once about an hour outside of Orlando that our room was ready and we bypassed check-in. Straight to the room, we got Martinque, second floor, corner room near the parking lot which is what we wanted. It's dead over here and we were able to park right next to the walkway. The resort is gorgeous, the room is huge and very clean. Looking forward to a wonderful trip.

Save us a couple of rooms over there in Martinique on the second floor please. We hope to be joining you over there in a few days.

 

[3Goofy's]

The bridge is absolutely open. I take it every day from Jamaica. We are here now and love our room location, but I will echo the above poster who had problems with their room. We do as well, although nothing significant like AC. I would not have handled that well. We are in a handicapped room with a pull-down bed (not needed) and not loving it. We did not request a accessible room. We have much less storage space and many of our outlets and none of our USB ports work. The bathroom door is not the nice one in a regular room and it doesn't stay shut. The drawers under the pull-down bed do not stay shut. Nothing major and I didn't complain because they are minor and we love the location.
Mousekeeping is fantastic! We were only set up with 2 towels and I asked for 2 additional. She left 6 or more and now I don't have space to store them, lol. Leaves extra toiletries as well.
Worst luck with transportation, but it had nothing to do with CBR and no one's fault really. Just a horrible start to the trip when on the first night, it took 2 hrs to go from our dinner at the Poly to our resort (monorail broke and then everything that could go wrong did). Otherwise, buses are typical in their service. Crowded coming home from parks, but that's Disney.

 

[dis_guy]

I'm home now, after another memorable week at Disney. This will be more a collection of impressions rather than a true trip report.

We stayed at CBR November 8 to November 15, and were in room 1632 in Barbados.

We flew with United connecting in Houston both ways. We had good luck with our flights with only minor delays of a few minutes and one last-minute gate change. Overall United did a really good job with their onboard service this time. People seem happier than the last few time I've flown with them.

I absolutely have to put a plug in for Global Entry. Coming from Canada, it saved us massive amounts of time clearing US Customs and the TSA Pre Check coming back was worth its weight in gold. Our return to Canada with NEXUS was seamless. It's so nice to not have to be in line for so long as we have been in the past.

Weather: For the first few days it was hot, very hot for us northerners. You know it must be bad when native Floridians were complaining about the combination of heat and humidity. Some new high temperature records were set that week, I believe. The rest of the week was gorgeous with even a little chill in the evening by the time we were ready to come home.

The room was ok. Loved the new look. The first few days we had excellent service with everything we touched tended to, and way too much Mickey shampoo and conditioner left each day. "Some people" must take it home with them, or something. Yeah, we do too. After the first days things went down hill, with coffee not being replenished and used glasses just being left where they were. Definitely not as good as it was in the past. This time we stayed at our terminal hotel since we had early departures/late arrivals this trip. The Marriott had easily twice as nice rooms at less than half the price of CBR. I know this is nothing new, just saying.

Buses. We must have a talent, gift, or just amazing luck because we literally never waited even 5 minutes for the park buses we wanted every time we went to the bus stops at CBR. Coming back in the evening was another story all together. As always MK was the worst but those articulated buses sure make a big difference. Disney brought bus after bus to do their best even after late magic hours at 1 AM. Yeah, we're all tired, grouchy, ready for bed but you can't deny they do know how to move out a big crowd to all the resorts. While the bus displays were not running at CBR yet, we did see one working at the Boardwalk. Nice. Really liked it.

Dining. We ate at Shutters twice. Both times the food was excellent, with their steak being a new favourite of mine. We did two signature restaurants this time. Flying Fish and Le Cellier. Flying Fish was easily the much better of the two. To be honest the steak at Shutters was much better than Le Cellier but the one at Flying Fish was head and shoulders above any of the others. Call this my salute to Disney steaks.

Parks. Crowd wise it wasn't too bad at all with many of our favourites having only 20-30 min waits for the times we were in the park. As always, get there early or stay late to beat most crowds. Water rides can be a walk on in the evenings. Toy Story and the Mine Train are the crazy exceptions. Those ones always have long waits, though we did see TSMM at around 60 mins on a few of our days. I was impressed with how much fun the Mine Train is, and smooth running, wow! Love the new Aloha Isle. It takes all the pain out of getting a Dole Whip. Food and Wine at Epcot is what it is. The last weekend was much sillier than earlier on. Now, I'm no tea granny, but there sure were loads of people overdoing the sampling of libations this time. Lots of "Drinking Around the World" t-shirts of all kinds were very evident.

We had step counters this time and easily did nearly 30000 steps most days and around 35000 on a couple of days. That's a lot of walking for anyone but I still saw tons of folks wearing what could only be called poor shoe choices. For the record, my Sketchers Go Walk 2 shoes were amazingly comfortable the whole time and kept my feet ready for the next day! The down side is that the soles are very soft and after a week of heat and hard surfaces, they were pretty badly worn.

Enough for now. If something occurs to me I'll add it on.

 

[ohboyx3]

We are at 44 more days. Paid the balance yesterday, so it actually seems real! I am SO excited. I'm nervous about New Years Eve crowds.... So stressed actually, but I'm going to just try and soak everything in and enjoy it!

 

[dis_guy]

I'm nervous about New Years Eve crowds....

You'll see the biggest crowds of the year over Christmas week. However it can be quite doable. Get and use all the Fastpasses you can. That time of year the parks can be open until 2 AM. Use those late nights to get on popular attractions with less waiting. Or use Early Magic Hours or make rope-drop if you're a morning person. You may be able to ride Splash over and over if you can brave the cooler or even cold temperatures.

You have the right attitude, relax, go with the flow, see and do what you can, and have an unforgettable Disney Christmas.

 

[busymommy2pink]

At magic kingdom. Over an hour for the bus already (not even at park close) and I doubt we will even get on the next one. The bus service will probably be a main reason we never stay here again. Amongst bring food poisoned at OPR, loosing almost two days from it, and bus service, it's turning out to be a less than magical trip. We are actually calling the airline tonight to see if we can get a flight a day or two early. We just really don't love CBR. The honeymoon stage was very short lived unfortunately.

 

[5kidsmommy]

Quick mini report. Still loving it here. This morning we caught the bus (no wait) at 7am and made it to MK for EMH. We came back early to the resort and had a lot of fun. Dinner in OPR was nice, lots of options. The pools are great, especially the hot tub. Mouse keeping is wonderful. The staff is so friendly and helpful. I am truly loving this trip and this resort.

 

[dansdad]

Quick mini report. Still loving it here. This morning we caught the bus (no wait) at 7am and made it to MK for EMH. We came back early to the resort and had a lot of fun. Dinner in OPR was nice, lots of options. The pools are great, especially the hot tub. Mouse keeping is wonderful. The staff is so friendly and helpful. I am truly loving this trip and this resort.

Awesome! Thanks for sharing. Hope your trip continues to be great.

 

[lazer]

Took us an hour to get to CBR from MK, but that's normal for any resort if you leave in the late evening (left at 8:45 and it closes at ten). We've had great luck with busses otherwise and our room in Jamaica is nice and cool, and quiet even though we overlook a pool. Crowds are not terrible, but Food and Wine was OOC over the weekend. Which, I expected, but it was worse than we've ever seen it. There was a boatload of younger really drunk kids on the boat behind us on Three Cabelleros. Standing up, taking selfies the whole time, rocking their boat and screaming profanities. My kids hear that stuff, but my son just keeps talking about "those inappropriate kids on the boats". Interesting to say the least! Overall, still loving CBR. Wish everyone had the same experience (c'est la vie).

 

[3Goofy's]

Quick mini report. Still loving it here. This morning we caught the bus (no wait) at 7am and made it to MK for EMH. We came back early to the resort and had a lot of fun. Dinner in OPR was nice, lots of options. The pools are great, especially the hot tub. Mouse keeping is wonderful. The staff is so friendly and helpful. I am truly loving this trip and this resort.

Lol! I think I was talking with you in the hot tub tonight! I shared my terrible bus story from the Poly!
Glad you are having a wonderful time. I'm a bit on the fence about this trip - not the resort ( I do enjoy the resort), but just Disney in general. I was at conceierge for 30 min while they tried to figure out how to sell me MVMCP tickets and eventually told me they couldn't. What?! Umm, pretty sure you can! Anyway, I did it myself in 5 min on the phone. Lots of small stuff with Disney and the crowds keep surprising me, or getting to me, either one. Still early in the trip, so we will see how it goes.