We stayed at the DoubleTree Guest Suites at Downtown Disney from September 18 - 22. If you don't already, be sure to subscribe to the mousesavers.com newsletter as they sometimes offer great rates. We got a rate of $79 per night and that included breakfast.
The positives:
There are two double beds in the bedroom and a pull out sofa in the living room. We didn't pull the sofa out for sleeping. We loved the room layout as we have a pre-school aged son who still takes naps. We were able to let him sleep in the bedroom with the doors closed while we read or watched TV in the living room. Our room rate included the continental breakfast which we found very good. We're not big bacon and egg eaters, but if we had been we could have "upgraded" our breakfast for $5 each to include the full buffet. Housekeeping was excellent and we had extra towels each day without asking. My son got a kick out of the TV in the bathroom - it is very small and black and white, but it really impressed our 3 1/2 year old. We also liked having a fridge in the room to keep our drinks cold. We did not notice a musty or mildew smell in the room.
We ate dinner one night at Streamers in the hotel. We were the only people in the restaurant! The server was excellent and the food was good - we just had burgers. We had specified medium, and they were more like medium well, but still good and not dry at all. Our son had the chicken kids meal. We ordered a single scoop of ice cream for his dessert and were given a huge bowl of ice cream and not charged for it.
The pool was warm and clean and the hot tub was HOT (that's how I like it!). The air conditioning was very cold! The cookies we got at check in were outstanding. The arcade was small, but it had a child sized air hockey game that we played over and over. The exercise room was clean and fresh smelling and rarely crowded.
The negatives:
There was some hurricane damage to the hotel, mostly cosmetic exterior. This was before Jeanne. The outside playground was unaccesible due to construction (hurricane damage?) and the indoor kids play area was pretty pathetic.
No one was staffing the "kids check in" desk and we were too shy to ask about it, so I'm not sure what went on there.
There were some loose tiles in the bathroom and the two color TV's had volume trouble. The room in the living room sounded like the speaker was blown and the one in the bedroom wouldn't go lower than volume level 19. Only one of the two remote controls worked. The carpet just outside the bathroom was SOAKED when we checked in, but we are not the type of people to complain so we just put down some towels and it was dry the next evening.
Probably the worst thing was being approached by the time share people in the lobby. They left two phone messages and were fairly aggressive when we would come and go from the room. They are located right near the elevator. Three different times I had to tell them "no thank you" and the last time I made sure they remembered who we were so they wouldn't ask us to join them for a VIP breakfast again. You do get $100 Disney dollars and breakfast if you take the time share tour, but it will cost you 90 minutes of your time.
Other notes:
We had a rental car and drove to the parks, so I can't comment on the bus service, but the location was great. We went to SeaWorld one day and it was a 10 minute drive. We did have to pay to park at the Disney parks.
My husband had to return to work on the 22nd, so my son and I moved to Pop Century for the rest of our stay. If we travel with my husband again, we would probably stay at the DoubleTree if offered the same rate, but we would be more picky about the room condition. If it was just me and my son I'd prefer to stay at a value resort on property to use the Disney transportation.
If you haven't already, check out the
AllEarsNet DoubleTree Guest Suites Page for more information.
I will be posting a full trip report soon! Hope this helps! I'll be happy to answer any other questions.
~Heather
we stayed at the Wilderness Lodge Resort on our first two trips..once at Christmas-once around Labor Day...awesome place anytime-but a SIGHT to see at Christmas!!!
