Gaylord Hotel

[carj]

We can get an amazing deal at the Gaylord hotel through an employee rate. It will be half of what it would cost to stay at the All Star on Disney property. I know that the room will be lovely but honestly, I don't care too much about that.

I am wondering if it will be convenient. According to the website, it is 1.5 miles from Disney. I will not have the car most days because my husband will be using it to travel to a conference. Can I depend on the Gaylord shuttle to get me and 2 children back to the hotel in a timely manner.

We have only been to Disney once as adults, the kids have never been. I am not sure that I want to try to navigate through an additional transportation system.

Any thoughts?

 

[JudyS]

I don't know the answer to your question, but if it were just me & DH on the trip, I would probably either rent another car, or takes cabs back-and-forth. The Gaylord is some hotel! (And, I'm saying that as a DVC owner.)

With kids, it is harder to say. Will your kids want to nap in the afternoon? Will you want to use the extra magic hours?

 

[EllieMaie]

We loved the hotel but after 2 days gave up on the hotel shuttle and just drove ourselves. Getting to the park was not a problem, but getting back there were times we had to wait 45 minutes for the next shuttle to come.

 

[global_mom]

I would stay on site and not at the Gaylord. The effort to get back in forth will not be worth the headache plus you will have your children and they can get tired, cranky, hungry etc. Just MHO.

We have stayed at the Gaylord 2x and will not do it again. First stay was very good. 2nd stay was not good . The service however, was very good during both stays. I work in the travel industry and thus our rate was a good deal so we spent one night there before going on a DCL cruise.

We have taken the children to WDW 14 times in the past few years and we will not even considering staying off site. We like a completely immersive experience so off-site is not for us.

If you do Gaylord you will most likely want to eat away from the hotel. Since its main purpose is as a convention hotel, food is priced accordingly. The quick foods make WDW's prices look cheap. We had 4 hamburgers and 1 hotdog plus 5 sodas and it was $72.00! And of course the food was marginal at best. The children did go to the kids club for about 2.5 hours. The cost of the club was reasonable but their dinner order was $60.00. DH and I ate dinner in one of the restaurants in the atrium and it was about $130 w/o alchohol.

Ok - probably more information that you wanted, sorry about that!

 

[spiceycat]

We can get an amazing deal at the Gaylord hotel through an employee rate. It will be half of what it would cost to stay at the All Star on Disney property. I know that the room will be lovely but honestly, I don't care too much about that.

you answered your own question - if you don't care about the room - why stay there?

there are cheaper alternatives.

can you possible drive your husband to his convention, then go to WDW with the car?

where is his convention going to be? can you get rooms there - so you can have the car?

would probably choose Gaylord in your situation - but love a nice room. will be happy in a cheap room - but on occasion just love those nice rooms.

in your situation would just get another rental car - now Gaylord does charge for parking so be prepared for that - or even a taxi - that might be cheaper.

gaylord is really, really close to studios and Epcot - just make sure the taxi driver does not take you on a tour of WDW.....

once at Epcot just take the monrail to the MK. the bus to AK.

you can see it from Pop Century - it is about a mile from Pop.

 

[Carolinagirl77]

We stayed there last year for SSW and loved it. When planning our first official disney trip there, DH immediately wanted to stay at the Gaylord Palms. The rooms were awesome. We left the Gaylord Palms and stayed at a moderate resort at disney and DH was very disappointed. He wanted to leave the moderate resort and go back to the Gaylord Palms. We paid twice as much to stay at the moderate and DH has never let me live it down. It's hard leaving valet parking and concierge and having to park your own car to carry your luggage to your smaller room for twice as much.

They have nice town cars and you only have to ask a valet and they will get you one. It is extremely close to DHS and Epcot. I'm not sure if they have taxis at the parks to drive you back or not. You could always take the bus to a disney resort like Boardwalk which is close to Gaylord Palms and get a taxi. A little way to save a few bucks.

Can your husband drop you off before the conference and pick you up after?

 

[spiceycat]

boy need to go back to a first class hotel - competely forgot about towncars that the hotel owns.

generally they won't charge you anymore than the taxi - and it is great service.

so you aren't just depend upon the shuttles.

so see if you get the number to call a towncar while you are at WDW. then you could take the shuttle over and when you get ready to leave just call the towncar....

now that is service. of course you could also take the towncar there.