GF standard hotel room vs resort studio...advice?

[Little E]

Happy New Year Disfriends!

I am questioning the advice I gave my cousin about what to book for our fall trip. DH and I are AP folks and our DVC home resort is GF. However, we have only stayed at GF once since purchasing. We stayed in a hotel room in 2016 and that's how we knew we loved GF, and we took advantage of the GF deals when the DVC construction was going on and bought in 2022. Our welcome home trip at GF was in March of 2023 and we stayed in a 2 bedroom villa with our sons and one of their friends. It was glorious, but we've found our points go further at other resorts, and so we've stayed at other DVC resorts ever since.

My cousin and her DH are game to go on a fall 2025 trip with us. Neither has been to WDW since about 2004 with their kids, and the trip will be just the four of us...no kids. Hooray! We are so excited to show them all the things we love about WDW. She has been very interested in staying at GF. Unfortunately, we don't have enough points to book a 2 bedroom at GF for the 4 of us to stay together. I booked a studio for 3 nights for DH and me and then we'll move to a 1 bedroom for the remainder of our trip. While I love my cousin and her hubby, there is no way we would have them stay in the studio/1bedroom with us, which is just fine with them. Yesterday she was weighing the pros and cons of a regular GF hotel room (resort view) and a resort studio (resort view), booking cash. While DH and I have stayed in a regular hotel room at GF in 2016, we have never stayed in a studio. I honestly don't know the physical differences between the two spaces. I assumed the studio is slightly bigger and has maybe a different bathroom layout, plus a microwave in the kitchenette area? But...that's all I could offer her. She priced both out and found the studio to be $105 more than the regular room. At that, I told her to book the studio, which she did.

Was I right to do that? Are there things I wasn't considering about a resort view hotel room vs the studio? Again, we will be staying in a resort studio and then moving to a 1 bedroom, so I at least figured we'd be a little closer to each other? Beyond that, what am I not considering?

I'm looking forward to showing my cousin and her hubby all the wonderful adult things that WDW has to offer, especially in the late fall during the Food & Wine Festival. I'd love any thoughts or input that folks have. While we are Disney vets and own direct at GF, we are still relative GF newbies, having only stayed there twice.

In advance, thanks so much!

 

[sndral]

Happy New Year Disfriends!

I am questioning the advice I gave my cousin about what to book for our fall trip. DH and I are AP folks and our DVC home resort is GF. However, we have only stayed at GF once since purchasing. We stayed in a hotel room in 2016 and that's how we knew we loved GF, and we took advantage of the GF deals when the DVC construction was going on and bought in 2022. Our welcome home trip at GF was in March of 2023 and we stayed in a 2 bedroom villa with our sons and one of their friends. It was glorious, but we've found our points go further at other resorts, and so we've stayed at other DVC resorts ever since.

My cousin and her DH are game to go on a fall 2025 trip with us. Neither has been to WDW since about 2004 with their kids, and the trip will be just the four of us...no kids. Hooray! We are so excited to show them all the things we love about WDW. She has been very interested in staying at GF. Unfortunately, we don't have enough points to book a 2 bedroom at GF for the 4 of us to stay together. I booked a studio for 3 nights for DH and me and then we'll move to a 1 bedroom for the remainder of our trip. While I love my cousin and her hubby, there is no way we would have them stay in the studio/1bedroom with us, which is just fine with them. Yesterday she was weighing the pros and cons of a regular GF hotel room (resort view) and a resort studio (resort view), booking cash. While DH and I have stayed in a regular hotel room at GF in 2016, we have never stayed in a studio. I honestly don't know the physical differences between the two spaces. I assumed the studio is slightly bigger and has maybe a different bathroom layout, plus a microwave in the kitchenette area? But...that's all I could offer her. She priced both out and found the studio to be $105 more than the regular room. At that, I told her to book the studio, which she did.

Was I right to do that? Are there things I wasn't considering about a resort view hotel room vs the studio? Again, we will be staying in a resort studio and then moving to a 1 bedroom, so I at least figured we'd be a little closer to each other? Beyond that, what am I not considering?

I'm looking forward to showing my cousin and her hubby all the wonderful adult things that WDW has to offer, especially in the late fall during the Food & Wine Festival. I'd love any thoughts or input that folks have. While we are Disney vets and own direct at GF, we are still relative GF newbies, having only stayed there twice.

In advance, thanks so much!

At the GF there are 2 types of studios.
Deluxe studios are located in the villas building - which is the building you stayed in when you had a 2 br. & will be the building you are in for the 1 br. portion of your stay. You’ll also be in the villas building if you’ve booked a deluxe studio. The deluxe studios have 1 queen bed & a Murphy sofa pull down queen bed.
Resort studios are located in the Big Pine Key building & that’s where you’ll be if you’ve booked a resort studio for the studios portion of your stay & where your cousin will be for the entirety of hers if she opted to book a resort studio. The resort studios are basically a hotel room w/ 2 regular queen beds. They are slightly larger than the deluxe studios in the villas building.
I personally wouldn’t pay $105 a night extra for a resort studio over a hotel room since the layout is the same & while Big Pine Key is closest to the villas building, the other 4 out buildings where the non club hotel rooms are located aren’t much further away.
The non club hotel rooms are located in 4 outer buildings - Sago Cay & Sugar Loaf which are both very close to Gasparillas & the main lobby, Conch Key & Boca Chica, which are both near the marina for boat rides to/from the MK/Poly.
I’ve circled in blue the DVC buildings below to give some perspective on their relative locations.

 

[Little E]

@sndral Thank you so much for this info. Even though we are GF owners, we're still newbies as we haven't stayed at GF frequently. It's helpful to get a sense of where the different studios and 1 bedrooms are located, relative to the hotel rooms and the lobby. Both my cousin and I have booked resort studios. I actually really wanted a deluxe studio, but according to the CM that I spoke with at member services, there was no DVC availability for that.

I feel badly that I didn't encourage my cousin to save the $105, if the resort studios are basically the same as the hotel rooms, but at least we'll be closer to each other. I was sort of hoping that the rooms might be slightly bigger or laid out a little better? But, these are all great problems to have...we'll be at WDW after all!