Help wanted please- Family first time trip in Nov

[wilkeliza]

Wife doesn't want rooms on the outside like a motel and we want a fitness room

Any ideas? Best bang for our buck?

If a fitness center is a must then that is deluxe only. Realistically though how much working out do you plan to do on vacation? Disney itself is pretty exhausting and with kids I imagine even more exhausting.

Rooms on the outside also mostly deluxe. You could do the Art of Animation suites as they are inside rooms. I would not say the other hotels are "like a motel" simply because their doors are to outside. Port Orleans and Coronado Springs are definitely not motels even though their rooms open to outside.

 

[JB Smooth]

What are the thoughts of Art of Animation?

Yeah I see your point on working out. I know we will do a ton of walking, was just hoping to start the day with weights. I lift 5 days a week normally

 

[DisBuckMan]

If a fitness center is a must then that is deluxe only. .

Coronado Springs has a full service health/fitness center.

 

[JB Smooth]

So what do you think is the best band for you buck sub $350 a night hotel?

Efficient bus system is a huge plus

Also, would you book now or wait for Nov?

 

[wilkeliza]

Coronado Springs has a full service health/fitness center.

Totally didn't realize that. Business Class there is my preferred moderate but I never even knew there was a health/fitness center. That is good to know but again I try not to work out on vacation.

 

[elaine amj]

How long is your trip? That makes a difference.

I would HIGHLY recommend you do a quick read through a guidebook or a planning website like wdwprepschool.com or **************.net. This will give you a good general overview of WDW so you can start piecing together what is important to you.

If you want a villa, then renting points are the way to go. Definitely worth the cost savings as you have seen. Pros: you get to enjoy a deluxe property (Wilderness Lodge is GORGEOUS - especially if the theme appeals), the hotel has fantastic restaurants (Whispering Canyon Cafe and Hoop Dee Doo Revue dinner show), and it has a fantastic pool. The villas have their own brand new feature pool coming in the summer.

For booking direct, you'll be looking at a moderate property like Coronado Springs (which has a fitness centre). Rack rate for Coronado Springs in November is only ~$300/night for a preferred room. Oh and I think CSR has club level rooms

In the spring, Disney will likely release some kind of discount code. What it will be is still up in the air. The expectation is that they will release a free dining deal, which often covers November (although exact dates often change). There are also room discounts.

If you go the direct route, I highly recommend you book with an experienced Disney TA who does a lot of handholding. It doesn't cost ANY extra and they are a great resource to answer questions.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

Just wanted to point out that wherever you stay you can take Uber to a restaurant/park for probably less than $10 a trip and it is (to me) much more convenient than taking the Disney buses, and certainly faster. Uber can take you from WL to the entrance of either Epcot or DHS and will drop you off at the entrance to Disney Springs as well.

 

[wilkeliza]

How long is your trip? That makes a difference.

I would HIGHLY recommend you do a quick read through a guidebook or a planning website like wdwprepschool.com or **************.net. This will give you a good general overview of WDW so you can start piecing together what is important to you.

If you want a villa, then renting points are the way to go. Definitely worth the cost savings as you have seen. Pros: you get to enjoy a deluxe property (Wilderness Lodge is GORGEOUS - especially if the theme appeals), the hotel has fantastic restaurants (Whispering Canyon Cafe and Hoop Dee Doo Revue dinner show), and it has a fantastic pool. The villas have their own brand new feature pool coming in the summer.

For booking direct, you'll be looking at a moderate property like Coronado Springs (which has a fitness centre). Rack rate for Coronado Springs in November is only ~$300/night for a preferred room. Oh and I think CSR has club level rooms

In the spring, Disney will likely release some kind of discount code. What it will be is still up in the air. The expectation is that they will release a free dining deal, which often covers November (although exact dates often change). There are also room discounts.

If you go the direct route, I highly recommend you book with an experienced Disney TA who does a lot of handholding. It doesn't cost ANY extra and they are a great resource to answer questions.

OP is going to have to book ASAP if they want a specific hotel. Just looked and Coronado is already all booked for the days they want to go for a family of their size.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

So what do you think is the best band for you buck sub $350 a night hotel?

Efficient bus system is a huge plus

Also, would you book now or wait for Nov?

There almost certainly will be some sort of discount offered for your November trip, either a room discount (most likely) or perhaps free dining. However, the free dining may be blacked out for November (we are planning an early November trip as well). The current rack rate for Wilderness Lodge standard view rooms is about $400. The discount would probably be 20% for WL (so around $320 a night after discount) but likely won't be offered until April/May of this year. When the discount is offered it will have limited availability but there will be rooms available. You can go to mousesavers.com and find a list of discounts from past years and when they were offered each year. So you can book now and if you book a package (room plus tickets) you have to pay a $200 deposit and then keep an eye out for the discounts and call and change you package to the discounted rate.

Under $350 a night I would say WL or, if you can get a room at that rate (not sure you can even with a discount), Beach Club or Yacht Club.

In my experience the buses at all the resorts are about the same - sometimes good, sometimes bad, and it really depends on if you have some luck at the bus stop - I've arrived at the stop at the same time a bus does and I've arrived and waited 20 minutes. That's why I take Uber/cab whenever possible.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

OP is going to have to book ASAP if they want a specific hotel. Just looked and Coronado is already all booked for the days they want to go for a family of their size.

Interesting that Coronado Springs is one of the only resorts unavailable that timeframe. Perhaps a convention going on? Almost all others are available.

In response to the earlier question about best bang for your buck, I think the best moderate is Port Orleans Riverside, but no fitness center. I still think the best resort at Disney is Yacht Club but a bit outside the OPs preferred price range absent a discount.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Hoop De Doo is at Fort Wilderness, which is not Wilderness Lodge.

To reach most resort amenities from the Villas at Wilderness Lodge, you will walk outside.

There's something to be said for the "exterior entries" at Disney. The interior hallways MAGNIFY noise.

Also, FWIW, Coronado is eliminating Business Class. Sadz.

 

[elaine amj]

Hoop De Doo is at Fort Wilderness, which is not Wilderness Lodge.

Thanks for the clarification The two resorts are next to each other so I tend to think of them as the same in terms of location, especially for food. I would LOVE to stay at one of them sometime. One day, the discounts and deals will work out for me!

 

[sharadoc]

i meant monorail from MK, if i take the boat from WL to monorail

You should take the boat to MK, or the boat to Contemporary if you want the monorail from Wildernes Lodge.

Like a PP said, if you are considering a studio, I would recommend a nice room at POR or POFQ instead. MK on the bus is very close to either of those, and Epcot is just a little longer. I think that stretch of POR, POFQ and OKW is the best location in all of WDW.

 

[sharadoc]

ok good to know. Its $200 cheaper per night to do the points. IS booking through disney the only way to book one of the resorts on site?

I could almost guarantee a discount for your time period eventually. You could book through Disney, get a good rate, and be able to cancel if something comes up at the last minute.

 

[JB Smooth]

what are your thoughts on a value resort? just weighing all options, but looking at Art of Animation. My wife doesnt want the motel feel and/or being around Cousin Eddy types all day. lol(sorry, just being honest)

we dont want bottom of the barrel, but dont want to pay a fortune. Is the Port Orleans/Riverside a big step up from AOA?

 

[Family B]

I'm going to strongly recommend that you find yourself a good Travel Agent that specializes in Disney. This service is really invaluable to a first time visitor and it doesn't cost anything additional. They can help pick a resort based on what is important to your family and your needs. They also can keep their eye on the discounts and hopefully get you the best deal. We consider ourselves "seasoned" but when there are big changes in how Disney does things we find that the help of a TA makes our vacation more enjoyable.

Read anything and everything you can find whether you use a TA or not. You don't want your first vacation to Disney to be a bust because you didn't know something that would make it smoother. I watched a number of families on our last trip be faced with disappointment because they didn't make ADRs for popular restaurants.

Our rookie mistake was over-planning our days. Plan lots of downtime to enjoy your resort and the pool. We never do Park-Hoppers, we don't see the value in them even during F&W. Transportation sucks more time than you would think. Disney is fun but exhausting and there is nothing worse that pushing your kids too hard. We tend to rope-drop and close the parks on the days we go and then have "down" days between visiting the parks. There is a lot of fun activities at all of the resorts. We would rather put the difference on park-hoppers into a tour or activity. I just can't justify the added cost just to be able to eat somewhere or ride that ride one more time when I can do something special or upgrade the resort.

AOA is a fun themed resort. However I wouldn't compare it to a Moderate. The Suites will cost more than a Moderate. The Little Mermaid Rooms are adorable, but popular so it unlikely there would be a discount. The Suites don't open to the outside but the LM rooms are exterior doors. I find the values to be busy, so they aren't my first choice unless I'm limited by budget.

POFQ/POR are beautiful. We are actually going back to POR on our next trip because we loved it so much (we are on the quest to stay at all resorts at least one night and this is the first time we are repeating a resort.) The moderates will have some additional amenities that you won't find at a value. The biggie in my family is a slide at the feature pool. POFQ is a smaller resort so you won't deal with internal transportation, it is very walk-able. The boat to Disney Springs is quite relaxing from both POFQ/POR.

(Just my experience but you see all kinds of people at every resort level, it is unavoidable. These just add to our funny memories.)

Coronado Springs has my personal favorite Moderate Pool. However it is starting renovations and the impact of that is a bit unknown. (I personally have never had an issue staying at any resort that is under renovations, we have never found this to be a disruption to our vacation.) The Business Class rooms aren't available due to the renovations. This is known as the "convention" resort, so it is a different crowd. Not a bad thing, in fact we found it very enjoyable since the pool was quiet during the day.

Our least favorite was CB. I would need an extreme deal to go back here. Nothing was particularly bad, but we just didn't care for the food court or the theme. It just basically didn't feel as much as an escape.

Something to keep in mind with the Deluxe's is the QS Food Options. The Epcot resorts don't have the food courts, since we do spend a lot of time enjoying our resorts we found this was one of the downsides to staying at Yacht Club and Boardwalk. AK had my favorite pool and felt the most "escape-like". It is just a quieter resort because it doesn't have as many visitors that aren't staying there. WL was our pick when we had more transportation needs. We found it very easy to get to all of the parks using the Disney Transportation. (We had older family on scooters so we wanted more than a bus option, we typically have a car on all of our trips.) We enjoyed the boat option.

 

[VAfamily1998]

what are your thoughts on a value resort? just weighing all options, but looking at Art of Animation. My wife doesnt want the motel feel and/or being around Cousin Eddy types all day. lol(sorry, just being honest)

we dont want bottom of the barrel, but dont want to pay a fortune. Is the Port Orleans/Riverside a big step up from AOA?

I don't know what "cousin eddy" types are. I will say that I have stayed in most of the deluxes (sometimes club level) and all of the moderates, and haven't noticed a difference in the "type" of people that stay in either. The only "type" I would aim to avoid are the large groups like when the baseball teams/cheerleaders/tour groups of teens are around. From what I understand, they mostly stay at the values and sometimes the moderates--but I've never seen them during my moderate stays.

We have a larger family (2 adults, 4 kids) but don't always all go together. I haven't stayed at AOA and probably will not. I'm not a fan of the way most of the beds are converted from other furniture, like the table. Also, I prefer the pools to have a hot tub, which AOA and the other values do not.

I think if your wife doesn't want a motel feel, you may want to stay away from POFQ. I never got a motel feel from any of the other mods except POFQ. The grounds at POR are truly beautiful--it's not just a long strip of rooms facing a parking lot like a typical motel.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Wife doesn't want rooms on the outside like a motel and we want a fitness room

Any ideas? Best bang for our buck?

Well, then you won't want to book OKW. OKW is built like a condominium community with doors to the outside, not to inside hallways (like DVC resorts connected to the Hotels). If you want a fitness room, you'll need a deluxe or Coronado Springs.