We were at the Swan from 8/3 - 8/12. Our room was #399 West and had a balcony that faced the courtyard - even though it's where smokers went we didn't smell smoke from the balcony. Sitting on the balcony, you could see the Friendship boats arriving from Epcot and MGM and leaving. Beautiful view. Our room was 5 rooms from the elevator and ice machine. I'm glad we didn't have a long hike with tired feet!
I just have a few complaints:
We did not like the A/C system that worked on a motion detection system! When we came back to the room, we did smell that musty/mildew smell. It did go away once the A/C system was working, but as soon as we left the room for a while and returned, the smell was back. (What were we breathing???)
I also woke several nights hot. I forgot to bring my fan from home and I forgot to write down the trick (that I saw posted on this site) to bypass the A/C sensor. We were too busy that I just forgot to ask the front desk to turn off the motion sensor. (Looking back I guess it wasn't really that big of a deal.) I had to take the down comforter off my side of the bed because the room didn't stay cold enough at night to my liking. I missed my ceiling fan at home! The Swan's beds were heavenly and wonderful, but our Tempurpedic was waiting for us at home!
The first day we let the kids eat their poptarts on the balcony and I don't think housekeeping routinely sweeps the balcony because the crumbs were still there when we left.
I wish the bathrooms had a fan/heater.
I wish the shower curtain rods were the newer curved models as other Westin hotels have. The shower curtain kept blowing on us as we took showers (just a little irritating.)
The dresser only had four drawers. One side of the dresser is taken up by the mini bar frig and 2 shelves behind a door that had "the forbidden expensive snacks". This is a waste of valuable storage space in my opinion. Spending 9 nights with 5 people and only 4 drawers of space was not nearly enough - and we did laundry halfway through our trip. Additional shelves in the closet would have been nice.
One morning housekeeping knocked on our door around 9 a.m. to clean the room! We were not early risers (we stayed up later at night), so from then on we put the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. The room was always clean when we returned at night.
The housekeeper did not notice that we only used the creamer packets by the coffee pot (we brought our own coffee, filters and splenda from home) each day. Some days the condiment package was replaced. I guess I should have let the opened condiment package out where they could have seen that it needed to be replaced. (We brought 1/2 & 1/2 in our ice chest, but it ran out and we didn't replace it.)
The night before we were originally scheduled to check out, I inquired about a late checkout at the front desk (I read that SPG members could possibly get a 4 p.m. checkout). The man there said we would have to check back around 7 a.m. He also told me that if we spent an additional night the rate would be $189. When my husband talked to the front desk the next morning (around 10 a.m.), we were given a 1 p.m. checkout time OR he was told we could have an extra night at the govt. rate of $129! Rather than checking out at 1 p.m. and spending the night halfway from home at some hotel for 1 night, we stayed at the Swan for the one additional night! It was my daughter's birthday and she loved the fact that we got to park hop on her birthday, rather than sitting in a van all day going home from the most magical place in the world!
Sorry to mention all of these negatives - we really had a great stay at the Swan and we will seriously consider staying there again - especially for the great govt. rates!
I wish I were back there with you now! I loved it there! Enjoy your trip and have a blast!
