Just back from our first stay at Grand Floridian!

[IWISHFORDISNEY]

(Copied from my post in the FAQ thread)

I have to say that we are hooked. My husband really loved the resort. If I had to make a comparison I would say GF reminds me of YC and BWI where the Poly reminds me of BC or POP. The places we have stayed. The atmosphere was not stuffy at all as some have suggested. I never felt weird walking around in my bathing suit or my 4 year old son running around being a 4 year old. There were alot of children for my son to play with actually.

We had one minor problem so I will review both rooms. The first room was in Boca Chica room I think 8120. The location was great it was the first room outside the doors from the courtyard pool very pretty huge room. Until I tried to go to sleep. My husband went to the gym to workout and all I herd for 2 hours from 11 until 1 am was the automatic sliding door opening; people talking and then the hiddious noise of the elevator motor going on. It was so loud that neither me or my husband could sleep. So if you get this room do not unpack go to the front desk and move. This room however was very pretty and huge in size. I hated to have to leave it. The bellman said everyone complains about this room. My question would have to be than why do they put people in this room the other room next to us was used for staff. This was my only negative all week.

Our second room we were moved to was in Conch Key. Room 7501. This was a dormer room a bit smaller with large ceilings. We had a view of the marina, monorail and fireworks. We loved this location and it was so quiet. It was very cool that my 4 year old could see the monorail passing by and the Grand 1 was docked just below us. If you leaned way far to the right you could see the castle. Our houskeeper was wonderful. We actually had to tell her to stop putting stuff in our room we had so many bottles of H20 that we had no where to put them. My son thought it was cool that "Mickey" left chocolates on his bed every night. Even though the room was smaller we didnt find it to be that noticeable.

The pool was wonderful and we never made it over to the beach pool. The pool bar was a nice for the adults to not have to walk far to get a drink at night. My husband is hooked on the blackberry mojitos. Narcoossees was wonderful as it always is. Gasparillas had a great selection for breakfast; we were not there for lunch or dinner. Although it was nice they were open 24 hours so we could fill our mugs up before our late night swims. We had 3 meals planned over at the Poly and it was a short 5 minute walk over and took less time than the monorail did. However we were lazy and took the monorail back.

Things I loved. Seeing the castle everytime I walked into my room and from Gaspies. No one ever mentions this but eating breakfast on the patio at Gaspies and looking at the castle was very magical. Also seeing the fireworks from the courtyard pool was very special for us. We were floating around the pool and gathered as a family to watch them from the pool or hottub. This would be very romantic for honeymooners. The monorail is of course a plus. The level of service is also very noticabley higher than other deluxe resorts. So we are hooked on GF. We loved every minute of our time there. Next time I think we will book Sugar Loaf for its location to the pool. Possibly RPC but I dont really see the need to be in the main building and pay those prices since SL is so close to the main building and closer to the pool. So we now have a new favorite resort........The Grand !!!

If you are wondering if this is the resort for you. Go try it. I didnt think I would like it and I have a fallen in love with this resort.

 

[KatMark]

Welcome back. Glad you enjoyed your stay.

 

[CoachBagFanatic]

I got the chills reading your post. I am so glad that you and your family had a wonderful time. I feel that the GF has a reputation of being snooty and we never once felt that at all. We have stayed there numerous times and we have always had a "Grand" vacation. I like how you compared the GF to the YC which is our other favorite resort.

 

[robandkelly13]

Thanks for the report. We'll be staying at GF for the first time in July - you've made me even more excited.

 

[DisneyWorldbuff]

Thanks so much for your review.. we are leaving to stay at the GF in less than a month. I actually tried to change resorts for fear of the "snootiness" factor. There were no availabilites, so you have made me feel much better about staying at the GF. I hope we don't get that room though!

 

[ang]

It sound wonderful. I glad you had a wonderful trip.

 

[Disney Princess]

What a wonderful time you had! Thanks for coming back and sharing with us.

 

[Minnie&Nana]

So glad you had a wonderful stay at the GF. It is our favorite resort too and we've found most CM's delightful.

Our first stay we had to change rooms from a dormer room and the CM came to us with keys to show us other rooms. We chose one in Boca Chica with a view of the monorail, lagoon, entrance to MK and fireworks. It was hard to leave the balcony to go to a park!!

Thanks much for taking the time to post a review.

 

[kat_balou]

We absolutely loved our stay there last week and are definately hooked!

 

[goofygal531]

That's exactly what did it for us too! It was the only resort where we constantly felt the "magic". We just loved seeing the castle all the time, being able to view Illuminations fireworks and Wishes from the grounds and seeing the EWP. It just has those little touches the other resorts don't have.

I also LOVED going to Gaspies very early in the morning and hearing the monorail whoosh by and hearing them start up the MK railroad. It's was just so quiet and peaceful walking the grounds early morning.

Glad you had a wonderful time! Thanks for the heads up on the noisy room!

We loved the dormer room! We thought the ceiling made it feel larger.

 

[minniebeth]

Thank you so much for sharing your review! It sounds wonderful!
Would you know if the dormer rooms available for each category room? (IE Garden View, MK View, etc.) Thanks!
Glad you had a wonderful time with special moments and memories~

 

[IWISHFORDISNEY]

I also forgot to add. One other cool factor of being in Conch key or maybe even Sago the experts will know better than me. You can hear the MK train all the time and the wolf howling at the Haunted Mansion along with sometimes music and some of the announcements. It felt like our room was in the MK itself. I still can not get over what a great time we had. We never wanted to leave the resort to go to the parks.

 

[Misti]

Thanks for your review! Was the first room you had an especially large room as opposed to other standard rooms or were you just commenting on the overall size of all the rooms at the GF? Thanks!

 

[IWISHFORDISNEY]

Thanks for your review! Was the first room you had an especially large room as opposed to other standard rooms or were you just commenting on the overall size of all the rooms at the GF? Thanks!

Since this was our first time there I dont know. The first room had a blue arm chair and ottoman and there was more room between the desk and the closet. Compared to BC it was larger, compared to AKL it was a huge difference in size. I hope that helps. Probably 5 feet in width larger on either side of the bed than the dormer room.

 

[Misti]

Since this was our first time there I dont know. The first room had a blue arm chair and ottoman and there was more room between the desk and the closet. Compared to BC it was larger, compared to AKL it was a huge difference in size. I hope that helps. Probably 5 feet in width larger on either side of the bed than the dormer room.

Thanks!!

 

[accarson]

Thanks for post. Glad to hear you had a great time. You just eased my mind that I made a good choice. Also will be our first deluxe stay. Reserved Pop upgraded to Poly last week changed to GF. Also thanks for that noisy room number making note of it.

 

[snowwhitenyc]

Thanks so much for your report! I am just days away from my first GF trip and I am bursting!!

I think the magic you described is what I am most excited about. It seems like the next best thing to actually sleeping in the Magic Kingdom!

Fingers crossed that they don't try to stick us in the noisy room...but I'll be prepared if they do

 

[IWISHFORDISNEY]

I think this noisy room can be in any of the outer buildings. If you recieve a ground floor room between the sliding entrance door and the elevator. Ask to be moved. The bellman said even replacing the door and elevator motors every year they get this complaint about these rooms in every building. If I had known this ahead of time I would have never unpacked everything. Hope this helps anyone going.

 

[Tam1067]

I think this noisy room can be in any of the outer buildings. If you recieve a ground floor room between the sliding entrance door and the elevator. Ask to be moved. The bellman said even replacing the door and elevator motors every year they get this complaint about these rooms in every building. If I had known this ahead of time I would have never unpacked everything. Hope this helps anyone going.

Thank you SO MUCH for this information. We'll be there for our first GF starting August 8, and it's good to know this in case we get one of these rooms. I'm going to ask to be moved. I really appreciate your help.

 

[dmccarty]

Our last trip to WDW we had dinner at Narcoossees. VERY good! The Blackberry Mojito was good. I had a seared tuna which was excellent and the DW had Surf and Surf. It was supposed to be the Fillet and Lobster tail but DW does not like red meat so they substituted shrimp for the fillet. What has to be ordered was the strawberry shortcake. AWESOME. It was a work of art.

This was our first time visiting the Grand Floridian. We stayed at AKL and drove up to GF. GF is very, very nice. For some reason we really liked the uniforms the CMs had at the front door. There was an little old man CM who looked so at home in the uniform that he really stuck out in a very positive sense. I had dropped the DW off while I parked the car. When I caught up with her she ask if I had seen the CM "greeter". He really looked the part and was friendly.

The whole resort as we walk through had a very relaxed air to it. Hard to explain but it was there. The lobby was fabulous. There was a band playing light jazz on the second floor and people were just sitting in the lobby listening and enjoying adult beverages. It was very nice. I wish we had had time to just sit there to relax and listen.

We would like to stay at the GF one day but I think AKL is more fun for our kids. Not sure they would like GF over AKL.

Later,
Dan