Just back from Sarasota Springs

[GadgetRick]

Just got back from a week at Disney's newest DVC resort. Here's a quick review (in case there isn't one yet):

When I made plans to go to DW for the week after Thanksgiving I figured we may as well give SS a shot. I've been seeing them build it for a while and it certainly has sounded like a great place for a Disney vaction so I made my reservations not knowing exactly what to expect.

Anyway, I'm sure you've all heard about SS. It's modeled after SS, NY and there's a definate horse racing theme (because of the track at SS). There are horse things all over the place. The cast member costumes all have something to do with horse racing, too. It's a beautiful-looking resort. Of course, there's good and bad here (like all resorts).

Let's start with the good. First of all, if you haven't been to DW in a while you may not have seen SS going up. They tore down the old Disney Institute buildings to put up SS. It's a great place to be as you're right across the water from Downtown Disney. You can walk over there or take the ferry which picks you up/drops you off by the Carriage House (where Check-in and the Artist's Palete are located--basically, the central area of the resort). It's a short boat ride to Downtown Disney (makes stops at both docks) or to Old Key West (my home resort).

I believe all of the rooms they have which are open (they're furiously building more vacation homes there) have a view of Downtown Disney. This is especially nice at night when everything is lit up. Every night at 12:00 you get a great view of the short fireworks show at Pleasure Island. That was very cool, too.

They have (currently) 2 pools open. They also plan more pools and it looks like SS is going to be an extremely large resort. Lots of buildings going up.

The main pool (by the Carriage House) is a great-looking pool. Since my son turned 2 while we were there I'm not into pools...yet...so I didn't use the pool. I can tell you it's got a nice water slide, kiddie pool, hot tub area and, what looks like, sort of a beach (with a little sand thrown in for good measure. It's a huge pool but it just may not be big enough when the resort is done and more people are there. But more on this later.

The other pool is right by the water with a view of Downtown Disney. I didn't check it out but it's supposed to have a hot tub, too.

Another good thing is they have dedicated bus service to/from the parks. When staying at OKW it was always annoying that the buses also stopped at Port Orleans/Dixie Landings (going back a year or two here). I don't know if they've changed that over there but it was annoying.

They do have a nice little bar (blanking on the name of it right now). You can relax and play pool (for free--a nice touch) watch a game on tv or just hang out. Very nice.

Also, they do offer Internet service in your room (high-speed of course). It's $9.95 per day, which is the same as what everyone else out there charges. It's nice for someone like me who still needs to check emails for work and/or likes to check things out online.

It's also nice that, as of right now, there are only two bus stops--one at the Carriage House and one on the other side of the resort (about a 5-10 minute walk). I know this will change as SS expands.

Ok, now for the bad stuff. Obviously, SS is still a work in progress. They are still building a LOT of buildings and everything they've planned has not been implemented so keep this all in mind.

My first impression of any DVC resort is always a comparison to OKW (my home resort). Now, the problem with this is OKW, IMO, is the nicest DVC resort in DW. Since it was the first they seemed to have put a lot more into it and made the rooms bigger than they had to before realizing they could get away with a little less and still keep people happy. So I'm spoiled. However, I've also done quite a bit of travel over the years so I can make comparisons to other places I've stay as well.

So how does SS stack up? Well, all I can say is it's nice but I wasn't impressed. I thought the rooms are more like over sized hotel rooms than vacation homes. We stayed in a 2 bedroom and the bedrooms were huge, each with its own bathroom/shower. The master bedroom even had a bath tub (huge) with jets in it as well as the shower and bathroom (all separate rooms, btw). Now, this was nice but the living room/kitchen area were tiny in comparison. We had 6 adults and 1 toddler and we were a bit cramped. Keep in mind the couch folds out to a bed, too so the room can accomodate another 2 adults/kids. I'd hate to see what it would be like if we had the place full!

Another thing I didn't like is they only have one restaurant open--the Artists Palette. They claim it's a food court but it's far from that. It's a very small food court where you can order from a very limited menu. They also have the typical DVC stuff there like milk, eggs, ice cream, etc. So if you're looking to eat at the resort, unless you're looking for something small and fast you're outta luck here.

Also, I've been reading all about the flat bread pizzas they were going to offer at SS. So I had one when we first arrived. Well, don't waste your money on them. They're (basically) tasteless and just not very good. You can, however, get some really good potato chips with a sandwhich.

Oh, a nice touch is they have small palettes out for people to draw on while they're eating their icky flat bread pizzas. Great idea for kids.

I also feel they just weren't ready for prime time just yet. Ok, I know they're still working out the kinks since they just opened but I just always had the feeling I was in the middle of a beta test. Can't really put my finger on it all but we had a problem with the phones, the air conditioner wasn't working properly (would just stay on and the place would be a freezer no matter what temp we set it at) and a few other minor problems. I know they want to start making money ASAP but maybe a little more time would have been in order.

The lack of a true restaurant is a real pain. As of right now they aren't planning to have one until 2007 and they don't know what type of restaurant it will be. Now, I'm guessing these plans will have to change. I was talking to one of the bus drivers and they said the two major complaints there are a lack of a restaurant and the, "food court." If everyone is complaining I'm sure they'll speed things up a bit.

I also think they're going to have MAJOR problems handling more people. As I mentioned, the Carriage House area is the central focus. The pool, Artist's Palette, bar and other things are there. It's not a very wide-open space and I can see the pool becoming a mad house and the food court just being overwhelmed. It's gonna get ugly.

The other thing is, when walking to your room, the hallways just look cheap. It certainly doesn't look/feel like a high-priced resort. I think they could have done a better job with this.

Anyway, my overall feeling for SS is it's not a horrible place but it needs a lot of work. As of right now, I have no plans to ever stay there again. I'd rather stay at OKW or one of the other resorts. It's not that there's anything horribly wrong with the place it's just that I can do better. Oh and it's less points to stay at OKW.

The Rickster

 

[ErinC]

Thanks so much for your opinions of SSR. I think that your comments echo several other people's feelings. We are trying out SSR in Feb. I'm anxious to see for myself, although we have seen the models, and walked the resort a couple of times. Your comments about the food situation, sound like many we have heard. Frankly, I don't understand the thinking behind not having a better food court, and a sit down restaurant. No other Disney properties are without these things (except the all-stars, but they have great food courts). With the size of SSR they need to figure out something, and get some plans in place soon, before the resort gets any bigger. Artist Palette doesn't even sound like they have half of the items that our member info,lead us to believe it would. Just because it is so close to DD, doesn't mean that it doesn't need some food offerings. JMHO. I hope that overall you enjoyed your trip. Thanks for the report.

 

[jarestel]

Interesting report on Saratoga Springs. Thanks for posting your impressions.

 

[Desnik]

Thanks for your review!
At first I thought, hey there's a DVC at Sarasota!!LOL Then I realized what you were talking about!!
I would like to add that I agree with the food court needing to be bigger and offer more options. We just bought at SSR and we looked all around the place and loved it. However, I do agree that once all the buildings are finished, the food court and main pool won't be big enough. Who knows what they'll do about that in the future. I do not see a problem with no restaurant there since DtD is right there with a ton of options. I also wasn't too impressed with the halls, and we do prefer indoor corridors. With that said, we fell in love with the decor and the whole feel of the resort. We will have our first trip home next year and I'm going to try to not be too judgemental about the place until it is fully complete. We also ate at Artist palatte and DD loved drawing on the table top easel. I have to say that I really enjoyed the flat bread pepperoni pizza. I ate the whole thing! DH had a turkey sandwhich and enjoyed it. We loved how it looked in there as well. Modern, high tech with a old Saratoga, NY feel.

 

[cruise-o-matic]

Sarasota Springs LOL, my DW calls it the same too.

When we went on the tour, our guide told us by having the open hallways, there's sqare footage to cool, which is why the MF's are higher at BWV/BCV/VWL.

 

[sters]

Frankly, I don't understand the thinking behind not having a better food court, and a sit down restaurant. No other Disney properties are without these things (except the all-stars, but they have great food courts). QUOTE]

The two rationales I heard was that there were so many excellent restaurants and eateries in Downtown Disney that (1) Disney didn't feel like an on-site restaurant would be used much and/or, (2) that Disney wanted to encourage, not discourage, the restaurant business in Downtown Disney.

 

[sjdisneywedding]

Frankly, I don't understand the thinking behind not having a better food court, and a sit down restaurant. No other Disney properties are without these things (except the all-stars, but they have great food courts). QUOTE]

The two rationales I heard was that there were so many excellent restaurants and eateries in Downtown Disney that (1) Disney didn't feel like an on-site restaurant would be used much and/or, (2) that Disney wanted to encourage, not discourage, the restaurant business in Downtown Disney.

I can understand the theory behind that thinking but I cant agree with it. DTD is doing fine without the DVC members from SSR and no doubt will do even better as many people from SSR will head over there to eat. But just pure numbers would lead you to believe a nice sit down restraunt would be full every night, not everyone is going to DTD very night

 

[bongo59]

the problem is when you come back from doing the park thing all day the last thing you want to do is walk to DD. I think the food court restuarant thing will get done from the pressue that will mount as SSR is built out. The only real advantages to SSR in my mind are the 50 yr period and easy walkability to DD for those who like to shop...............

 

[rsschneck]

We will find out how we like SSR in 10 days! We own at OKW and a small contract at SSR. We have stayed at HHI and OKW only. It will be interesting to see how we feel about our 2nd home in Florida. I am sure I will post our opinions when we come back.

 

[MarkRG]

Interesting, but not too surprising report.

I've stayed at BWV multiple times, at OKW once, VWL once, have stayed at BC and toured BCV, toured SSR at MH, and am about to do a VB/DCL/BCV stay.

That said, anyone who is an owner of OKW is not going to be that impressed with any of the other DVC resorts at WDW.

The blunt facts are:

• the rooms at OKW are gigantic compared to any other at WDW.
• don't have hallways, per se.
• the points are less than the other WDW DVC to get these rooms.

I would add Olivia's in there, but I honestly didn't think it measured up to the level of description it has been given. It's a great restaurant, food was good, but not moreso than other restaurants I've been to at WDW. Plus I really don't enjoy loud, busy restaurants, it's distracting to me.

I also see the lack of hallways as a negative, as our stay was on the 3rd floor. Going up and down on the stairs was not all that fun.

I also don't see there not being a full service restaurant at SSR yet as a negative with the quite wide selection of restaurants less than 5 minutes away. There simply isn't enough of the resort open yet to really support more than the food court. A restaruant right now wouldn't get enough buisness to justify its existance.

Also I do agree, they really pushed opening this one too early. Should have had more of it up before doing so, as even just touring it at MH, it does have a slightly unfinished feel to it.

 

[tjkraz]

Two comments to add to the discussion:

1. The Disney Institute had a restaurant called Seasons. While I do not have any first-hand information to provide, every post I've seen on these boards indicates that Seasons was not considered to be a successful venture.

With +/- 600 rooms, the Disney Institute was about 75% of the total planned SSR size.

2. When SSR was first announced in a post-9/11 economy, the only units guaranteed to be built were the 200 that are currently open. The eight buildings in Phase 2 were all "proposed construction" and the subsequent six buildings were not even on the radar. 200 units certainly couldn't support a table service restaurant.

When we bought into SSR, one of the items that appealed to us was the "food court." We probably eat twice as many counter service meals in a week at WDW as we do sit-down meals. Right now that's mostly due to having small children who just aren't a whole lot of fun in restaurants.

Anyway, upon visiting SSR for the first time, I was a bit disappointed in Artist's Palette. That feeling was mostly due to the expectations DVC had built up in its sales materials, Member Clubhouse, etc. Since then I've decided to hold off judgement until we actually eat there ourselves. After all, it's the quality of the food that counts, right? And I can honestly say that I've read more favorable reviews of the food than I have unfavorable.

I'll also be curious to see what the traffic looks like. About 25% of the resort is open now. People keep saying that AP is just too small for the resort. If true, then I should see more than 25% of the tables filled during peak dining hours. We'll see...

Can SSR support a table service restaurant? Probably yes--on a similar scale to OKW. SSR will have more guest rooms, but the wide variety of options at DD are absolutely going to draw some diners off-site no matter what SSR offers. And, I doubt Disney/DVC/DVD would build any sort of "destination" restaurant that would risk taking non-SSR business away from DD.

 

[ErinC]

Frankly, I don't understand the thinking behind not having a better food court, and a sit down restaurant. No other Disney properties are without these things (except the all-stars, but they have great food courts). QUOTE]

The two rationales I heard was that there were so many excellent restaurants and eateries in Downtown Disney that (1) Disney didn't feel like an on-site restaurant would be used much and/or, (2) that Disney wanted to encourage, not discourage, the restaurant business in Downtown Disney.

Frankly, I think this is nothing but Disney trying to rationalize things in their favor. I do not want to have to walk over to DD just to get something to eat, after a long day in the parks. Most of those restaurants have a long wait to boot(They're certainly not hurting for lack of business). That is not convienient. What other Deluxe resorts do you know of anywhere that do not have some dining options. As TJKraz stated, we were lead to believe in the initial stages of SSR that the food court would have many options, take out dinners, meals that were ready for warming in your villa, and more options than it sounds like that they are offering. It's just disappointing. We'll be at SSR in Feb. I plan on having a few things that I can cook in the villa(which is totally against my vacation mentality! ) in case it is a late night, and I don't feel like schleping my 3 young children over to DD for a bite to eat.

 

[Paticake]

We aso were there last week. It was our first DVC visit and we really enjoyed it. We mostly used the quiet pool but my niece loved the pool slide at the main pool on the last day. There were 10 of us. We had a 2 bdrm and a studio. I loved my king size bed and my jacuzzi tub. We didn't eat at Artist Palette. It was about a 10 min. walk. We did use wegoshop.com and would highly recommend them.They actually delivered to us 2X. We also had 4 others in our group who stayed at OKW. They enjoyed that as well. Any questions?

 

[kweaver]

Anyway, upon visiting SSR for the first time, I was a bit disappointed in Artist's Palette. That feeling was mostly due to the expectations DVC had built up in its sales materials, Member Clubhouse, etc. Since then I've decided to hold off judgement until we actually eat there ourselves. After all, it's the quality of the food that counts, right? And I can honestly say that I've read more favorable reviews of the food than I have unfavorable.

I'll also be curious to see what the traffic looks like. About 25% of the resort is open now. People keep saying that AP is just too small for the resort. If true, then I should see more than 25% of the tables filled during peak dining hours. We'll see...

Can SSR support a table service restaurant? Probably yes--on a similar scale to OKW. SSR will have more guest rooms, but the wide variety of options at DD are absolutely going to draw some diners off-site no matter what SSR offers. And, I doubt Disney/DVC/DVD would build any sort of "destination" restaurant that would risk taking non-SSR business away from DD.

Over the summer (two buildings open)...there was almost no one in there. Except for breakfast, the menu options there are the worst on WDW property (even though I did like the food that I ordered). Honestly...while it doesn't look huge...I don't think it will be overly crowded even when the resort is completely built out. This is especially true considering the lack of menu options and magic in the place. I can walk into Costco and get a better selection of prepared meals. You would think they would use that brick oven (which was much touted in the Member Clubhouse) for some real pizza.

Without a decent food court (I'd like to see one with offerings similar to CSR) or a mid range sit down restaurant...we just go off site (lots of quick and easy options from SSR) or eat in our villa.

 

[fmed845]

We were there last week for our first trip home and really loved SSR. We had a 1 bedroom and loved it. We didn't use the main pool but did use the quiet pool and hot tub very nice. The open halls were no problem for us I liked the open airy feeling of them and I think they have something to do with the theme from Saratoga Springs. Enjoyed the walkway to Downtown Disney about an 7-8 minute walk from the building we were in. Didn't try Artist Palette but it did seem a little small. We walked over to DD for dinner a couple of nights and really enjoyed the walk back. Two nights we had delivery to our room. I agree it would be nice to have a sitdown restaurant. As far as the construction going on it really didn't bother us. Were very satisfied we bought there and we are thinking about adding on. It gets a good rating from us.

 

[CRSNDSNY]

Thank you for the honest and thorough report GadgetRick. I really appreciate all of the details of your experiences and opinions. We stayed there the second week it opened in May and we had just transferred there from 5 nights at BCV. It was really a shocker, but glad we got to experience it. I think it will get better as it is completed, but (even as owners), it won't be our first choice for a while.

I can't even say that I'm indifferent about it, but on a scale of 1 - 10 (where 10 is most enjoyable), we're around a 6. The part I cannot get used to (and why we're not interested in OKW) is the outdoor hallways. For now we'd prefer the interior hotel-style.

(ADDED) I just want to say that we ate a breakfast and a lunch at Artist's Palette and really enjoyed the food. Even being vegetarians, we found choices that were appetizing. Portions are huge. The only thing we didn't like about it was that it seemed too small. We liked having the quick access from Palette to the pool. We could imagine getting a meal at the Palette and then eating it by the pool. It all seems very convenient. And I honestly don't think I'd look for a sit-down restaurant at SSR. We'd rather go over to DTD -- which is what we primarily did when we visited in May.

Although, overall, I'd stay at any DVC if it meant being at WDW!!! Heck -- although not DVCs -- we still stay at the Swan/Dolphin occasionally!

Again, thank you!

 

[GadgetRick]

Sounds like, for the most part, we all have similar opinions about SS. Anyway, I didn't want to sound like I was trashing the place, it is a nice resort with a lot to offer. I just feel, being a DVC resort, it could be better. Heck, I'm sure it will get better as I understand many of us have complained. I have to believe they'll listen--for the most part.

I love the idea of a food court. I wish OKW had one as I'm not a big Olivia's fan. I'm glad someone else finally said the things about Olivia's I've been saying for quite some time. It's not a horrible place but it certainly can be better. I've never had a bad meal but I've never had a great meal either. Always average. I expect better than average in DW.

I also remember reading all of the DVC literature on SS and they indicated a lot more was going to be available in the AP. I think we all agree it's probably a bit small for when there are 600 units at 100% capacity. But I want to see more variety and let's use that brick oven for some good stuff (like someone else suggested).

As far as looking at DTD for eating, well, when's the last time you tried to go eat at one of the sit down restaurants WITHOUT priority seating? As they say in my area...forget about it. Also, it isn't terribly convenient for everyone to make it over there. We had my wife's aunt and uncle (both in their mid-late 70s who really didn't have the energy to walk over there or walk to the ferry or walk to the bus stop to take to the Carriage House to walk to the ferry...you get the idea. I don't buy the argument that DTD is good enough for everyone in the resort.

I also don't mind the open hallways, I think it's kind of nice actually. I just think they look like something from a cheap motel somewhere. They could have done a better job there.

I guess I count myself lucky having owned at OKW and gotten it a lot cheaper than many of you have paid/are paying for SS. For what they're charging I'd expect more, not less than what I have gotten. I understand economics and all that and they'll still sell out and pack the joint but it doesn't mean they shouldn't improve on it.