Just Back From Swan:The Good, the Bad, and Misc.

[Kathy5]

Our family just got back from the Swan. Let me give you some background, so you know where I'm coming from here. Counting this trip, my family has been to Disney eight times. We stayed off-site once, at the Port Orleans French Quarters, the Treehouses, the Polynesian, and at the Beach Club several times (our family's favorite hotel). We were planning to do the Beach Club again, but due to the great teachers' rates and the new renovations, decided to give the Swan a try. Here are my thoughts.

The Good: Great check in. Quick and easy. Everyone was pleasant.

Wonderful room. Very clean-and I am slightly nuts about the cleanliness of the room. Okay, it wasn't as clean as I would do, but it was clean. And, the quilt was white-I LOVED this, because I felt that I could tell if it was clean or not. I looked-it was. And, the bed was wonderful.

All of the staff were very friendly. Even the food court people (and anyone who has ever been at a Disney moderate, knows that this isn't always the case).

One night my daughter threw up at 2:00 am. Although housekeeping wasn't at our door as quick as lightning, they were very nice about the whole thing.

The oatmeal soap was wonderful.

The pool was not crowded. Easy to get a chair. The pool itself was nice.

Buses ran in a timely fashion. We never waited more than 5-7 minutes.

They had refillable mugs just like the other Disney resorts.

The cost-couldn't beat it.

I didn't mind the $10 resort fee-I liked having tea in the room and reading the paper every day. Also, my husband used the health club, and he wouldn't have if it had been an extra cost.


The Bad-The lighting in the bathroom was awful.

Not sure if I should include this under Bad, but a caution-I knew before we went that this wasn't a Disney hotel, and that there were some differences between this hotel and other Disney resorts (example you can't charge things to your room), but some people didn't. I want to buy our park tickets, and there was a gentleman in front of me who wanted to buy Ultimate Hopper Passes. He couldn't buy it at the hotel. NOW, I don't know if he could have gone to another hotel and gotten them or not, but he was mad because he hadn't known this. AND, this brings to mind something else I'm not sure of-when we got tickets at the Swan, they were paper, not plastic. I didn't like this. However, a few days later, my daughter came to join us for the day, and since we were near the Beach Club she got her ticket there. It was plastic, and gave her access to the FastPass, so maybe you could get plastic tickets or UHP at another hotel. Does anyone know?

Misc Thoughts-I wasn't thrilled about the food. Now, let me say that except for eating at the cafeteria twice, we didn't eat there, so I'm not being a food critic, it's just that none of the places appealed to us. No problem though-we walked to Epcot.

There was no Disney magic. Okay for us, but if I had never been at Disney, I might have wanted this.

Think that's it.
Kathy

 

[milmore104]

Quick question, I hope I'm not understanding you right? You can't charge things to your room? We charge everything to our room! EVERYTHING!!!! If this is true I guess I'll have to rethink the Swan.
Glad to her you had an over all good trip. And I hope your little one is feeling better!

 

[~Sparkly~Zoe]

You can get fastpass with paper tickets. I have many times.
The only things that can be charged back to your room are things charged at the Swan/Dolphin.

 

[milmore104]

Thanks Sparkly Zoe,
So you don't get the same kind of key card that works as your charge card too! Well I guess those 2 resorts are out!

 

[Mary Anne]

I've stayed a Disney a lot, own DVC have stayed at the Dolphin and will be there again. Like you said, there is good and bad in every hotel in every situation.

Just wondering, why is it such a bad thing not to be able to charge everything back to to room? We just put it on our American Express and to be honest perfer that to the room key. There is no difference you are still charging it. I guess if you were paying in cash at the end of your stay and you want'ed to go home with a $0.00 charge to your credit card that would make a difference. However, I just budget accordingly and have the money in the checking account and write a check when I get home and the bill comes.

 

[#1hockeymom]

I am glad you had a wonderful stay, Kathy! Next time, try Palio one night, I think you'd love it! We dont generally say "lets go out for Italian" in our house, but the three of us who went, including our son, loved it there and can't wait to go back.

??? I am confused as to the gentleman's problem. We stayed at the Swan at the end of June and bought four LOS/UPH tickets for our family, they even asked if we wanted to take the first/last day/or both off, which, while we didn't, I thought was a major plus if our situation had been different. I am wondering if perhaps that man wasn't even staying onsite and was just trying to get LOS/UPH tickets? I know you didn't know him, so this weird occurence will probably always stay that way. Yes, they are the paper tickets. We had them for seven days and never had a problem using them for fast passes/to get into the parks/etc. We also bought Enight tickets at the Swan for one of our nights.

milmore104>>No, you can't charge disney charges to your swan/dolphin room card, but you can charge anything from the resort (Swan/Dolphin) to your card. We split the days money between DH and I, and always had one charge card with us, so it was never a problem.

Debbie

 

[jwfla422]

No Disney Magic, C'MON????????????????

SO what makes the WDW owned resorts so much more magical??? Having a plasitc pass?? Sorry, just kidding, really, I'd like to know because we find EVERY stay at the S/D for us magical...especially in the "Disney" sense.

Maybe something was wrong with the lighting in the bathroom??I never noticed it to be a problem when we've stayed at either the S or D.

Did you try Gulliver's at all?? Their food happens to be very good. I do agree Tubbi's can be a bit inconsistent but I must admit I've never found the WDW resort food courts food much better.

Since we have APs it doesn't matter what resort we stay in, we'll always have separate admission tickets (which are paper). We also don't like to charge anything else to our room if we can help it but I'm sure many people like to do this. You can always carry around the credit card instead???

Don't flame me for this, I just don't get that comment about the Disney magic with the S/D. I've read this before and don't get it, does have something to do with it being a little more "business geared"??? I have found some of the WDW owned resorts more like this lately (especially at the YC/BC--when they had a big HP party on the beach with Disney characters and my dd was upset because she couldn't understand why they were dancing around and she wasn't allowed to see them). Now, to me that's no magic!

 

[Tiffany]

Originally posted by milmore104
Quick question, I hope I'm not understanding you right? You can't charge things to your room? We charge everything to our room! EVERYTHING!!!! If this is true I guess I'll have to rethink the Swan.
Glad to her you had an over all good trip. And I hope your little one is feeling better!

You cannot charge back to your room at the S/D with our room key. You can only charge on your room from places within the S/D complex. We thought this would be an issue when we stayed at the Dolphin in 2002 but it was not. Just take your room key and a credit card with you to the parks.

 

[Mouseteacher]

Just my $.02 worth:

Charging to the room is not a need for us.

We got LOS/UPH when we stayed at the Dolphin last summer - yes, they were paper but we used them for FP and had no problems - at that time the Disney Store sold paper tickets. This year I bought at the Disney store b/c I knew we wanted to save a day on each of our PHP. Disney Store now sells plastic passes. Paper or plastic - I don't care just need to get into the World. LOL

No, Disney magic!!?? S/D are plopped right in the magic. I guess each of us has our own definition of that Disney feel.

Business/Conventions - Many Disney resorts - Y/B Club, CR, BWI to name a few- are convention resorts. There were convention going on while we were at the Swan last week. I wouldn't have known it had I not seen a few people with ID badges. They were so unobtrusive - barely saw them about the resort.

Well, just my opinions and thoughts. We all have our own perceptions and I respect where others are coming from.

 

[Kathy5]

Let me clarify: yes, you can get fastpasses with the paper Disney ticket that the Swan/Dolphin give out. We used FastPass several times and had no problem. It is just that I LOVE that little plastic ticket. It makes me happy.

As for the Disney magic. I didn't feel any Disney magic for several reasons. First, there were a lot of convention people here. Now, I realize that there are convention people at Disney hotels, but this hotel had A LOT. I'm not saying this was bad (actually, it was good for us-more pool room etc, during the day) but there were more business suits than swim suits in the lobby. Also, no Mickey bars of soap, etc. Again, no problem for us, the oatmeal soap was wonderful. Plus, for us, having been to Disney before, we were not seeking any special magic at the hotel. I wanted a nice room and a good price, but I wanted to let others know about this. These are not Disney hotels , so don't expect them to be.

I am not trying to judge the Swan in any way. For a good rate, I would certainly go back. We had a super time. The Swan was one of the nicest hotels we have ever stayed at. I simply believe that different people find different things important in a vacation, and I wanted to mention as many pros and cons as I could think of.

Kathy

 

[sherry8253]

Please don't flame but but IMHO, I don't understand why anyone would have a problem with paper tickets or not being able to charge to your room key. Our AP's are paper and not plastic and they work just fine both for fastpass and getting us into the parks. And, to me, there is no difference in charging an item to your room or charging it to a credit or debit card that you have in your wallet along with your key and pass. We are going to the Swan for the first time in Nov/Dec and neither our AP paper tickets or carrying a credit/debit for purchases bother us at all. I hope all of the wonderful things that we have heard about the Swan and Dolphin are true. We can hardly wait to try the heavenly bed and stay right in the middle of the Disney magic.

 

[Eileen226]

We are counting on being able to purchase three night, four day uhps while staying at the Dolphin next week. Is there anyone who can confirm that we can check in late Wednesday night (8/13) and get UHPs for 8/14-8/17 (we check out very early 8/18)?

Thanks. Looking forward to our trip to the Dolphin.

 

[BadgerBruce]

The charging is really no big deal, nearly everywhere your Disney room key is accepted they will take a credit card. You can even use the same card you used at check in if you want!

 

[milmore104]

Okay let me clarify this, I do NOT have a problem w/ paper tickets! We actually have AP's so we do have paper tickets. Not being able to charge things to our room however is because, I have a great fixed rate on my credit card 2.9% but the catch is that I get charged a flat rate if I make over so many charges in a month. This being said we go to WDW for at least 2 weeks and we charge everything! So I could just take my card w/ me and charge it but I don't want to pay the rate to do so. And w/ Disney resorts I think we all know that everything is charged right at the end of the trip in one shot. I hope I have made sense in this matter. It's just a way to save some money!

 

[smilingmouse]

Here's some info for those among us who like plastic tickets better than paper ones: you can bring them to Guest Relations at any of the parks, and they can give you plastic instead. My parents did this in March without any problems.

Hope this helps.....

SmilingMouse

 

[tazz]

I like the card where you can charge everything to your room because it's easier for the kids (teens especially). We only let them do this for their meals, snacks & drinks and it works out well for us. They do have the citi cash cards for students that we are loading with the money they've saved for this trip for their souveniers, t-shirts and things they want. But, for meals in the parks, resort & d-quest when we're not always with them, this is really convenient. However, I'm not sure I'd consider this disney magic and wouldn't stay on site for just this reason.

 

[Lexxiefern]

Originally posted by Kathy5
Let me clarify: yes, you can get fastpasses with the paper Disney ticket that the Swan/Dolphin give out. We used FastPass several times and had no problem. It is just that I LOVE that little plastic ticket. It makes me happy.


Kathy

I totally know how you feel Kathy. I have an AP and I cannot for the life of me understand why it is paper! I love the plastic passes! Especially that an AP needs to last a year, you would think disney would make them plastic so they are more durable. I realize you were talking about regular passes, but I agree about loving the plastic ones better

 

[katrina1122]

I booked for Jan and questioned purchasing the uph's. They connected me to their Disney Desk. They said you can buy uph's for however many days you want for your stay. We'll be there 8 days, but don't have to buy it for the full 8 days. They said we can buy upon our arrival, however when I made our original reservation and asked the question the Disney Desk was closed at 6pm so I had to call back the next day. If you are arriving late and want to hit the park that night you may want to call and ask if you'll be able to purchase your tickets that night. They told me you can't pre-purchase your tickets with them ahead of time, although I don't know if that was because I was questioning 2004 tickets and the rates will be different.

 

[Mary Anne]

I too agree about the paper annual passes and wish they were plastic. Do you think it has anything to do with the biometric finger prints that they have to be paper?

 

[Kathy5]

Last week at Disney we went into one of the parks. My husband's paper pass wasn't accepted, so we were sent to Guest Relations. They gave him a new paper pass. I asked if we could all get plastic passes. The lady would not do this. I am sure it's an easy thing to do, and I am sure that some people at Guest Relations will do this, but not everyone will.