Let's Discuss why you stay at Deluxe Resorts

[WDWFanForLife]

Okay, let me start with a caveat. This is not meant to insult people who stay at Deluxe Resorts or question your choices. I'm actually intrigued and looking to have a conversation about them! All things considered, I would love to stay at the Grand Floridian or Y&B Club at least once. It's on my bucket list! My family could afford it, but it would mean going to Disney maybe every 5 years rather than every year. I also understand people have DVC or larger families that require suites rather than the ordinary resorts.

So here goes... We all know Disney is expensive, regardless, but I've been looking into prices at the Poly and Contemporary and... holy cow, how and why do people pay for these? I get it - these resorts are gorgeous and the proximity to the parks add to its value... but hear me out.

When we go to Disney, we love to spend time at the parks. That usually means heading to the parks early and/or staying until late at night. After, we hop on the bus and are back at our resort in almost no time. I get it - if we stayed at Y&B Club we could walk home from EPCOT or DHS - but we'd still be a good distance away from MK and AK - and vice versa with the MK resorts.

To me, I don't see the value in paying for a luxurious hotel room at Disney because we barely spend any time in our room. We sleep - that's it. Sometimes we come back for a nap or hang by the pool. IMO, if we were going to an all inclusive resort in say, Mexico, we'd spend for a higher priced resort - because that's where we'd be spending all of our time.

And so, Deluxe resort go-ers, I ask what makes you choose these resorts. Is it worth the value? We stay at POFQ. For fun, put on your sales hat and up-sell me on your Deluxe Resort over POFQ. This could be fun!

Honestly, I think you answered your own question. For your family, the resort isn't as important, because all you do is swim and sleep there. That choice makes total sense. However, a family like mine spends a lot of time at the resort. We enjoy:

1. larger rooms
2 signature dining
3. gym facilities
4. beautiful landscaping
5. proximity to the parks
6. activities
7. kitchens
8. in-room laundry

I find it curious, however, that you could understand the concept of spending more on a nicer resort in Mexico, but not at Disney. Some of these resorts with their proximity to the parks and on-site amenities are no different to me.

I am a DVC member. However, I don't like deluxe resorts because I am a DVC member, rather I became a DVC member because I like deluxe resort vacationing. It fits the way my family likes to vacation, and by no means are we wealthy. I think it can be a misconception that the people who stay deluxe are either wealthy or spending too much money. It can be quite the contrary. We save money on breakfast, snacks, and sometimes even lunch because we often have a kitchen in our room. In fact, my family's DVC vacations were cheaper than my brother's family vacations staying at moderate resorts. So much so, that after two vacations, he decided to become a DVC member.

It all depends what is more important for your family. There is no right or wrong choice. And that's why Disney has so many resort options to choose from.

 

[isaboo]

In the past, we have stayed at the Poly, WL, and YC. Last year we tried our first value...AOA Lion King suite. We really liked the room! We loved having two bathrooms, and the table that folded up to make a bed and the fact that we had a microwave to make bacon! There were several things we did not. There were not enough food options! I grew tired of the food court hassle by the second day. Hated waiting in multiple lines to get the food that that everyone in the family wanted then another line to pay. Also, we have never experienced such horrible bus service at the end of the park days. The lines to go back to AoA where so long they stretched down past several other resort bus lines.
This year we are staying at Beach club. I booked last weekend with the PIN code that just came out. The AoA suite with the measly 15% discount is onlyabout $10 less than a water view at BC. I'll sacrifice the extra bathroom for that in a heartbeat! We are not doing club level this time. We tried it at YC and loved it, but I found myself scheduling things around the evening happy hour and we were never back for dessert. Instead we'll order a bunch of stuff from GG and make our own Club level in our room!

 

[disneybliss2]

Exactly. Most of your responses will be from the following groups: a) we can afford it and demand the "best" from our vacation, b) we are not park commandos/utilize the resort facilities or c) we are DVC members.

I know you said that most responses would be from the groups you mentioned, but we are the odd ball that doesn't fit into those three categories. We have stayed at value, moderate, and deluxe. Our past two trips have been deluxe. We can easily afford it, but are very frugal and careful with how we spend our money. We do not demand the best from our vacation, or we would have always stayed Deluxe, eat at signature restaurants (never have), or purchase extras to enhance our trip (tours, Bibbidi Bobbidi, etc.--we've never done any). We are pretty much park commandos. Morning to night we go. We eat dinner early (5:30) to be able to get back to the hotel around 7:30-8:00 to have some pool time before a 9:00-9:30 bedtime for my young daughter. We usually take one afternoon break to swim out of a course of a ten day trip. On our last trip we took two afternoon breaks to swim and one morning break. We're not DVC members.

So why do we/have we stayed at Deluxe?

The first time we stayed Deluxe I got a deal that made it only $400 more than POFQ for a nine night stay. My daughter is a huge animal lover and we felt like it would be a wonderful experience for her to stay at AKL. We thought it would enhance our vacation, which it did.

We loved it so much that on our last trip we stayed there again. Originally I had us booked at POFQ. I was content to go there. Again, I got a great deal and we stayed for nine nights again for around $500 more. To us, it was worth it. If I didn't have the discount, there's no way I would have upgraded and I would have been happy, though not as happy, to stay at POFQ. I wouldn't stay at any other deluxe besides AKL though. One, it's theme appeals to us. Two, the others are just too far past my price point. I can't justify the additional cost of the other deluxes, though I'd love to (Beach Club or Poly). We love AKL and hopefully will get to stay there again. We're hooked, but only if a discount allows it. I might add, we only go once every two years so we feel like we can justify the added expense. Plus, we don't travel anywhere, other than our local state park to camp, on our off year.

Here's why we prefer the deluxe:
1. It's quieter, which helps us sleep better. (We slept well at POFQ too, but not at either time at POP; we were miserable there).
2. There's less people and the theme is calmer which helps me wind down after a day at the parks. Staying at POP was a little sensory overload for me. The combination of tons of people and the big icons after a long day at parks wasn't relaxing.
3. We love having our own balcony. It helps our girls get up in the morning knowing they can eat their breakfast out on the balcony (pool view, not savanna). We bring our own breakfast foods. My DH hates going to bed early and wants to stay up and read. It's disturbing to my daughters and I for him to have the light on in the room. The balcony is a great secluded area for him to read and not bother us. He's happy and we're happy.
4. Our daughters love to swim, but DH and I don't always want to jump in the pool too. We love that the pool at AKL has a zero entry and there are pool deck chairs right beside the pool for us to watch our girls but not have to be in the water if we don't want to. Great set up. Less people staying there and a bigger pool means a less crowded pool. Much more enjoyable.
5. It seems like a vacation within a vacation. I get a piece of Africa and WDW all in one trip. It adds to the value of our trip.
6. We love the additional activities for the kids. For example, AKL has cookie decorating, the night vision goggles to see the animals, an animal safari trekking activity, making food feeders for the animals, animal bingo, nightly music parade, African music making, etc. The kids can do the various activities and earn African inspired beads to create a memory chain. Very neat. My girls love visiting with the CMs from Africa and learning about their culture. These activities and the CMs truly added so much to our vacation!
7. We think the transportation is much better than what we experienced at the value resort. We've stayed twice at POP and twice at AKL so we have a good comparison between the two.
8. We like having the restaurants that are there close to us.
9. We like having the towels at the pool, larger and fluffier towels in the room, etc.
10. We like that the bathroom is tucked in a corner so those who are sleeping don't get woke up as easily by those getting ready in the morning. We like having the two sinks. We hated that sliding curtain that the mods have that didn't really block a lot of light.
11. We like having the closet in the room.
12. Bed size When we stayed at POFQ, they were doubles which the values still are. That's not very comfy for my 6'4" husband.
13. We like the interior hallways. I feel safer. I like opening the curtains up to my balcony and seeing my view. In a mod or a value, I feel like I need to keep the curtains closed because of all the people walking by.

Those are just some of the reasons we think that staying deluxe is worth it.

 

[philschrek]

For us, interior entrances to rooms, larger rooms, ability to have our whole family of 5 in a room that isn't a suite, close proximity (walking distance in several cases) to parks, better pools, more dining options, bigger beds, etc. We always book with a room discount promo and the difference really isn't that much when you figure how much $$$$ we spend on flights/food/etc that would be the same no matter where we stay.

 

[whiporee]

We stay at resorts because we don't like or trust the busses and we like room service.

Bigger rooms are nice, too.

 

[Dispro1]

There is definitely a recurring theme here, and it is true for my family too. If you spend a lot of time at the resort, the deluxe resorts are worth the money. When my kids were younger, we stayed at moderate resorts because we spent a lot more time in the parks. Now we only spend 3-4 hours in the park each day, so we want the nicer amenities of the deluxe resorts. It really does depend on your budget and what you expect out of a vacation. We always stay club level because we like the convenience of having breakfast ready each morning, snacks and drinks throughout the day(including beer and wine...and champagne at GF), and appetizers and desserts in the evening. However, if you want eggs and bacon every morning and you want to get your drink from the pool bar every day (or no drink at all), then club level probably isn't a good choice for you. If you plan to spend more time at Epcot on a particular trip, you may want to book a room at Beach Club, etc., or if you plan to go to MK more, a MK resort is probably the better option. All I can say for sure is that we have never been disappointed while staying at any Disney resort, but once you stay at a Deluxe resort, you may not want to stay at a moderate again.

 

[jeepnjudy]

Exactly. Most of your responses will be from the following groups: a) we can afford it and demand the "best" from our vacation, b) we are not park commandos/utilize the resort facilities or c) we are DVC members.

I'm "C" = DVC member but in all fairness we are new to DVC!

 

[busymommy2pink]

I think you'll find answers all over the board...and my answer may have already been stated, but I haven't read everyone's yet! Will do that in just a moment.

We stay Deluxe because we prefer the locations, amenities and much more. We go off peak season, so the deals that are out often bring down Deluxe rooms to not much more than a moderate. We aren't well off, in fact we really pinch our whole year to afford the type of vacation we want. We don't have cable, we don't go out for dinner often, we don't order pizza very often, we didn't have internet at home for almost 6 years lol..until just recently. We choose not to own a car (we live in a large city so we dont HAVE to), we live in an apartment instead of a house, we don't allow many luxeries throughout the year, all so we can really let loose for vacation.

For us, Deluxes offer the laid back pace we really love. We take a full day off and enjoy everything the resort offers, because you are right, we are paying a lot for that room. We attend the pool parties, do the crafts, eat at the resort, just soak in everything they offer. This coming trip we are renting a cabana at the pool while we have our day off. The kids are very excited. They would go and just enjoy resort life without going to the parks if we allowed them. We have stayed the last two times at BC..that was because we all loved Epcot and walking home, especially with little ones, was huge for us. They also loooved the pool. We've stayed at AKL...this ended up being only $300 more than a moderate because of a room offer!!! Totally worth the upgrade. This time we will be stayed at Grand Floridian as we want to spend more time at MK and the monorail and boat service is VERY appealing. Truthfully, we are also spending one night club level Beach Club soley for the pool at the end of the end of the trip, it's going to be magical!

 

[Coconut8473]

We did a split stay once, starting with Pop Century, then moving to Dolphin. Pop was absolutely adequate for a great vacation and the theming was totally fun for little ones... but once we got settled in at Dolphin, I'll admit, my MIL and I both heaved a huge sigh of relief. The beds and rooms were larger and more comfortable, the grounds were more serene, and the toiletries nicer. We just felt more relaxed overall. Even something as subtle as observing the number of people up early in the morning, jogging and walking (for exercise) around the Epcot resort area made me feel more at "home" - it's kind of hard to articulate. I think that's probably a function of having a slightly older clientele, as others have noted. We have two little ones (ages 5 and 1), but I usually still prefer to be around a quieter, calmer crowd.

The following year we booked at CSR and really enjoyed it... we got that same sense of "serenity" from the pretty grounds there, slightly larger rooms than Values, but at an excellent price. The buses were reliable and easy to use.

That said, when it comes down to it, we'll ultimately choose to go Deluxe if we can get a good price - location, location, location, on top of the qualities noted above, wins out for me every time. Looking forward to our stay at Beach Club this summer!

 

[msb578]

We did a split stay once, starting with Pop Century, then moving to Dolphin. Pop was absolutely adequate for a great vacation and the theming was totally fun for little ones... but once we got settled in at Dolphin, I'll admit, my MIL and I both heaved a huge sigh of relief. The beds and rooms were larger and more comfortable, the grounds were more serene, and the toiletries nicer. We just felt more relaxed overall. Even something as subtle as observing the number of people up early in the morning, jogging and walking (for exercise) around the Epcot resort area made me feel more at "home" - it's kind of hard to articulate. I think that's probably a function of having a slightly older clientele, as others have noted. We have two little ones (ages 5 and 1), but I usually still prefer to be around a quieter, calmer crowd.

The following year we booked at CSR and really enjoyed it... we got that same sense of "serenity" from the pretty grounds there, slightly larger rooms than Values, but at an excellent price. The buses were reliable and easy to use.

That said, when it comes down to it, we'll ultimately choose to go Deluxe if we can get a good price - location, location, location, on top of the qualities noted above, wins out for me every time. Looking forward to our stay at Beach Club this summer!

And that's another thing: the Swan and Dolphin in general. Disney includes them in their list of Deluxe resorts (even though they don't own them). Their location is arguably the best on property, and you get 60 day FP+ and EMH, with Disney providing the transportation (or free parking at the parks). The prices often beat the Disney-owned deluxes (even after the resort fees). Teachers, nurses, govt employees, AAA, and Starwood discounts... this is often an overlooked option! The Dolphin is a resort I'm strongly considering.

 

[Clare Voince]

I can't see paying $130/night for a glorified motel 6. To me, the Value and Moderate hotels are outrageously priced for what you get. I would stay off property first.

I also will only stay where there are interior hallways. Interior hallways = Hotel. Exterior hallways = Motel.

 

[mevelandry]

To me, I don't see the value in paying for a luxurious hotel room at Disney because we barely spend any time in our room. We sleep - that's it. Sometimes we come back for a nap or hang by the pool. IMO, if we were going to an all inclusive resort in say, Mexico, we'd spend for a higher priced resort - because that's where we'd be spending all of our time.

And so, Deluxe resort go-ers, I ask what makes you choose these resorts. Is it worth the value? We stay at POFQ. For fun, put on your sales hat and up-sell me on your Deluxe Resort over POFQ. This could be fun!

We are not spending most of our days in the park... Out of 7 days, we spend only 1-2 days in the parks.

We love the "Disney bubble", especially in the Deluxe resorts.

I prefer interior hallways.

And we also love the Club Level and it's not available in moderates (with the exception of Business Class in CSR but it's not exactly the same thing and we are not fans of CSR since we tried the other moderates).

 

[huntconn]

I never understand the reasoning behind these threads asking why people stay in deluxe resorts. Even if you don't agree with spending the amount of money these resorts command, isn't it obvious what the benefits of deluxes over moderates and values are?

 

[mevelandry]

I never understand the reasoning behind these threads asking why people stay in deluxe resorts. Even if you don't agree with spending the amount of money these resorts command, isn't it obvious what the benefits of deluxes over moderates and values are?

I'd be tempted to ask the OP if they ever stayed deluxe. It seems to me that once you experienced it, you usually "get it".

Example: For years I thought that Club Level was "a rich people thing for people who had too much money to spend"... until the YC upgraded us to a Club Level room. Now I see everything that is included with it (good view, concierge services, food and drinks, turndown service, little gift, etc.) and I find it to be a great value. I feel like it adds to the magic.

 

[disneybliss2]

I'd be tempted to ask the OP if they ever stayed deluxe. It seems to me that once you experienced it, you usually "get it".

This statement is true for me. For several years we stayed at value only and then we tried a mod. We loved it so much and saw such a difference that when we lucked into a great discount to try AKL, we thought we might see an even greater and better difference between resort types. For years I scoffed at the idea of staying at a deluxe. I thought why on earth would I spend the additional money when I only sleep and shower there. Once I stayed there, I totally "got it." Our vacation is enhanced by the resort we stay at.

 

[Squirlz]

Like everyone else has said, the luxury and the proximity. I like the Boardwalk Inn. My first time there was 2001. Didn't go again until last January, taking my Wife for her first visit to WDW. I booked a Standard room but got bumped up to Club. We were able to have breakfast and several dinners just eating the Club food. That plus the 35% room discount made it a good deal. So we went back again in December. Booked Deluxe Club this time and really enjoyed spending time on our balcony over the Boardwalk.

It's all part of the experience, not just the parks. A friend of ours was there last month, stayed at a Value. She and her Husband had a great time and she told us all about their trip. I asked my Wife if she would ever want to stay at a Value and cut our trip price by about 2/3. She just flat out said NO! I work for her and it's her money.

 

[Spoiledraf]

We've stayed at a value 3 times. The first,we were checking in with people who looked like they just changed the transmission in there tractor and wiped up all the grease and oil with their clothes.

The second we were awakened several times by the neighbors fight with horrible language.

The last time was at a Little Mermaid room and it was great. The other 15 times were at deluxe for all the reasons already mentioned.

Nothing against folks who love Disney like we do but can only afford All Stars but it's just not my bag.

 

[MammerJammer]

Here's why I would stay. We are a family of 5--so our choices are (for example), AOA family suite, POR, or BC. With various deals I can get all three resorts within the same price range. So, I'm thinking for the location (transportation) and pool alone I'd rather stay at BC.

 

[Our 2 Princesses]

We usually stay value. Twice at a moderate. I've always wanted to do a deluxe just once. My income return was more than expected so this is going to be our splurge year. Well go back to moderate or value afterwards.

My "why".. I want to see how the other half live

My fear.. I'll be disappointed lol

We are probably going to stay at POR next year again but if we can swing ,I really would like to stay at WL. My why and my fear are exactly the same as yours.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

After countless trips and trying two mods and one value, we only stay deluxe, but we only stay with discounts. I would never pay rack rate for ANY WDW resort. When we vacation, we want to feel like we are on vacation. I travel alone with my DS7 (who has high-functioning ASD) a lot and we both need breaks. It's a lot of work for me and my DS gets overloaded, so we need a quick escape from the parks and that means EP or MK resorts on the monorail. We typically do split stays between EP and MK resorts and plan our park days around which resort we are staying in. It makes it a vacation for everyone. On the few occasions that my DH comes with us, he demands the most convenient and luxurious. He wants a vacation, too. I'm usually the one who has to talk him out of CL because I personally can get more value for our money by buying a few things at QS for our room or bringing snacks with us. So, I can't upsell you on anything, only explain why deluxe is for us. But, again, I only book when I can get a substantial discount and will even consider Swan/Dolphin if I can get a better bang for my buck there.