Nervous about Grand Floridian. Please help.

[grannyminnie]

I'm also staying GF for the first time the end of Nov. and your tips were so helpful, Michelle.
Any more that you can offer, we'll be glad to see!

 

[Tink rules]

High Tea at the Gardenview Lounge...

It is one of my decatent pleasures... Have the Royal Tea - comes with a glass of champagne..

You'll love the bathrobes they leave you to wear...

Turn down service - if you have stuffed animals, they are known to "play" with them

The lady bug release is done by the herb garden by 1900 Parke Fare enterance - not sure of the days

There is a tour of the resort - ask at GS

If you are there for Xmas - or even mid Nov - you will be able to see them put up the Gingerbread house and the tree

Victoria & Alberts - while expensive - is an EXPERIENCE in itself!!!

There is a hot tub by the main pool - very good after a long day at the parks

Right next to the elevator is a little seating area that is kid sized

There is a laundry room in every building - first floor - has it's own room and everything - NO COIN MACHINES THOUGH.... BRING LOTS OF QUARTERS!!! Otherwise you have to go over to Gasparilla Grill for quarters.

If there is anything else... I'll write more...

Have fun - I'll be there - but at the Poly from 11/3-11/11! (Mom wants to try the Poly...)

 

[GofFreak]

Love those pictures. Just showed them to my DH. Are those your girls? They sure are cute. We are so excited about our 1st MNSSHP. It is ironic. We were so upset when we had to cancel our trip this month. But if we hadn't cancelled this months trip, then we wouldn't be going in October and we wouldn't be going to the MNSSHP. Everyhting happens for a reason.

Lisa

Great pics! Thank you for sharing

 

[disneyholic family]

we LOVE the GF....love it love it love it...

it's our favorite disney resort (our second favorite is the WL)...


i don't know if anyone's already mentioned it, but the food court at the GF is the only one in the resorts that is open 24 hours a day...
a great thing in my book...

and everyone at the GF is sooooooooooooooooooo nice......all the CMs....always asking how i'm doing...if they can do anything for me.....
i love it there....love it love it love it..

and by the way, it's always been my daughters favorite....from the very first time we stayed there....

 

[Jasminetigger]

disneyholic family, thanks for the tip about the food court. Sometimes you just gotta have that midnight snack.

Can anyone fill me in on room locations? We have a standard garden view booked. Anyone know where we might end up?

 

[KristenHoneymooner]

Lisa,

DH and I absolutely loved the GF last week. I was nervous because I originally had booked the AKL, but I am soooo glad we were moved to GF. The place oozed romance. Although we were just 2 adults, we saw plenty of happy families there, too!

The buildings and grounds are beautiful and it was a pleasure to come home to each afternoon (for naps) and night. The MK is the very next monorail stop, so it is only a couple of minutes away! The walk to Poly is maybe 10 minutes, along the beach the whole way.

Sitting in the lobby listening to the live orchestra was very relaxing and felt decadent because of the elegance of the place. I felt like I had been transported to an earlier era. We noticed that the lobby has several TVs playing old Disney cartoons with kid-sized chairs in front of them, which your children might like.

Gasparilla Grill is open 24 hours, so you can always get drinks and snacks. The main pool is also open 24 hours, which was wonderful after a long day at the park. One of the highlights of our GF experience was watching the MK fireworks while in the swimming pool! Truly magical.

Enjoy the GF!

 

[Jackie Psarianos]

Grand Floridian

We have stayed there once before and are booked to go back in a couple of months. It is really child friendly, there are lots of families that stay there, they have a wonderful arcade right beside the counter service restaurant called Gasparilla Grill and Games (open 24 hrs) which has lots of seating inside and outside. You can view the fireworks at Magic Kingdom and the Electric Water Parade right from the outdoor patio tables and it's really pretty.

It has two large pools, one of which has a water slide for children and zero depth entry. You should try to use the changerooms near the zero depth pool....it's luxurious, they even have blowdryers for your hair. So so nice.

The Monorail passes through which is very convenient, and room service runs 24 hours a day. The rooms have turn down service every night and you can borrow the fluffy bathrobes during your stay.

It's surprisingly very popular with families, you'll see and you won't be disappointed.

 

[LWcalif]

It's been a while since we've stayed at GF. But we loved our stay. Had a std. room booked and requested pool view. We ended up with a lovely dormer room overlooking the pool. I really liked the vaulted ceiling in the dormer room. Made the room feel so much bigger.

They were filming a Disney commercial one day at the pool and it was fun sitting on the balcony watching how many times the "disney family" jumped into the pool. I lost count on how many "takes" they did. The first one looked good to me, but what do I know. Only one end of the pool was used for filming, so the rest of the pool was still open.

The lobby is beautiful. And as the OP said, you will love "plopping" there. I didn't find it "stuffy" at all. It is a wonderful family resort. Enjoy your stay.

 

[Jasminetigger]

Wow, with every new post I learn so much information. You guys are unbelievable. KristenHoneymooner, you can actually see the fireworks from the pool. That must be awesome. LWcalif, I will definitely be doing some "plopping." I do believe I had a preconceived notion of the GF being stuffy. But after everything I am reading here, I believe I was very wrong. Watching the commercial must have been really neat.

 

[rcraw45425]

Love those pictures. Just showed them to my DH. Are those your girls? They sure are cute. We are so excited about our 1st MNSSHP. It is ironic. We were so upset when we had to cancel our trip this month. But if we hadn't cancelled this months trip, then we wouldn't be going in October and we wouldn't be going to the MNSSHP. Everyhting happens for a reason.

Lisa

Yes, those are our two girls, Kelly and Amy, 12 & 10 now. They love the GF. As I and others have mentioned, you'll love the convenience of the GF. And as I mentioned, for both of our stays we booked GV and wound up with Lagoon view for some reason. It never hurts to be friendly and cheerful at check in. They can also arrange for your kids to get a welcome call from a character. When we were there Amy was celebrating her birthday. The CM handed the phone to her and Mickey was on it, then she turned it over to Kelly and it was Goofy for her. They also sent up personalized signed photos from Cinderella along with a GF chocolate bar for Amy.

 

[Tink rules]

Garden view rooms are either pool view or marina view. (I don't think they've changed it too much.

 

[disneyholic family]

Garden view rooms are either pool view or marina view. (I don't think they've changed it too much.

no, garden view rooms are not of the pool or the marina...
it's a garden view..
the time i stayed with just my daugther there, we had garden view....
we had a view of the building across from ours plus some trees...
but it wasn't a bad view - just not the pool or the lagoon...
but it was fine....we don't really spend our day looking out at the view...when we're in the room we rest....so it was fine...(i've stayed at the GF with the best views, - castle view from the main building concierge and i didn't spend any more time looking at the view than from my garden view room)...

someone mentioned room service...
yes, if you like room service, it's EXCELLENT at the GF.....my daughter is a pastaholic...she had the pasta, which was outstanding......
there is the nicest room service waiter there....hmmm...what's his name....howard?....i'm not sure....all the room service waiters are nice, but this one waiter was unbelievably nice.......
but really everyone is nice...

it's a lovely place to stay.....and very disney (in the very good sense of the word)...

 

[Tink rules]

They may have changed it...

I've had 3 garden view rooms... two overlooking the marina and one overlooking the pool.

Still - there aren't really any bad views no matter what...

 

[Sammie]

no, garden view rooms are not of the pool or the marina...

Actually yes they are. At the Grand Floridian you have Garden views which do include the marina and pool even some of the lagoon. Then you have Lagoon and Theme park views.

So if the don't face the lagoon or the theme park, they are Garden. There is no water or pool view.

The garden view rooms in Conch Key and Sago cay both face the marina and in Conch Key garden views also face the large quiet pool. On the other side of Sago Cay the garden view rooms face the monorail and some of the lagoon.

 

[Gary M]

Our GV rooms were in Boca Chica and overlooked the pool. As was mentioned the walkway to the Poly takes about 10 minutes and is paved. It goes past the wedding chapel and the path is lighted.

We have stayed at the GF 8 times and WL over 25 times. These are our favorite WDW resorts. (also stayed at Poly, AKL, BWI, YC and POR.)

 

[Familyof6]

My experience was several years ago, so things may have changed a bit since then, BUT... I was booked on a Land/Sea pkg in 2001. (oct, to be exact) I had requested Poly for our Land portion BUT dh was active duty AF at the time and due to circumstances in the country (9/11) he was denied leave 2 weeks before our trip. Disney was going to charge us to rebook but then reconsidered and offered to let us rebook fee-free if we rebooked within a yr. We rebooked for May 2002.
In order to keep the rebooking process from getting complicated, I accepted the fact that we would need to stay at the GF. (it's the hotel that is booked with the L/S pkg we were on) I had the same feelings you had about the GF. At the time my children were 11. 9. 6 & 2. I worried so much about the GF being too stuffy for my active (normal) children. To add to my nerves, we would most likely be booked into a concierge level room. What would "those people" think if my children made any extra noise?
Jasminetigger, THIS IS DISNEY!!! My worrying was all for naught! The GRAND FLORIDIAN is set up for FAMILIES! That includes small children. I was so pleasantly surprised! It was probably the BEST choice we have made! The kids LOVED it there. The small, child-size furniture just made it that much more inviting to the little ones and set my mind at ease.
I don't know if they still have character greetings in the mornings in the lobby, but that just THRILLED my then 2 yr old! She "goofed" around with Goofy one morning in the lobby and fell in LOVE with Minnie Mouse! (my older kids have never really liked any mascot type characters)
Jasmine, if you call ahead and talk to anyone at the GF, you might mention that you had to cancel a recent trip so you want this one to be extra special. (how disappointing it was) Who knows! You could have one of your "million dreams" come true. I wouldn't expect it, but it never hurts to mention it.
Others have mentioned the launch from MK!! It is so wonderful to be able to bypass the long monorail lines after Wishes or just at the end of a busy day and take a nice relaxing boatride over to GF!!
I know all the other posters have told you how much they enjoyed GF. I'm really just adding a nod here but I wanted to let you know, others shared your concerns and still LOVED it!
I would stay at the GF in a heartbeat...although I have always wanted to stay at the Poly too.
I really don't think you'll be disappointed. If you really want that island feel, book a night at the luau. We did that also..and walked over that pathway that people are talking about. It was a nice stroll.
We even got to see the Pumpkin coach go through the courtyard. (probably going to pick up a bride) You won't see that at the Poly...(I don't think?)
It was just so DISNEY, we LOVED it and I hope you and your family will too. Breathe easy.

Familyof6

 

[Jasminetigger]

Familyof6, thanks so much for taking the time to post and ease my mind. I truly enjoyed reading your post. I am really starting to get used to the idea of the GF. I am beginning to get excited about it. As a matter of fact, just this morning my DH told me even if something opens up at the Poly, he doesn't want to change. Not after all the good things I have told him my wonderful disboard family have told me about the GF.

 

[disneyholic family]

Actually yes they are. At the Grand Floridian you have Garden views which do include the marina and pool even some of the lagoon. Then you have Lagoon and Theme park views.

So if the don't face the lagoon or the theme park, they are Garden. There is no water or pool view.

The garden view rooms in Conch Key and Sago cay both face the marina and in Conch Key garden views also face the large quiet pool. On the other side of Sago Cay the garden view rooms face the monorail and some of the lagoon.

there may be garden view rooms that view water, but this is not guaranteed...if you have a GV view, you might just be looking at trees and shrubbery and nothing else....
so don't plan on it being anything but that....you might be lucky and get something else..
if you want to be guaranteed a water view, then you should upgrade to marina view....but it's really not worth the extra money.......
i can't remember the building we were in on that stay (it's the one right across from the main building (boca chica?), but we didn't have a pool or marina view...we were around the side of the building and faced the building off to the side (possibly sugar loaf?) and trees and grass and bushes....
but it was also pretty...nothing wrong with it and we had a really good rate on that stay....so i wasn't complaining...

 

[Jasminetigger]

there may be garden view rooms that view water, but this is not guaranteed...if you have a GV view, you might just be looking at trees and shrubbery and nothing else....
so don't plan on it being anything but that....you might be lucky and get something else..
if you want to be guaranteed a water view, then you should upgrade to marina view....but it's really not worth the extra money.......
i can't remember the building we were in on that stay (it's the one right across from the main building (boca chica?), but we didn't have a pool or marina view...we were around the side of the building and faced the building off to the side (possibly sugar loaf?) and trees and grass and bushes....
but it was also pretty...nothing wrong with it and we had a really good rate on that stay....so i wasn't complaining...

The view is not that major of a deal to me. Trees and shrubbery will suit me just fine. My main concern would be noise. I wouldn't want to overlook some service area where loud trucks are there late in the evening/early in the morning. Does anyone know if any of the garden view rooms overlook the service area?

 

[disneyholic family]

The view is not that major of a deal to me. Trees and shrubbery will suit me just fine. My main concern would be noise. I wouldn't want to overlook some service area where loud trucks are there late in the evening/early in the morning. Does anyone know if any of the garden view rooms overlook the service area?

i don't think there are any service areas that you could overlook.......i don't recall seeing any service areas when i've walked around the resort (where the buildings are)...

it really is a very quiet and peaceful resort....

and very disney....to me it IS disney.....sort of like being a princess....

i may have seen some service areas on the walk over to the spa....but there are no rooms over there......it's just the walkway to the spa (and from there to the wedding pavilion and the poly)...

as for trucks...i don't even know where the trucks deliver...i don't think i ever noticed one...
there are those little motorized vehicles the bellboys use and the mousekeepers use for linens, but no real delivery trucks....there must be service areas of the hotel that are completely hidden from the guests (and not near the rooms)...