Our 2 day stay at Riviera.

[Jimmy Mouse]

Jimmy you buried the lead...Towel animals are back???

We have always got them. We do tip daily so maybe that's why? Here is one from Yacht Club last week along with a Christmas tree and they posed Marie.

​

 

[AngiTN]

I knew that they allowed people to purchase access to the CL at WL, but I didn't know that was available at any other resorts. Thank you for sharing your point of view. Interesting.

It's not available at other resorts
No idea what OP is referring to

 

[Jimmy Mouse]

It's not available at other resorts
No idea what OP is referring to

WL has CL and CL access
BWI has CL and CL access
GF has CL and CL access
YC/BC have CL and CL access
AK is CL access only since DVC are the only rooms on CL level but as far as I know it's always been that way. Poly and CR still do CL only. No CL access rooms.

 

[AngiTN]

WL has CL and CL access
BWI has CL and CL access
GF has CL and CL access
YC/BC have CL and CL access
AK is CL access only since DVC are the only rooms on CL level but as far as I know it's always been that way. Poly and CR still do CL only. No CL access rooms.

That is not at all the same thing as buying it and adding it in to a non CL room

 

[Jimmy Mouse]

That is not at all the same thing as buying it and adding it in to a non CL room

No one said anything about buying it and adding it to a non CL room except you.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

WL has CL and CL access
BWI has CL and CL access
GF has CL and CL access
YC/BC have CL and CL access
AK is CL access only since DVC are the only rooms on CL level but as far as I know it's always been that way. Poly and CR still do CL only. No CL access rooms.

CL access rooms have been around for many, many years. We stayed in our first one (GF outer building, 1-bedroom suite) over a decade ago and I'm sure they were not new then. This is not a new phenomenon that would create an upsurge in CL guests. In most of these resorts, some suites (or cottages in the case of BWI) and deluxe rooms are CL access because they don't all fit in the main buildings or on the CL floors. CR does have CL access rooms in the garden wing - 1-bedroom suite and hospitality suite guests have access to the CR CL.

 

[Jimmy Mouse]

CL access rooms have been around for many, many years. We stayed in our first one (GF outer building, 1-bedroom suite) over a decade ago and I'm sure they were not new then. This is not a new phenomenon that would create an upsurge in CL guests. In most of these resorts, some suites (or cottages in the case of BWI) and deluxe rooms are CL access because they don't all fit in the main buildings or on the CL floors. CR does have CL access rooms in the garden wing - 1-bedroom suite and hospitality suite guests have access to the CR CL.

I know they have been around but now it seems they are selling more CL access rooms. Have you stayed at any CL lately? We have stayed CL 4 times in 2019, 2 times in 2018 and I can assure you that the lounges are at a minimum twice as crowded as they were the exact week 1 year apart. There is not a time you an walk in and find a table unless you are there right at opening. Either way, this is not worth arguing about. I was just posting my experience and opinion. I will just retract what I said. How about "The CL lounges are wonderful! Always a place to sit!" We can move on now.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

I know they have been around but now it seems they are selling more CL access rooms. Have you stayed at any CL lately? We have stayed CL 4 times in 2019, 2 times in 2018 and I can assure you that the lounges are at a minimum twice as crowded as they were the exact week 1 year apart. There is not a time you an walk in and find a table unless you are there right at opening. Either way, this is not worth arguing about. I was just posting my experience and opinion. I will just retract what I said. How about "The CL lounges are wonderful! Always a place to sit!" We can move on now.

I'm not trying to argue with you! I'm sorry if my post came off that way. It just sounded like you were unaware that CL access rooms have been around for many, many years, but apparently you are very familiar with them. We go back and forth between CL and villas (our last CL stay was in a Hospitality Suite at CR in 2018), but we used to stay almost exclusively in CL for many years. Yes, I found at breakfast time, in particular, that the lounges were very crowded. I was also never terribly impressed with the pre-planning services. That is why I am more apt, at this point, to save our CL money and book 1-bedroom or 2-bedroom villas and simply stock our fridges with our preferred items instead of jockeying for tables in CL lounges. Hence, our recent stay at RIV. Whatever you choose to do, I hope you enjoy your stays!

 

[stephk1981]

I know they have been around but now it seems they are selling more CL access rooms. Have you stayed at any CL lately? We have stayed CL 4 times in 2019, 2 times in 2018 and I can assure you that the lounges are at a minimum twice as crowded as they were the exact week 1 year apart. There is not a time you an walk in and find a table unless you are there right at opening. Either way, this is not worth arguing about. I was just posting my experience and opinion. I will just retract what I said. How about "The CL lounges are wonderful! Always a place to sit!" We can move on now.

Perhaps it's the times you are traveling? Medium to high crowd times maybe? We have done CL many times in the past, but in 2019 we did CL in February at BC....not really ' busy' in the lounge the whole week, always tables available.We were there in July at Poly CL ( CL room for only 4 nights, then moved to regular room.) The lounge was always busy. We returned from BC CL again over Thanksgiving, lounge was crazy, as you described....rarely a table available. ( Even during busy seasons it hasn't seemed more crowded in the lounge now than it did 8-10 years ago imo.) If you want a non crowded lounge try going at slower times, although mainly when children are in school. Then you won't have that problem. As far as towel animals, we only receive them anymore during busy times...aka Thanksgiving and President's Day....none on other trips and we tip daily as well. Glad you enjoyed your trip.

 

[AngiTN]

I know they have been around but now it seems they are selling more CL access rooms. Have you stayed at any CL lately? We have stayed CL 4 times in 2019, 2 times in 2018 and I can assure you that the lounges are at a minimum twice as crowded as they were the exact week 1 year apart. There is not a time you an walk in and find a table unless you are there right at opening. Either way, this is not worth arguing about. I was just posting my experience and opinion. I will just retract what I said. How about "The CL lounges are wonderful! Always a place to sit!" We can move on now.

I do CL every trip
GDT not included since it’s new. And different all the way around.
There is no recent increase in the CL room inventory at any of the resorts. Those rooms with CL access have been there. They are very few in number and are just deluxe rooms for the most part
CL access rooms have been at a constant number for a very long time
WL lost rooms and that’s why they sell it as an add on. No one else does
Now, no one ever said the lounges aren’t crowded. But it’s not from an increase in rooms available
It’s from an increase in people filling available CL rooms. You have been when occupant was down in the past or whatever reason the resort not at full occupancy. The CL rooms stay sold out almost all days now

 

[AngiTN]

We get the full experience every time we stay at YC/BC. The only time was our first stay at BC. After staying at Contemporary CL we were really disappointed when we didn't get greeted at our arrival or acknowledged in any way. It ended up being they were short staffed, super busy and the only CL CM on duty had just took someone up. Every trip since that has been outstanding. We are always greeted as we exit our car, taken directly to the lounge and offered a drink and shown our room if its ready. 2 trips ago our room was not ready and we had just missed the lounge offerings so they took us down to Crew's Cup lounge and comped our meal. But …….. We are considering not staying CL anymore. Not because the service. It is always outstanding. It's the lounge that is driving us away. The resorts are now selling Club Level rooms and "Club Level Access" rooms to sell more CL.The exclusivity is slowly going away. The lounge is always overcrowded since more people can now access it. I have a CL room booked for April but I have been looking at other options.

Then what does the bold refer to? WL is the only one selling more to offset what was lost.

No one said anything about buying it and adding it to a non CL room except you.

 

[mickeymom22]

We didn't stay at the Riviera, but we wanted to ride the Skyliner for a bit so we hopped on at Hollywood Studios and rode it over to the Riviera. We decided to get off and take a look around the resort. Everything looked beautiful. The lobby was beautiful, but it seemed small. The lounge area was small, but seemed like a great place to relax. The pool area looked nice, but not as large as Stormalong Bay. My daughter wanted to see the pin board, and the CM we asked about walked us over to where it was and carried on a really nice conversation about what we had been doing that day and what plans we had and what was our favorite thing we had done so far. She was very pleasant. It looks like a great place to stay!

 

[Jimmy Mouse]

Then what does the bold refer to? WL is the only one selling more to offset what was lost.

The bold refers to exactly what it says. I can't get any clearer, sorry. You "Assumed I said people were buying CL access and adding it to their room"

That is not at all the same thing as buying it and adding it in to a non CL room

Read it again is all I can say.
Here it is for you: The resorts are now selling Club Level rooms and "Club Level Access" rooms to sell more CL.

 

[DVCjj]

Thank you for your RR report. I was very interested in it as we will be there for 3 nights in about 2 weeks. Very much looking forward to it and hope the murphy bed will be working properly by then. We love the Skyliner a lot (own at BCV) and are looking forward to walking out the door and jumping on the Skyliner.

We also liked YC when we have stayed there several times. Totally different (upscale) vibe.

LOVED the towel animals. Wow. Haven't seen those in many years!!

 

[AngiTN]

The bold refers to exactly what it says. I can't get any clearer, sorry. You "Assumed I said people were buying CL access and adding it to their room"

Read it again is all I can say.
Here it is for you: The resorts are now selling Club Level rooms and "Club Level Access" rooms to sell more CL.

I'm not the only one that misunderstood your point
It was lost on me because they are not selling more rooms now. They are selling the same number they airways did

I knew that they allowed people to purchase access to the CL at WL, but I didn't know that was available at any other resorts. Thank you for sharing your point of view. Interesting.

 

[Jimmy Mouse]

I'm not the only one that misunderstood your point
It was lost on me because they are not selling more rooms now. They are selling the same number they airways did

Want to hear a funny story? I have been trying and trying to get my dates right at Yacht Club where I had booked 4/6 - 4/11 and I changed the checkout date to 4/12 but I didn't notice it also moved the arrival date to the 12th. I tried to correct it but the dates were gone for CL. I changed to Saratoga Springs out of frustration. Nothing was available so I sat on hold for 2 hours twice due to me accidentally hanging up once to talk to reservations because the site went down and I couldn't book anything. It came back up and everything was out of sorts so I held till I got to speak to someone. She couldn't get my dates either and I asked about the 2 bedroom "Club Level Access" suites out of curiosity. My exact question was "I thought about the 2 bedroom with CL access" but don't see any availability for it either. Is there a chance they may add more?" Her words were "They usually add more closer to the busy times, check back often" So back to my claim, I believe Disney has increased the number of rooms they give CL access to. Not an add on to a previous reservation. So no hard feelings? I do like a good debate Best news is my wife came downstairs and said " Your still looking on the Disney site?" I said well, I can't find what we need. She said she loved our stay at Riviera so I looked at it was available so it all worked out in the end.

 

[Jimmy Mouse]

I have to retract my last words on my original post where I said I wouldn't stay again. My wife won lol. We just changed our reservation to Riviera for 6 nights in April.

 

[AngiTN]

Want to hear a funny story? I have been trying and trying to get my dates right at Yacht Club where I had booked 4/6 - 4/11 and I changed the checkout date to 4/12 but I didn't notice it also moved the arrival date to the 12th. I tried to correct it but the dates were gone for CL. I changed to Saratoga Springs out of frustration. Nothing was available so I sat on hold for 2 hours twice due to me accidentally hanging up once to talk to reservations because the site went down and I couldn't book anything. It came back up and everything was out of sorts so I held till I got to speak to someone. She couldn't get my dates either and I asked about the 2 bedroom "Club Level Access" suites out of curiosity. My exact question was "I thought about the 2 bedroom with CL access" but don't see any availability for it either. Is there a chance they may add more?" Her words were "They usually add more closer to the busy times, check back often" So back to my claim, I believe Disney has increased the number of rooms they give CL access to. Not an add on to a previous reservation. So no hard feelings? I do like a good debate Best news is my wife came downstairs and said " Your still looking on the Disney site?" I said well, I can't find what we need. She said she loved our stay at Riviera so I looked at it was available so it all worked out in the end.

OK but there is a different definition to “they add more rooms” phrase that booking CM use.
They “release“ more rooms to their inventory at later dates. The total number of rooms isn’t going up and down but the rooms they are given to sell does. Same pool, different distribution. Some go to Orbitz, groups of various sorts, for DVC some aren’t given over to cash till later. Lots of reasons rooms come and go from inventory. There are not rooms that are CL today and nonCL tomorrow. The only resort that does that for certain is WL. Now, I do have a theory that GDT could do that, not add on like WL but make a room CL on one trip and not the other. The total inventory of CL rooms may be fixed, just which rooms get CL access may vary. Totally my theory though, no true knowledge.
I do have 100% confirmation that BWI has a fixed and stationary number of rooms with access to CL. Just talked to the CL manager last night about it as we were lamenting how we haven’t found a room here for our April trip yet. 65 if my memory is correct. That counts all the rooms on the 4th floor, the cottages, the deluxe rooms on 3rd floor (maybe others too, I forget) and their suites.

 

[Jimmy Mouse]

OK but there is a different definition to “they add more rooms” phrase that booking CM use.
They “release“ more rooms to their inventory at later dates. The total number of rooms isn’t going up and down but the rooms they are given to sell does. Same pool, different distribution. Some go to Orbitz, groups of various sorts, for DVC some aren’t given over to cash till later. Lots of reasons rooms come and go from inventory. There are not rooms that are CL today and nonCL tomorrow. The only resort that does that for certain is WL. Now, I do have a theory that GDT could do that, not add on like WL but make a room CL on one trip and not the other. The total inventory of CL rooms may be fixed, just which rooms get CL access may vary. Totally my theory though, no true knowledge.
I do have 100% confirmation that BWI has a fixed and stationary number of rooms with access to CL. Just talked to the CL manager last night about it as we were lamenting how we haven’t found a room here for our April trip yet. 65 if my memory is correct. That counts all the rooms on the 4th floor, the cottages, the deluxe rooms on 3rd floor (maybe others too, I forget) and their suites.

Yep. They probably do hold some back but I do know at YC the 2 bedrooms can be either a CL or a non CL same room, different date. Either way the bottom like is Christmas week last year the lounges at YC were way less crowded. We did breakfast every day but one on both trips. Good news is the parks were less crowded this year