I may be wrong but the pool area looks a little quieter than CBR which may be a good thing.CBR was a little too rowdy for my 4 yr old, he was scared to death of the big dunk tank on the pirate ship and wouldnt go anywhere near it. The alligator rooms do look lovely but then the other magnolia rooms do look closer. I guess I really dont mind which ones we get. We will know within the next few days if we can afford to do this ( hopefully we can) dont get me wrong...a value resort is better than no resort but I dooo prefer a mod resort. I take it the food is all the same at the food courts at the mods?
I can only compare an about-to-be-freezing early December at CBR to a thankfully warmer February (though there were some cold days later) at POR, but the POR pool was pretty wild. BUT there were cheerleaders around from what I understand, and therefore teen boys as well, and it might have just been that causing the rowdiness.
But like I said before, there are shallow areas, and the bigger kids when I was there were NOT hanging out there. Also, we went after the lifeguards were already gone, so if you guys swim during lifeguard hours, the rowdy teens will have some level of control over them, if they are present. Anyway, you would be swimming with the 4 year old anyway, I assume, and can keep him away from wildness.
Isn't the dump thing at CBR in a special area off from the pool? I wasn't able to check that out because DS was already too tall (and it was dark when we swam there), but I don't think it was actually in the pool, was it? Regardless, the main POR pool is big with lots of spaces for you to find with your little one. I wouldn't worry.
As for food, POR has a create your own omelet which I don't remember *at all* at CBR, and later they have a create your own pasta which I don't remember from CBR. There is also a pizza window at POR, and create your own salad, and other things. I don't remember anything like that from CBR, though I might be misremembering or they might have changed it. I bet the menu pages here at wdwinfo.com or at allears.net could help you out with that. All I want to say is that in my memory POR's food court is far better than CBR's, but I'm no expert at all.
Who on this thread would choose a royal guest room river view over the swan and dolphin?
I got to see a room at the Dolphin (my cousin and her family didn't want to drive home during a visit, so we were able to snag a room for her there) and it was *lovely*. In the daytime it was literally a dumpster view, but at night they got to see fireworks from their window, which was pretty cool.
We also returned our car to the Dolphin's National people and go to see the lobby, and my son said "we have GOT to stay here!", so there you go. It's a lovely lobby and the employees there seem nice. An apparent janitorial guy took the time to walk us down a hallway and specifically show us which way to go to the walkway to Epcot, which I found to be very nice. Combine that with the awesome beds that Sheraton and Westin have (I think Dolphin is Westin and Swan is Sheraton?) and you've got a pretty good option.
I hear the "Swolphin" has AMAZING pools, too. Depending on the sort of trip I had planned, I think it would be a hard choice between the two!
All that said, our river view room had a lovely view, very peaceful and calm (and quiet).
I have never been on that site, and wow
thank you for sharing!! Just came up with a fun way to countdown to Disney
) But we realized we really just wanted the atmosphere. Most of the lunch choices were more appealing to us, and it's the same atmosphere, so saving some beaucoup bucks was a no brainer, and we're doing lunch instead!
but plan on taking the boat from DTD to POR for the ride. Once there DS and DH would like to rent one of the little speed boats like we did on our last visit. Can we do that if we aren't resort guests?
We haven't been away for more than a night or two by ourselves in well over 10 years! Like I told Venom before you all think we are meanies for leaving the boys home, they are happy for us (they asked that we bring back a present for them of course
) and we are hoping/planning on staying at the campsites at Fort Wilderness early 2014, as a family.
