Resort decisions: which items take priority for you?

[firecracker]

We do Disney every year, but we are very frugal. We always stay at a Value or rent points at OKW.

This year, I'm having a tougher time deciding because of the pool remodel at OKW. The rooms are bigger, mini-kitchen in the studio, nice pool, not crowded, but the bus service always STINKS! We drive 18 hours to get there and don't like to drive the parks, but OKW busses are never consistent and wander through the whole resort before getting to the parks! Very frustrating to those with a schedule.

At a value, the pool is big but crowded, the room small, no kitchette, but the busses are great...frequent and on-time.

Where would you stay?

Thanks for any advice!

Carmen

 

[nygrl]

I heard the busses at the values stink they are always over crowded and hard to get a seat which leads me to believe you will have a longer wait for one also. i would go moderate you could probably get a good price and i think it would be closer to what you are used to!

 

[gigi1313]

if i had an answer to your question i would not be "undecided" for my next trip...

saving (or not spending LOL) money is great... and we loved pop century, but if we do not do parks every day, the pool is a "yawn" for kids my kids' ages..

room size/personal space is important (which is why we got two rooms last time) but if we go to a higher priced moderate, we will have to forfeit some comfort or spend a lot more than we are comfortable with (so which comfort is more important, space or cash?!)

location/transportation is definitely key... although w/the excellent transport that we experienced at pop century, it is not as big a deal as we thought it would be, yet if you know for a fact that the transport is less than great at a particular resort, i.e. okw, then that could be a detriment, and would make me hesitate to choose that resort again (which is why cbr is off our possibility list)

so, all that being said... i'm in the same boat you are... we are actually considering a split stay -- something i said i'd NEVER do... four or five nights at dolphin or pofq, two or three nights at akl... simply because so many options have so many pros and very few have cons!

 

[EsmeraldaX]

The number 1 thing for me is cost. I'm not in the room enough to warrant spending a lot on anemities.

The second is theming. I have stayed at CR, Poly (by the way, the pool at Poly in July is a LOT more crowded than the pool at Pop in Dec.) , POFQ, POR and Pop.

My favorite out of all of them is POR. The theming is gorgeous and it's not very expensive with a code. I am hoping to get a code to try CS in May though, so that may become my new favorite.

 

[EsmeraldaX]

I heard the busses at the values stink they are always over crowded and hard to get a seat which leads me to believe you will have a longer wait for one also. i would go moderate you could probably get a good price and i think it would be closer to what you are used to!

I stayed at Pop Century in Dec. and we never had a bus with people standing on it, the busses ran about every 15 minutes and we had no problems at all. I was pleasantly surprised.

I think this is only a problem if you try to get on a bus right when the park opens or closes. We usually went for early entry (or the first or second bus of the day) and took our time leaving at night. Mid day busses were practically empty.

 

[gigi1313]

sheri, we had NO trouble w/buses (either wait time or crowds) during our seven night stay at pop century last august/september... i know that the other values (all stars) sometimes share buses in the slower times, so that could be an issue... more than once we had our choice of seats and only one night (the night before hurricane frances, immediately following wishes) did we have to wait for a bus at mk, but they were lined up one behind the other...

 

[Deborah_Mary]

For us ease of transportation/location is the biggest thing we care about right now. We have 2 dd's (6 & 1) and when we went last year they were 5 1/2 & 6 months and getting to the parks easily is key. My 6 year old LOVES the MK the best so we've been staying at CR. CR location can not be beat! I'm not overly partial to its pool (there are lots I've seen in pics that look a lot cooler) but dh and dd enjoy it very much so. Plus rolling the stroller on and off of the monorail or walking to the MK is just awesome.

Probably if we left our 1 year old behind (would never, ever happen, but still) and just went with our 6 year old, we would be comfortable staying pretty much anywhere (besides the values). My dh is a "resort snob" and he's not ashamed to admit it, lol! I think (so does dd!) ASMo looks like so much fun to stay at (or for me, POP) but dh won't even consider it. He's never really been one to enjoy hotel stays and exterior corridors really makes him feel like he's staying at just another hotel even though the theming is great. Again this is dh and NOT me!

Room size is something we need to consider now too since our little one needed (and will need to be for our upcoming trip) to be in a pack and play. The larger rooms at the deluxes help a great deal with setting up our not-so-compacted pnp as it is 6 years old but still like new.

These items take priority for us and our family. I am anxious yet apprehensive to try other resorts though. I guess we'll have to wait and see how it works out.

Good luck!

Deb*

 

[NMAmy]

Two things are most important to me--location and price. We are converts to the Dolphin--we can get great prices because DH is a government employee and I work at a college--and with the Starwood Preferred Guest card, we get some wonderful upgrades.