Returned from Swan: 11/15 - 11/22

[CarnotaurDad]

We (myself, DW, DD(3)) just returned from a week at the Swan (11/15 - 11/22) and thought we could share the following with you:

Pros:

* Incredibly comfortable beds. The heavenly beds really are heavenly. It's wonderful to have had such a good night's sleep before a day at the parks.

* Room size. We were on the 11th floor and the room (2 queen beds) was really quite spacious. Not a suite, but not bad.

* Club. Mama T and Rudy in the morning, and Maria in the evening, really took care of us.

* Location. Can't beat walking to Epcot and MGM. The boat was nice too.

* Elevators. They were quite quick and there were a lot of them.

* View. Our room looked out towards Epcot, the Boardwalk and MGM. I especially liked looking at the Tower of Terror. We could see Fantasmic and Illuminations each night.

Cons:

* Room mixups. Even though we had a confirmed "Non-smoking, 2 Queens" they had us in a "Non-smoking, 1 King". We immediately switched but then they put us in a "Smoking, 2 Queens". Arrrggghhhh!!!!! It took a while but we finally got our "Non-Smoking, 2 Queens".

* The "Disney" feel. I know, this is EXTREMELY subjective. But we visited the GF, Poly, AKL and WL on this trip and the Swan was just missing that "Disney" touch. It's hard to explain. It's not that the Swan wasn't a good hotel, but it wasn't a "Disney" hotel. Maybe it's because I travel so much on business that I wanted something different from a business hotel. The other Disney hotels really seemed special and different. The Swan felt like every other Westin I have stayed in on my travels.

* Pool closings. For three nights that we were there, the pool area closed early (around 6 PM) for corporate events.

* Front office indifference. I felt that check-in was pretty "cold" and when we had the room issues, there wasn't a lot of proactive helping.

That's all for now. We will be more than happy to answer any questions that might help others."

 

[Hillbeans]

Thanks for the update. I've wanted to stay there for awhile now, and it sounds like you enjoyed yourself. We may try and go down for 4 nights in late Jan and are torn between the Swan and the HRH. How was the transportation to/from the parks?

 

[CarnotaurDad]

Hi HillBeans,

We were pretty lucky because we rented a car and were able to drive to MK and AK.

As for Epcot and DS, we either walked or took the boat. We never waited more than about 15 minutes for the boat to come.

IMO, it's much easier to boat to DS than Epcot.

IIRC, in order, the boats stop at:

Epcot
Boardwalk
YC/BC
Swan/Dolphin
DS

So, if you are trying to get to Epcot from the Swan, there are two more stops before Epcot. If you are trying to get to DS from the Swan, DS is the next stop.