Room preference for Contemporary Resort

[_19disnA]

We are going to Disney next year and have booked the Contemporary. Our last Disney trip was about 10 yrs ago. Apparently, closer to the time of our vacation, we will have 2 options to specify room choice. Haven't done this before, and the field is currently blank. Would like to know what those choices are and if you had any real experience (i.e. room location you really LIKED or DIDN'T?) that makes one choice better then another. (We will be staying in the main tower, not the Garden Wing.)

 

[Kimberle]

The CR tower is fairly small. You'll either book & pay for a Theme Park view, or a Water View. I prefer a higher floor. Once on the floor, they are not very long (by Disney standards), so the view won't very much room to room.

 

[OneinThree]

Tower theme park view is game changer.

 

[Babsy]

If you have the tower TPV, request an odd numbered room if you like to lie in bed and see the castle.

 

[k5xs]

Lake view: Wonderfully quiet. Your personal and up-close performance of the corny but fun Electric Water Parade every night with the fun music.

Theme Park View: Eyewatering personal performance of MK fireworks every night, with full sound track piped into your room. Gorgeous sunset view. Nice shady room-service breakfast on your balcony. Can be a little noisy on the balcony from all the bus traffic in and out of MK bus station. Way cool view of the entire MK monorail loops.

Theme Park view every time for us.

Oh, I snapped my avatar photo of Space Mountain (by my screen name to the left here) from a Theme Park view room. Love that view!

 

[morganms22]

We have stayed in both a theme park view room and a lake view room. We preferred the lake view. It was like coming back to our own personal oasis of sorts. I loved having coffee on the balcony in the mornings. The fireworks from the theme park view room were nice, but unless you plan to be in the room every night to see them, it wasn’t worth it. Plus, theme park view during the day left a lot to be desired (mainly a parking lot view). I would base what you choose off your schedule and if you plan to be in the room to watch fireworks most nights.

 

[_19disnA]

Perhaps my question wasn't clear, we have already chosen the lake view. "Room option" is apparently something else we will get to select closer to the date of our vacation. That is what I was asking about.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Perhaps my question wasn't clear, we have already chosen the lake view. "Room option" is apparently something else we will get to select closer to the date of our vacation. That is what I was asking about.

The room option component of the online check-in process is "broken" and has been off/on for some time.... it has been blank for many resorts for several months. They could tinker with it a bunch between now and your trip, but I'd ignore it. When it has worked in the past, options have been rather generic... such as "high floor" and "near elevator."

With a lake view room - I'd personally request a high floor, but I'd do so by calling the main reservation number and asking to have that request noted on your reservation.

I also would rather not be on the Chef Mickey's side of the building (noise can tend to drift up), so something like "high floor, north side of building" may be something to consider. I don't get too hung up on being away from Chef Mickey's, but I do make that one of my requests (just personal preference).

Hope that helps!

 

[_19disnA]

Ok thanks, that makes sense and is very helpful.

 

[Hopefully]

I think you may have misunderstood the process.
At online checkin there used to be a mechanism to make room requests. It is, and has been broken for awhile. To my knowledge, there is no other special opportunity to make requests.
As @GADisneyDad14 said, call Central Reservations now with your requests.

 

[_19disnA]

No, I understand the process, there are 2 fields for 'room option' on their online reservation system, but they are currently blank with no option to input something when I made my online reservation. If it doesn't work or is no longer valid, seem they would have removed them. I just called the Disney reservation desk, they told me the same thing shown in post #8, things like 'near an elevator' or 'higher floors'....etc. Their explanation was these fields become valid/popuated nearer to the time of your vacation. Person on the phone gave no indication these fields are 'broken'.

 

[k5xs]

Perhaps my question wasn't clear, we have already chosen the lake view. "Room option" is apparently something else we will get to select closer to the date of our vacation. That is what I was asking about.

My apologies. I misread your original post.

I agree with what others have said about the Chef Mickey's sounds being a little annoying, but we sort of enjoy the din of families having fun.

And GADisneyDad makes good point with suggesting a "North Side" room. I think anything on the Bay View Gifts (shop) side of the central elevator structure will isolate you as much as possible from the noise. Also, being high up is nice, but there is one minor downside: We tend to like being as isolated from the outside world as possible when we stay. The higher up you go in the tower, the more you see of Orlando/Kissimmee from your balcony. All floors have a nice view of Bay Lake. But the higher floors also give you a view of a lot of the touristy stuff on the horizon.

Also, remember the lowest floor with guest rooms is (IIRC) the 5th floor. So even the lowest guest room floor is already pretty high up.

But ALL this discussion is peripheral. What's important is that you are going to be staying in what in my opinion is the coolest resort on the planet. I hope you have a great time.

 

[_19disnA]

Appreciate your input, we are hoping for a great time also. The input here has been very helpful. If we know what our options are we can make a better choice when that time arrives.

 

[lvloopingbag]

Has anyone stayed in a lake view room in the tower in a room with a king bed? Having trouble locating any when looking at the Touring Plans room location tool. Thanks!

 

[dansdad]

Has anyone stayed in a lake view room in the tower in a room with a king bed? Having trouble locating any when looking at the Touring Plans room location tool. Thanks!

My parents have 3 times. Different room every time so there's at least 3 of them.

 

[Lynne M]

We are going to Disney next year and have booked the Contemporary. Our last Disney trip was about 10 yrs ago. Apparently, closer to the time of our vacation, we will have 2 options to specify room choice. Haven't done this before, and the field is currently blank. Would like to know what those choices are and if you had any real experience (i.e. room location you really LIKED or DIDN'T?) that makes one choice better then another. (We will be staying in the main tower, not the Garden Wing.)

There's no requirement to specify a certain room choice. You're describing the requests page, which was there as a convenience for guests who might want to make a request but didn't want to call the reservation line.

Back when Disney created online check-in, they added a requests page in an attempt to automate the process of room requests. IMO, it was always kind of pointless, because they never really did it properly. They threw in a handful of generic requests that might not even apply to the guest's resort. It didn't really satisfy anyone, and was often confusing to guests when they saw an option that didn't apply to the room type they'd booked, or even the resort they'd booked.

It hasn't worked at all for quite some time, and I don't know if they're finally going to make it useful by making it more specific to the reservation, or if they're just going to give up on it altogether. The reservation agent you spoke with was incorrect; it's never been set up to appear closer to your arrival date. It's either broken or they've disabled it.

Even if the request page does reappear at some point before your trip, you're not required to select anything. If you do want to request something - a certain floor, being near an elevator, etc - you can just call the reservation line.

 

[_19disnA]

Well at least I know what those optional fields were intended to be populated with. Staying on a higher floor or near the elevator isn't a big deal to us. Sounds like the IT people didn't set it up correctly or else the requirements weren't clear.

 

[Childs1stTime2Disney]

The room option component of the online check-in process is "broken" and has been off/on for some time.... it has been blank for many resorts for several months. They could tinker with it a bunch between now and your trip, but I'd ignore it. When it has worked in the past, options have been rather generic... such as "high floor" and "near elevator."

With a lake view room - I'd personally request a high floor, but I'd do so by calling the main reservation number and asking to have that request noted on your reservation.

I also would rather not be on the Chef Mickey's side of the building (noise can tend to drift up), so something like "high floor, north side of building" may be something to consider. I don't get too hung up on being away from Chef Mickey's, but I do make that one of my requests (just personal preference).

Hope that helps!

stayed in a tower room years ago, and dont recall. Does the side of the building really matter re chef mickeys?

 

[_19disnA]

^^ I have seen other posts where people indicate staying on a lower floors on the south side of the tower means you will hear more noise from chef mickeys since you are closer to it.

 

[Christine]

I want to add that, while I don't know about the tower rooms, the Garden Wing rooms were incredibly quiet. For instance, just about every morning when I stepped out into the hallway, the room next to me had at least one child in that room that was ALWAYS crying pretty loudly every morning (and sometimes at other times). It was pretty noteworthy out in the hallway but when I stepped into my room, it was like the child didn't exist. I could not hear a thing. I was impressed by how quiet it was. A few day prior to us staying on site, we had two nights at the Drury Inn and it was very easy to hear my neighbors, whom I don't think were being overly loud--just normal noises you'd hear with a couple of kids coming in and out of the room. Contemporary seemed very well insulated against noise.