The only thing we missed were Disney touches, like there's no ambient music, and not a character or Mickey icon to be seen. Even the gift shop didn't have Disney stuff. That was kind of weird.
Wow, when were your there? We just got back on Oct 1st and quite frankly, we got two of our most favorite Disney souvenirs from the gift shop at SOG. Actually, most of our Disney gifts came from there. It was the first place the kids hit, and my favorite, a Minney Watch, is fabulous and I didn't find it in any other gift shops in Disney that could even compare to it.
I also felt it was nice to come back to a quiet hotel. It was our first trip to Disney and after a day in the parks, the quiet of the hotel was heavenly.
We had no trouble w/ the bus service at all, though we used it on the weekdays. Can't say we ever figured it out, but it seems no matter where we were, when we needed transportation, it was available. We took the bus to the TTC most of the time and then Disney transportation from there.
We stayed in the older section, overlooking the Mickey pool and Evergreens. AS we ate dinner there almost every night, we have 3 kids, it was very convenient. I have heard some complaints from people about the Garden Gallery's dinner buffet not being that great, but we enjoyed it. A little pricey, but it was prime rib night when we were there.
Our room was also close to the lobby, so close to the busses. I had requested this area when we made the reservations and it worked out beautifully for us. I would also take my own coffee and creamer. The coffee left a lot to be disired and they only had the powdered creamer, so I ended up getting it from the shop near the busses every morning.
My only complaint was that they were offering a special the week we were there, 5 nights for $399. That would have been almost about $18 off the room rate plus a free breakfast buffet for two adults. With the 3 kids breakfasts, they wanted to charge us an additional $14 per day on top of the rate we were already paying! That more than covered the price of their breakfasts. So basically we would have been overpaying for the kids breakfasts, not getting a room rate reduction, and only getting the breakfast for DH and myself. I didn't think it was much of a deal. We said we didn't want the kids' free breakfasts, so couldn't we just leave them off, and get the $399 special instead, but they wouldn't go for it. We passed.
We bought groceries and ate breakfast in the room every morning. It worked out great and we probably saved money and time doing it that way.
All in all, we had a great stay, and would stay there again.
