Summer Bay vs. Sheraton Vistana

[celestebh]

Hi, all!
I am brand new to the disboards and am in the midst of planning a trip to WDW in September. My generous in-laws have offered the use of their RCI time-share for our accommodations for our trip. Originally, we wanted to stay at Orange Lakes, which they highly recommended but because they had stayed there in the last year, we were locked out.

We were then offered either a two-bedroom unit at Sheraton Vistana or a three-bedroom unit at Summer Bay. Since it will be my in-laws, my husband and me, and our two children (and possibly my brother-in-law), we opted for Summer Bay and more room.

Since I have been perusing these boards and some travel guides too WDW, I'm beginning to second-guess our decision. By comparing the map at the Summer Bay website and the map in UGWDW, there doesn't appear to be that much difference between the two resorts in terms of travel time to the resort. Am I right about that or way off?

Also, it concerns me that I see a lot of people mentioning Sheraton Vistana on these boards and have seen reviews of it in the two guide books I've read. However, when I searched for Summer Bay on the boards, I got just a few posts and have seen no mention of Summer Bay resort in the guide books.

Can anyone offer opinions on these resorts?

Also, RCI now handles DVC. Is it possible to try to get a condo at WDW through WDW in September, or is that just a pipe dream?

Thanks for all the great information!

 

[swilshire]

I would definitely go with the 3br at Summer Bay. I've stayed at both resorts multiple times (I'm typing this from Vistana). If the size were the same, the slightly more convenient location of Vistana would win me over. The extra bedroom would be worth the few extra travel minutes. Now if you had a 3br Summer Bay pool house, that would be especially terrific. My kids LOVE those.

Disney has been showing up with tons of September units in RCI, but not all weeks have the trade power to see them. If your in-laws haven't been seeing them, they probably fall into that category.

Sheila

 

[celestebh]

Thanks so much for your advice! That eases my mind! Do you remember an approximate travel time from Summer Bay to the parking lots? I know that the estimates that are on the web sites are sometimes just to the edge of the property.

Thanks for the info. regarding exchanging for DVC, too. I had noticed that the DVC on-site resorts popped up when doing just a general search but not when we tried to exchange a week.

 

[Brian Noble]

I agree with Sheila---I'd go for the larger unit rather than the better location in your situation. Google maps claims that it takes about 20 minutes to get to the Car Care Center (which is a good proxy for the TTC parking lots). The other theme parks will be closer.

 

[nic98omo]

I stayed at Summer Bay two years ago in a 3 bedroom. It was a nice resort and there was a lot of room, but we were assigned a 3 bedroom lock off. I am not sure if all 3 bedroom units are that way. We ended up not using the 3rd bedroom as it wasn't open to the 2 bedroom unit without leaving a door open to the outside. Both units shared a keyed access foyer with a glass door. Then each unit had a keyed access to get into the room. I hope that made sense. Anyway, like I said, it was a nice resort and we would stay there again.

Travel time was awesome from the resort to WDW lots. I want to say maybe 10-20 minutes. An advantage of Summer Bay is that it is west of the WDW property and away from most of the other hotels and traffic. It was a straight shot from the resort to WDW with a few stop lights in between. We generally left the resort at 8:20am for a 9am opening and had plenty of time to spare.

The is a Publix grocery store on property (left of the main resort property entrance) which was really nice. Everything we needed was right there.


On the RCI/DVC exchange: It is easier to secure a DVC reservation if you have points. It seems the weeks trade in's are harder to come by. But you can keep checking the RCI site. We reserved a unit at Animal Kindom Villas for September using points. So they are available.

I hope that helps.