The *NEW* Grand Floridian Resort and Spa FAQ thread (Nov 2007)

[heatherlynn444]

hope everyone had a good Easter! I am 6 months out, I can make ADR's TODAY!

 

[Cinderumbrella]

hope everyone had a good Easter! I am 6 months out, I can make ADR's TODAY!

I love ADR day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[allisonswonderland]

Hope you all had a nice Easter...we have black mold in our basement now and the drywall will have to be replaced, but it was not a finished basement, thank goodness. Thanks for your wishes.

Each time I look at this thread I get more excited! What is your fav restaurant at the GF (not count V & A - not wanting to dress up that much for WDW)

 

[Cinderumbrella]

Hope you all had a nice Easter...we have black mold in our basement now and the drywall will have to be replaced, but it was not a finished basement, thank goodness. Thanks for your wishes.

Each time I look at this thread I get more excited! What is your fav restaurant at the GF (not count V & A - not wanting to dress up that much for WDW)

So sorry to hear about your basement I guess our 6 inches of Easter snow seems trivial in comparison to that!!!

We really like the GF Cafe and 1900 PF for breakfast. We are going back to Narcoosee's this year for the first time since our honeymoon in 1997 and have never tried Citricos. Seems like we are always in a park at dinnertime...

 

[heatherlynn444]

NARCOSSEES!!!! its our fav! we also love the GF cafe, and are eating at both in september!

yes ADr day is SO fun! but i wont get home till late tonight so they wont see my e mail till tomorrow lol

 

[BCV23]

We love V&A!

But we also love Narcoossee's and Citricos for dinner. GF Cafe is one of our favorite lunch spots and it's a rare trip indeed that we miss it. California Grill at the CG is a never miss dinner for us as is breakfast at Kona Cafe. It's fun to monorail to either or walk or take the launch to Kona. Kona is also excellent for lunch and dinner.

So many excellent dining choices in the monorail resorts. I hope the new one at the CR will be as good.

Oh, and I forgot. Narcoossee's used to be open for lunch and we never missed it. So fun to take the launch to the GF after a morning at the MK. It was also a beautiful and peaceful view. We miss that!!!

 

[MagicalEars]

Hi everyone!

Ok, after reading some of the posts in this thread we are now flip-flopping between staying at the Poly or staying at GF. Both are on the monorail and we like the theming of both, however we're not so sure on some other things. After reading dozens of reviews on allears.net and here on the DIS boards, it seems that the service (mousekeeping in particular) is consistantly better at GF. In your experience, does this seem to hold true? In all truthfulness, if I'm going to pay the money for a deluxe, I expect deluxe service. I don't want that to sound like I'm grumpy, but I would be livid if our room was dirty or we got rude service. I simply cannot tolerate rude people to begin with, but more so when I pay for it.

How about seeing Wishes from the beach at GF, is it nice? Everyone raves about seeing Wishes from the Poly, and this would be a nice feature for us since we have a little one. Then again, I've heard that it's a short walk or rail ride between the two resorts. It also seems that we would like the food selection better at GF than at the Poly. Grrrrr......so many things to think about.

Maybe we should just keep our ressie at the Poly for May and go to GF in Dec for the holidays. Or I could just pitch a tent outside of MK and get it over with.

 

[Alicnwondrln]

Hope you all had a nice Easter...we have black mold in our basement now and the drywall will have to be replaced, but it was not a finished basement, thank goodness. Thanks for your wishes.

Each time I look at this thread I get more excited! What is your fav restaurant at the GF (not count V & A - not wanting to dress up that much for WDW)

I love Narcoosees! The GF cafe is also awesome for breakfast.

 

[Alicnwondrln]

Hi everyone!

Ok, after reading some of the posts in this thread we are now flip-flopping between staying at the Poly or staying at GF. Both are on the monorail and we like the theming of both, however we're not so sure on some other things. After reading dozens of reviews on allears.net and here on the DIS boards, it seems that the service (mousekeeping in particular) is consistantly better at GF. In your experience, does this seem to hold true? In all truthfulness, if I'm going to pay the money for a deluxe, I expect deluxe service. I don't want that to sound like I'm grumpy, but I would be livid if our room was dirty or we got rude service. I simply cannot tolerate rude people to begin with, but more so when I pay for it.

How about seeing Wishes from the beach at GF, is it nice? Everyone raves about seeing Wishes from the Poly, and this would be a nice feature for us since we have a little one. Then again, I've heard that it's a short walk or rail ride between the two resorts. It also seems that we would like the food selection better at GF than at the Poly. Grrrrr......so many things to think about.

Maybe we should just keep our ressie at the Poly for May and go to GF in Dec for the holidays. Or I could just pitch a tent outside of MK and get it over with.

They are both great resorts. I have stayed at both within the past year and I like the GF better for lots of reasons. I have not had poor service or mousekeeping. I love the feel of the whole places, the lobby is stunning, the cabanas are a great way to spend a day or half day. I also love the food options at the GF there are more options as well.

I have to say the GF in Dec is fab!

Good Luck

 

[BCV23]

Maybe we should just keep our ressie at the Poly for May and go to GF in Dec for the holidays. Or I could just pitch a tent outside of MK and get it over with.

I think that's a great plan.

We've stayed at both resorts many times and have never had a mousekeeper be rude. Most times we've had perfect rooms. At both resorts, we've had a problem here or there but they've been addressed right away at both.

You can't see Wishes from the beach at the GF but you can from the marina and the dock by Narcoossee's. The view from the Polynesian is better IMO because the fireworks are centered but it's great from both resorts.

Transportation is better from the Polynesian as it's right next to the TTC for the Epcot monorail, park buses or ferry to MK.

There are more restaurants at GF and except for 1900 which is a buffet, all the table service restaurants are very good/excellent. But it is so easy to get between the two resorts that we dine at the GF regardless of our resort. Kona at the Polynesian is excellent for all three meals.

I love them both. Trying them and deciding for yourself is a great idea.

 

[Alicnwondrln]

Hi BCV hows it goin?

 

[poohgirl6]

I need some help from you helpful GF chatters please!

I booked standard room RPC (with at 40% off code ) for my upcoming 25th Anniversary Trip. I emailed the IPO and got a quick response so that was good However when I made my room reservation thru CRO I noted that we would prefer a king bed if possible. I mentioned this again in my email to IPO who responded that a standard room in the main bldg was only avail with 2 queens. Rooms with a king bed were a separate booking category and I should contact CRO if I was interested in a king bed because with my reservation there was no chance I would receive a king bed. So I called CRO and had a helpful CM who was very kind but told me that IPO didn't know what they were talking about(the separate booking category) and that all they could do was note my request and I stood a chance of getting a king bed if one was available

Does anyone know who to believe and how I should handle this? I mean, it wouldn't ruin or trip or anything to get 2 queens but we'd prefer the king if possible....any tips or definite info on this???

Thanks ahead of time for any input or answers. I read this thread (and the other chattier GF thread daily and enjoy all your info)

 

[BCV23]

Hi BCV hows it goin?

Great, Kelly. How 'bout with you? I love what you've done with the threads.

 

[DiznEeyore]

Hi everyone!

Ok, after reading some of the posts in this thread we are now flip-flopping between staying at the Poly or staying at GF. Both are on the monorail and we like the theming of both, however we're not so sure on some other things. ....

It also seems that we would like the food selection better at GF than at the Poly. Grrrrr......so many things to think about.

Maybe we should just keep our ressie at the Poly for May and go to GF in Dec for the holidays. Or I could just pitch a tent outside of MK and get it over with.

I know how you feel! We went back and forth for over a month and thought we'd *finally* settled on the Poly (which we've stayed at many times and love). BUT...

I kept reading the GF threads and looking at the photos here and on Allearsnet and my husband kept saying, "I know you really want to stay at the Grand, don't you?"

So last night, I finally acknowledged that I want to feel like a princess on this trip and since dh and ds really enjoyed the Grand when we stayed there 2 years ago, we decided to go for it. We booked a room in RPC for the end of Nov/beginning of December.

As my dh said, the Poly will be there for our next trip. And we're *all* looking forward to staying in the main building!! Plus our little niece and nephew will be joining us for one night and as excited as I was to show them the Poly, I'm even more excited to have them with us at the Grand with all the holiday decorations!

I also feel that the food offerings at the GF are more in line with our family's tastes. And frankly, we've had good and sub-par service from CMs at the Poly, but we felt like royalty at the GF. Of course you can have bad service anywhere, but we just want to feel relaxed and pampered, so the GF seemed to fit the bill for us this time.

Just one family's opinion -- and we can hardly wait for our Grand Holiday!!

 

[padisneylover]

Hi everyone!

Ok, after reading some of the posts in this thread we are now flip-flopping between staying at the Poly or staying at GF. Both are on the monorail and we like the theming of both, however we're not so sure on some other things.


I was in the same boat you are in about 3 weeks ago. I drove my AAA agent nuts bouncing back and forth between the two resorts almost weekly. Finally I decided each resort I have stayed at I have heard negative comments about on here and have never found them to be true. What is negative to one person may not be negative to another. So I did what you were thinking of doing. I am doing the Poly CL in May and returning to the GF RPC in December. We stayed at the GFRPC level last May and it was awsome and can't wait for the Christmas decorations to get an whole new perspective of it. That being said we are excited about our first Poly stay and I have to say the planners there have been excellent with all of my requests. Good luck with your decision.

 

[BCV23]

I was in the same boat you are in about 3 weeks ago. I drove my AAA agent nuts bouncing back and forth between the two resorts almost weekly. Finally I decided each resort I have stayed at I have heard negative comments about on here and have never found them to be true. What is negative to one person may not be negative to another. So I did what you were thinking of doing. I am doing the Poly CL in May and returning to the GF RPC in December. We stayed at the GFRPC level last May and it was awsome and can't wait for the Christmas decorations to get an whole new perspective of it. That being said we are excited about our first Poly stay and I have to say the planners there have been excellent with all of my requests. Good luck with your decision.

Excellent advice. And I quite agree with you.

 

[MagicalEars]

Thanks for all the fast replies! We really appreciate it.

I'm still not 100% sure what we're doing yet, but I have to decide in the next day or so. If we actually break each component down, GF seems to come out on top. However we might actually like the theming at the Poly better, minus the rooms of course, which do nothing for us.

We actually might not even have a say in the decision. While we already have a ressie at the Poly, which we plan to turn into a room only ressie, we might not be able to get a room only ressie at GF with our AAA discount. I'll find out today when I go into AAA and renew our membership. Though knowing me, I'll end up paying rack rate if I have to.

Either way, we're extremely excited! And we know for sure that we'll be saying at the GF in December. We simply cannot wait.

 

[heatherlynn444]

Thanks for all the fast replies! We really appreciate it.

I'm still not 100% sure what we're doing yet, but I have to decide in the next day or so. If we actually break each component down, GF seems to come out on top. However we might actually like the theming at the Poly better, minus the rooms of course, which do nothing for us.

We actually might not even have a say in the decision. While we already have a ressie at the Poly, which we plan to turn into a room only ressie, we might not be able to get a room only ressie at GF with our AAA discount. I'll find out today when I go into AAA and renew our membership. Though knowing me, I'll end up paying rack rate if I have to.

Either way, we're extremely excited! And we know for sure that we'll be saying at the GF in December. We simply cannot wait.

I have stayed at GF twice and Poly once, and while Poly is my second fav, GF trumps all! It just makes me feel so pampered and special, and the theming is beautiful, the grounds are nice, the pools are nice and fun, we love watching fireworks from gasparillas and the water parade from the beach. it really is a magical place! Dh has never stayed Poly and wants to "try" it sometime....maybe...if he can ever pull me away from the GF!!! good luck in your decision

 

[allisonswonderland]

We are "trying" the GF for the first time as a couple in May. We usually stay at the BC. I have stayed at the GF and Poly as a kid and Poly really appealed to me as a child more than the GF, my parents like the GF best. I think we will probably "try" Poly at some point too, like Heather said my Hubby wants to try Poly as well. I think they all have there own appeal and it depends on what you want - the decor of the BC really appeals to me, and I love that area, but we are branching out this time- hahaha. Have a great trip.

Thanks everyone for your restaurant advice: We love Narcoossees as well, we eat there quite a bit. And I am looking forward to breakfast at Kona and dinner at O'Hana. I was just trying to get a handle on the reccomendations for the GF pros on what else we should consider!! Thanks

 

[kytiam]

After years of begging, I finally convinced my mother to visit WDW with me earlier this month. I wanted everything to be perfect for her, so naturally I booked the GF for our stay! We were surprised with a complimentary upgrade to concierge! . Needless to say, we bought souviners, took lots of pictures, etc, but the one thing that my mom was most impressed with was the postcard of the GF that was in the packet of stuff in our room! It was a lovely postcard, to be sure, but who knew she'd be so distraught when she lost it?! She put it in a book she was reading on the plane, stuck the book in the seatback pocket and then left the book and the post card on the plane. Does anyone know if they sell the same post card in the gift shops at GF? I called the GF to ask about getting another one for her, but they just forwarded me to disney merchandising. Being on hold for 10 minutes with them gave me time to worry that the postcards in the gift shop wouldn't be the same. So, before I call them back and wait on hold again, does anyone know if they sell the same one that they put in the packet of stuff in the rooms?