The *NEW* SWAN & DOLPHIN RESORT Thread ~ April 2009 ~ Please read Post #1!

[Pooh&OurHunny]

ozziewags, Thanks for sharing your beautiful pictures...that's an amazing view. That's great with the upgrade

 

[MOM POPPINS]

Hey Ozzie ~ Nice view! I am glad to see you had a great trip! Can you believe we have been on disboards for 10 years next summer Good to see you!

 

[Mouseteacher]

ozzie~great view and upgrade. DH likes a view of the boat dock. I prefer to see Epcot. Our last stay at the Dolphin, we had both - far east wing, 8th floor - gave us a view of Spaceship Earth and the boats. I believe that was the trip where the some of us from the S/D sorority had a DIS meet at the GF tea room.

 

[ozziewags]

ozzie~great view and upgrade. DH likes a view of the boat dock. I prefer to see Epcot. Our last stay at the Dolphin, we had both - far east wing, 8th floor - gave us a view of Spaceship Earth and the boats. I believe that was the trip where the some of us from the S/D sorority had a DIS meet at the GF tea room.

I remember that! I think I saved one of those pictures!

Robin, has it really been 10 years? I just had coffee in
my S/D mug this morning. It always makes me feel !

We had such an amazing trip this time. We were always in the right place at the right time. I can't believe that because I am never in the right place at the right time. I can actually say that we never once waited for a bus at the Dolphin. When we went down there, it was always sitting there! We also were celebrating our wedding anniversary and wore our pins daily. We got lots of great desserts and even champagne at Narcoosee's.

That's ds, trying to stay out of the picture! Here are some of our fabulous desserts:

These are all from Narcoosee's:

The cherries actually go with the almond crusted cheesecake for ds, below. Chocolate cake is mine.

Gelato variety, dh:

Flying Fish:

Blue Zoo:

Blue Zoo appetizer - amazing:

Jiko:

Tutto Italia - amazing place to eat! And cute waiters!

We also got desserts at Cali Grill, Sci Fi and 50's PT, but I don't have pictures. Sorry, I got carried away.

 

[chliansh]

I just tried all kinds of dates over the next 6 months and could not find any open suites in the either hotel, what gives? I have a bunch of Starwood points I wanted to cash in.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Great looking pictures, thanks.

 

[ozziewags]

I just tried all kinds of dates over the next 6 months and could not find any open suites in the either hotel, what gives? I have a bunch of Starwood points I wanted to cash in.

Call the hotels directly.

 

[SingingMom]

Ozziewags - great photos! Happy Anniversary!
The champagne looks VERY GOOD!

We MUST go to bluezoo next year - I think we'd like to go and just have lots of appetizers. It's on our list to do for our next visit - the one with NO ADRS!

Here are my dessert pictures...

DD’s Softserve with “Mickey Ears” from The Fountain

DD’s Flourless chocolate cake at The Brown Derby

DH’s Berry Cobbler at The Brown Derby

One of my favorites: Grapefruit cake at The Brown Derby

DOLE WHIP!

MY FAVORITE… Espresso Martini from the Dolphin Lobby Bar.

 

[Zuzu03]

Yay! Going back to the Dolphin next June to celebrate DD's HS graduation AND, if DH agrees to extending into July, our Anniversary! Where did you get the anniversary buttons? So excited!

 

[NancyIL]

Great photos of the food!

SingingMom - I thought you had a bunny hat when I first saw this photo:

 

[NancyIL]

Yay! Going back to the Dolphin next June to celebrate DD's HS graduation AND, if DH agrees to extending into July, our Anniversary! Where did you get the anniversary buttons? So excited!

Guest relations at any theme park should have anniversary/birthday/first visit/just married buttons.

 

[SingingMom]

Great photos of the food!

SingingMom - I thought you had a bunny hat when I first saw this photo:

...Or a butterfly had landed on top of my head!

 

[TaraPA]

Great photos of the food!

SingingMom - I thought you had a bunny hat when I first saw this photo:

I thought exactly the same thing!!!! I was trying to figure out which Disney character you were trying to be!!

 

[ozziewags]

Yay! Going back to the Dolphin next June to celebrate DD's HS graduation AND, if DH agrees to extending into July, our Anniversary! Where did you get the anniversary buttons? So excited!

I'm glad Nancy knows where to get the buttons because we got ours when we checked into the California Grill on our first evening. I had put it on the ressie that it was our anniversary.

 

[SingingMom]

I thought exactly the same thing!!!! I was trying to figure out which Disney character you were trying to be!!

maybe "Thumper"?!

 

[dfarner]

We returned on the 15th from a 10 night stay at the Dolphin. I don't have pictures loaded yet, but will try to do it sometime this week. Our stay was great. I'm not much for writing trip reports, so I'll just hit the points that I think everyone likes to know about.

The lobby: Yes, it is as beautiful as the pictures you see. My girls loved coming in at night and watching the "shooting stars" at the lobby entrance.

Check-in: We arrived around 1:30 and valeted (sp?) the car. The valet guys were very professional and sweet to my girls. Every time we checked the car out or returned we were greeted with smiles and questions about our day or where we were headed off to. It is about $7 a day extra to valet, but we were in and out quite a bit and it was worth it to my husband not to have to hike back and forth from the self-park lot.
Check in was simple but actually getting into our room was a bit of a headache. At 1:30 we were told the room was being cleaned (executive suite) and we should get a call within the hour with our room number. We ate lunch and strolled around the hotel and at 3:30 gave a call to check- not ready. 4:00-not ready. 4:30-not ready. DH finally went back to the front desk and they acted surprised that we hadn't gotten a call about the room. Supposedly it had been ready since 2:30. We were a bit aggravated, but no big deal.

The room: It was very large. We had a 1 bedroom excutive suite so we had 2 king beds and 2 couches. It was 2 connecting rooms, so everything came in two's: bathrooms, fridges, safes, etc... The room was VERY clean. Our housekeepers were meticulous. We had room 6139 and 6143, which were not renovated. The only bad thing that I can say is that they are the last rooms on the hall before the elevator and got a lot of traffic at odd hours. I can't believe how incredibly rude people can be. If it's 12:30 in the morning and you are returning from the MK please don't let your children run and scream down the halls. I could go on and on about the lack of common courtesy that we experienced on this trip, but that's another thread .
We had a view of the TOT and the Swan lap pool. It was awesome. The view at night was amazing. Every night before bed my oldest DD and I would look out the window and talk about our day. Yes, it was magical.

The pool: Absolutely amazing. It was huge and there were tons of high quality lounge chairs. We didn't eat or drink anything from the Cabana Bar, but it was very chic.

Transportation: The boats to Epcot and HS were great. They ran every 20 minutes or so, and the captains were always very cheery. We loved riding the boats.
The buses were hit or miss. We waited anywhere from 5 minutes to 40 minutes for a bus, both at the hotel and when leaving the parks. I have to go OT for a minute and put in my gripe about the Disney bus system. In my opinion they let too many people on the buses at one time and it's just not safe. If we see a bus is packed, we wait. Unfortunately other people don't do that and the drivers seem to just let them keep coming. On our last night coming from the MK there was a woman standing in front of me at the very front of the bus and the front door to the bus literally did not close all the way. We rode the entire route home from the MK to the Boardwalk, Swan, and Dolphin with the front door flapping open every time the driver slowed down or turned a corner. The driver didn't seem to blink an eye about it. This is no reflection on the Swan or Dolphin, I just don't know how Disney gets away with it. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now.

The restaurants: We ate at Picabu several times and at the Fountain. Both served large amounts of decent-tasting food at ridiculous prices. Typical hotel food at typical hotel prices, but very convenient. We ate at the brewery at the Boardwalk and had a very nice meal at a decent price. I would definitely recommend it.

Service: The service was exceptional in all areas. Every time I called Guest Services I was greeted by name and my requests were met quickly and efficiently. Everyone we encountered, from the bellmen to the painters in the elevators, were friendly and responsive.

In conclusion, I was pleasantly surprised with the Dolphin. We changed reservations from the Polynesian about 4-5 days before our trip, and I'm not sorry we did. The exceptional service, cleanliness, and location of the hotel make it a winner. I would definitely consider another stay there and would recommend it to anyone that wants to experience a more upscale side of Disney at a reasonable price.

 

[paras4ri]

Thanks for the great review - and for sharing the sweet story of you and your DD sharing your magical memories each day.

 

[Zuzu03]

Guest relations at any theme park should have anniversary/birthday/first visit/just married buttons.

Thanks, Nancy!

 

[danissmart]

Just returned from a 7 day stay at the Dolphin, I might do a trip report later in the week, but for right now I'll just hit some main things.

First of all the hotel is beautiful, great first impression, we got there very early, around 10:30, so our room was not ready. We requested a balcony, but they said they were fully comitted. That was not a big deal, we had resort view booked and were quite content with the idea of seeing the lake. The woman at the check-in told us we had a lake view, but we might see a little bit of the roof. No big deal I thought. I was wrong. When we finally checked in after our day at BB, we walked to the window opened the shades and saw just roof. If we stood on our tiptoes we could see a tiny corner of the lake. But really we had a view of roof and only roof. We had a sort of door to access the roof as well, although it did not seem like such a good idea to go out there. The bellman who walked us up to the room even tried to call and get us moved because we had resort view booked and this was just a view of a beat up roof. My fiance who is much more patient then me convinced me to relax and not let it bother me because we would not be spending much time in the room anyway. So after the intitial day of being very annoyed we just let it go and tried to enjoy our vacation. It was room #10089, so if you get assigned that room, do your best to be moved.

The pool was wonderful, we spent 3 afternoons just wasting away in the sun by the pool, the first day we were over by the grotto pool. The next two times we went we stayed by the lap pool and the cabana bar. It was great to just unwind and recharge on those hot July days.

The transportation was pretty good, only a couple of long waits for buses, and 2 or 3 times with overfilled buses. My only complaint there would be, it would be great if they would break up the buses a little. Putting 5 resorts on one bus is a little excessive and really causes some rides to become very long. The boats were great, always running, never a long wait for one. As far as walking to EPCOT, it is not as short a walk as google earth would lead you to believe, and in the hot sun, its nearly unbearable.

The resort had lots of food options, so it would be hard to find a fault there. We had picabu the morning we got there, not great, not awful. We ate lunch at the cabana bar twice, excellent both times. And we had some soup from room service which was also very good. The personal Pantry is a great touch as well. Very reasonable prices on things. They even had RedBull, which was a HUGE deal for me.

Overall we had a great experience at the Dolphin and I would definitely recommend it. But, I can not wait to get back home to OKW, I just love the little Disney touches everywhere. I knew going in the Dolphin was different, and we were fine with that, and the location was wonderful and its always fun trying someplace different. OKW is home though, and it will be great to get back there on our next stay.

 

[SingingMom]

Dfarner and Danissmart - thanks for your updates! Always nice to hear what people think of our beloved Dolphin.

Next year we are planning things a little differently - no ADRS, spending more days at the Grotto Pool and more Evening EMH out and about. Here I am, looking forward to NEXT JUNE !

PS: Dfarner - I'm happy to hear I'm not alone in my thrill of the Dolphin lobby everytime I walk through!