We have been back for a couple of weeks now and I wanted to share my thoughts.
All 13 of us LOVED Beach Club! We arrived at MCO Sun 6/1 at 10:55 am, went straight to ME, used our magic bands for the first time to enter the BC queue and walked onto the bus. It was pretty full and we were the last ones to board. We stopped at YC before it dropped us off, then it was going on to BW. We were at BC check-in desk at 12:30.
We booked GV and our only request for all 5 rooms was to be near each other. 4 of our 5 were in a row with someone else in the middle (4614-4622) and the 5th room (4682) was on the same floor. We were all on 4th floor, the 4 together were above the covered patio outside of the Marketplace and the 5th room got a view of the main courtyard to the entrance to the lagoon, from the side they had a lagoon view. The four together had 2 queen beds and 4622 had a day bed and they all had full size balconies. 4682 had 2 queen beds and a Juliet balcony. My son and girlfriend and her 3 yr old had the lagoon view and I was excited for our newbies to get that view! Everyone loved their rooms décor and layout. My four had the most in a room and were never cramped. The huge vanity helped a lot.
My husband and I had stayed there before and knew what our food options were. We like going to Epcot for a variety of counter service restaurants. My family was used to food courts at the moderates. I told them what to expect before we went but they were disappointed in the food options. My 4 was not! We ate at Cape May, Captain's Grill, Beaches & Cream for ice cream, Big River, Boardwalk Bakery, ESPN, at the parks and downtown Disney. Cape May breakfast was delicious, far better food quality than we have experienced at Chef Mickey's but if doing a character buffet again I would rather go back to Chef. Silly, but Mickey is always the highlight for us and we missed seeing him. Captains Grill was my favorite meal of the trip and that was with a lunch at Le Cellier. I think my family would have been happier at meal times if they would have followed us rather than splitting up. They almost always came back to the hotel and then searched for something and wound up disappointed. My only disappointment was Beaches & Cream. I hate that they switched to ADR's. We tried at 9:00 pm one night during the week and were still turned away. I told the guy we are staying here if that matters. But no it didn't. My 2 cents only-If they are going to make the place ADR, they should still allow walk ups for those staying at the hotel. We did get ice cream to go twice and got to see a few people sharing a kitchen sink multiple times.
I was able to talk my family into staying deluxe this time because of the proximity to two parks. We were all tired of the buses. At one time they did not bother me but I am now officially done with them. Next trip we will either drive so we can have our car, or maybe rent once we are onsite so we can still use ME. I can not stress enough to someone who has not stayed at an Epcot resort there is nothing better than a walking to your room from Epcot after Illuminations over walking with the masses to the bus stops. A peaceful walk to the Studios in the morning isn't too shabby either. We did have issues getting a bus to MK one morning. My parents were the only ones at the bus stop for a short bit and sat on a bench. We met them there, the bus took awhile to get there and when it did a line formed and we did not make it on. Luckily, a bus pulled up right behind it and we got to sit where the first one was standing room only. This is the only time I give the values any credit, I prefer the corrals for occasions like this. We didn't make a scene because there was another bus but not sure I could've kept quiet if there hadn't. The rest of our pick ups went smoothly, especially the two mornings Johnny was out there keeping everyone entertained and lines formed. We did not have good luck getting from the parks to the resort quickly. Every trip was an hour or more from the time we walked out of the park until we were dropped off at BC stop. We knew better about Downtown but yet we still waited, I was highly disappointed with the service from MK and AK. I think it was MK where AK stop was next to ours, we watched 3 buses pull up before we got a BC/YC. Done with the buses! I must be getting too impatient in my old age of 43!!!
We had good luck with crowds at every park but MK. We went to MK Mon 6/2, Wed 6/4 and Fri 6/6. Mon and Fri we were there at rope drop and Wednesday was for the evening. It was packed each visit and rope drop was not as easy as it used to be. We did plenty because we knew when to do what and we had our fp for our favorites. We rode 7DMT once and changed our next fp because it was a one and done for this trip for us. It was cute and fun but not worth choosing between SM, BTM or SM over. On Thur 6/5 we rope dropped AK and got to ride everything we wanted to without a fp. We booked our fp for Studios for the evening. Studios was the quietest I have ever seen it in the evening. We had a group ADR at Primetime at 3:45 which was so fun and our server Mary Ann was awesome. Afterwards we rode GMR and used our fp at TSM, ST and TOT. We also got to take our time going through One Man's Dream and quickly went through Animation because one of our fp windows was closing. We went to F! without a fp and without waiting in line. When the show was over we ran to RnR, got there at 9:40 and ran to TOT and walked on at 9:58. It was a lot of fun! We went to Epcot too many times to count, sometimes to ride, sometimes to explore WS and other times just to eat. It is so cool to be able walk there. Have I mentioned that?
SAB-FANTASTIC
Loved spending time there. The fist two days of our trip we were going commando and it was cool. By the time we got back to the room, we were exhausted and chilled. We experienced and believe me we were not complaining, we enjoyed highs of 84! By day 3 we spent a lot of time there. We babysat Fri night and took my future grandson??? to play for the evening. Up until that point we could get an inner tube whenever we wanted and there were only a few people if any in line for the slide. The slide was so fun, I was really surprised by the quality of a hotel pool slide and the sand bottom is heavenly just to walk around on. On Sat 6/7 SAB was packed. The line for the slide was to the walk path but we waited in it because it was our last day. We eventually gave up on the crowd and went to the quiet pool. It was a good decision because there were only a couple and 2 kids swimming there.
Magic Bands & FP+
Loved the magic bands. Worked without a glitch. It was nice to not have to search my purse for a room key and I didn't have to worry about the kids forgetting their's either. Which has happened

All of our fp showed up even our BOG lunch fp. Only a couple of times did we need an extra scan to get into the park and it was awesome for room charging.
I'm in the minority for this but I loved FP+. It was so smooth for a party of 13. Everyone knew where and when to ride our family favorite rides. It worked because we did not need fp all day and night. We kinda did the either am or pm park touring. The only day it did not work was when we used all of our fp at MK by 2, everyone was ready to leave except my kids. We tried to get them another fp but we checked 3 kiosk lines and they were at least 30-50 people deep. We gave up and left. Hopefully they will be able to make it availablel via the app soon. My favorite part of the new concept was we knew ahead of time a couple days we wanted to be free and spend the evenings in the parks. I was able to have fp for TSM, Test Track and Soarin already booked. Whereas in the past more than likely their fp were long gone. I'm not sure if I would have loved fp+ if it was just my family. We tour a lot faster than the group and would've been very annoyed to have to wait in line constantly to get another fp.
The staff at BC was great. Scott checked us in and was very accommodating by cheerfully made sure all of our rooms were close. I did not have any other magical experiences but yet very happy with the friendliness of everyone we encountered. I'm sorry I didn't get to introduce myself to Teena as she was at home recovering from surgery still. Mousekeeping was great until our next to last day. We had a fun Mickey Mouse towel animal (very different from the ones we have received before) upon arrival and we kept him put together on our refrigerator table. We were going to pack him up and bring him home. We discovered Mickey was gone!!! We were so disappointed!!!
Traveling with 13 different personalities was a struggle at times and a lot of fun at others. We missed some things we really enjoy, Wishes in particular. I tried to please too many people and should have spoke up earlier in the trip. I'm not sure how soon we will all be going back together. I'm not even sure how soon my 4 are going back either, simply because of the financial aspect of it. This last trip was an 897 day countdown! We are going to visit
Disneyland for the first time next March. My daughter found out her choir gets to sing there. Luckily she knew right away her parents would be there watching!
I'm so glad I found this thread, it was so much fun checking it daily to see if I could learn something knew. Happy travels to all of you heading there soon!