Unofficial Guide Resort Report Card

[Babette01]

Disney certainly does give us all an opportunity to find our 'Home' to feel welcome in. Having stayed at each resort for at least one night - we found our perfect spot at the Boardwalk Inn in a Deluxe Concierge room. We started years ago when the kids were small at Old Key West and loved the remote and relaxed feeling of the 2 bedroom. We eventually moved to more fun and central locations - now the kids are 24, 21 and 16 and still vacationing with the parents!! Our home is the Boardwalk, our lifelong friends welcome us back to the lounge each visit and our experiences and memories bring us 'Home.' We feel welcome there and nothing anyone writes will change our memories. Find your spot and ignore everyone's feelings except your own because quite frankly - I hate Dole Whips. There I said it...I came clean...no matter how much I read about them...yuck...give me chocolate!!!

 

[Sammie]

Disney certainly does give us all an opportunity to find our 'Home' to feel welcome in. Having stayed at each resort for at least one night - we found our perfect spot at the Boardwalk Inn in a Deluxe Concierge room. We started years ago when the kids were small at Old Key West and loved the remote and relaxed feeling of the 2 bedroom. We eventually moved to more fun and central locations - now the kids are 24, 21 and 16 and still vacationing with the parents!! Our home is the Boardwalk, our lifelong friends welcome us back to the lounge each visit and our experiences and memories bring us 'Home.' We feel welcome there and nothing anyone writes will change our memories. Find your spot and ignore everyone's feelings except your own because quite frankly - I hate Dole Whips. There I said it...I came clean...no matter how much I read about them...yuck...give me chocolate!!!

Totally agree, could care less if someone does not like a resort I like. I will agree BW Inn has a very good club level.

I don't care much for Dole Whips either.

 

[Deb & Bill]

BLT is for the most part DVC. Obviously, some DVCers voted on this years survey. While not my cup of tea, BLT seems to get rave reviews. What I've found out about the Contemporary is many people want to stay there because it's one of the originals and the monorail goes through it. However, once they stay there, they weren't crazy about it. While the authors of the Unofficial Guide seem to like it, it always does poorly with readers.

Even though BLT is DVC, it wasn't until just recently when it became mostly sold out to members. I'd bet this survey came out about the time BLT was fully operational and lots of cash guests were staying there. Look on the Resort Board about non-members who really want to stay there. I think because of the proximately to MK, lots of non-members want to stay there and would rent points from a member to do so if they couldn't get a cash stay there.

 

[ScoJo15]

I suppose I'm one who would agree with the rankings when it somes to the BW issue. We stayed there last year on club level for the Food & Wine fest (and Wine and Dine Half Marathon)...and then stayed at the Dolphin this year.

After staying at the Dolphin, I'm not sure I'd ever stay anywhere else! In comparison to BW, the appx $100 (at least) per night that you save makes it a no brainer. Add to it great 'quick service' locations, outstanding 'signature table service' locations and the fact that it's only a couple hundred yards away from BW...clearly makes my decision for me and why I think the rankings are fairly accurate.

I am surprised that Coronado is as low as it is, we felt that is the best moderate on property. But maybe because it isn't within walking/boating/monorail distance from a park...could be why it was rated the way it was.

Anyway, it's always interesting to see these polls...thanks to the OP for posting!

 

[shalom]

DVC members are usually the most complacent and are very happy with their resorts. Surprising (and disheartening) to see numbers like that.

I suspect some of the negative numbers are from people who traded in through RCI. A lot of people were really excited when DVC switched back to RCI -- but some of those who then got a DVC unit were very disappointed. Purely as resorts, the DVC resorts are not on par with a lot of the Orlando resorts -- units are smaller, kitchens cramped, grave lack of seating in the DR area, etc. If "only onsite will do," that doesn't matter, but people who were happy offsite sometimes think DVC is over rated.

By looking at the list, the overwhelming factor to me seems to be value for the money spent.

That was my impression as well. I think for a lot of people who are not huge Disney fans, the theming of the resorts doesn't matter.

the walk from the Tahiti to the lobby is far longer than anything at the BW. It might be a "nice walk", but that doesn't shorten the distance any.

But it makes the walk more comfortable, which means it feels shorter. People are not timing the walks with a watch -- they're timing them in their heads, and if you're in a nice, tropical environment with a lot of stuff to look at, time goes by faster than if you're in a fairly featureless hall.

 

[princessbride6205]

It's so interesting the preferences people have. I wish the survey also featured people's #1 reason for saying they would return and #1 reason for saying the wouldn't. That could give us some perspective.

We completely love Animal Kingdom Villas, so I understand why those are a favorite on the list. I'm surprised to see Boardwalk at the very bottom. To anyone who is fretting, take a look at the Trip Advisor reviews - BW fares much better there! We just returned from a stay at the Boardwalk. We will absolutely stay there again for Food & Wine, but probably not at another time of year. We liked the resort, but there were some things we found inconvenient and it just didn't give us that magical "home" feeling we've had elsewhere.

 

[shalom]

Picking up a copy of the Unofficial Guide for myself, and I thought the comments in the text as interesting as the chart. As has been mentioned before in this thread (but I missed it ), this is "the first year that readers rated the average offsite hotel better than the average Disney hotel."

But what really surprised the authors (and me) is that the percentage of people who'd definitely stay at their Disney hotel again dropped from 90% to 73% in one year. Maybe it's that there are more people responding -- OTOH, maybe things have gotten bad enough that people went actively looking for somewhere to express their disappointment.

I will admit that I do worry about cleanliness issues at Disney resorts. You'll hear complaints about every place, but if the place is pretty well run, then the complaints kind of fit of pattern where you can see they're annoyed with the resort for non-cleanliness issues and are just looking for something to gripe about. But when I hear so many complaints about poorly cleaned and maintained rooms from people who love the place and plan to go back anyhow, that makes me nervous.

 

[PatriciaH]

Well, my two favorites at WDW are AKL and WL so I agree with the list. I do love POFQ too but wish they would bring back a restaurant.

 

[tinkbyday]

Although we did have a couple of issues when we stayed at the BWI a few years ago, I really liked the resort and am looking forward to a trip back there next year.

I would suspect some of the negative comments, as others have said as well, are due to the lack of a restaurant/counter service area inside the BWI. Since we will stay CL, it's really a non-issue - plus, we enjoy strolling over to Epcot and having a sit down meal there.

Now, the YC is another story - we've stayed twice and I loved it the 1st time - not so much the 2nd. I had a room in an amazing location thanks to some pixie dust, however, it was filthy upon arrival and at 9 pm, the last thing I wanted to do was wait for mousekeeping to come and correct the problem. I also did not find the CL CMs to be very helpful.