Resort Thread Walt Disney World SWAN, DOLPHIN & SWAN RESERVE Resorts

[loves to dive]

My son and I were at the Dolphin in May and the room got really hot at night because of the silly motion sensors. We will be there again in two weeks, is there a way to over ride the thermostat?

 

[anita46]

So they linked initially then disappeared? That’s my biggest fear in adding a third party ticket (which I will be doing for DH for our upcoming CSR trip). DS & I are AP holders since we go more frequently.

You may not have a worry then....We have one AP and that was the only one that did stay linked...the other three were there all along it just didn't recognize them for the fast pass....took about 15 minutes on the phone (wait time and cure time) all together...like I said its the only time its happened and wasn't a big deal.

 

[Dan Murphy]

My son and I were at the Dolphin in May and the room got really hot at night because of the silly motion sensors. We will be there again in two weeks, is there a way to over ride the thermostat?

Call concierge and ask them to send up a maintenance engineer They will tell you what to do or override the auto setting. There was a several step procedure I knew with the older thermostats, but they installed new ones.

 

[loves to dive]

Call concierge and ask them to send up a maintenance engineer They will tell you what to do or override the auto setting. There was a several step procedure I knew with the older thermostats, but they installed new ones.

Thanks, we thought about that last time but it never got hot until the middle of the night and neither one of us was going to call down at 2 am. The next day we just forgot about it until night rolled around again. Maybe I'll ask when we check in.

 

[SteveH]

I was wondering if there's much walking from the parking area (we're driving) to the rooms.

Best advice I can share is with Google or DuckDuckgo you can look up S/D and use the satellite map view to see what is reasonable to you. The Swan has about 17 rows of parking, Dolphin is broken up a bit more with one lot near the Cabana and the other (larger lot) closer to the Convention Center. I can't tell you where ADA parking is located though.

 

[Cinderumbrella]

I’m happy to report that when I relinked my Swan reservation to MDE (after they added DS on their end), that I was able to match his name from my friends and family list.

 

[Dan Murphy]

I’m happy to report that when I relinked my Swan reservation to MDE (after they added DS on their end), that I was able to match his name from my friends and family list.

 

[chris benton]

I'm scared to ask them to get my kid on the reservation. Thinking it might be a fastpass nightmare since they are already done.

 

[Cinderumbrella]

I'm scared to ask them to get my kid on the reservation. Thinking it might be a fastpass nightmare since they are already done.

Don’t go through WDW yet. Call the resort and have them add him to your hotel reservation . Then in a couple days, refresh your plans to see if he shows up. If not, then call MDE IT and have them add him.

 

[oswald5eva]

Hello, I have a question about a military/government rate at either the swan or dolphin. Has anyone gotten that recently? I see it listed on some older threads as well as on militarydisneytips but can't find any current info. (I know that the troops discount where you get cheaper food was discontinued; I am looking to see if you can still get just the room discount). I did try to call, but they were having merger issues and told me all they could see currently was teacher discounts? Thanks for any info you have.

 

[SteveH]

Hello, I have a question about a military/government rate at either the swan or dolphin...

If it's anything like the Teacher "discount" you can do better IMHO. If you are AAA try that, plus Costco. My wife is a teacher and when we went in January the rate wasn't that great. The merger has caused a lot of issues so don't hold your breath for a quick answer from SD.

 

[SuperTink]

We are just putting together the perks of points and giving up the "onsite or bust" mentality, now that our "kids" are in grad school. From what I have discovered so far, I kinda feel that we should have done this sooner. We are planning a Swan (need those queen beds) stay this June. Not only is this our first off-site visit, it's our first non-January trip in 15 years. There are a lot of adjustments to be made. Very excited about Swan, though. I just need a few kind people with time and patience to support me through this. Decided on Swan vs Dolphin due to needing 2 queen beds. Other than that, I don't know a whole lot about anything. Oh--I did hear that Marriot has way swooped the points needed for this stay (figures). My husband wonders if we are better off paying OOP on-site and saving the points for travels elsewhere. What do you think?

 

[ClapYourHands]

Don’t go through WDW yet. Call the resort and have them add him to your hotel reservation . Then in a couple days, refresh your plans to see if he shows up. If not, then call MDE IT and have them add him.

So, we're having a similar issue. DH booked our reservation on points back in August to beat the SPG point devaluation. But, because he knows nothing about Disney and FP+ or anything, apparently only put himself on the reservation. So when I went to link in MDE for our FP+ day, it only showed him. Grrr. He spent I-don't-know-how-much time on hold with Starwood, Marriott, and finally got someone at the Swan to supposedly add the two kids and myself. I gave it several days to synch, but so far it hasn't.

Now when I put in the confirmation number to MDE it says it's for 2 adults, no mention of the kids, and only has DH's name with an additional guest as "SD_GUEST_FIRSTNAME SD_GUEST_LASTNAME." It prompts me to update guests names "Match each guest to someone in your Family & Friends list or add as a new guest." When I pull up my name, it tells me the names do not match. I haven't hit confirm yet for reasons below.

To add another wrinkle, my FP+ window opened up before this resolved, so I added reservations at Pop and ASMo that I planned to cancel (we'll still keep the first day of Pop, but plan to cancel day 2 and all of ASMo). The kids and I are on those reservations, so we got our FP+ without a hitch. Now I'm afraid to monkey around with the system too much because I'm afraid I'll lose my FP+. What will happen if I show up in MDE as being in two different resorts on the same day?

I've heard on other boards that people have lost FP+ bookings after calling MDE for help. What are my options here? I was thinking I might just wait to cancel the other reservations until I'm in the 30-day window. Once I'm in that window, my fast passes should be safe, right? If our Swan reservation never does link to MDE, can we still get into the parks for EMH using a room key or something?

 

[Cinderumbrella]

ClapYourHands: when you look at your Swan ressie through your SPG account, can you see everyone listed? It almost sounds like the kids still aren’t on there? I had the guest name thing show up when I linked into MDE, but it let me assign my son to that without issue. If it’s saying the names don’t match, double check the spelling of names on the Swan reservation.

 

[SteveH]

We are just putting together the perks of points and giving up the "onsite or bust" mentality, now that our "kids" are in grad school. From what I have discovered so far, I kinda feel that we should have done this sooner. We are planning a Swan (need those queen beds) stay this June. Not only is this our first off-site visit, it's our first non-January trip in 15 years. There are a lot of adjustments to be made. Very excited about Swan, though. I just need a few kind people with time and patience to support me through this. Decided on Swan vs Dolphin due to needing 2 queen beds. Other than that, I don't know a whole lot about anything. Oh--I did hear that Marriot has way swooped the points needed for this stay (figures). My husband wonders if we are better off paying OOP on-site and saving the points for travels elsewhere. What do you think?

As of right now the Swan on points seems out of line within the chain. This may change but who knows when or if, only you can decide if the points price is a deal or not. But at 50,000 points per night it would not be a deal IMHO. Rack rates for June show about $249/night. There are some Disney sites that will run promos for them. Hotwire has some deals sometimes too.

 

[Dan Murphy]

this our first off-site visit,

I just need a few kind people with time and patience to support me through this.

Don't think of the S/D as offsite. Far from it.

 

[tjmw2727]

Don't think of the S/D as offsite. Far from it.

Same - the only thing I miss is charging back to the resort and I can easily get past that when my room looks at the Epcot fireworks!

You get all the "onsite perks' except room charging, dining packages and DME -and if you have AAA you get a good discount at the S/D resort restaurants.

 

[CJK]

Hi all! Here now, and struck by the differences between the Swolphin and Disney owned hotels. Having a great time! At the feature pool alone, we were surprised to see that any floaties or rafts are permitted, even gigantic unicorns! Wait staff served guests their drinks literally inside the pool. In Disney hotels, you have to keep drinks several feet away from the pool. We're so used to hearing lifeguard whistles if a guest brings a drink close to the pool. Lastly, there is no fence surrounding the pool. All of these things surprised us, as we're so used to Disney's strict rules! Nice to have a more relaxing experience.

 

[CJK]

Duplicate post

 

[Mom*3]

Hi Everyone, so much great info here! I've tried searching, but just can't quite find what I'm looking for.
We are looking at booking 2 rooms (4 adults, 3 adults + 1 child), probably through Priceline. If I book a Priceline Express deal and get the Swan, I'm concerned that I won't have the correct number of guests on the reservation for MDE, Fastpass booking, etc.., since Priceline Express only guarantees Double Occupancy.
If you booked Priceline Express, were you able to call the hotel directly and get the correct number of guests entered?
Thanks!