Ok finally here at Swan Reserve and thought I would use this space to update daily or every couple days, how things go at the resort while we are here. This is going to be really detailed so if you are not wanting that, then feel free to skip this one!
As some of you recall the past month I’ve been trying to choose between JW Marriott and the Swan Reserve. I’m a self admitted hotel snob, I’ll eat pb&j each day to stay in a nice hotel if need be. I travel a ton for work so I get pretty picky where I’m staying. I’m fairly low level Marriott Bonvoy status only Silver elite, I mainly stay at Hyatt’s.
We booked a 2 queen Epcot view room for nov 20th-26th, $2800 after tax with a
AAA discount. It’s my husband and I from Oregon and our 20 year old daughter visiting down from Penn State (WE ARE!).
check in: I was able to “pre check in“ at the 48 hour before mark on the app where I gave my preferences and time of check in (8:00am). Hearing the stories about people waiting in huge lines and not getting their rooms until 8pm I was not sure what to expect. We arrived at 8:30am today I took the escalator up a level and not one person was in line. Katherine at the front was super nice! I said, I know this is a long shot with how busy this week is but do you have any suites and if so, what is the cost to upgrade? She said they actually did have a junior king suite and it would be $90 more a night. My 20 year old daughter said she didn’t want to sleep on a pull out for 6 nights so we kept what we had. I then asked, “long shot” but do you happen to have a room ready now? She said she actually did but it was Hollywood studios side, very top floor! Wow! So at 8:30am this morning we moved into a gorgeous room on the top floor. Can you say pixie dust?! From pulling the car up to unloading bags to in our room it was less then 10 minutes. Bags took 10 minutes to get up to us.
The Room: Again, we have the standard Hollywood studios view 2 queen room. The room is super nice and very high tech. I know everyone says the Epcot view is great but our view of Hollywood studios 14th floor is amazing! We have Animal Kingdom off to the right and HS just ahead. The room is small, but its totally doable, I’ve actually stayed in a room that was about the size of the bed so anything is an upgrade! I will say if we had a couple kids I don’t think this is the resort, or room type for you. It would be a bit too tight for a family, unless you got a suite. I’m sitting in the bed now taking a break and it’s very comfortable, the bathroom is spacious and very high end details. There is a thin blanket on the bed but we sleep hot and I always pack a blanket in my suitcase anyway. Curtains have a sheer and a blackout, both are controlled by a switch on the wall. TV is HUGE, great pic. WiFi seems speedy and no issues so far. No issues with light switches etc.
hotel in general- we haven’t spent too much time looking at things but guys, it’s REALLY gorgeous here. I will add more here as we check things out.
issues: when we got into our room at 8:30am we could hear the AC unit above the access door in the ceiling squeaking loud (Like real loud). The bellman (Lucky is his name and what a gem!) said he would call it in for us. A maintenance guy named Felix came up and knew exactly what was wrong, it took him 3 minutes to tighten a bracket and he was done. He told us that pretty much every room is having this problem and he’s just fixing them one room at a time. Luckily it’s an easy fix. Super nice guy and very quick to respond.
********UPDATE: soooooo, after the above issue was fixed when we got back to our room last night after closing down Epcot, we heard a loud clanging in the bathroom fan. It’s basically the fan/light is on a motion sensor so when the light/fan combo is on there is no clanging (and I mean like someone is hitting a wrench against a metal pipe type of loud) when the light turns off, the clanging starts. So we found ourselves at midnight taking shifts to stand in the bathroom so there was motion and the clanging would stop so my daughter could sleep. At 1am i had had enough, and I called down and said we need someone up here ASAP. They said should take 15 min. At 1:45am, nothing, I changed out of my pj’s and went down to the lobby with a recording of the clanging. The front desk manager was horrified. she said there was only 1 maintenance guy for all of swan, dolphin and reserve at that hour and he was fixing a massive leak at the dolphin.
They offered to move us to a new room(it was now 2am and we needed to be up at 6am for MK). No way was I going to pack an entire room at that hour and move. I was very calm, but said this is what we are going to do. You will be comping me for 1 nights stay and I want an oscillating fan for the bathroom to have motion and fake the sensor in there. At 2:15am they brought up a fan and it “worked”. The manager came in the room and couldn’t believe the noise. Today I received another email from the hotel manager apologizing and promised to have everything fixed. I made sure it was noted about the comped night. We came back about an hour ago and it seems to be good……
distance to parks: we went to EPCOT today. (For a different thread, but folks
genie+ is not worth it at EPCOT if you do early morning entry. We got on everything super fast. Got Remy ride in the virtual queue). Total waste of $47 but I look at it like an experiment. The walk over from Swan Reserve was about 15 min walk. Not a slow pace, but not a get out of my way I have to go bathroom pace. We took the boat back and it was also about 15 minutes to the swan drop off. A very quick walk from the boat ramp to swan reserve.
*************UPDATE: went to MK today for early entry morning. Buses pick up every 20 minutes. Drop you off at TTC then we took the ferry over. To prove you were onsite they just asked for one person in the party to show a room key. That early entrance is over by Tomorrowland FYI.
please feel free to ask any questions and I will do my best to answer them!
So far, so good!
Michele
