DH and I loved our only stay at SoS ten or so years ago. Would love to know about improvements like renovated rooms and updated pool. Have the food choices improved? If you’ve stayed recently, please share what you enjoyed.
We just stayed there last month for a 9 night stay. We've been before, so this wasn't our first time there.
Rooms: We didn't stay in the renovated rooms if you are thinking Magnolia side, that is supposed to be most recent. We like the Palm side, and we liked it again this time, although drawback is it's a bit more of a walk to the pool if you care. One day we'll try Magnolia side.
Pool: They have the zero entry and the Millpond pool with the slide, plus the kid's splash pad area. There were a group of ducks when we went that had everyone looking, momma duck and ten new ducklings that kept going over into the pool area. There are also turkeys and deer (this has nothing to do with the pool, I know) that roam around the area.
Food: Food choices seem the same to me as before, although there is a pick up service with bistro to go where you can now order and pick up (food is on site, I think they make it in Mangino's kitchen, or at least that was the direction they were walking from with our to-go order when done). The café by the bus stop seems to have picked up more menu items over time.
We did the bistro to go a few times so we could eat in the room - with kids it seemed easier for us on a few of the days, ate at Mangino's once, the Garden Gallery buffet a few times mostly at night and twice for breakfast, polite service, although sometimes they seem short-handed on staff, but otherwise we liked it and my kids love it. Evergreens if we were at the pool area. Evergreen's has changed over the years some, in the arcade games placement and the arcade tickets. If you're into specialty coffee or want something from the coffee place in the lobby in the morning, I liked that and happy to have the café there. Caution to not wait to get your coffee right before you plan to get on the bus if you plan to rope drop, you never know how quick the line is going to go, or how many coffees people in front of you are ordering. Sometimes, you'll have what seems like a simple 3 or 4 people in front of you, but they might be ordering drinks for their whole crew, so I would go down there about 30 minutes before we planned to go anywhere. Just mentioning this in case you like/plan to rope drop and get on a particular bus time.
Food delivery: We did that for snacks, quick breakfast items, water, and wine, and used Instacart and we ordered some things from Publix. DH just walked down to the front area and picked it up.
Transportation to/from airport: We used Uber to and from MCO and bags delivered to MCO.
MCO: We had TSA pre-check, glad we did it is quite a mess of a line at MCO.
Transportation to/from parks: Only real hiccup we experienced was the transportation to HS and AK. You have to get in line early if you are trying to hit park opening, we were the very last on the bus to AK before it hit capacity and the driver had to tell the others in line behind us the need to take the next bus. For us, the AK trip was no problem since we made the first bus, but sorry to those who had to wait for the next one, not sure how fast the next one came. Also, we noticed while on the bus to AK that it went to AK and then HS. So for HS, we ended up taking an Uber because we didn't want to wait and travel over to AK first because we knew we'd be far back in line for HS opening, and we were quite happy we did, that place was packed way before opening. The busses on return and other than the first ones going to the park don't feel jam packed to me, usually had lots of space. Bring your resort ID with you and photo ID. Other than the possible consideration of how you like to do AK and HS, we were happy with the bus service. We also used it to get over to one of mini-golf courses. I think the Disney Springs busses ran only once an hour, so you have to time going and returning right. It's a far walk from the far back of Disney Springs, we barely made the bus by about a minute it took a good almost 15 min, to work our way through from the back maneuvering with all the crowds through Disney Springs to get up to the bus stop. Pay attention to where the pick up locations are for MK (it was C10 when we went but they can change this at any time), and also we screwed up and didn't pay attention to where the pick up was after HS. We had taken an Uber in the morning for HS, so had no idea where bus pickup was since we also didn't look on the bus board before we left SOG, and online was incorrect as we looked on our phones, and I ended up calling the front desk, it was stop 60 something. But, to be sure you can always check the bus board right inside the SOG bus area, before you go anywhere. We also walked to and from the Polynesian for the monorail, or walked to the Poly once and rented a boat, had Dole Whip. Also, there is a gate on the walkway near the guard shack at SOG when walking to Poly. The TTC is right past the Poly and there's a walkway back there, we felt like walking and took the monorail from there. Really liked the choices on getting around.
