Posts from — April 2008

OVERVIEW

For the Basic Itinerary this site recommends, assuming you are a family of 4 with one child younger than 10 and one older, budget if you can

• $6,700 if you are staying at the Polynesian, or

• $4,300 if you are staying at Pop Century

Add to this budget the costs of getting your family to and from Orlando, and some funds for contingencies and souvenirs.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

OVERVIEW

This page tries to make the square foot numbers associated with Walt Disney World Resorts more understandable and comparable.

HOW LONG IS A SQUARE FOOT?

The different resort classes all have different sizes:

• The Value resorts—Pop and the All Stars—are 260 square feet
• The Moderates are 314 square feet, and
• The Deluxes vary from 344 square feet at the Animal Kingdom and Wilderness Lodges to more than 470 square feet at the Polynesian’s newest rooms in its Tahiti, Rapa Nui, and Tokelau buildings.

Most of us, however, have no idea what this means.

• First, most of us don’t normally think in squared dimension—we think in linear distances, not areas.
• Second, we don’t usually whip out our tape measures and size up our hotel rooms, so we don’t have a comparison readily at hand for how much difference there really is between 314 square feet at Coronado Springs (at $149 a night in the low season) and 344 square feet for $225 at the Wilderness Lodge.
• Finally, most of us lump all these square feet together—but hotel designers know that bedroom square feet make much more of a difference in the livability of a room than the remaining components of square feet (which are the bathroom, and also the access area from the interior corridor to the bedroom, if the hotel has interior corridors), because your family spends much more time in the bedroom area.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

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Where to Stay      Resort Features by Price      Resort Kid Appeal       Large Families

OVERVIEW

This site recommends you stay in the Deluxe resort Disney’s Polynesian Resort if you can afford it, or at the Value resort Disney’s Pop Century Resort if you cannot.

Three other resort categories exist

• Disney Vacation Club Resorts
• The Campgrounds at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort
• Moderate Resorts

and while wonderful for trips after your first, none of these categories is recommended for your first family trip.

DISNEY VACATION CLUB

Disney Vacation Club (DVC) resorts are expensive, and neither as convenient nor, with the exception of the Villas at the Wilderness Lodge and at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, as kid-appealing as the Polynesian, their price comparitor.

They do make sense for large families seeking deluxe accommodations. See this for large families; see this for more on the DVC resorts.

FORT WILDERNESS

Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground is neither as convenient nor as kid-appealing as the Pop Century Resort, its appropriate price comparitor.

THE MODERATES

The moderates unquestionably are much more appealing to adults than Pop Century (and the All-Star Resorts).

However, they have very little visual kid appeal.

The rooms of the “traditional” moderates (that is, excluding the Cabins at Fort Wilderness Resort) are almost 2 feet longer and a foot wider than those at the values (this is a huge difference, as the values are about as small as a hotel room can reasonably be…), and their bedroom spaces are actually larger than those at some Disney deluxe resorts: see this.

However, the beds at the moderates are mostly only full-sized, (Coronado Springs is the exception, with queens), as they are at the values; other than Coronado Springs you need to stay in a Deluxe resort to get two queen beds.

The moderates have more amenities than the values, and, to an adult’s eyes, much better landscaping and exterior design.

Even so, the moderate resorts are not a better choice for your first family trip than the values, even if you could easily afford them:

If you could afford the moderates, a more kid-appealing and convenient itinerary would be to spend the first 5 nights of your trip at Pop Century, and the last 3 at Disney’s stunningly kid-appealing deluxe resort the Wilderness Lodge.

This approach costs you ~$30 more (total!) than staying at the moderates for 8 nights, but is much more convenient and kid-appealing.

You could even (for a total of less than $200 more) spend 4 nights at Pop, and 4 at the Wilderness Lodge!

(Note: do not reverse the order here–don’t go to the Wilderness Lodge first, and then to the Pop Century Resort–or you will hear no end of complaining from your family…!)

The Cabins at Disney’s Fort Wilderness (designated moderates in 2008) do sleep six–but so also do the Family Suites at All-Star Music. The Family Suites are cheaper, more kid appealing, more convenient, and have a better layout for parent privacy.

Last updated October 09

LINKS FOR WHERE TO STAY

• For where to stay, see this
• For your next best choices, in order, see this
• For picking your resort based on appeal to kids, see this
• For picking your resort based on convenience, see this
• For what you get in each resort price category, see this
• For where not to stay, see this
• For differences among deluxe resorts, see this
• For differences among moderate resorts, see this
• For differences among value resorts, see this
• For a (geeky) overview of comparative room size, see this
• Large families should look at this
• Military/DOD families should look at this

OVERVIEW

This page highlights differences among value resorts. See this for features all values share, and differences among resort price categories.

DISTINCTIONS AMONG VALUE RESORTS

Disney’s Pop Century Resort (thumbnail). Only value resort on a lake (the All-Stars have no water views); only value that does not share any buses.

The 40-foot tall character sculptures make Pop more “Disney-like” then the All-Stars. John Hench, a Disney Legend, notes in his book Designing Disney that “these beautiful sculptures are astonishing, unforgettable, and … have proven immensely popular.”

To read the remainder of this article, click here.

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Where to Stay      Resort Features by Price      Resort Kid Appeal      Large Families

Caribbean Beach      Coronado Springs      Port Orleans Riverside

Port Orleans French Quarter        The Cabins at Fort Wilderness

OVERVIEW

This page highlights differences among moderate resorts. See this for features all moderates share, and differences among resort price categories. For more details, click on the names of the moderate resorts.

DISTINCTIONS AMONG MODERATES
Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort. Only moderate with no elevators at all. Only moderate with no indoor bar/lounge. Only moderate with kid-aimed room decor. After recent renovations, best pool of any moderate. (See thumbnail for the baby pool’s theming.) Most kid-appealing of moderates.

Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort. Only moderate with queens rather than full sized beds in most two-bed rooms. Only moderate with a spa. Only moderate with a health club. Only moderate with substantial room service. Only moderate with wireless Internet. Only moderate with only one sink per room, rather than two. Only moderate that hosts conventions. $5 (pre-tax) per night more than other moderates.

Disney’s Port Orleans Riverside. Only moderate that can sleep 5 (only in Alligator Bayou section, with fifth on a 67″ trundle bed). No elevators in Alligator Bayou section. (Magnolia Bend section has elevators.) With Port Orleans French Quarter, only moderate not on a lake.

Disney’s Port Orleans French Quarter. Only moderate with no sit-down restaurant. With Port Orleans Riverside, only moderate with no lake. Only moderate with no quiet pool. Only moderate with no marina. Most compact of moderates. Most romantic of moderates.

The Cabins at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort. Only moderate that can sleep six. Only moderate with a full kitchen. Only moderate with 2 rooms. Only moderate that takes two transport acts to get to a theme park. Only moderate with a porch, and a barbecue grill. Only moderate materially more expensive than the others.

Updated October 09.

*Three, four, or five moderates? Unnecessary confusion has been caused in the past by websites, guidebooks—and Wikipedia—as to whether there are three or four moderates. Many group the two Port Orleans resorts as one, leave out the Cabins at Fort Wilderness, and hence have counted 3 moderate resorts.

However, the two Port Orleans resorts are listed separately in Disney’s list of resorts by type that comes at the bottom of every resort’s home page, and have separate listings in Disney’s online “I know the Resort I want” list; neither list provides an entry for “Port Orleans Resort.” Moreover, they have entirely separate check-in processes, and have reasonable physical distance between them.

For these reasons, the two are treated as distinct resorts in this discussion.

Recently, Disney has complicated this issue by adding the Cabins at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort to the group of resorts it labels as “moderates.” Disney’s intent in doing so was to make clearer the level of amenities one gets in one of these Cabins—higher than that at a value, not as nice as in a deluxe, comparable to the other four moderates.

So five moderates…

LINKS FOR WHERE TO STAY

• For where to stay, see this
• For your next best choices, in order, see this
• For picking your resort based on appeal to kids, see this
• For picking your resort based on convenience, see this
• For what you get in each resort price category, see this
• For where not to stay, see this
• For differences among deluxe resorts, see this
• For differences among moderate resorts, see this
• For differences among value resorts, see this
• For a (geeky) overview of comparative room size, see this
• Large families should look at this
• Military/DOD families should look at this

OVERVIEW

This page highlights differences among deluxe resorts. See this for features all deluxes share, and differences among resort price categories. (See bottom of page for more Where to Stay links.)

DISTINCTIONS AMONG DELUXE RESORTS

Disney’s Polynesian Resort. Only resort with both own resort monorail stop and in easy walking distance of TTC and its Epcot monorail. Only deluxe with no hot tub. Only deluxe with no fitness center–guests are allowed to share the one at the Grand Floridian. One of only a few deluxes with no wireless Internet. One of only a few deluxes with no spa services.

To read the rest of this article, click here.