Amenities and Dining at the Hilton Buena Vista Palace, Disney Springs Resort Area

By Dave Shute

For the first page of this review of the Hilton Buena Vista Palace, see this.

AMENITIES AND DINING AT THE HILTON BUENA VISTA PALACE

The Hilton Buena Vista Palace in the Disney Springs Resort Area has both valet and self-parking.

If you are driving and self-parking, you may park in the port cochere until you have completed check-in.

There’s one large, obvious, ugly, and painfully distant self-parking area–on the left as you enter the property. A much better choice, once you have checked in and gotten your room key card, which also serves as your parking pass, is on the right when you drive in, but of course on the left as you drive away from the port cochere.

See the annotated image, where the better parking area is marked with red fill in the lower center.

This better parking area is also right next to the bus stop. Details on transportation to the theme parks from the Disney Springs Resort Area hotels are here.

Also right in this area is the walkway to Disney Springs. Basically you go out to the road, turn left, and walk to the overpass. The furthest tower rooms are about a half mile walk to the nearest part of Disney Springs. Closer Island rooms are a quarter mile away.

The basics of the Hilton Buena Vista Palace’s services are around the lobby that you’ll find on the floor that comes off the port cochere. Check in is way at the back–by the windows.

You’ll find the bell stand on one side…

…and concierge services on the other. Around the corner from the concierge desk is the rental car desk.

There’s some seating on the way back to the check in area.

The check in area itself.

Also in the main lobby is this bar, Sunnies.

The lobby bar at night.

The lobby bar closed unreasonably early a couple of nights I was there–but there’s a second bar, Blue, more of a sports bar, down the hall and down some steps.

It has about a tenth–maybe a twentieth–the romance of the lobby bar.

There’s another bar at the pool. I cover the pool at the Hilton Buena Vista Palace in detail here.

All other amenities (unless I am forgetting something) are either on, or accessed from, the Palace’s lowest level. This is also the path from tower rooms to the pools, the bus stop, and the pathway to Disney Springs, so you’ll be down here a lot.

On the way to the bus stop you’ll find this gym.

Just outside is this outdoor lounging area, sometime used for events but otherwise more popular than you might think, given the Florida weather.

Back inside you’ll find a large gift shop…

…separated from an even larger grab and go and snack shop by this seating area, which could use some redecorating.

The grab and go shop keeps extended hours–it was open 24 hours one of my stays, and until 2a on another.

It offers, besides hot snacks, all kinds of cold items and shelf-stable snacks and drinks.

More shots of the grab and go area.

The featured dining venue at the Hilton Buena Vista Palace is Letterpress.

It has character meals on Sunday mornings…

…and has, God bless it, book theming.

I think, though, that I am the only person to have actually read books in the restaurant.

The dinner menu.

The lunch and breakfast menu–Letterpress, by the way, serves breakfast all day, a practice I commend.

I had a nice salad…

…and fine steak for dinner…

…and the “Breakfast Standard” another day for lunch.

I’ve eaten in the past 6 months in all the Disney Springs hotels except for the Doubletree (I had Disney dining reservations my entire stay there), and Letterpress at the Palace is the best of the bunch. Menus are here.

That said, dinner in Disney Springs is still your best bet.

Overall, including its pools, the Hilton Buena Vista Palace in the Disney Springs Resort Area has as strong a set of amenities as you’ll find among the Disney Springs Resort Area options. Both its pools and its table service dining are the best among these resorts, and the only thing obviously missing is outdoor sports courts for tennis or basketball, for which the Wyndham has the best offering.

THE POOL COMPLEX AT THE HILTON BUENA VISTA PALACE

This review continues here.

OTHER KEY PAGES FOR WHERE TO STAY AT DISNEY WORLD

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Amenities and Dining at the Hilton Buena Vista Palace, Disney Springs Resort Area