ClaraOswald
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2014
I plan to add to this later with a lot more details about our trip but wanted to get it started anyway and just talk about my resort observations.
Background:
Me - 42 years old
Husband - 45 years old
Son - 10 years old
I went to WDW 3 times as a kid (staying offsite and once at All Star Sports) and then my husband and I went in 2008 (Port Orleans Riverside), 2010 and 2012 (both Pop Century.)
So this trip was not only our first DVC stay but also our first Deluxe WDW stay! We still haven't stayed at our home resort of GCV though we did stay on the hotel 'side' last year so I found myself comparing the two resorts a bit during our stay.
First - our room location. I can't recall the order I put in our room requests but I know I requested lake side and 1st floor. We did end up on the first floor, which I was happy with. But we were not on lake side. And we were in the room at the very end of the hall. 1558.
We were on our bus to the hotel when I got our room assignment so instead of going straight there, we stopped at the front desk to see if they had any other options. Sadly....no. They said they would have a different room available if we wanted to switch the next night. But with our son being autistic, we didn't think that would work for him at all. I'd heard these rooms at the end could be super noisy so that was my main concern. Thankfully, with our multiple white noise machines, we had no problem with noise.
But I will admit, the long walk down the hall at the end of the night was kind of a bummer. Not a huge deal by any means. We did laugh a bit because it reminded us of our hotel room location at the Grand Californian last year.....
Anyway....some thoughts on BRV and Wilderness Lodge....
We LOVED the theme, lobbies, landscaping, etc. It's such a beautiful resort. And it really was super quiet when wandering around. The boat ride to MK was fantastic. I also loved the decor in the new studio villa. Very cozy and nice.
Though I do have a couple room complaints - the mattress on the queen bed was NOT comfortable, at all. And all of the pillows were terrible. Now, these are all just personal preferences, of course. But for me, I had a horrible first night sleep on that bed. So the rest of the nights, I moved to the murphy bed and found that to be much better. Pillows were all terrible though. Appear fluffy but then when you lay on them they are completely flat with no support. Our next vacation is to Disneyland this summer and since it's a road trip, I'm considering bringing my own pillow, just in case.
Another room complaint is the shower water temp was totally inconsistent. I don't know if I was just unlucky or what but every single shower I took...the water would go back and forth between scalding hot and freezing cold. Reminded me of one of the Harbor hotels we used to stay at for Disneyland trips years ago.
And this isn't really a complaint just an observation....the faucet in the kitchenette was too big for the sink. It looked like poor planning or something. The faucet was meant for a full-sized sink so the water ends up flowing at the very front edge of the sink and made it hard to wash hands/mugs without making a huge mess. Plus, it just looked weird to me. Again, this isn't a big deal. It's just something I noticed and found odd.
The staff we encountered at the front desk, bell service, gift shop, and on the hotel grounds were all super friendly and helpful.
The buses to the parks weren't too bad. Overall, waits were tolerable. We had 1 wait at the hotel that was on the longer side and 1 wait coming back from HS that was long. But most were about what we expected. I'd say on average, we waited 10 minutes, give or take at the hotel. Maybe a little longer leaving the parks. But not bad. I didn't realize that we shared buses with other resorts though. (Or if I did know, I must have forgotten?) I guess I figured since it's a Deluxe Resort, we'd get our own transportation. But we stopped at the Contemporary or Fort Wilderness each time so that was kind of a bummer.
We had 1 dinner at Roaring Fork and had breakfast there each day. Dinner was fine. We sat outside and it was chilly was nice. For our first breakfast, we ate at one of the tables in the hallway area because it was fairly crowded inside and too cold outside for us. We did mobile order and hit the "we're here" button on our way and it was immediately ready. We had ordered the breakfast platters and I'm guessing they had them pre-boxed up maybe. They were very underwhelming. I like my scrambled eggs less wet. I couldn't handle the texture. And the potatoes were try and shriveled. Needless to say, I didn't order this again. (I just had cereal and a pastry each day after that.)
We also decided to take our breakfast back to our room to eat on all other mornings. That was much more relaxing, even with the longer walk back to our far away room. We also bought refillable mugs and used those for coffee each day. And we stopped at got hot chocolate some evenings (but it was a bit too chocolately for my taste.)
Overall though, we really liked this resort. And when we make future plans (probably 2026 or 2027), I'll be crossing my fingers that there will be availability for us here! I feel like we'd be happy at most any resort but would probably be happiest here.
(I'll be back at some point to add pictures and talk more about our time in the parks as well. Congrats if you've made it this far!)
Background:
Me - 42 years old
Husband - 45 years old
Son - 10 years old
I went to WDW 3 times as a kid (staying offsite and once at All Star Sports) and then my husband and I went in 2008 (Port Orleans Riverside), 2010 and 2012 (both Pop Century.)
So this trip was not only our first DVC stay but also our first Deluxe WDW stay! We still haven't stayed at our home resort of GCV though we did stay on the hotel 'side' last year so I found myself comparing the two resorts a bit during our stay.
First - our room location. I can't recall the order I put in our room requests but I know I requested lake side and 1st floor. We did end up on the first floor, which I was happy with. But we were not on lake side. And we were in the room at the very end of the hall. 1558.
We were on our bus to the hotel when I got our room assignment so instead of going straight there, we stopped at the front desk to see if they had any other options. Sadly....no. They said they would have a different room available if we wanted to switch the next night. But with our son being autistic, we didn't think that would work for him at all. I'd heard these rooms at the end could be super noisy so that was my main concern. Thankfully, with our multiple white noise machines, we had no problem with noise.
But I will admit, the long walk down the hall at the end of the night was kind of a bummer. Not a huge deal by any means. We did laugh a bit because it reminded us of our hotel room location at the Grand Californian last year.....
Anyway....some thoughts on BRV and Wilderness Lodge....
We LOVED the theme, lobbies, landscaping, etc. It's such a beautiful resort. And it really was super quiet when wandering around. The boat ride to MK was fantastic. I also loved the decor in the new studio villa. Very cozy and nice.
Though I do have a couple room complaints - the mattress on the queen bed was NOT comfortable, at all. And all of the pillows were terrible. Now, these are all just personal preferences, of course. But for me, I had a horrible first night sleep on that bed. So the rest of the nights, I moved to the murphy bed and found that to be much better. Pillows were all terrible though. Appear fluffy but then when you lay on them they are completely flat with no support. Our next vacation is to Disneyland this summer and since it's a road trip, I'm considering bringing my own pillow, just in case.
Another room complaint is the shower water temp was totally inconsistent. I don't know if I was just unlucky or what but every single shower I took...the water would go back and forth between scalding hot and freezing cold. Reminded me of one of the Harbor hotels we used to stay at for Disneyland trips years ago.
And this isn't really a complaint just an observation....the faucet in the kitchenette was too big for the sink. It looked like poor planning or something. The faucet was meant for a full-sized sink so the water ends up flowing at the very front edge of the sink and made it hard to wash hands/mugs without making a huge mess. Plus, it just looked weird to me. Again, this isn't a big deal. It's just something I noticed and found odd.
The staff we encountered at the front desk, bell service, gift shop, and on the hotel grounds were all super friendly and helpful.
The buses to the parks weren't too bad. Overall, waits were tolerable. We had 1 wait at the hotel that was on the longer side and 1 wait coming back from HS that was long. But most were about what we expected. I'd say on average, we waited 10 minutes, give or take at the hotel. Maybe a little longer leaving the parks. But not bad. I didn't realize that we shared buses with other resorts though. (Or if I did know, I must have forgotten?) I guess I figured since it's a Deluxe Resort, we'd get our own transportation. But we stopped at the Contemporary or Fort Wilderness each time so that was kind of a bummer.
We had 1 dinner at Roaring Fork and had breakfast there each day. Dinner was fine. We sat outside and it was chilly was nice. For our first breakfast, we ate at one of the tables in the hallway area because it was fairly crowded inside and too cold outside for us. We did mobile order and hit the "we're here" button on our way and it was immediately ready. We had ordered the breakfast platters and I'm guessing they had them pre-boxed up maybe. They were very underwhelming. I like my scrambled eggs less wet. I couldn't handle the texture. And the potatoes were try and shriveled. Needless to say, I didn't order this again. (I just had cereal and a pastry each day after that.)
We also decided to take our breakfast back to our room to eat on all other mornings. That was much more relaxing, even with the longer walk back to our far away room. We also bought refillable mugs and used those for coffee each day. And we stopped at got hot chocolate some evenings (but it was a bit too chocolately for my taste.)
Overall though, we really liked this resort. And when we make future plans (probably 2026 or 2027), I'll be crossing my fingers that there will be availability for us here! I feel like we'd be happy at most any resort but would probably be happiest here.
(I'll be back at some point to add pictures and talk more about our time in the parks as well. Congrats if you've made it this far!)
