Disney World: Trade offs of staying on property vs off

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another rec for Art of Animation. The skyline was like a bonus ride

I would do Pop Century over Art
Of Animation unless you need the suite. The Art of Animation Suites are at least $500 a night (can’t say for sure) while Pop Century is sub $200 for a standard hotel room. You still have access to the skyliner, but you don’t get the big theming.

Port Orleans French Quarter for a moderate (much smaller footprint than Port Orleans Riverside.)

If you’re going to splurge for a deluxe, Animal Kingdom Lodge and Wilderness Lodge have a bigger wow factor for kids (though the pool for Beach Club is great.)

Finally, Swan and Dolphin are Marriott properties with on site deluxe benefits. The only negative is they don’t use Disney transportation, but you can access it through other means.

Just stayed at Swan and they do use Disney boats which are super easy for Epcot and Hollywood Studios. Those parks are also close enough to walk to as well. For Magic Kingdom you are best walking to Disney's Boardwalk resort nearby and using their buses. This is not against the rules and drops you at a better location than the Swan/Dolphin buses to Magic Kingdom. For Animal Kingdom the Swan/Dolphin bus worked well. My aunt and her side of the family love Port Orleans French Quarter. All buses though. IMHO I don't think the Skyliner is great. At least in summer it does down when there is lightning and Disney has decreased bus capacity at resorts that have the Skyliner so it gets messy when it shuts down. Also, watch to make sure it is not closed for refurbishment when you are planning to visit.

[Anonymous]

We’ve stayed in all the monorail resorts and Animal Kingdom. Pros and cons to each. I wouldn’t stay off property because it’s nice to take a break and go back without losing tons of time in transit.

1. GF - the nicest but agree with posters saying it’s priced like a Ritz but the rooms feels like a Hilton. Pros were great Christmas decorations and better food in the casual sit down restaurant.
2. Polynesian- rooms are meh but kids loved the pools, dole whip and Oahano restaurant.
3. Contemporary- IMO most convenient as you can walk to the park or monorail, food is bad except the top floor fine dining restaurant. Pools are good.
4. Animal Kingdom - great lobby, common areas, rooms nicer than other places, food the best, pools great. The big downside was the shuttle bus. So annoying as you are in a long line but no matter how close you get to the front a fat person on a scooter will roll up with 8 relatives jumping the line. Never stayed here again after 4 days and nights of this nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We’ve stayed in all the monorail resorts and Animal Kingdom. Pros and cons to each. I wouldn’t stay off property because it’s nice to take a break and go back without losing tons of time in transit.

1. GF - the nicest but agree with posters saying it’s priced like a Ritz but the rooms feels like a Hilton. Pros were great Christmas decorations and better food in the casual sit down restaurant.
2. Polynesian- rooms are meh but kids loved the pools, dole whip and Oahano restaurant.
3. Contemporary- IMO most convenient as you can walk to the park or monorail, food is bad except the top floor fine dining restaurant. Pools are good.
4. Animal Kingdom - great lobby, common areas, rooms nicer than other places, food the best, pools great. The big downside was the shuttle bus. So annoying as you are in a long line but no matter how close you get to the front a fat person on a scooter will roll up with 8 relatives jumping the line. Never stayed here again after 4 days and nights of this nonsense.

This is true at all Disney hotels and so infuriating. They should be limited to 1 companion and the rest of the group should have to wait in line like everyone else.

[Anonymous]

I really like Pop Century. It's on the skyliner and is apart from the other value resorts and has it's own bus. The buses have lines, so just factor that into your timing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The weeks before and after Easter are categorically worse than other times you could go (apart from other busy holiday times like winter break, Thanksgiving and presidents/ski week.)

Spring Break is fine if it’s not your first trip and you know what to expect but I wouldn’t choose it for my kids main childhood trip.

OP here, thanks everyone again for your great tips! Our spring break is not the week before or after Easter, so I think our timing will fall during the just-generally-busy time versus the omg-busy time. Of course knowing it is pretty much always busy in the parks. When I look at the crowd calendars the days I am planning to go fall on historically average and busy crowd days (a few days yellow, a few red; we will obviously choose a red day for a non park day). Is what it is!

[Anonymous]

Downside of staying onsite are the mandatory daily room safety inspections

Even if you have a deadbolt and DND sign, Disney will have staff enter your room to inspect it. They don’t care if your kids are napping or showering. Entire threads on Reddit about people who have been barged in on.

Biggest downside to this is for sleeping kids. Even with a door stopper someone knocking and trying to open the door will likely wake a sleeping kid. They will also proceed to call you as if you’re up to no good in your room and it needs to be entered asap.

I also dislike being on vacation but not being able to reliably nap or have sex because someone might come in on me at any time.

If you’re at the park all day and not getting back until the afternoon you likely won’t even notice this. But if you want to nap with young kids it’s a problem.

I spent $10,600 to stay at the Poly and had Disney staff barge in when my daughter was showing. She came out naked into the room and the person didn’t even care and proceeded to do this weird check around the room including looking behind curtains.

If you’re a sexual assault victim or understandably concerned about being alone with a stranger in their room, this will bother you.

Disney fanatics claims other hotels do this but I’ve traveled all around the world and never experienced having hotel staff enter my room to perform an inspection.

Seems like a huge safety risk as last time this happened my child was sleeping and my husband thought someone was breaking into the room. He could have tried to attack the hotel staff over self defense and eventually someone will do this. I don’t see how cleaning staff are trained security guards or have the proper training to be checking for trafficking or weapons. It’s all security theatre.

Four Seasons doesn’t do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We’ve stayed in all the monorail resorts and Animal Kingdom. Pros and cons to each. I wouldn’t stay off property because it’s nice to take a break and go back without losing tons of time in transit.

1. GF - the nicest but agree with posters saying it’s priced like a Ritz but the rooms feels like a Hilton. Pros were great Christmas decorations and better food in the casual sit down restaurant.
2. Polynesian- rooms are meh but kids loved the pools, dole whip and Oahano restaurant.
3. Contemporary- IMO most convenient as you can walk to the park or monorail, food is bad except the top floor fine dining restaurant. Pools are good.
4. Animal Kingdom - great lobby, common areas, rooms nicer than other places, food the best, pools great. The big downside was the shuttle bus. So annoying as you are in a long line but no matter how close you get to the front a fat person on a scooter will roll up with 8 relatives jumping the line. Never stayed here again after 4 days and nights of this nonsense.

All of these mean you’ll have daily room inspections at whatever time Disney decides they want to enter your room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve stayed in all the monorail resorts and Animal Kingdom. Pros and cons to each. I wouldn’t stay off property because it’s nice to take a break and go back without losing tons of time in transit.

1. GF - the nicest but agree with posters saying it’s priced like a Ritz but the rooms feels like a Hilton. Pros were great Christmas decorations and better food in the casual sit down restaurant.
2. Polynesian- rooms are meh but kids loved the pools, dole whip and Oahano restaurant.
3. Contemporary- IMO most convenient as you can walk to the park or monorail, food is bad except the top floor fine dining restaurant. Pools are good.
4. Animal Kingdom - great lobby, common areas, rooms nicer than other places, food the best, pools great. The big downside was the shuttle bus. So annoying as you are in a long line but no matter how close you get to the front a fat person on a scooter will roll up with 8 relatives jumping the line. Never stayed here again after 4 days and nights of this nonsense.

All of these mean you’ll have daily room inspections at whatever time Disney decides they want to enter your room.

??? If you get housekeeping like a normal person it’s just part of that. It’s never been an issue for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve stayed in all the monorail resorts and Animal Kingdom. Pros and cons to each. I wouldn’t stay off property because it’s nice to take a break and go back without losing tons of time in transit.

1. GF - the nicest but agree with posters saying it’s priced like a Ritz but the rooms feels like a Hilton. Pros were great Christmas decorations and better food in the casual sit down restaurant.
2. Polynesian- rooms are meh but kids loved the pools, dole whip and Oahano restaurant.
3. Contemporary- IMO most convenient as you can walk to the park or monorail, food is bad except the top floor fine dining restaurant. Pools are good.
4. Animal Kingdom - great lobby, common areas, rooms nicer than other places, food the best, pools great. The big downside was the shuttle bus. So annoying as you are in a long line but no matter how close you get to the front a fat person on a scooter will roll up with 8 relatives jumping the line. Never stayed here again after 4 days and nights of this nonsense.

All of these mean you’ll have daily room inspections at whatever time Disney decides they want to enter your room.

??? If you get housekeeping like a normal person it’s just part of that. It’s never been an issue for us.

If you rent DVC points, you don’t have daily housekeeping.

Regardless the housekeeping is done differently than at other hotels and they too will come in even with a DND sign for the room check. So even if you are napping with a DND sign, housekeeping will still enter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve stayed in all the monorail resorts and Animal Kingdom. Pros and cons to each. I wouldn’t stay off property because it’s nice to take a break and go back without losing tons of time in transit.

1. GF - the nicest but agree with posters saying it’s priced like a Ritz but the rooms feels like a Hilton. Pros were great Christmas decorations and better food in the casual sit down restaurant.
2. Polynesian- rooms are meh but kids loved the pools, dole whip and Oahano restaurant.
3. Contemporary- IMO most convenient as you can walk to the park or monorail, food is bad except the top floor fine dining restaurant. Pools are good.
4. Animal Kingdom - great lobby, common areas, rooms nicer than other places, food the best, pools great. The big downside was the shuttle bus. So annoying as you are in a long line but no matter how close you get to the front a fat person on a scooter will roll up with 8 relatives jumping the line. Never stayed here again after 4 days and nights of this nonsense.

All of these mean you’ll have daily room inspections at whatever time Disney decides they want to enter your room.

??? If you get housekeeping like a normal person it’s just part of that. It’s never been an issue for us.

If you rent DVC points, you don’t have daily housekeeping.

Regardless the housekeeping is done differently than at other hotels and they too will come in even with a DND sign for the room check. So even if you are napping with a DND sign, housekeeping will still enter.

This is so weird. We’ve never noticed because getting the housekeeping, someone else making beds is one of the things I like on vacation. Are they doing this to try to figure out if extra people are staying in the room? I can’t imagine why a daily inspection would be needed or cost effective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Downside of staying onsite are the mandatory daily room safety inspections

Even if you have a deadbolt and DND sign, Disney will have staff enter your room to inspect it. They don’t care if your kids are napping or showering. Entire threads on Reddit about people who have been barged in on.

Biggest downside to this is for sleeping kids. Even with a door stopper someone knocking and trying to open the door will likely wake a sleeping kid. They will also proceed to call you as if you’re up to no good in your room and it needs to be entered asap.

I also dislike being on vacation but not being able to reliably nap or have sex because someone might come in on me at any time.

If you’re at the park all day and not getting back until the afternoon you likely won’t even notice this. But if you want to nap with young kids it’s a problem.

I spent $10,600 to stay at the Poly and had Disney staff barge in when my daughter was showing. She came out naked into the room and the person didn’t even care and proceeded to do this weird check around the room including looking behind curtains.

If you’re a sexual assault victim or understandably concerned about being alone with a stranger in their room, this will bother you.

Disney fanatics claims other hotels do this but I’ve traveled all around the world and never experienced having hotel staff enter my room to perform an inspection.

Seems like a huge safety risk as last time this happened my child was sleeping and my husband thought someone was breaking into the room. He could have tried to attack the hotel staff over self defense and eventually someone will do this. I don’t see how cleaning staff are trained security guards or have the proper training to be checking for trafficking or weapons. It’s all security theatre.

Four Seasons doesn’t do this.

I have stayed at WDW many, many times and this has never happened to us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve stayed in all the monorail resorts and Animal Kingdom. Pros and cons to each. I wouldn’t stay off property because it’s nice to take a break and go back without losing tons of time in transit.

1. GF - the nicest but agree with posters saying it’s priced like a Ritz but the rooms feels like a Hilton. Pros were great Christmas decorations and better food in the casual sit down restaurant.
2. Polynesian- rooms are meh but kids loved the pools, dole whip and Oahano restaurant.
3. Contemporary- IMO most convenient as you can walk to the park or monorail, food is bad except the top floor fine dining restaurant. Pools are good.
4. Animal Kingdom - great lobby, common areas, rooms nicer than other places, food the best, pools great. The big downside was the shuttle bus. So annoying as you are in a long line but no matter how close you get to the front a fat person on a scooter will roll up with 8 relatives jumping the line. Never stayed here again after 4 days and nights of this nonsense.

All of these mean you’ll have daily room inspections at whatever time Disney decides they want to enter your room.

The doors have those things that keep them from opening all of the way anyway...

[Anonymous]

We always stay on site and do the value hotels. They are all great. Not luxurious but have everything you need including great pools and entertainment for kids, plus no need to think about transportation. If you need more space there’s also family rooms at All Star Music which is cheaper than Art of Animation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Downside of staying onsite are the mandatory daily room safety inspections

Even if you have a deadbolt and DND sign, Disney will have staff enter your room to inspect it. They don’t care if your kids are napping or showering. Entire threads on Reddit about people who have been barged in on.

Biggest downside to this is for sleeping kids. Even with a door stopper someone knocking and trying to open the door will likely wake a sleeping kid. They will also proceed to call you as if you’re up to no good in your room and it needs to be entered asap.

I also dislike being on vacation but not being able to reliably nap or have sex because someone might come in on me at any time.

If you’re at the park all day and not getting back until the afternoon you likely won’t even notice this. But if you want to nap with young kids it’s a problem.

I spent $10,600 to stay at the Poly and had Disney staff barge in when my daughter was showing. She came out naked into the room and the person didn’t even care and proceeded to do this weird check around the room including looking behind curtains.

If you’re a sexual assault victim or understandably concerned about being alone with a stranger in their room, this will bother you.

Disney fanatics claims other hotels do this but I’ve traveled all around the world and never experienced having hotel staff enter my room to perform an inspection.

Seems like a huge safety risk as last time this happened my child was sleeping and my husband thought someone was breaking into the room. He could have tried to attack the hotel staff over self defense and eventually someone will do this. I don’t see how cleaning staff are trained security guards or have the proper training to be checking for trafficking or weapons. It’s all security theatre.

Four Seasons doesn’t do this.

I’ve never heard this nor experienced it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve stayed in all the monorail resorts and Animal Kingdom. Pros and cons to each. I wouldn’t stay off property because it’s nice to take a break and go back without losing tons of time in transit.

1. GF - the nicest but agree with posters saying it’s priced like a Ritz but the rooms feels like a Hilton. Pros were great Christmas decorations and better food in the casual sit down restaurant.
2. Polynesian- rooms are meh but kids loved the pools, dole whip and Oahano restaurant.
3. Contemporary- IMO most convenient as you can walk to the park or monorail, food is bad except the top floor fine dining restaurant. Pools are good.
4. Animal Kingdom - great lobby, common areas, rooms nicer than other places, food the best, pools great. The big downside was the shuttle bus. So annoying as you are in a long line but no matter how close you get to the front a fat person on a scooter will roll up with 8 relatives jumping the line. Never stayed here again after 4 days and nights of this nonsense.

All of these mean you’ll have daily room inspections at whatever time Disney decides they want to enter your room.

??? If you get housekeeping like a normal person it’s just part of that. It’s never been an issue for us.

If you rent DVC points, you don’t have daily housekeeping.

Regardless the housekeeping is done differently than at other hotels and they too will come in even with a DND sign for the room check. So even if you are napping with a DND sign, housekeeping will still enter.

This is so weird. We’ve never noticed because getting the housekeeping, someone else making beds is one of the things I like on vacation. Are they doing this to try to figure out if extra people are staying in the room? I can’t imagine why a daily inspection would be needed or cost effective.

We’ve never had an issue either but it’s a weird point of contention on some Disney boards. We are never in our room in the middle of the day so it’s a non issue. Even on a non-park day we are at the pool or mini golfing or whatever. You can also schedule a time for them to check the room. They only come in when they have been told no many times.