Vagabond: A Resort Hopper's Tale

Vagabond: A Resort Hopper’s Tale

January 17, 2024

I am a completionist.

It’s one of the reasons that I love Disney World so much. It is so vast; you simply can’t do it all. That won’t stop me from trying though.

On our latest trip, Brandi and I stayed at three different resorts over a five night trip. Some people actually cringe while reading that, and I get it. There are many people that prefer not to move around on vacation. They like to unpack and settle in until it’s time to go. I definitely see the value in that. However, we want to try out as many of the WDW resorts as possible. So when we started tacking days on to the beginning and ending of our trip, we weren’t disappointed in having to find a few new places to crash.

Our original trip was scheduled for three nights at the Walt Disney World Dolphin resort. I got a pretty sweet rate back in May for $390/night for a balcony room. Of course there were resort fees and other drivel that had to be taken care of as well, but it was a still a pretty great deal.

Then they released the Jollywood Nights dates. We were scheduled to leave on one of the party nights, and the siren song of a brand new holiday party was too much to resist, so I started looking at adding a night. The Dolphin’s stupendous rate was so much dust in the wind by this time, and they wanted $600 to add on another night there. No chance of that, so I started looking elsewhere. Being that I like to be strategic about park days in conjunction to resorts, I wanted something with easy access to the Studios. Since we have never stayed at Caribbean Beach Resort and it is the Skyliner hub, we went for one night there after making sure our flights could be changed and my wife could get an extra day off.

Then we activated our annual passes in September, and I was poking around on the website and found an AP rate for All Star Music one day earlier than our planned trip for $138/night. I called Brandi and asked if she could get one extra day off… again… and once again looked at changing our flights. Everything worked out with time off and we actually saved money on the new flights. If the universe had yelled any louder, my imaginary friend could have heard it. Our trip was SUPPOSED to be longer. Duh.

We were now embarking on a five night trip at three different resorts, and we were pretty excited about it. So let me break down each resort.

•       All-Star Music Resort

To be honest, my wife would have been perfectly content to stay here for the duration of the trip. That may sound crazy, but we had a king bed, a preferred location, and the food court had French vanilla and Hazelnut creamer (which we haven’t seen at any other resort so far, including Coronado last week!). The newly refurbished rooms were great. The showers, in particular, were upgraded nicely with the refurb. Busses were plentiful and constant for Magic Kingdom. Overall, a nice stay and we wouldn’t hesitate to stay there again if we got a comparable rate.

•       Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love the Crescent Lake area at WDW. It makes me happy. However, I had never stayed there. The cost was just too prohibitive. Yacht Club, Beach Club, and Boardwalk are simply too expensive for our family. Even renting DVC points was a budget-buster. With the price I got at the Dolphin though, I was finally going to get my wish. We had three days and nights on Crescent Lake!

First off, I wouldn’t call the Dolphin a Deluxe resort. It’s more deluxe-adjacent. It has some great amenities, the beds are pretty great, the restaurants on site are plentiful and quality, and we did have a balcony. However, once you leave the impressive and modern looking lobby, the resort is woefully dated. The carpet in the hallways looks like it’s from the 80s. The wallpaper and décor were in desperate need of a refresh. There was rust in the shower and the tongs for the ice bucket were rusty as well. The balcony was wrought iron and had some rust and decay on them too… BUT THAT VIEW!  That view, overlooking Crescent Lake, EPCOT, and even a bit of Hollywood Studios, was completely worth the price.

Because of where the balcony rooms are located in the resort, we had a hike to get to our room every evening. Several times we had to stop halfway there, build a fire in the hallway, and make camp and continue the trip the next morning. The little quick service location off the lobby, Fuel, was a confusing chaotic mess in the mornings.

But

That

View

•       Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort

Another first for us, we stayed one night at Caribbean Beach resort. The check-in process was easy, the room was adequate, and the transfer of luggage from the Dolphin was seamless. The room was a good 30 miles or so from the main building (or at least that’s how it felt), but we were pretty close to the Skyliner station, and with that being our Jollywood Nights evening, it worked out fine.

We had a few cocktails at Banana Cabana. Two thumbs up for the beverages and the excellent bartenders. We also had a fantastic meal at Sebastian’s Bistro. This quickly jumped into our Disney Top Ten. The pull-apart rolls, the mojo pork, and the bread pudding were fantastic. And surprisingly, the salad (which many Disney restaurants phone-in) was incredible. So good!

Naturally, mileage will vary. The resort is monstrous and has multiple internal bus stops which can cause major frustrations when going to Animal Kingdom or Magic Kingdom, but we were only doing the Studios that night, so no busses were necessary.

* For reference: After staying last week at Coronado Springs for a convention and dealing with the multiple bus stops, I can confirm that internal bus stops are not as bad as Highlander II, but worse than Back to the Future II.

We immensely enjoyed our December trip, as always, and we are pleased to cross three more resorts off of our list. We are looking forward to our next stay and the next new resort!