Daniel A.
Yelp
I have never stayed on the property of Disney. I decided to due to a travel discount I had and because I wanted to see what the difference would be. Walking into the hotel, I saw a nice big open lobby and cast members with tablets walking around, not the typical standing behind a desk to check in. I was greeted by a cast member named Justin who was friendly and walked me through the check-in process. They give you the choice if you want to add a credit card to the reservation for room charges throughout the parks ( I would recommend this) I added $100 to my room so I could use it at the food and wine fest when visiting EPCOT. I was put in the surfside building, and when walking out, I saw the pool and other cool little features. There is a giant chess set, Ping-Pong, and checkers. However, I was a little disappointed in the checkers. Some of the black pieces were missing. We walked into our room and only saw 1 bed, plus there was a horrible smell, a musty and moldy smell. I also saw a table and some chairs but no second bed. I called down to the front desk and was told the room comes with a Murphy bed ha-ha one that pulls down from the wall, and there are instructions on top of the table. This is pretty neat when we pulled it down it had a cute picture of the famous Disney ducks. This was a neat surprise. While we didn't do much for the air smell because we didn't think it could be fixed, we sprayed some body spray and were not in the room a lot as we went to Disney springs and did some exploring. In order to get to Disney springs your only free option is the Disney springs transfer bus and there is a screen that tells you when it is supposed to arrive and well we saw it would arrive in 10 minutes that changed to 20 and then 30 finally I asked the driver of the Animal Kingdom bus to call and see what's going on, he did and said that it was close but never figured out why it was so delayed and waiting in the heat 30 minutes for a bus that is supposed to run every 15 to 20 minutes was not a great start. I will come back to that later. There is also a review of Disney springs in general and the attractions we decided to try. When we came back, we were hungry and decided based on the app and the pictures we would eat at the quick service food court at the hotel. This I would not recommend that the prices are insane and the food quality is dismal. My friend wanted the Adobo Chicken Nachos and I thought we might share them but the chips were stale, the person serving them said that the cheese was not really cheese it was something pumpkin, there were no beans and the chicken was not fresh it was a disaster for $15 I ordered the Grilled chicken sandwich and instead of only grilled fillet it was 2 small ones he pulled from a holding bin, The fries were ok but the sun was not fresh either I was just extremely disappointed in the food and would not and did not use the food court anymore. Here is a tip if you want bottled water, wait till you are in one of the parks. One here is $6 when it is $3.25 in most places in the park. After our food, we saw they were showing a movie at the pool, and the pool was still pretty busy at 9 pm. The pool closes at 10 pm, just a little tip. We did not sleep well and woke up with a slightly sore throat that morning due to the air. I decided to filter the smell and air with coffee pods as I have used those before when I was a flight attendant, another tip coffee bag filter, and contain wet smells. We slept way better the second night. The shower was nice, the bed was comfortable, and it was clean, with the exception of the smell. Unless you stay more than 2 days you do not get a cleaning service which I thought was a little strange but whatever. I felt safe and secure so for a lower budget this is a good place to stay all the rooms are accessed from outside and the property sets the minimum temp to not be controlled past 68 degrees that makes me pretty mad normally, but the place stayed just cool enough if we were in a room that faced the sun more I might have been more bothered by that. On our last day we were told we could leave our bags with the front bell kiosk and then come back and use the "Bath house" lockers and showers plus have charging ability till 11:59pm on the day you leave which is fantastic and very convenient. My companion had to leave earlier, and she tried to get in with the key, but she told me it didn't work. When I got there, I didn't need a key it was just unlocked. I did have a special experience while I was doing some final pics for my review I was approached in the Arcade by a nice female cast member asking me if I wanted to play a game and I told her I was just looking around and she said she would even cover the payment I just needed to pick out a game so I did I played this boat racing game and it was fun. I thought this was pretty special and nice since she had no clue who I was or why I was in the Arcade. All in all, I thought it was a good stay.