Is There A Disney Resort you Won't Return To?

I have eaten at Landscape of Flavors. They have a burger station and pizza station but they also have non-traditional resort foods. Some of the dishes are like Portuguese sausage with rice and naan bread. It's not bad but not what you expect. They didn't have chicken nuggets but I believe they were working on getting those before I left. You can probably find the menu online. They have all the breakfast stuff you would expect like French toast, waffles and foods of that nature. Also the pool bar has food options as well. Be sure to yell Mufasa and Sharkbait while in the food court.

I have only stayed at two resorts onsite so far and I liked them at the time. My 1st Disney trip, back during the summer of '91 (when I was 9) was at the Dolphin. Even though I didn't know the difference between motel and hotel and "nice/fancy hotel", I thought it was a nice place. Then my 2nd trip was in September 2012. We stayed at Pop Century. I liked it, even though I could definitely tell a difference between the Dolphin and Pop. My 3rd trip was just this past August for a few days at Disney and we stayed at Pop again. This was COMPLETELY ON A WHIM and I was surprised that we were even able to get rooms on such short notice. My 4th trip will be this next May for a Disneymoon and we will be at Beach Club. There are obvious reasons why I picked this place.

I can definitely tell you where I WON'T stay ever, for any reason, and that is a moderate resort. I spent a good deal of time researching the moderates months back when trying to decide where to stay for the honeymoon. Since we had been at Pop and my hunny always stayed at the All-Stars or offsite, I thought, let's take it up a notch and go to the moderates. Well, my research has pretty much found that if you are just going for a few days and you're gonna be in the parks mostly and just need a place to sleep/shower, the values are just fine. They have terrific theming, all the Disney resort perks, and you save some money. Granted they may just be "Days Inn" type motels with a few extras, but still, it gets the job done. Now, if you're looking for (and I'm sorry about this-I don't know how else to put it) a little more class, or style, a LOT more perks, especially with provided transportation from hotel to theme park, room service, etc., Deluxe or Villas is the way to go. Especially if you are staying for an extended period of time, like a week or more, where you can make time for days off to actually enjoy the hotel for what they have to offer, especially the pools. I know they are pricey, but what I found wrong with the moderates is that they state that you are getting more perks for lesser of a price compared to the Deluxe but yet I found that they lacked in some areas compared to the values where it was better. Almost to the point where it wasn't worth being charged more than a value resort.Take theming for example. Port Orleans-French Quarter just looks cheap. Caribbean Beach is beautiful but the food court to me, was cheap looking. Same with Coronado Springs, beautiful but every now and then, there would be an area that looked like it needed work on. Then you talk about the theming of the rooms at CBR and PO-FQ/R. Just tacky, if you ask me. I know Riverside has that beautiful landscaping with the horses' carriage rides, but the pool they share with French Quarter just looks tired, boring. The values start looking better in some respect.

Now some pools do get better from value to moderate, but they become EVEN better at the deluxe. Like Stormalong Bay for example at Beach Club. Saves you money from having to go to one of the water theme parks. Now you do get a hot tub at the moderates, but from what I remember reading, there's usually only one, that's right, one to share. Amongst a bunch of people staying at these hotels. At the deluxe resorts, there's going to usually be around 2-3, possibly more. You might even have a fitness center or spa. Now I know CSR has this, but this probably has to do with the fact that they are a convention center hotel as well.

Now then, at the Values, they seem to have awesome food courts with tasty selections, especially Pop. Hunny never complained about All-Stars' food courts. He always raved about the food there. About every review I have ever read about the food courts/restaurants at the moderates are overall iffy to negative. Everybody complains that the food just isn't up to par with such and such or something's missing, with the exception of maybe one restaurant(Boatwright's, I think that's the name of it? Riverside Mill? Something like that.) Now go to the Deluxe, you have some of the tastiest and best restaurants that DW has to offer: Yachtsman Steakhouse, Victoria And Albert's, Flying Fish, California Grill, Artist Point, Jiko, etc.

Now the biggest thing to me that kept me from wanting to do a moderate is that they have the same setup that the Values do where rooms are separated into different buildings. You have to walk outside to get to whatever building your room is in. I don't mind walking outside. I do it all the time. However, I don't like having to walk LONG distances OUTSIDE just to get to my room after a long HOT day at the parks. I would at least like to enjoy being in an air conditioned hallway. Maybe it's just me but I have seen complaint after complaint about this. Now for the price of a value, I won't complain. You get what you paid for unfortunately. But the price of a moderate? I don't think so. Not worth the money. Now maybe I sound like a snob but as someone said on here earlier, I like and know what I want.

This leads me to the opinion that the moderate hotels all lack in something, compared to the values and deluxe, where overall they succeed. You take one moderate here, and it's got one thing that is superb, but yet another area they lack in. Then you take another moderate and they may excel in the area that the previous hotel lacked in, and then there's something else that this place seems to fail on. This starts to become prevalent for all moderates. You wonder why is this? Especially when they charge more.

So that's why if you're ever wondering which places not to stay, it would be the moderate resorts. If you have smaller funds, save money and stay at the Values because they seem to offer some things that are lacking at the moderates. If you have the money to splurge or can save up over time, go for the deluxe and take in the best that Disney has to offer when staying on property.

I would not to stay in the CBR because the Bed has sharp edges! I got scrape in my both legs and blooding and My dad got the scrape in his legs too!

I would NEVER stay at anything below a Moderate so all those all stars and Pop and those are out of the question.
We don't have kids and don't want them. We want luxury and to feel like we are in a grown up place when we go to the room.

We LOVED Coronado and plan to go back next year unless we bump it up to a deluxe.
Maya Grill was awesome! and we never once ate at anything other than table service or in the parks themselves.
We are younger with no mobility issues so the scale of CSR did not bother us. In fact we spent several evenings walking around the lake path it was very romantic.

CBR on the other hand for a Moderate we did not care for it did not like the cheap look they were going for.

We also always rent a car as we go through the parks very quickly and do no like using the transportation system to get us to another park or restaurant/resort. Combined with front row parking due to my GFs Disability ( 70% blind) and free parking make the rental car a breeze.

we really want to stay at the Polynesian or the GFR for sure on one of these next trips.

Ok, I will admit it. I'm a snob, by many way but a hotel snob in this instance. I wouldn't ever stay at a value, I don't even see us every staying at a MOD, especially now that we have DVC I'd rather stay for less time in a deluxe than longer in a value. It's not that there is anything wrong with value, they serve a purpose but the more I visit wdw, the more time I want to spend relaxing at the resort thus wanting a more luxurious resort. Luckily we don't have to think about that anymore now that we own DVC. I have to say though, we stayed 2 nights at BLT and I wasn't blown away at all. I know, shocking right?! We had a theme park room and the room was just SO tired! I'd spent extra money renting points (this was before we owned) and I was glad to get back to the peace and space of AKL

I don't like the All-Stars. When I stay value, I stay at Pop most of the time and Art of Animation. I would return to Coronado Springs, Saratoga Springs and Animal Kingdom Lodge. We have stayed at those and will be frequent visitors. We did stay one night at Boardwalk and plan on staying there for a longer period of time.

I'll have a better opinion on this after next October because we'll have tried 4 more resorts by then, but so far we've stayed at Port Orleans Riverside, All Star Music, and Coronado Springs. Of the three, Port Orleans was by far my favorite. I love the southern plantation architecture (though I would have been less thrilled to be in Alligator Bayou). I thought the food court was fantastic from a quality perspective. The transportation was VERY efficient and plentiful when we stayed there and the boat to Downtown Disney was so nice and relaxing after a long day in the parks.

I am not likely to stay at either of the other two again, which now that we own DVC points is quite irrelevant. All-Star was adequate for our stay because we were in town for 77 hours and we spent 52 of those hours in the parks or DTD. Like CVSiN, we don't have children (very much on purpose), so the all-star theming and the constant barrage of uber-hyper and tired/cranky children does get to me after a while. Also, although I do love children and I work with them in a competitive sports atmosphere, I don't want to be completely overwhelmed by the traveling sports teams that are often boisterously visiting these resorts while I'm on vacation. It's too much like being at work! I don't care for the room sizes here either. I was supposed to stay with two adult friends when I stayed here last summer. At the last minute we switched some accommodations around and there were just two of us in this room. It's a good thing because I don't know how we would have managed with three of us!

I loved Coronado Springs and I would stay there again in a second except for the food and the transportation. Unfortunately for CSR, with so many other options available that can deliver in these two categories and also provide beautiful grounds, water features, and adequate sleeping accommodations, I have no need to compromise on these two ingredients of my vacation. The market was insane in the mornings. One morning I abandoned my breakfast order after waiting 20 minutes in a mob of people trying to grab a quick bite in a VERY inadequately sized space. As for transportation, we had 4 bus trips where we waited more than the "20-minute max", one of which was a 40-minute wait that caused us to nearly miss our ADR. I assume that this is tied into the fact that this is a convention hotel so there is less demand for park transportation services, but because I had better experiences in these two categories at All-Star Music, I am unlikely to want to pay the premium to stay here again. For me, it's not worth the extra money to see the lake and the hibiscus flowers. If I was choosing to rent a car for my trip or if I was going to Disney for a convention, I would be absolutely thrilled to stay at CSR again.

For me, personally, I'm not returning to All-Star Sports. Not so much that I strongly disliked it per say but I didn't like sharing the buses at times and the food court was not bad but it wasn't really special either. The room was nice but not a lot of space though it was perfect for a solo traveler. Anyway, I've only been there twice on my trips to WDW, one with my HS senior class in 2009 and my last March trip for strictly financial reasons. But if for whatever reason I'll need to stay at a value resort, it'll definitely be Pop Century or Art of Animation. I stayed at Pop Century once and it was nice. Crowded but much better than All-Star Sports.

Other than that, I am turned away by the moderates. The layouts are fairly large and spread out and with so many internal bus stops at the actual resorts, well, that turns me off. I really don't want to lose park time. Is the theming great? No question about it, yes. Food can be a hit or miss from what I've heard though it seems that Port Orleans is the fan favorite out of the moderates in terms of all factors. For me, it is a bit hard to justify spending more at a moderate.

Having said that, I have deluxes on my mind the most. There's not really one I don't want to stay in per say but there are some I want to stay in more than others. For starters, at the top, AKL is on my bucket list because of the theming and the food and whenever my next trip to WDW is, it's AKL or bust. But I also have great interest in Wilderness Lodge, Poly, Boardwalk and Contemporary.

All-Star Sports is getting a new food court as we speak of this. Not really sure what they are changing but it's getting a major overhaul that the arcade has been turned into a grab n go section with the other All-Stars available for actual food.

I guess it's not a matter of refusal, but I don't like Grand Floridian. It's very stuffy for my taste, and some of the people I find are pretty snobby. That's just my opinion of them when I've been in there, though.

My dad refuses to book at Pop Century because of a bad experience. In fact, he suggested I stay at All Star instead of Pop Century. The thing is that what happened was not the fault of the hotel; it was a guest doing something really stupid. I booked there because of busing.

Would you mind explaining what happened? I like hearing stories to understand why someone might not like something. If not, that's fine.

I was aware of that. But considering that I put a stronger emphasis on food on my last trip after not making the smartest decisions dining wise on previous trips, I'll definitely take it one step further on my next trip and for me, that starts the deluxe resort because as a whole, they are much better than moderates and values. Not really worth all the money of taking a taxi to a different hotel for food or making the transfers at the parks and Downtown Disney or sacrificing park time. Unfortunately, the lack of off-days on my previous trips has prevented from doing so because I've devoted so much park time with not enough days to work with. That's just me though.

Pool share??...PORS & POFQ...???..You've got me scratching my head.??Have I read it wrong.?

Yeah, Doubloon Lagoon at French Quarter and Ol' Man Island at Riverside, if you're staying at either resort, you can swim at either one because they are sister resorts.

i hate to say it but i think i'm done with all the value resorts. i love pop century but this last trip was enough for me. i've tasted the glory that is deluxe and i want more!

I always said deluxe spoils you and you never go back to the others!

A second for deluxe. I am in love with Jambo at AKL. Totally.

Since our stay at Boardwalk in September, KenJ and I are now in love with deluxe and can't even think of going back to moderate! It's definitely more expensive, but we feel it's worth it, especially to be able to walk to Epcot and HS.

Love the BW too! Fun for summer.