Sounds great, thank you! How did you like the Dolphin? We are staying there because my husband is using his Mariott Bonvoy points. They (Swan and Dolphin) look pretty 90's from the outside, but I've heard good things about them and the rooms themselves look nice. And you sure can't beat the location!
Our stay was overwhelmingly positive, although not perfect. Here were the highlights:
PROS:
- The price. With a AAA discount, we stayed in a Premium Family Suite for hundreds less than the price of Disney's cheapest Deluxe standard room. While early park entry and extra evening hours were not in play when we visited, obviously those add a lot of value as well.
- The location. Walking distance to two parks, plus numerous other resorts and restaurants and even Fantasia Gardens? Can't beat it. The boats were nice too, but they did shut down whenever there was a storm, and although they're supposed to run "back-up buses" in those circumstances, nobody working at the hotel seemed to know when or how that was supposed to occur.
- Bottled water! Free in the room, with more available on request. With Disney charging $3.50 per bottle in the parks, this was huge. Plus, the in-room complimentary coffee was Starbucks.
- The grotto pool complex was gorgeous, and offered plenty of room for everybody (no hunting endlessly to find an unoccupied lounge chair or hot tub).
- The app. You can text the front desk right from the Marriott app, to request extra blankets, water, etc. We had to do this a couple of times, and found the staff to be very responsive. In fact, everybody who we encountered, from the front desk and bell services, to housekeeping and restaurant staff, was flawlessly professional and tried to be helpful.
CONS:
- Room layout. While the website says rooms may "differ" from how they're pictured, our suite and bathroom were both missing major amenities that negatively impacted our stay, to the point where the website pictures were false advertising as far as I was concerned. Our bathroom, which was shown on the website as a split design with 2 sinks, was a single room with 1 sink and NO HANGING/CLOSET SPACE, and a credenza/breakfast bar that was supposed to have been in the family room was completely missing. This made our mornings (with 2 adults, 1 teen girl and 1 teen boy trying to get ready and make breakfast at the same time) unnecessarily chaotic, and our room unnecessarily disorganized, to the point where I'd never choose that room category again out of fear of getting that particular room. To add insult to injury, our "view" was completely obscured by dirty roofs and air conditioning units from a taller section of the building. Obviously, your mileage may vary, and hopefully our experience wasn't the norm.
- Double beds. DH and DS are both about 6' tall, so the double beds were a little bit cramped for them (although we otherwise found the beds very comfortable).
NEUTRAL:
- Theming. For me, the 90s-idea-of-modern theming was overly bland and cold. However, it's all a matter of personal taste. I will say that everything in our room was in good working order and spotlessly clean, and the furniture was comfortable and new-looking.
