Contemporary/Polynesian or Beach Club?

[MaryJaneP]

Well, I may be the only one here, but I'd go with Contemporary...

We'll join you re: preferring the Contemporary! We have had many great trips based at CR.

 

[MissViv]

Contemporary remains my favorite so far. We are trying Polynesian in July for convenience to Shades of Green. We visited there this last trip but to me it is not as nice as Contemporary but I could change my mind!

 

[21stamps]

Contemporary remains my favorite so far. We are trying Polynesian in July for convenience to Shades of Green. We visited there this last trip but to me it is not as nice as Contemporary but I could change my mind!

I had originally booked the Contemporary for my last trip, changed to GF for a few reasons.

I'd be curious to hear your comparison of Poly and CR when you return. I haven't stayed there since the 90s,and remember enjoying it. But the 2 biggest complaints that I hear from friends are- 1. The sinks. 2. No stairwell access. We stayed on the 3rd floor at Poly and my son had no problem walking up and down, we rarely used the elevator. Same with 4th floor at GF. And 5th floor at WL. It may not be a big deal to some..but I love having the option of using a staircase. The other thing for me personally, I love the launch to or from MK...and the ability to get to GF/Poly easily for dining (by walking or the launch)
Part of me wants to take my child to stay at CR bc of some nostalgia and mostly the view..but I just haven't been able to pull the trigger yet.

 

[gilesmt]

I never found the buses at beach club to be crowded, I found they only shared with yatch club, so not bad. But that said, I would not recommend beach club, we hated it, we after several days were switched to contemporary and actually loved it but may be due to beach club being so bad. I will agree there is very little theming and the pool is not great or thrilling. The poly is good, but you did jot mention wilderness lodge. We find for us that is really the best, you have a short boat ride to MK and or contemporary and fort wilderness, once at me or contemporary you have a monorail to poly and grand. So with just a short boat ride of 5 minutes you open up to lots of reseraunts. We find we never had a problem with buses from wilderness lodge. And again, if husband don't like buses, you can take the boat to me and then monorail to Epcot and not have to take buses there either. Actually, we also love to take the monorail to Epcot and the boat to Hollywood studios again not sailing with buses. With the new express bus from inside the park, if you have a park hopper you can hop from park to park that way also. So in May when we go, we plan to get the boat to MK and then if going to Epcot or HS we will take monorail, once inside the park for the day we will take in express bus and skip having to use regular buses, we will get the last express bus of the night back to MK and take the boat from there, illuminating all regular buses except the bus to AK. We find WL so quit, good maybe not the best pool but good, and short boat to the petting animals at fort wilderness, our of the 12 resorts and villas we have tried WL is the best for us, poly is our second choice.

 

[gilesmt]

Another thing to think about, since your husband hates buses, for the $150 to $200 a night you will save staying at wilderness lodge over poly, you can easily get a rental car right on property and never have to take a bus.

 

[MissViv]

I had originally booked the Contemporary for my last trip, changed to GF for a few reasons.

I'd be curious to hear your comparison of Poly and CR when you return. I haven't stayed there since the 90s,and remember enjoying it. But the 2 biggest complaints that I hear from friends are- 1. The sinks. 2. No stairwell access. We stayed on the 3rd floor at Poly and my son had no problem walking up and down, we rarely used the elevator. Same with 4th floor at GF. And 5th floor at WL. It may not be a big deal to some..but I love having the option of using a staircase. The other thing for me personally, I love the launch to or from MK...and the ability to get to GF/Poly easily for dining (by walking or the launch)
Part of me wants to take my child to stay at CR bc of some nostalgia and mostly the view..but I just haven't been able to pull the trigger yet.

The sinks at Contemporary were a little strange but not really a big problem. We were on the ninth floor and it was a busy Marathon weekend but we had no problem with the elevators. There is just something about the hustle and bustle of Contemporary that is so "cool". The last day we were checked out of our room and waiting for our Magical Express time in the lobby and watching the Monorail run through was just Magical. I locked into my memory to remember when I am back home.

We had family visit us who had rented a house off-site and they were really impressed with the hotel and our MK view room. They loved taking the Monorail to the Poly with us and going on to MK and Epcot via Monorail. The convenience of being on the Monorail system is just "priceless". Did I mention the Monorail enough?

 

[BigRedDad]

If the pool is the most important thing, then Beach Club is the best choice obviously.

If convenience to a specific park is important, CR/Poly are right at MK. The Poly pool is very nice, but nothing really compares to Stormalong Bay. BC can walk to Epcot and DHS (or both by boat as well). If theming is very important, I would look at AKL or WL AKL specifically for the animals. The pool is OK.

 

[blueboxdoctor]

The Polynesian would be my choice. They have two newly redone pools, so that should be a plus based off what you said. The access to parks is really easy (monorail, and the transportation and ticket center is in walking distance, so you can walk to the monorail for EPCOT, and the bus service is pretty good to get to the other parks from the Polynesian). Another plus may be the room sizes, which are pretty large and have a couch that folds out into a bed.

Note, I do have some bias, as the Polynesian is my favorite in terms of the theme, which feels like the perfect theme for a vacation.

 

[righttrack]

You usually will find, like we do, that if you need a park with a dependable late night, it's almost always MK. With that said, we often plan our dinners at resorts. We Uber from our resort to the resort where we might be dining and then we take the transportation from that resort to MK and then the transportation back to our resort. That's how a lot of the nights go. These days MK is the night park. I remember many days we used to go to rope drop, but since the FP+ and park hours along with the number of attractions you can sometimes walk on, MK remains the night park. When you think about your situation that way, and manage it as we do, it might not be as big of a deal to you.

 

[rachelkathryn]

I am not a fan on Contemporary resort myself due in part to the theming. We just got back from a trip to Disney and stayed at the Yacht Club, right next door to Boardwalk with a 1 and 2 year old and they loved it! The giant pool and great- we spend a whole afternoon just in the water one day and we never waited more than 5-10 minutes for a bus and they were never super crowded, even when we were going to Magic Kingdom for the Halloween party. No matter the resort you pick you will have to bus it to at least 2 of the parks so I feel this is a non-issue.
However, if my family and I could swing it I would of done Poly just because of the proximity to MK, fireworks, restaurants, etc. Even though people do rave about the Poly pool it is nothing compared to Beach club.
So, if you are a family that will be at the pool a good deal, plan on hitting Hollywood Studios and EPCOT a few times I go with Beach Club.

Good luck and have a blast!

 

[pvtim]

The Polynesian would be my choice. They have two newly redone pools, so that should be a plus based off what you said. The access to parks is really easy (monorail, and the transportation and ticket center is in walking distance, so you can walk to the monorail for EPCOT, and the bus service is pretty good to get to the other parks from the Polynesian). Another plus may be the room sizes, which are pretty large and have a couch that folds out into a bed.

Note, I do have some bias, as the Polynesian is my favorite in terms of the theme, which feels like the perfect theme for a vacation.

This about sums up my feelings as well....but I must add two words - Dole Whips!

We have stayed at each - but we bought into DVC at Poly because we loved it so much.

 

[Maeryk]

So many rave about the convenience of the monorail loop. Which is either not running, running on modified schedule, backed up, or waiting for clearance from station ahead. Or shut down so it can reboot. We had a stay at Poly pre bungalows and felt let down by the monorail.

Beach you can walk to Epcot or walk/boat to HS. Direct bus to MK. And a bus to AK with a few stops at neighboring Resorts.

The beauty of the Poly though, is that the resort launches do what the monorail does, (excepting direct to Contemporary), plus it's a very short and pleasant walk to the TTC to grab the ferry if you want.

The bus service out front of Poly was... not great when we were there a couple of weeks ago. Long waits with a cast member promising one "any minute" and the schedule boards just blanking on "next arriving" with no explanation. We made use of the TTC instead, when trying to get to Epcot in the morning.

Often we will just launch over to MK, and use the bus depot there, and that seems to be how Disney prefers it as well, as the buses from the TTC stop running fairly early in the AM (9:00) to other parks, and they tell you to go to MK.