As an early defender of the resort, I'll share a few observations from my 9 night stay.
I totally agree with criticisms of the exterior, especially from an architectural viewpoint. There are a couple of angles from which the resort looks nice (and they managed to find one for a print they sell in the gift shop), but it is basically a bland exterior - especially from pool side. Its best angle, IMO, is the porte-cochere in the front, which nobody sees.
I can get behind the resort as themed to "Walt's European Travels" rather than themed to the Riviera. That still doesn't excuse the facade, though.
There are some nice touches - hearing "Bear Necessities" sung in French (and other Disney music in French or Italian), seeing posters of Disney animation in French down the hallway, seeing mementos from the Walt Disney Archives of Walt's travels to Europe in the library. Those things are cool. I want the resort soundtrack.
There are 30+ paintings inspired by Disney characters and scenes that have been done in a more "European" style that are scattered throughout the resort. They're nice. It's better than some of the stuff at the Festival of the Arts. But the problem is there are 30+ painting that are repeated all over the resort! Now, that means you can easily see all 30, but still. I would have liked something like the Disney Cruise LIne where different things are in the public areas of each floor. Each elevator lobby looked the same (actually, I think it alternated by floor with a sculpture on one floor and the same two paintings on the next).
Dining was outstanding for both QS and TS. Unfortunately, there is no standard TS, only Signature, but it's very good. The QS is definitely TS quality and has the best resort QS menu I've seen.
The rooms were great - nothing felt cheap. Everything felt solid and well assembled. A "larger" person visits our room even sat on the fold-down bed under the TV without even a creak, so they have addressed that issue!
It's European eclectic. The design and architecture purists won't like it (my husband is one of them, but even he was won over once he surrendered to "eclectic") but it by no means ugly or less than top-notch compared to other DVC resorts (insert your bias here).
Transportation wise - it's the smallest resort with dedicated bus service. I don' know how long they will keep this up, but I doubt they can share with CBR anyway because of its size. For AK, DS, and MK - this was very nice. I absolutely loved the gondolas, and I'm a huge Skyliner Fanboy, but there wasn't a single day that we weren't confronted with a Skyliner issue with a temporary closure of a line or the whole system. Sometimes it was 10 minutes. Other times it was a couple of hours. Nobody was left hanging, but they did a full empty and close of the line more than once during our stay. The Skyliner hours also need to be expanded.
Otherwise, Japan Pavilion to Riviera room in 15 minutes after a 14 hour day that began with RotR, win!
To be honest, though, while BWV and BCV are nice they strike me as generic sea-side stuff. I'm not wowed by them, but they are successful in their theming, I'll grant you that. The only really Wow resort to me is AKL, followed by WL. I suppose Contemporary should Wow me, but it doesn't. It did when I was 13, but familiar breeds contempt, in this case.
Some of this is always going to be taste. Some of it is objective evaluation the success of a them. I like Riviera and it will be a top choice of mine, but it's not perfect.
