Pros
- There are lots of areas to explore
- There are tons of pools (including the awesome pirate themed main pool)
- There are plenty of fun beaches with lovely white sand to play in and hammocks to relax in
- You can actually see the fireworks at Epcot and the Studios from areas of the resort (and even slightly hear the music).
Pro or Con ?
- The resort is laid out somewhat in a giant circle with lovely scenery and walkways. This can be both a pro and a con in that if you love to walk or run, you can make a nice scenic loop around the entire place. (It's a con though if you happen to be staying on the parts of the circle far away from the food court and main pool)
- There is a large food court with plenty of options. It can get crowded though, and at times the service was a little less than up to par (a few of the food counters were just notoriously slow). The food it hit or miss in regards to quality. My lime chicken wrap (pictured below) was delicious. Other meals, like the cheeseburger were pretty bland and overpriced. It all depends on when you visit and what you order.
- You can get a cute sand pail and shovel with most of the kids meals. (Great for on the sandy beaches) This might be a con if your kid wants one with every meal though. That being said, you can request the kids meals WITHOUT the bucket and they are a little cheaper as well.
- While the cast member who checked us in was friendly he did not tell us that the area we were booked in had a pool under construction or give us any directions where the other pools we could use were. Luckily we had stayed here years before like I said and could figure out where else on the resort we could go, but the noise from the construction and lack of a nearby pool were rather disappointing (Especially since no apology was made for this, and we certainly didn't get a discounted room any different from other resort guests who DID have pools in their areas)
- Some of the guests were extremely noisy and/or the walls of the rooms are much too thin. I was worried about trying to keep a fussy toddler quiet while she going to sleep in the evenings and then after the third night or so of drunken neighbors rolling in from the parks or bars and loudly gabbing in their rooms until 2 am I no longer felt guilty about my child fussing at 9 pm.
- The resort is MUCH more crowded than I remember. There were pretty significant lines for food, relatively crowded pools, and of course pretty full buses. We attempted to go see one of the outdoor movies to discover that if we hadn't gone well in advance there was no seating to be found. To be fair another night I did see cast members scrambling to bring benches and chairs for guest from other areas, but you'd think that if they knew the movies were popular they'd have enough seating before the movie starts.
- They don't have the boats anymore! (This was actually discontinued at all moderate resorts a few years back, but it's still a bummer)
