Disney's GRAND FLORIDIAN RESORT & SPA Information & Questions + Construction Updates

[kylenne]

Yes. I called Disney reservations and ask them to add the request for a nice view to the reservation. The CM laughed and she said that she liked my attitude. This is not the first time that I requested a nice view at one of the Disney resorts. Whenever we book a standard view, which isn't very often, I will request a nice view.

Who knew I was overthinking room requests this whole time! They really did give you a nice view.

 

[lorimay]

We got pixie dusted today!!

Had two rooms at Coronado for a few nights next week and we received a phone call asking if we would like to stay at The Grand Floridian instead...... ummmm. yes, please and thank you!!
All we know is that we will be getting outer building rooms with garden views.
Very excited to say the least.

 

[mrsap]

We got pixie dusted today!!

Had two rooms at Coronado for a few nights next week and we received a phone call asking if we would like to stay at The Grand Floridian instead...... ummmm. yes, please and thank you!!
All we know is that we will be getting outer building rooms with garden views.
Very excited to say the least.

That’s wonderful! Enjoy it!! I hope you have a great trip!!

 

[lorimay]

That’s wonderful! Enjoy it!! I hope you have a great trip!!

Thank you! This was an unexpected last minute trip, we wanted to see the joy in our now 3yr old grandson who loves everything Mickey. Last time we went with him he had just turned one and didn't really get it.
We were in Disney in February and March for 4 nights each time, I wish we were booked longer this go around.
But we are happy with such wonderful pixie dust.
The Grand Floridian is the last of the deluxe hotels we had yet to stay at.

 

[LadyNia]

Could someone tell me what the pool hours are? Thanks in advance.

 

[LadyNia]

As far as the room service menu goes, they are selections from the standard menu at the Grand Floridian Café. Instead of that, we used the MDE app to place an order at Gasparilla‘s and just walked across the courtyard to pick it up. Much better selection, and frankly far more affordable that way.

The pool situation at the Courtyard Pool is this: reasonably crowded between 8 AM and 1 PM, and then all hell breaks loose from 1 PM until 5 PM as the morning park crowd shuffles in. If you don’t have a couple of lounges and an umbrella lined up before noon you are going to spend a lot of time wandering around giving people the eye and hoping they get up and leave. There are a lot of people sitting around the edge of the pool as they have no place to sit, strollers are parked in many random open spaces, and there’s a woman in a motorized scooter that won’t leave the foot of my lounge chair at present. It’s just about to the point of being uncomfortable because people are not wearing masks and hovering.

Spend $165 and get a poolside patio. It alleviates all of this drama and put you back in a slight corner where you actually have privacy from anything else that’s going on. It comes with snacks and beverages, and in the context of how much an overall Disney vacation costs, it’s peanuts.

Just learning about the poolside patio option. Do you book these 60 days out? Is the booking for half day or full day?

 

[sdk1231]

Could someone tell me what the pool hours are? Thanks in advance.

They were open until 11 PM when I was there during the last week of March.

 

[mrsap]

Just learning about the poolside patio option. Do you book these 60 days out? Is the booking for half day or full day?

Yes, you can book the patios and cabanas at 60 days out. Right now, they are only booking full days. Enjoy!

 

[boltjames]

Just learning about the poolside patio option. Do you book these 60 days out? Is the booking for half day or full day?

Not sure what your schedule looks like but for us we had 4 park days, 1 offsite day, and 1 dedicated pool day. In the context of a $9K vacation costing $1,300 a day, spending $165 for a guaranteed private spot at the pool with beverages, snacks, a table, a couch, a huge umbrella, and two lounge chairs for the one day we had no margin for error or pool drama was a great decision.

Highly recommend you grab a poolside patio if you’ve got a dedicated full day at the pool *or* a dedicated half day in afternoon when it gets very crowded.

 

[SamanthaH]

I will definitely report back. I am leaning towards driving and will attempt to time our arrival 60-65 minutes prior to HS opening. I just hope we don’t get turned around. That would be a bummer.

I just wanted to report back on our experience driving a rental car from the GF to HS for rope drop. We visited today (04/19). The park official opening time was 9am. We left the Grand Floridian parking lot at 7:40am. Arrived at the HS gates at 7:56am. We were about 6 cars back in our row. They started letting cars in at 8:06am. We were parked and on our way into the park at 8:20am. Hit TOT, RnRC, and TSM with no waits and finished those rides by 9am. It seemed like we were some of the first people on TOT. I would call it a success and no hassle at all. It still beats taking the bus in my book.

 

[TJA]

@TJA - I donno, while you technically do have views of the lagoon from that room, IMO that’s pushing things a bit on Disney’s part. I usually give Disney credit for erring on the side of going with the lesser room view category for rooms like yours, but not that one I guess!
Thanks for the pics!

I would have been terribly upset with that view! I agree with @GADisneyDad14 that some people with garden view rooms get a much better "lagoon view" than that! Although it does look really pretty standing up, the whole idea to me is to have a nice view while sitting down having a cup of coffee or a glass of wine! I thought by booking a LV, I wouldn't need to request a nice view! That's just terrible because having no connecting door is very important to me! I hope they hurry up with bringing the RPC rooms back!

I 100% agree! I wonder if they think being able to crane your neck and see the castle makes it something of a preferred room status above garden view? Not worth the upgrade price in my opinion.

This particular room was definitely not my idea of a relaxing LV room and not worth the cost, especially without fireworks. I keep meaning to email feedback about the room. I guess it balanced out because I just posted our room view in the YC thread that we had a couple weeks ago and it was just the opposite of my GF room (booked standard view and it was partial pool/Epcot/quite nice!).

 

[Lovinallthingsdisney]

This particular room was definitely not my idea of a relaxing LV room and not worth the cost, especially without fireworks. I keep meaning to email feedback about the room. I guess it balanced out because I just posted our room view in the YC thread that we had a couple weeks ago and it was just the opposite of my GF room (booked standard view and it was partial pool/Epcot/quite nice!).

We were assigned a LV room with much that same view. There was a tree directly in front of us. If you stretched, you could see water. We went back to the main building and asked nicely if they could move us. They spent quite a bit of time showing us room views on the computer and let us choose.

 

[SamanthaH]

This particular room was definitely not my idea of a relaxing LV room and not worth the cost, especially without fireworks. I keep meaning to email feedback about the room. I guess it balanced out because I just posted our room view in the YC thread that we had a couple weeks ago and it was just the opposite of my GF room (booked standard view and it was partial pool/Epcot/quite nice!).

I really appreciate you posting about your experience. I’m happy that you got a nice view at the YC a couple weeks prior to balance things out. Before we checked in, we got our room number on MDE. I had also booked a lagoon view and requested any room where we could catch a peek of the electric water pageant. We were assigned a room in Conch Key a couple floors down from the room you had. I remembered your post as I read it before we left. I called guest services from Animal Kingdom before we checked in at the GF at about 7pm. The room assigner called me back. I asked her nicely if she happened to have a room where we could watch the EWP. I told her it was ok if she couldn’t move us. We were moved to a room with a beautiful view of the castle and EWP in Boca Chica. I’ll admit that the Disney nerd came out, and I started crying tears of joy. I love the water pageant! This is the first time I have ever asked to be moved in our many trips, but I do agree with others that some garden view rooms have better views of the water than the lagoon view rooms in Conch Key. My tips for others reading would be to check out the room map before arriving, and if you are unhappy with the room, it doesn’t hurt to ask if anything else is available. You never know when you will be lucky. It also helps to be flexible with arrival time. We didn’t get to the resort until 9pm.

 

[gretabull]

New ADRs dropped early this morning for the extended park hours and I managed to get CRT for my birthday dinner!!! I know Narcoosee’s is objectively better food but my inner 5 yo just wanted to eat in the castle lol. I seem to remember someone else looking for Narcoosee’s on 5/30, if you want to PM me I will hold onto it and coordinate to cancel!

Oh that was me!!! I just saw this message but I'm sure you already let it go....I will keep looking. Thanks for remembering!

 

[kylenne]

Oh that was me!!! I just saw this message but I'm sure you already let it go....I will keep looking. Thanks for remembering!

Sorry, I already canceled it. I hope you're able to get it.

 

[gretabull]

Sorry, I already canceled it. I hope you're able to get it.

No worries...I will keep trying!

 

[TJA]

I really appreciate you posting about your experience. I’m happy that you got a nice view at the YC a couple weeks prior to balance things out. Before we checked in, we got our room number on MDE. I had also booked a lagoon view and requested any room where we could catch a peek of the electric water pageant. We were assigned a room in Conch Key a couple floors down from the room you had. I remembered your post as I read it before we left. I called guest services from Animal Kingdom before we checked in at the GF at about 7pm. The room assigner called me back. I asked her nicely if she happened to have a room where we could watch the EWP. I told her it was ok if she couldn’t move us. We were moved to a room with a beautiful view of the castle and EWP in Boca Chica. I’ll admit that the Disney nerd came out, and I started crying tears of joy. I love the water pageant! This is the first time I have ever asked to be moved in our many trips, but I do agree with others that some garden view rooms have better views of the water than the lagoon view rooms in Conch Key. My tips for others reading would be to check out the room map before arriving, and if you are unhappy with the room, it doesn’t hurt to ask if anything else is available. You never know when you will be lucky. It also helps to be flexible with arrival time. We didn’t get to the resort until 9pm.

I'm so happy my review helped and you were moved to Boca Chica! Coincidentally, we had a LV room a couple years ago in Boca Chica which we LOVED (8203) and I should've requested that building. It was one of the most relaxing and best views we've ever had in Disney.

 

[Dispro1]

I'm so happy my review helped and you were moved to Boca Chica! Coincidentally, we had a LV room a couple years ago in Boca Chica which we LOVED (8203) and I should've requested that building. It was one of the most relaxing and best views we've ever had in Disney.

Looks like your post helped a lot of other people because I called my TA after seeing your post the other day and had her add Boca Chica to my requests lol. I'll take note of 8203. Sorry you had that view, but thanks for "taking one for the team!"

I really appreciate you posting about your experience. I’m happy that you got a nice view at the YC a couple weeks prior to balance things out. Before we checked in, we got our room number on MDE. I had also booked a lagoon view and requested any room where we could catch a peek of the electric water pageant. We were assigned a room in Conch Key a couple floors down from the room you had. I remembered your post as I read it before we left. I called guest services from Animal Kingdom before we checked in at the GF at about 7pm. The room assigner called me back. I asked her nicely if she happened to have a room where we could watch the EWP. I told her it was ok if she couldn’t move us. We were moved to a room with a beautiful view of the castle and EWP in Boca Chica. I’ll admit that the Disney nerd came out, and I started crying tears of joy. I love the water pageant! This is the first time I have ever asked to be moved in our many trips, but I do agree with others that some garden view rooms have better views of the water than the lagoon view rooms in Conch Key. My tips for others reading would be to check out the room map before arriving, and if you are unhappy with the room, it doesn’t hurt to ask if anything else is available. You never know when you will be lucky. It also helps to be flexible with arrival time. We didn’t get to the resort until 9pm.

Beautiful view! Would you mind sharing the room number...you can wait until you check out if you want since we all know there are crazy people online (hopefully not on DIS lol). Does your room have a connecting door? Thanks for sharing the picture!

 

[TJA]

I found my post where I posted pics of my view! I originally posted the link, but it keeps spinning for me, so I copied and pasted my pics here. @Dispro1

Boca Chica room 8203, booked as LV:

View laying down in sofa bed:

Full view slight left/straight ahead:

View slight right showing tree obstructing CR:

View to the right:

View to extreme right:

 

[mrsap]

Boca Chica room 8203, booked as LV:

View laying down in sofa bed:

Full view slight left/straight ahead:

View slight right showing tree obstructing CR:

View to the right:

View to extreme right:

That view Never gets old!!!!