Thanks for starting this thread! It has been very informative. My family's experience is limited: We've stayed at Wilderness Lodge, Jambo House (AKL), Kidani Village (AKL), and Boulder Ridge (DVC connected with Wilderness Lodge), my daughter has stayed at Beach Club solo, and my nephew worked at bell services at Jambo and the Grand Floridian, while in the Disney college program.
I realize that this thread is supposed to be about places you would not return, but actually, we would return to any of these (except of course we have not actually stayed at the Grand Floridian, and I am disinclined to stay there).
We bought into DVC at Kidani (AKL) after staying in hotel rooms a few times. I agree that Jambo is more attractive than Kidani (naturally, it's the main hotel at AKL), the lobby is fantastic at Jambo, and impressive but not so fantastic at Kidani. However, Kidani has one major advantage of Jambo, which is that the two-bedroom suites have three full bathrooms, and we usually have two young women in the party. So we need the three bathrooms. It is true that the halls at Kidani are very long. On one trip in particular, we were close to the very end of the hall, and it felt like a 3-mile trek to get out there; but it was manageable. Other walks down the halls have not been quite as long. We drive to WDW, so on some occasions, we can park near an elevator, toward the ends of the halls away from the lobby. When we take the buses to the parks, there is a long walk back, though. Another feature we like at Kidani is the covered parking at ground level. The pool at Jambo is one of my favorite pools, but the pool at Kidani is pleasant. We have generally had wonderful views of the animals in both locations. If you like to get up early and come back late, this would not be an advantage for you, but for us it is. I also really like the music in both AKL resorts in late December and early January. The Christmas tree at Jambo is stunning; the one at Kidani is nice, but not as stunning. We have always found the cast members at both Kidani and Jambo to be very helpful (even before my nephew worked there, so that he knew some of them).
Our first resort was Wilderness Lodge. I still love it (and would stay there again if they had three bathrooms in a two-room suite--so it's a de facto never again for the most part, but not due to disliking it). My spouse and I are both in STEM fields. I would say that we felt most at home with the crowd staying at Wilderness Lodge, generally speaking. They gave the general impression of tech people who enjoy the national parks. If you like that vibe, that's probably a good indicator of whether you would like Wilderness Lodge. I don't like the pool there quite as much as the pool at Jambo, but it has been very pleasant any time that we have been there. We enjoy the boat ride to Magic Kingdom. We have stayed at Boulder Ridge (DVC) one time. In the bathroom, they have a faucet that is designed to look like a pump in one of the old-time national park settings. The water comes out from a flat spout that does not have a top. I took a picture of the faucet, because I found this detail absolutely charming. If it sounds appealing to you, I think you would like Wilderness Lodge. If you can't imagine caring at all about this, or if you think I sound nuts, a different resort is probably better for you. One really attractive feature of Wilderness Lodge in the past was that M. T. Wallet worked as a waitress at Whispering Canyon. She was an absolutely brilliant comedienne! If there were an M. T. Wallet fan club, I would join it! (Please let me know.) She used to wear a beanie cap with a multi-colored rotor, until Disney forced her to stop. This is another kind of detail that you can use to tell whether you would like Wilderness Lodge or not--even though it sounds different from my other indicators along that line. There is a "hot spring" in the lobby, and a geyser that goes off on the hour outside. Of all of the Disney resort gift shops I have been in, I think I like the one at Wilderness Lodge the best, because of the type of merchandise it carries. We were considering buying into Copper Creek.
The Contemporary does not appeal to me. I think I would get vertigo in the hallways that border the central "canyon." We have never stayed there, so it can't be a "never again" for us. Some good friends of our family like it, though, and they stay there whenever they go to WDW.
The Riviera seems nice, and it is newer, so there is some attraction to that, but not enough to warrant shifting. The restaurant, Topolino's, had some major scheduling problems when they first opened, but I think that has been resolved now. We like the gondola.
For our first trip, I tried to reserve a room at the Polynesian, but they were full except for a concierge suite, which was beyond our budget. We got a room in Wilderness Lodge. Given my spouse's tastes, I believe that we would not have returned as often as we have to WDW if we had managed to get a room at the Polynesian. Among other considerations, we are teetotal, so Trader Sam's is not much of an attraction to us.
It is very interesting to me that Disney offers environments within WDW that differ and appeal to different tastes. Walt was a wise marketeer, as his successors have been. (The spelling error is deliberate).
