Which Resort?

Ariel Pool

With so many resorts, you can’t help but feel like you’re trying to choose among the 31 flavors. Some families work their way up the price options over the years. What resort is your favorite?

I have a lot of experience visiting the Walt Disney World resort. I’ve been coming to the park from Ohio, about once a year since the 1970s. When I was very young, we stayed at outside hotels along the commercial highways. We learned pretty quickly that staying in a Disney resport property gave us a lot better experience.

As our family grew, our family started camping. I’m the oldest of six kids and for a lot of those years, Ft. Wilderness was the best over all option! How else can a family of eight stay on the property?

Now I’m a parent with my own family. My wife and I did the tent thing for a couple visits before we had kids. But when we needed a place to wash and give naps to the little ones, we began the climb, starting with the Pop Century and the All Star Resort.

During our last visit, our first with our third child, we needed a resort that could take a family of five. So we moved up the scale to the original value resort, the Caribbean Beach Resort. It was beautiful!

I started to realize that the general experience was fairly consistent at each of these parks. What you’re selecting is the theme, like selecting that ice cream flavor, I mentioned earlier. Then as you go up and down the price scale, you’re selecting a variable (based on the park’s current guest volume) level of people density and elbow room. Of course, when the crowds are very heavy, busses and other shared areas will all be fairly crowded. But if you go in the off season, you can really enjoy that extra space at the nicer resorts.

I have more to say about this, but I’d like to hear from you. » What is your favorite resort, or what have you noticed about the different resorts? Are the delux resorts really worth the extra cost? Please share from your experience!

Photo credit: Jared Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.