Originally Posted By AutoPost This topic is for Discussion of: <a href="http://www.laughingplace.com/w/news/2014/03/19/a-look-inside-four-seasons-at-walt-disney-world/" target="_blank"><b>3/19/14: A Look Inside Four Seasons at Walt Disney World</b></a>
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Wow, there's going to be a Four Seasons at WDW? Classy! It looks amazing. Too bad it's way out of my price range. (and in Florida)
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I had no idea that it was this close to opening (granted, August is still a ways off). It sounds really nice, and like it has the sort of touches that Disney's hotels had before they needed to fit not-so-hidden characters into every element of the decor
Originally Posted By dagobert How many non-Disney hotels are on WDW property? I know the Swan and Dolphin aren't Disney hotels and there some hotels near DTD that don't belong to Disney.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Those are the main ones. I'm not sure how many hotels are by DTD, but none of them are owned by Disney (except Saratoga Springs, which is across the lake and not part of the Hotel Blvd group). I'm not even sure if those ones are actually on Disney property or if they're Disney-adjacent, but they don't get any of the extra perks (like Magic Bands and Extra Magic Hours) that Swan & Dolphin guests get There's also Bonnet Creek, which isn't on Disney property, but is completely surrounded by Disney, so it's effectively "within" WDW, though completely separate. And Shades of Green (the former Disney Inn, near the Polynesian) is run by the military, so civilians can't stay there. From what I've read, it's fairly 'basic', but by far the best deal on property if you can get in
Originally Posted By dagobert I've read about the Shades of Green. For me it's interesting that the military has its own hotel. Didn't a Waldorf Astoria open at WDW? I think I read that somewhere. The Bonnet Creek must be the hotel behind the Pop Century if I'm not mistaken.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I think the Waldorf Astoria is in Bonnet Creek. There are 2-3 hotels in there; I think one of the others might be a Marriott. From what I've heard, Bonnet Creek (and the Swan & Dolphin) is a great place to go to get really nice hotels near the heart of the action, but at a fraction of the cost of the WDW Deluxe hotels. The only real drawback is the lack of transportation, so you need a way to get there from the airport (though I think both offer buses to the parks)
Originally Posted By tonyanton There's the WDW Swan and WDW Dolphin near Epcot. There are 7 hotels at the Downtown Disney Hotel Plaza (including the Hilton, Buena Vista Palace, etc.)-. Shades of Green. There are several hotels at the Bonnet Creek location including a Waldorf and another Hilton, which is surrounded by WDW property, but the Bonnet Creek property itself is not part of WDW.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< The only real drawback is the lack of transportation, so you need a way to get there from the airport (though I think both offer buses to the parks) >>> That's another thing about the Swan and Dolphin. Although they get some perks like Extra Magic Hours, they don't have DME. Also, if you rent a car, there's the parking: not only does Swan and Dolphin charge something like $15/day for guest self parking, you also have to pay the Disney park daily rate if you want to drive yourself to the parks. So, for people with their own cars or a rental car that like to self-transport to the parks, add another $30/day or so for parking.
Originally Posted By fkurucz Whatever happened to that development (Flamingo Place?) that was going to cater to middle class guests?
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>Whatever happened to that development (Flamingo Place?) that was going to cater to middle class guests?<<< Was that something similar to the Golden Oak project? Did that ever come into reality?
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Flamingo Crossing was going to be a cheaper version of DTD, with more regular stores and budget hotels. It was going to be located at the far end of Western Way (which connects to Buena Vista Dr between Blizzard Beach and Coronado Springs), separated from the rest of WDW by the toll road. They cleared the land, built the road, and supposedly laid utilities, but work never progressed beyond that. You can see the site here: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://tinyurl.com/qars69z">http://tinyurl.com/qars69z</a> They even put up a "Coming Soon" sign that you can see in streetview, in the median of Western Way just before the Flamingo Crossing Blvd intersection Golden Oak is a luxury residential development on WDW property, just east of the Ft Wilderness Campground, being built in association with the Four Seasons project (shared amenities, among other things). It's basically a neighborhood of multi-million dollar McMansions that will be primarily used as vacation homes, with all the luxuries of a high end hotel and all the inconveniences of having your own home within race to hear fireworks every night. I really don't understand who their target market is, but they appear to have already built a lot of homes there: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://tinyurl.com/nj4zqw2">http://tinyurl.com/nj4zqw2</a> Directly north of this frame is the Four Seasons construction, and east of that is another Golden Oak street that only has a few houses on it at the moment
Originally Posted By dagobert Thank you Ferret. I would have looked it up on wiki myself, but I was too lazy. Soccer is more important today ;-)
Originally Posted By TDLFAN Thank God! A hotel the usual value resort riff-raff can't afford. Bring back the class to WDW.
Originally Posted By TDLFAN >>>The only real drawback is the lack of transportation, so you need a way to get there from the airport (though I think both offer buses to the parks)<<< If you can't afford to rent a car and drive then you can't afford to stay there. So you don't need to worry about that.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros ^^I agree, and that's one of the considerations I look at when I'm booking a hotel. For me, the groups that I go to WDW with typically have arriving and departing flight times throughout our entire first and last day in WDW, which makes it impossible to all ride in a single car to/from the airport. This is were DME really comes in handy, since it runs all day and is "free" with the Disney hotels. When you factor in the cost of renting 4-5 cars or getting 4-5 taxis (round trip), it quickly becomes a better deal for us to stay at a Disney Moderate than at one of the nicer quasi-off-property places And just because you can't afford a hotel doesn't mean that you won't stay there. I really question how many families are actually able to spend more than $400 per night on a hotel room, yet the Deluxes seem to have pretty steady bookings (though less than Value and Moderate). And for what it's worth, with the rough pricing I've done in the past, staying at the Swan or Dolphin costs at least $100-150 less than a Deluxe (including the added rental car)
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>And just because you can't afford a hotel doesn't mean that you won't stay there. I really question how many families are actually able to spend more than $400 per night on a hotel room, yet the Deluxes seem to have pretty steady bookings<< That's what credit cards are for.
Originally Posted By Princessjenn5795 It looks nice and all, but if I want to spend that much on a room I would rather stay at Grand Floridian.
