Location, location, location!!!

Stayed twice in this awsome Resort, in 2006 & 2010, and looking forward to our return during Summer 2013.

Excellent on site water park, comfortable rooms, great food offerings and the closest you could ever be to EPCOT. A must for families and lovers of all that is Disney.

Try it out and you won't regret it

Stayed at Beach Club on the Club Level floor twice with our two children (ages 9 and 13) and just returned from a standard room stay for an "adult only" trip for the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. We booked a return trip with the children in January and will be staying Club Level again. In my opinion, Beach Club is the best of all the Disney properties for amenities and location. The ability to walk to the back entrance of Epcot is fantastic, particularly if you have a park hopper pass so you can hop into Epcot any night for dinner or fireworks. It is also a beautiful boat ride or a nice stroll over to Hollywood Studios. The Stormalong Bay pool complex is also unbeatable at Disney. The pool is fun for kids and adults, great pool activities, and wonderful hot tubs. Movies and marshmallows on the beach in the evening are also great fun if you have time to relax and enjoy the resort.

The rooms are clean and comfortable. We particularly enjoy the club level service. Breakfast in the club makes it so much easier to have an early start to a day in the parks and then return in the late afternoon for a rest and for snacks in the lounge. Club level guests are escorted to the fifth floor and sit comfortably while checking in. For our only standard stay, we were escorted to the check in desk and when it appeared to have a wait, our greeter brought us over to the concierge desk for a quicker check in (where we were upgraded to a rare King bed room with 2 balconies).

Deluxe Club level rooms are particularly nice as they all have a day bed and much more floor space. However, they are not on the 5th floor so are less convenient to the lounge. Still worth it for us if they are available.

Our rooms were always serviced promptly.

I recommend getting a room only discount for your stay at Beach Club. You can get 30% or so discounts even for Club level rooms.

The hotel restaurants are a mixed bag. On our most recent trip we discovered Captain's Grille next door at the Yacht Club. Great breakfast and great prices, especially compared to the character breakfast next door at Beach Club. If you'd rather a better selection for breakfast, skip the characters and head to Yacht Club. Cape May's seafood buffet was a hit for all of us last year, but there are so many great dining options in Epcot, we don't rely on the hotel.

I want to preface this by saying the cast members at the Beach Club were wonderful, and this review is written from the point of view of someone who expects a lot out of an expensive hotel, not just regarding service but also in regard to the environment, architecture, and the way it makes me feel.

I'll start with the negatives, just to get them out of the way.

1) Room
a) Musty. Not bad enough to switch, but noticeable.
b) Beat up iron and ironing board-hanging hardware. We like to iron at the hotel as needed (not much, but enough). The bracket holding the ironing board was about to fall out of the wall.
c) Small. This is the case everywhere, but factors in here as well. Also, for a family of four for a week, really, where are we supposed to put our clothes? I mean, really... I also don't like having one of the beds 1 foot from a wall.
d) Boring view from our room (overlooking grass area near volleyball
e) need more outlets for charging electronics near desks/tables.. not everyone likes to charge phones on the floor.

2) Hotel
a) NOT a cozy lobby. Now, we knew this going in, but I guess I expected to find some places that were not at bright as the sun 24/7. Only two couch areas containing four small couches. I am comparing this to the Wilderness Lodge, which I now feel is relatively legendary when it comes to common space comfort. They need to re-think comfort.
b) They are renovating one of two quick-serve eating areas; the one that is there has far too few tables and is very unorganized when it comes to service. Food was fine but also unorganized and inconsistent. Only four inside tables.
c) Pay attention to your where your guests are! The staff was power-washing just outside a door, creating a very wet ground; just inside the door: a marble floor. Near the restaurant. At dinner time. Now, this wasn't a problem for me, but I can just imagine someone a bit older and unsure on their feet "hitting the deck." Poor planning/management.
d) The architecture... well, I'm not sure what they're going after. Some interesting bits, but overall, along with many fabric/decor choices, gave us more of a retirement home feeling.
d) Outside seating area near the food was somewhat cramped.
e) Service doors exposing "back rooms" left open and unattended. Not an issue for us from a child safety point of view, but an eyesore.
e) Bus drivers didn't seem to have it together; a few stopped at the wrong "gate". They also could benefit from some type of 1-line system instead of the free-for-all that ensues if a large crowd is there.

Ok, on to the good.
Rather than bullets I'll just summarize here. Again, all the cast members we dealt with were excellent and very friendly. Walking distance to Epcot is phenomenal. (This was the main reason we stayed, but it would not cause us to choose to stay here again.) Walking distance to boats to Hollywood studios is even closer. Good snack choices near the pool. Pool is nice. Lazy river doesn't work very well though. Charge for inner tubes is lame... we used life-vests instead. Bus wait times were VERY reasonable.

So, in summary, keep in mind that this is my opinion based on our experiences compared to the Wilderness Lodge, to where we will likely return.

Just returned from a trip to Disney and stayed at this hotel. One of the many great things is the location, you can be at any of the parks, water parks or downtown Disney within minutes. You can even do a 5 minute walk and your in Epcot if you wanted to save the parking etc.

Hotel is as you would expect very clean, staff all extremely helpful and nothing is to much trouble. All rooms are located near a pool of sorts or you have the huge pool with the slide which is great. The pool has sand on the floor so the children have the feeling of being literally at the beach.

The rooms are ok, nothing special however ideal for what you need them for and the amount of time you spend in them.

I would retun to this resort in the future with no hesitation and would recommend taking a look if looking to book in the future.