This hotel is perfect for resting your head for the night and if you can put up with the odd grumble, for the family on a budget, it is perfect. The staff are very friendly and go out of their way to help whenever they can and from what I understand there is a major refurbishment program underway, where some of my grumbles were sorted while we were there, others in progress and the rest is due over the coming months (so I was told).

We had a large party of 10 staying in 3 rooms of this hotel. All rooms are supposed to have a safe, not one of our rooms had a working safe (one didn’t have one at all). The fridges that you have to pay extra for, froze the contents no matter how low the setting. The bathrooms were like a scene out of faulty towers with plugs that keep self-closing in the bath (making a shower not as nice as you stand in a foot of water). My daughters cot was like it had been borrowed from Prisoner cell block H, metal and very old with no mattress, just a number of blankets on a piece of plywood. The air conditioning is very noisy making it practically impossible to sleep when it was on until you go used to the rattle.

The outdoor pool was closed for the best part of our 2 week stay; however this was due to refurbishment. From what I could see, it looked lovely and I am sure people staying after us will benefit, just a case of bad timing for this one.

Not to want to be completely negative, there are plenty of positives to outweigh the above. The hotel is first on the pickup route for the Disney parks and first to drop off, with only 2 other hotels on the route, which was fantastic when you need a seat after a long day on your feet and you are dying to get back to the hotel. The buses ran every half an hour all day to all the parks. The hotel is in a perfect location where 10 min walk in one direction you have the delights of Down Town Disney, and a 10 minute walk in the other direction you have a supermarket and a number of eating places.
From what I could gather most rooms had a balcony which was nice to use of an evening. There was up to date very large TV in all the rooms, which included a USB port for attaching iPods, cameras etc. The beds were massive (probably super king size) no joins, lumps of bumps, super comfy with plenty of pillows and blankets if needed. There is 2 shops in the foyet, which are open early in the morning till late at night. One is a small Disney shop for all the souviniers you forgot at the parks, and the other provides all the necessities from food, cigarettes and nappies to postcards and suitcases. As mentioned previously the staff were very friendly, which in its self, made up for the pitfalls.

One of our rooms had an issue with the electronic door key and we could not gain access to the room. As the hotel were currently installing all rooms with updated lock (as part of the on-going refurbishment program), without fail it was replaced within an hour. The very next day, our entire floor had the new digital locks on the doors.

I have to also point out that there is a utility room consisting of a washing machine and tumble dryer on each floor (I think) this was a godsend. It wasn’t too expensive and when you go on holiday for 2 weeks with 2 children (1 a toddler) it makes life very easy.

The restaurants in the hotel were lovely, good food, excellent drink and perfect staff (they noticed my daughter’s birthday badge and without a word to us brought out a birthday cake with candles and got the restaurant singing, now this is customer service!)

Although there were some negative issues with this hotel, I would definitely considerate again next time we go to Disney. I hope by the time we go, all the planned refurbishment will be carried out which will make for a nicer stay.