I have been staying at various Disney resorts since 2007 and have quite a few different resorts under my belt. Whenever I am going to book a new resort stay, I always look at the bottom line (who doesn’t?!?) and almost always, the least expensive room category has won out because, let’s face it, I don’t spend a lot of time in the room. Who cares what is out the window? Well, after a few different stays at the Yacht and Beach club with “magical” room view upgrades, my opinion of paying for a higher priced room has softened a little bit.
As I said before, most often the least expensive room category has always won in the past, with one exception. I will pay for location at the Value and Moderate resorts. That’s my preference, but I find it easier and worth the slightly higher price to be centrally located to the front of the sprawling value and moderate resorts. At the moderate resorts, my preference is a preferred room, if available, because of location. The thing that I have noticed most about the value and moderate resorts is that you have a window that essentially looks out onto the sidewalk that passes by the room. It isn’t easy to enjoy what is past the walkway, the bushes, and people walking past. So while physical location is nice, what is out the window, not so much.
That brings me to the Deluxe resorts. I have learned that the view out your window in a Deluxe resort can be worth the extra money if you take the time to enjoy it. During a stay at the Beach Club Resort, I paid for a standard view room and was pleasantly surprised when we opened the curtains and had a view of the pool, BoardWalk, and lake. Now we had to look out past the roof top and over some trees, so maybe what we had was technically a standard view, but we were happy. If we would have had a balcony or patio to sit out on, it would have been even better. We were expecting to look out at another building or parking lot, so no one was complaining!
My most recent Disney Resort stay was at Yacht Club for the Princess ½ Marathon weekend. Again, I paid for the least expensive room type which was a garden view room. After a LONG walk to our room (it was a forced warm up for race morning!) we pulled back the curtains to see that we had a patio with two chairs and an amazing view of the lake and the BoardWalk! We were thrilled at what had to have been a room upgrade. There is no way that the room was a garden view, but again, no one was complaining! At night we enjoyed looking at the lights reflecting off the water and the occasional boat gliding past.
On Saturday morning we were pleasantly surprised to see the 10K race going right past our room! We were able to step outside and cheer on the runners as we were getting ready to head out for the day.
So is the room view worth the extra cost? It depends. Yes, I think paying for room location at the Value and Moderate resorts is worth the expense. The room view? I don’t think it matters so much because of the logistics of actually enjoying what you are paying extra for.
At the Deluxe resorts, if you can stretch the budget a little bit more, I think the “better” views can be worth the cost. Are you staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge? Think about what standard versus savanna view really means. Theme park view at the monorail resorts? How nice to be able to enjoy the fireworks and nighttime water parade right from the comfort of your own room! These are just a few examples, but now that I have been spoiled by the view, I will probably pay the price increase for my next Deluxe Resort stay so that I can guarantee that the view out of my window won’t be of someone’s minivan rental in the parking lot! And, maybe that is what Disney intended all along…
