Monica's Travels and Reviews: Coronado Springs Resort in Disney World Resort Area

WELCOME TO DISNEY'S CORONADO SPRINGS RESORT.

Overview:

This is one of the resorts within the Disney Resort Area. Meaning basically it is owned and operated by The Walt Disney World Resort. It also means that it's super close to at least one park. This one happens to be next door to Blizzard Beach (one of Disney's water parks) and one of the Disney Miniature Golf Courses. It was also about 3 minutes from Animal Kingdom and 5 minutes from Hollywood Studios.

It has a few bars/lounges one being in the main check-in area, one being directly outside by the lake, and one by the main pool called the Dig Site. This resort is also equipped with a Convention Center, Restaurants, Gift Shop, Spa, Fitness Center, and other recreational benefits. All this will be explained in detail later. This is just the overview section.

There are also three different kind of buildings to sleep in at this resort. All have the same Room layout but the buildings look different on the outside and each represent different parts of Mexico. There are different room types also: Standard View, Water View, Preferred, Standard Business Class, Junior Suite, Casitas 1 Bedroom Suite, and Casitas Executive Suite. All but the Executive Suite has a King Bed option as well.

There are actually a lot of perks to staying at a Disney Resort especially if you plan on using the 4 Disney World theme parks or 2 Disney Water parks or any of the other things Disney has to offer. I must say that they offer way more than I had ever realized.

This blog post, however, is about my current experience at this particular resort. We stayed from May 26 -29, 2014. This was four days and three nights.

Registration and El Centro

This is considered a "Moderate Resort" eventually I will do a blog about the difference between the different resort classifications, but today is not that day. I will tell you that a "Moderate Resort" is moderately priced (hence the name) compared to other DISNEY properties in the Orlando area. Not to be confused with or compared to other hotels in the area. Disney properties have their own classifications and rightfully so when you go to Orlando and do just Disney staying in one of their resorts creates a sort of bubble around you and it's like you are in a whole new world.

Disney's Coronado Springs Resort has a Mexican theme to it. When you find it go to the guard gate. Tell them your name and that you are checking in and/or show them your Magic Band and use that to enter. They will then direct you to the registration area. The pictures on page one of this post show the outside of the registration area.

After parking you head through a walkway (pictured above) that will lead you into the resort. Then after you walk through the sliding doors you will see a fountain (pictured below). This is a picture of the backside of the fountain along with the entrance.

While at the fountain there are four different directions you can go in. To the right is where you want to go to check-in. There is large cast iron lettering if you look up that says Registration. I somehow did not take a picture of this. Go figure. I guess that's how one learns lol. I did take a picture from the registration desk. So, the next pictures is that of the Registration Hall:

You can see in this picture, at the top of the archway, the back of the cast iron sign I was talking about. That's what you will look for to know you are headed in the right direction. At check in they will give you your room assignment.

If you check in early and your room is not ready they are prepared to take your bags and send you a text message when your room is ready. I have never used the take your bags service as we always drive. However, from others that have flown and used Disney's Magical Express, I have heard mostly pleasant experiences of bags being in the room and waiting for guests after they received the text message that their room was ready. I have been in the room is not ready situation and they will give you your room number before you leave the desk and will text it to you again when your room is ready. If this is the case there is no need to go back to the registration desk; your Magic Bands or room key should already be equipped to open the door.

This is a large resort and it is very spread out with a lake in the middle. At registration they will give you a map so that you can figure out where your room is. They also have busses that will take you to a location closer to your room. Another option is to have the bell service take you and your luggage to your room via golf cart. Here is the map:

You can also access other things from the main lobby area. It is called El Centro. You can access the gift shop, restaurants, and convention center from here.

As you can see from the signs in the archways it's pretty easy to find your way around El Centro.

Here are some more pictures of the restaurant's located down the hall and one of the ceiling over the fountain because it was just so beautiful.

There was also a grab and go station located right next to the gift shop and a few bars that I do not have pictures of. The bars were locate outside and closed due to rain. One is located right outside this area with the restaurants and the other is in the dig site. Here's a link to my review of Pepper Market.

Which of course was also closed to due rain. As you can see from the map though that there are many things located here. The spa, arcade, and playground just to name a few. Next time I go I will absolutely take more pictures while it is not raining and add them here.

Next Sections: The Rooms and Different Buildings in the Resort

The Rooms at Disney's Coronado Springs

Disclaimer: Please excuse my children for being to excited to stay out of the room so that I could take pictures before they were in there. Also please excuse the fact that they are probably in a lot of upcoming photos I am about to show.

When you Walk in:

This is what you see (minus the pink bag in the corner and the blurry kid in the middle).

Notice the lightly colored walls and general emptiness of them? This, along with the no comforters, made it feel very crisp and clean. It felt open and spacious compared to other rooms of the same size I have stayed in. Another thing that added to that feeling was that there is no window a/c unit. A big plus in my book. Window a/c units tend to make it feel more humid in the room. Being that Disney World is in Florida more humidity is the last thing one would want when coming back to their room at night. The a/c unit is instead in the wall between the door and the bed nearest the door with the controls located on the adjacent small part of the wall. Easily accessed while in bed, if you are in the bed by the door.

This is the a/c control pic taken from the bed. Close enough to touch. Also the a/c unit is directly in between the control and the door on the wall facing the opposite side of the room. It is done so well you don't know its there unless you are looking straight at it.

Here is a photo of extra space created due to not having a window unit. They have put in two movable stools one we moved and used as an extra luggage rack and the other we left there and did not really use. There is also a desk in this picture. It is equipped with about 4 or 5 outlets. I cant remember for sure because we only used 3 outlets while we were there. Two on the desk and on by the nightstand in between the beds. It also had a place for a phone and Ethernet cable neither of which we needed because we had no problems using Wi-Fi to stream movies, use the internet, or use the apps on our phones.

I did not take any separate pictures of the bathroom area. It is a bathroom. Pretty standard for a hotel, but, very clean. The shower and toilet were together in a tight space behind a closed door. Again pretty standard for a "Moderately" priced hotel. The sink area was separate it had only on sink which actually added to luggage storage space and moving around in the morning space very nicely. The double big brown doors, in the picture towards the top of this page, slid very nicely and surprisingly smoothly. They were also a huge bonus over the curtain type of dividers currently used in other "Moderate" resorts.

One more thing about the rooms I really liked:

Ceiling Fans! Awesome addition in my opinion.

The view from our window looked like this:

We had a Standard Room. No special additives. This does mean that there is a good chance you will get a parking lot view. We, however, did not and in the parking lot views defense: it's not so bad. Other large hotels and resorts have huge parking lots that have all or most of the parking in one general area. So if you are looking at a parking lot there you are looking a huge parking lot. At Disney Moderate Resorts the parking lots are smaller in width and instead have a consistent size wrapping around the property. This allows for a view of a few cars and the tree line behind it. Really it's not that bad.

We were in the Rancheros section. Here is our hallway:

Yup that little guy is my son getting in my pictures again. He's also yelling down the hall "Mommy, what are you doing?" Even though Disney is a family destination I did not have much of an issue with hearing other people through the walls or in the hallway while in our room. The only neighbor noise I noticed was the showers turning on.

Here are some more pictures from our Ranchos Section. It is the farthest section from El Centro. It has it's own quite pool like the other sections do and worked out fine for us. Even though we were farthest from El Centro we were close to the Dig Site.

The above picture is of our building from the Parking lot. All of the rooms you see here would be considered Standard View, however, as you can see your view would not be so bad.

Above is a picture of the backside of our building. Again still in the Ranchos Section of the resort. The Quite pool is to the left of this picture (about a 30 second walk) and the Dig Site is to the right (about a minute and a half walk). The building we were in was the closest to El Centro of all the Ranchos Buildings.

Located right next to us was the Cabanas. Located on the other side of the Ranchos were the Casitas. Both the Cabanas and the Casitas are closer to El Centro than the Ranchos.

Next I will give you some pictures of the Cabanas.

Here there are plenty of Water View Rooms as well as Preferred Rooms. Preferred are located closest to El Centro so the buildings to the right in this picture would be Preferred.

The Cabana buildings are all two stories. Again the rooms have the same layout and interior design no matter which section you are in. Unless you upgraded to a suite. The Cabanas are right on the lake and as you walk around the lake in front of the Cabanas you will see sand as if on a beach and a few hammocks. Feel free to sit and relax in these hammocks. They looked nice and on a few occasions I saw one or two people using them while reading a tablet or just relaxing.

Another section that I do not have any close ups of is the Casitas. They were across the lake and due to rain and time constraints oh, and children I decided not to walk over to the other side of the resort. The Casitas are where the Business Class Rooms are located. These are rooms with a "club level" type of experience. This is the only moderate resort where this is available. Business Class Rooms are all located in the same building where you will have access to a lounge that is only for Business Class guests. It has cold breakfast selections in the am hours and other snacks at night along with beverages at all times including Beer and Wine in the pm hours. All items in the lounge are free of charge as you have probably already paid at least $50 extra per night for Business Class. It is also located close to El Centro so there is no need for Preferred Rooms in Business Class. Here are a few pictures I took from the bridge across the lake by the cabanas section.

As you can see the Casitas are around 4 or 5 stories. They are very beautiful and there are tons of pictures of them online. Our original room assignment was in these buildings, however, I asked to be switched due to being pretty far from parking and the dig site.

Every portion of this resort has it's ups and downs. If you stay close to El Centro you have the most foot traffic. If you stay in the back of the Ranchos you will be quite far from El Centro but closer to the Dig Site than those that are close to El Centro. Ultimately, you will need to decide if this matters to you. If you prefer to be close to El Centro pay extra for a Preferred room. If you want the luxury of Business Class again you pay a little extra. If you don't care where you end up get a basic Standard View Room. I believe not matter where you are in the Resort you will enjoy your surroundings.

Also BUS SERVICES, don't forget about the bus services. There are a few options here. You can get on many different buses. I did not have an experience with all of them but we did take the theme park bus one day. It's first stop is stop 2 in the Casita section and the last stop is at the front stop 1. This means you can get on any theme park bus and it will take you to El Centro before it leaves the resort for it's park destination. There is also a bus that takes you from this resort to the miniature golf course near by. It's part of their internal bus system and if you are staying here without a car I suggest you look further into this. Here is us at the bus stop early one morning waiting for the Magic Kingdom bus to arrive it's approximately 7:30 am:

The bus stops are covered and rather large. Not like normal bus stops in your home town!! We are all a little tired in this pic. The park Doesn't open until 9 am but we are heading to our breakfast reservation before the park opens. So yes the buses do start running well before park open. By personal experience I have seen at least 90 minutes in advance. I do hear they run earlier than that but I have never been out to confirm this.

Next up some random pictures of the resort. If you would like to travel here either on a budget or staying luxuriously CONTACT ME for pricing.