Updated Reader Report Card for Disney World Hotels
We’ve updated our Reader Report Card for WDW Resorts. This revision covers all of the Disney-owned hotels plus the Swan, Dolphin and Shades of Green resorts, and includes ratings for room quality, check-in efficiency, room quietness, shuttle service, pool, hotel staff, food courts and an overall evaluation. We also ask whether you’d recommend this hotel to a friend and whether you’d stay at this hotel again.
With one notable exception, the average Disney-owned hotel dropped about half a letter grade in this year’s survey, and the number of declining scores outnumbered rising scores by anywhere from around 2:1 to 16:1 depending on the category. Vacation homes (but not vacation condos) did exceptionally well, and the advantage that Disney had in satisfaction over off-site hotels has essentially disappeared, meaning people are about as satisfied overall with the average Disney hotel as with the average off-site property.
Update: If you haven’t already done so, you can take the survey here.
You May Also Like...
-
We all know that the NBA is coming to play at Walt Disney World's ESPN Wide World of Sports and in…
-
According to WDWMagic, Guests will soon be able to see some of their favorite Disney characters at their Walt Disney World…
-
All hail teachers, the unsung heroes of, well, everything. Seriously, if I think too much about some of the incredible teachers…
-
Today, the Walt Disney World Resort shared that a number of their hotels will be delayed in reopening. The reopening dates…
Hey – I did the survey – but want to mention here as well — we just returned from the Caribbean Beach Resort and a magical trip to Disney. (My 6 year old is upstairs with a 102 fever and is puking. The magic just keeps going~!)
But seriously, I was a little concerned about CBR after reading some reviews. We stayed in a pirate room and were VERY happy! Mousekeeping did fun things with the boys’ stuffed animals every day. We returned to find them watching tv, hiding in the bathtub, all tucked into bed for a nap…. very fun (of course we left a tip every day.) It was clean, quiet, fun. We would go there again, if we weren’t determined to try out other resorts. Just wanted to put in our 2 cents worth, since we just got back.
Martin,
My guess was that it had something to do with the room decor at the Beach Club vs. the Yacht Club. The Beach Club rooms have been recently redone (I’m not sure if they’ve finished all of them yet though), but the Yacht Club rooms haven’t been redone in a while. The Yacht Club decor therefore looks a little older/less luxurious than the new Beach Club rooms.
The mystery to me is the difference in ratings for the “shuttle service” category. The YC/BC share the same bus system, plus I can’t imagine that Magical Express would be slower to get to one over another of those resorts. Strange if you ask me.
On a side note, I actually prefer the Yacht Club over the Beach Club (though from the survey results it looks like I’m in the minority). I find that it’s more quiet/peaceful there than at the Beach Club where I find the lobby to always be loud and stuffed with tons of people.
Hi – can anyone explain why there should be such a differnce in the results between the Beach Club and Yacht CLub resports. I thought they were esentially the same hotel
thanks
Martin
Hey Jul,
Yes, we expect to split out Kidani, BLT and the Treehouse Villas separately for the next revision.
Out of curiosity, are there plans to split up Kidani Village and Jambo House, BLT and Contemporary, and Saratoga Springs and Treehouse Villas for future surveys?
What was the date range of this survey? I am curious just how much the “for the money I paid” might have affected the grades. There is a decent enough price difference on-site vs. off-site that people might have become more sensitive to Disney’s hotels than the off-sites. That might also explain why some of the DVC properties weren’t affected as much.
Hey Rich,
The date range for all of the attractions, restaurants and most resorts is May 2008 to May 2009. For the Dolphin, Swan and Beach Club we went back to January 2008 to get a handful of extra results, so the sample would be valid. Didn’t affect the overall results significantly for those.
So, people were probably being more critical per dollar. Perhaps the survey might be more reflective of the resort’s actual performance, if it either instructed people to disregard cost or, even better, had a section where people could rate value.
Another thing that might be interesting to note is to add a column listing the average length of stay for the responses. People might have a different opinion of a resort after staying a night or two and after staying a week.
I wonder if Disney is paying attention to this trend. This would be very disturbing to me if I were Bob Iger.