ski

Great platinum treatment on past stay. As platinum you should have at minimum club floor access which is open for breakfast and eve snacks. The lounge and staff and food are very kid friendly. Milk is not put out in eve, but the staff always stopped by our table to see if she could bring the kids some cartons of milk from the back. There is a microwave in the back of the lounge, and minibar fridges in the rooms. Other family dining options on site are Tubby Buffeteria in the basement, a cafeteria type restaurant. A cafe, and a diner with a ice cream parlor. The front desk has passport books for the kids to get stamped for a comp. ice cream. They usually offer these, but sometimes you need to ask. They gave the kids a coupon for a comp use of the swan paddle boats on the last stay. There is a nice restaurant, that I believe used to provide some comp. babysitting in the daycare, but I think the kids have to be 3 for the day care. There is a game room, playground, sand beach area with a seal statue that sprays water. The pools will probably be cold, but the small kid's splash pool may be warm. The Dolphin is about a 5 minute max very nice walk to the Boardwalk, with many dining options there. Alternatively you can ride the comp boats to the Boardwalk, MGM, or Epcot. Buses provide comp transportation to the parks and downtown Disney. The hotel is close to MGM, Epcot and the Boardwalk. It takes more time to get to the other places. Nicest upgrade we had was on past stay to a 2 room suite on club. A newly renovated room with connecting parlour that was huge with an extra full bathroom, Murpy bed and a large sofa bed. There was a twin sofa bed in room with the king bed. Other stays were upgrade to club or given club access. The hotel is newly renovated. I realize that your kids are under 2, so some of this does not apply, but you should have a fabulous time. Mickey's Toontown has a very nice enclosed park for the litlle ones. Edited to add that I prefer the Dolphin with kids over the Swan as the lounge is larger, Tubby's, diner and larger lobby with fountain that the characters sometimes are in front of are in the Dolphin. Past stay was at Dolphin, but the Swan and Dolphin are next to each other and share amenities and charging.

cattle

OAG123 appears to be new to the board with 34 posts and signing up in Aug 2004. I didn't really know about all the features right away.

Welcome to FT


edited because it would appear that OAG123 found the search feautre

sabruzzo

One suggestion - make sure you get a room in the center "tower", and not one of the wings. You can't get from a wing room to the club without going down to the lobby and back up the center elevator.

oag123

ski and cattle -


Thanks for the input. I am new and still learning about FT.

I have found the search feature and have posted some questions on other threads.

Thanks again.

XStAnt

OAG,

Check out www.wdwinfo.com. Their message boards (click on forums/chat on the left side) is full of Disney info. The resorts board has many, many posts about the Swan and Dolphin.

Also, check out www.mousesavers.com and www.allears.net for more info/tips on Disney and possible discounts.

p8riotsfan

I'm a measly old preferred plus member who was using points for a stay at this resort. I thought I'd give it a shot and ask about upgrades. Usually I am told that I need to use additional points for upgrades. However, in this case, the woman helping me affirmed that an upgrade is available. I was bumped to a junior suite. Beautiful room for my family of five considering I was expecting a double bed deal. Perhaps I'm wrong in assuming that I would NOT get an upgrade. In any event, I pleasant experience.

PremEx

This is not that uncommon. At any hotel. The hotel's goal is to fill up 100% if possible. To do this they often way oversell the cheap rooms, knowing that they can play "musical rooms" on day-of-arrival and fill all by upgrading some lucky folks into better rooms and suites.

Very similar to the complimentary Operational Upgrades the airlines do as part of their standard yield management.

Once the front desk has been made aware of the oversell situation and given their authorization to upgrade folks to fill the house and accommodate all the guests with reservations...sometimes all you need do to get one is to ask!

Of course, they are probably going to be more receptive if you have some particular reason to be attractive for the upgrade...SPG member (any level), mature looking (like you won't tear up the suite), dressed nice, on a honeymoon...whatever.

Sometimes it's simply because you asked nicely.

And it never hurts to ask! No matter what your status (or lack of) is.

Well done!

gleff

Let me echo PremEx with something I remember Lurker once said to me, Congratulations!

Starwood Lurker

IIRC, it got you a suite - as a Gold member - at the St. Regis Washington DC.

Sincerely,


William R. Sanders
Customer Service Coordinator
Starwood Preferred Services

[email protected]

SusanDK

I was in Orlando in early December and called the Swan and Dolphin for availability during our stay. The Dolphin had rooms available and I stated that I was SPG Platinum so asked if an upgrade was possible as well as access to Club Level.

An extremely rude reservation clerk told me that Club Level was sold out. I said I understood, but that as a Platinum, shouldn't I still have access to Club Level, even if staying on another floor.

She insisted that no, they did not give Club Level to Platinums unless they were on a CL floor, and that they were not required to follow this SPG benefit rule as they were classified as a "resort" and giving Club Level access was not a PLT benefit of a resort hotel.

Was she right? We decided not to stay because of this as they didn't have availability for our entire stay and we felt the rate was too high without CL access.

Susan

jjj

Susandk,
I have stayed at the dolphin several times and always received club access. I actually request a room with Balcony facing epcot (club rooms dont have balconies). Dont mind an elevator ride to the club.

SusanDK

That's what I'd read here previously, jjj, so thanks for confirming. I would have pushed the case or called back to get another clerk, but they were sold out for some of our nights anyway. Swan was completely sold out as well. I had heard it was supposed to be low season in early Dec!

Susan

djev

With those resorts it depends on their convention business, often their timing is the exact opposite of the rest of the places on property. We always stay on a floor other than the CL, those are not the best rooms or suites to have and always get CL access.

sorro

I just got back from a stay with my wife at the Walt Disney World Swan and thought I'd let people know what to expect from the property.

We got there and as Platinum members were upgraded to the top floor, given a $10 credit for food charges on our bill, and we got a complimentary 24 oz bottle of Acqua Panna water per day. We were happy to have the water because the tap water in the WDW area tastes like fireworks, so it isn't pleasant to drink. The room had access to the executive lounge, where they served breakfast and hors d'ouveurs. The lounge staff were fantastic - very friendly and personable. We got to know several of them during our weeklong stay there. Our room had a heavenly bed, but this property doesn't have the heavenly shower at this point. The room (1269) was by the elevator, so we heard the pulleys moving, but it wasn't too disturbing. Because we were at the far end of the hall, maid service was skipped once during our stay (they did come up after a call to guest services), the morning paper was missed once, nightly turndown twice, and the minibar/water guy missed us once. A word of warning: if you want to sleep in, make sure you hang your "do not disturb" sign out - the maid woke my wife up before 9 one morning, and then woke us both up on the day of checkout. That was a first - I've never had housekeeping come on the day of checkout until after we were gone. They had a free shuttle or boat to the various Disney properties, which came around every 20 minutes or so. You can walk to Epcot, and to a lesser extent, to Disney/MGM, but I wouldn't recommend walking to Magic Kingdom or Animal Kingdom.
Overall our stay at this property was a mixed bag.

fly co to see the yanks

thanks for the trip report...but, there must be recent threads on this property, no? perhaps this trip report could have been added to an existing thread?