Disney's CARIBBEAN BEACH RESORT Information & Questions-Old Thread-New Thread Link in Post 1

[Toffeewoffy]

Does anyone know how long they're taking per building at the moment? I know they started on building 24 in the new year, but we're still hoping they'll have done 25 by 1st March, as we really want to be in building 25.

I'll settle for 24 if I have to, but I'd need to cajole them into giving us a lake view as there'll be less walk to the food halls for me on my walking stick.

Building 26 would do, of course - I just don't want to be bothered by dust and noise from work taking place on 25. I also wouldn't want to find what some people have found about everything being pulled up and tatty ready for refurbishment.

Yes, I know there are preferred rooms in North Trinidad, but they're actually further in real terms and it means more noise from the family pool.

 

[joenocchio]

We are here at CBR right now. I'll try to answer some of the questions I have seen on here. We are staying in Martinique Building 22. The room is a refurbished room and is very nice. They are working on Buildings 24 and 25. They seem to be making pretty good progress on them. The only time I hear anything is if I walk by those buildings which we do on the way to OPR but it is very minimal. The grounds are gorgeous and so far, most of the staff have been very friendly. We ate at Shutters last night. I had the Island Pasta with Shrimp and it was delicious. A few people in our party had steak and also said it was great. The food court meals we feel are just average so far. Bus transportation has been good, no real wait times except going from Hollywood Studios to Magic Kingdom, which we expected to be a bit of a wait. And for the most part, there hasn't been many people on them. Overall we love it here! Let me know if you have any questions I can try to answer. I will be here until Saturday the 31st.

 

[mickeystoontown]

We are here at CBR right now. I'll try to answer some of the questions I have seen on here. We are staying in Martinique Building 22. The room is a refurbished room and is very nice. They are working on Buildings 24 and 25. They seem to be making pretty good progress on them. The only time I hear anything is if I walk by those buildings which we do on the way to OPR but it is very minimal. The grounds are gorgeous and so far, most of the staff have been very friendly. We ate at Shutters last night. I had the Island Pasta with Shrimp and it was delicious. A few people in our party had steak and also said it was great. The food court meals we feel are just average so far. Bus transportation has been good, no real wait times except going from Hollywood Studios to Magic Kingdom, which we expected to be a bit of a wait. And for the most part, there hasn't been many people on them. Overall we love it here! Let me know if you have any questions I can try to answer. I will be here until Saturday the 31st.

Thank you so very much for checking in and giving us a progress report. It's other Disers that we rely on for updated information. If you get a chance (please don't take a lot of time away from your vacation), do you mind asking a castmember if they know when they'll be finished with the renovations? Thank you in advance! Continue having a great trip!

 

[kayak32]

Thanks everyone for all the great info. We head out Feb 17-24. This will be our kiddos first time DD 5 DS turning 3 while there. Just called in a first floor request as well as request for Jamaica or Aruba. Definitely don't want tobe raking double stoller up and down those sfairs daily, and would love queen beds.

Can't wait its been 21 years since my husband and I have made it to WDW, very excited. I can't wait to see our kids reactions. Very happy they have the memory maker option to help capture even more of this time so I will actually be in some of the pictures.

Wish we could have pkanned little earlier so could have gotten fastpass for Elsa and Anna and had more choices for ADR but will be great regardless.

 

[Toffeewoffy]

We are here at CBR right now. I'll try to answer some of the questions I have seen on here. We are staying in Martinique Building 22. The room is a refurbished room and is very nice. They are working on Buildings 24 and 25. They seem to be making pretty good progress on them. The only time I hear anything is if I walk by those buildings which we do on the way to OPR but it is very minimal. The grounds are gorgeous and so far, most of the staff have been very friendly. We ate at Shutters last night. I had the Island Pasta with Shrimp and it was delicious. A few people in our party had steak and also said it was great. The food court meals we feel are just average so far. Bus transportation has been good, no real wait times except going from Hollywood Studios to Magic Kingdom, which we expected to be a bit of a wait. And for the most part, there hasn't been many people on them. Overall we love it here! Let me know if you have any questions I can try to answer. I will be here until Saturday the 31st.

Thank you so much for this info. I'm a bit more hopeful that 25 will be finished by 1st March now! If you can find out whether it'll definitely be finished by the end of February, I would be extremely grateful to you.

My problem, you see, is that I don't want to have to take my scooter over to the food court. I can walk it with my stick, but much further would be an inconvenience to me.

 

[js]

Hi. I will be staying at CBR in March with my ds's HS baseball team since they are playing at WWoS and wonder if we will get a refurbished room. If the rooms are not yet refurbished are thy still putting guests in them? It would be so nice to have Queen beds instead of the full size.

Also, what kind of filters do I need to bring for coffee? Not cone is that correct?

No microwaves in room?

Thank you.

 

[Toffeewoffy]

Hi. I will be staying at CBR in March with my ds's HS baseball team since they are playing at WWoS and wonder if we will get a refurbished room. If the rooms are not yet refurbished are thy still putting guests in them? It would be so nice to have Queen beds instead of the full size.

Also, what kind of filters do I need to bring for coffee? Not cone is that correct?

No microwaves in room?

Thank you.

In order: yes, they are still using unrefurbished rooms - there are still 7 buildings which haven't been done yet, and they can't not let them out.

The coffee machines take pods, and even if they didn't Disney coffee used to be packed as a portion of real coffee packed inside a filter so all you had to do was carefully remove the plastic outer, unfold the filter and place it into the machine.

But you'll get coffee at the food court anyway.

And finally, no there are no microwaves in the rooms. However, there are at least 2 in the food court (maybe more).

 

[ciggy]

Hopefully some of you read my post from a week ago... if you didn't here's the short story.

We booked two standard rooms, guaranteed connecting because we have more kids than adults (wife and I and 3 kids under 11). We get there last Sunday and the girl at the check-in says we couldn't honor any of your requests (faxed and on-line) but we were able to UPGRADE you... two PIRATE ROOMS.

I didn't want Pirate rooms and quite frankly I was upset and was pretty snotty with the girl. I told her that Pirate rooms were not an upgrade in my eyes and that I wanted what I booked. They offered non-connecting preferred rooms but we'd have to pay more... we didn't think we should pay and we wanted connecting rooms.

All said and done we asked for a manager and he got us connecting rooms in Aruba 54.

My question is has anybody else been 'upgraded' to something that you didn't want? I seriously feel like those Pirate rooms nice for someone that really likes pirates but otherwise there is ZERO allure for me. The beds are uncomfortable and it's too far from OPR.

Has anybody ever requested/demanded NOT being in a Pirate room? What if my kids were deathly afraid of pirates?

All in all we had another (our 6th in 6 years) nice stay at CBR, just the fight to get what we booked at check-in.

Oh we did have magic band issues with our rooms. They didn't work at all, then just the kids worked, then just my wife and mine.. at no point did all 5 open the rooms and you all know how the kids like to open the doors.

 

[ricosuave]

Hi! We are considering CBR for an Oct trip this year! Excited! I want to book a preferred room but we need a Murphy bed. On the Disney site it only has occupancy five for standard or water rooms. Has anyone booked a Murphy bed room in a preferred room? Or is there any info whether Murphy beds are still being added and might be in the preferred buildings? Thank you for help!

I booked a preferred for 5 people (3 adults 2kids) a couple weeks ago.

 

[Airship Ariadne]

Thanks everyone for all the great info. We head out Feb 17-24. This will be our kiddos first time DD 5 DS turning 3 while there. Just called in a first floor request as well as request for Jamaica or Aruba. Definitely don't want tobe raking double stoller up and down those sfairs daily, and would love queen beds.

Can't wait its been 21 years since my husband and I have made it to WDW, very excited. I can't wait to see our kids reactions. Very happy they have the memory maker option to help capture even more of this time so I will actually be in some of the pictures.

Wish we could have pkanned little earlier so could have gotten fastpass for Elsa and Anna and had more choices for ADR but will be great regardless.

Don't give up on those Anna and Elsa FP's...they often release more times as they get closer to dates...happened for us.

 

[adc]

I loved to see trip reports from people who stayed at CB. They are hard to find! Does anyone have one they'd like to share?

 

[mickeystoontown]

Hopefully some of you read my post from a week ago... if you didn't here's the short story.

We booked two standard rooms, guaranteed connecting because we have more kids than adults (wife and I and 3 kids under 11). We get there last Sunday and the girl at the check-in says we couldn't honor any of your requests (faxed and on-line) but we were able to UPGRADE you... two PIRATE ROOMS.

I didn't want Pirate rooms and quite frankly I was upset and was pretty snotty with the girl. I told her that Pirate rooms were not an upgrade in my eyes and that I wanted what I booked. They offered non-connecting preferred rooms but we'd have to pay more... we didn't think we should pay and we wanted connecting rooms.

All said and done we asked for a manager and he got us connecting rooms in Aruba 54.

My question is has anybody else been 'upgraded' to something that you didn't want? I seriously feel like those Pirate rooms nice for someone that really likes pirates but otherwise there is ZERO allure for me. The beds are uncomfortable and it's too far from OPR. Luckily for us, the upgrades that we have received have really been upgrades (in our opinion). From what I have read, Disney only guarantees you a room on WDW resort property. So, even if you book a certain category room, they can still change you to another category and you're supposed to just deal with it.

Has anybody ever requested/demanded NOT being in a Pirate room? What if my kids were deathly afraid of pirates?

All in all we had another (our 6th in 6 years) nice stay at CBR, just the fight to get what we booked at check-in.

Oh we did have magic band issues with our rooms. They didn't work at all, then just the kids worked, then just my wife and mine.. at no point did all 5 open the rooms and you all know how the kids like to open the doors.

I've read others that have been "upgraded" at the CBR and at other resorts even though they really didn't want to be. I've even read that they paid for preferred locations at a resort and got bumped down to standard. If they hadn't asked for a credit on their account, they wouldn't have gotten it. From what I have read on the boards (and I've read it quite a few times), Disney only guarantees you a room on WDW property. Even if you book XYZ category room, the can put you in ABC category and you just have to deal with it.

 

[Airship Ariadne]

I loved to see trip reports from people who stayed at CB. They are hard to find! Does anyone have one they'd like to share?

I'm not done with mine..but in my signature is a link...and mickeystoontown has a link in her signature to hers.

 

[mickeystoontown]

I loved to see trip reports from people who stayed at CB. They are hard to find! Does anyone have one they'd like to share?

The link to my CBR trip report is in my signature below. Just click on the link. Don't be scared off when you see how long it is. I have links to each update in the second post. I hope that you'll join in on the two week adventure.

 

[adc]

The link to my CBR trip report is in my signature below. Just click on the link. Don't be scared off when you see how long it is. I have links to each update in the second post. I hope that you'll join in on the two week adventure.

Yes! I thought you had one. I guess the links don't show up on my iPhone. I'll check it out tonight! Thanks!

 

[ciggy]

I've read others that have been "upgraded" at the CBR and at other resorts even though they really didn't want to be. I've even read that they paid for preferred locations at a resort and got bumped down to standard. If they hadn't asked for a credit on their account, they wouldn't have gotten it. From what I have read on the boards (and I've read it quite a few times), Disney only guarantees you a room on WDW property. Even if you book XYZ category room, the can put you in ABC category and you just have to deal with it.

Sounds logical to me... fill all the rooms regardless of what guests want. Halfway through my argument at check-in I turned to my wife and told her we'd go stay at a Holiday Inn before I took the Pirate rooms. Granted we aren't in our rooms much, the point is that I didn't book a Pirate room, I don't like the Pirate rooms and I just wanted what I paid for and what I was booked for.

Once we got a manager involved he made it happen, but the fact of the matter is that I shouldn't have to argue for what I paid for. I was really ticked off at check-in. When they told me that I could pay extra for a preferred room I asked why I didn't have to pay extra for a Pirate room as they cost more than a standard room. They told me the Pirate room 'upgrade' was out of necessity and the preferred room 'upgrade' would have been a request. Whatever, it is what it is and we had a good trip after that.

 

[adc]

Has anyone seen a chart that shows 60 days out for when to book FP+? I want to make sure I get the exact, right day.

I will not be waiting hours to meet A&E!

 

[emilyhuff]

I need an opinion from the experienced pros here!!! We are currently planning out Oct 2015 trip for three families(Mine, DisBrother, and DisMom&Dad). Do you think it would be best to do all the same reservation, in order to get rooms near each other? We need at least two rooms with a connecting door, the other we would like in the same building preferably. What do you guys think? Thanks!!!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Sounds logical to me... fill all the rooms regardless of what guests want. Halfway through my argument at check-in I turned to my wife and told her we'd go stay at a Holiday Inn before I took the Pirate rooms. Granted we aren't in our rooms much, the point is that I didn't book a Pirate room, I don't like the Pirate rooms and I just wanted what I paid for and what I was booked for.

Once we got a manager involved he made it happen, but the fact of the matter is that I shouldn't have to argue for what I paid for. I was really ticked off at check-in. When they told me that I could pay extra for a preferred room I asked why I didn't have to pay extra for a Pirate room as they cost more than a standard room. They told me the Pirate room 'upgrade' was out of necessity and the preferred room 'upgrade' would have been a request. Whatever, it is what it is and we had a good trip after that.

I would have been ticked off too and asked for a manager as well. I don't like the "we can put you wherever we want" policy either.

 

[mickeystoontown]

I need an opinion from the experienced pros here!!! We are currently planning out Oct 2015 trip for three families(Mine, DisBrother, and DisMom&Dad). Do you think it would be best to do all the same reservation, in order to get rooms near each other? We need at least two rooms with a connecting door, the other we would like in the same building preferably. What do you guys think? Thanks!!!

We have traveled with three different parties before and booked three different reservations with one of the parties arriving several days after we did. We were all placed in rooms near each other in the same building. When you book the rooms, you will need to ask that the reservations be "linked" and they will do their best to place you all near each other. As far as the connecting rooms go, they won't guarantee that you'll have the connecting rooms but they will make a notation of your request.