Walt Disney World SWAN, DOLPHIN & SWAN RESERVE RESORTS Information & Questions

[TheSouthernBelle]

this might be a silly question, but garden grove is not doing characters at the moment are they?

No they aren’t. And I also think right now they’re only open Thursday-Sundays.

 

[ICEMAN3205]

Swan Reserve Question, I searched and couldn't find an answer. Many of the press releases say there is suppose to be 149 suites for families of 6-8. I have searched on Marriott off/on for the last two months and can't find any rooms that hold more than 5. Does anyone have any info on these "suites"? Were the press releases wrong on the number of guests?

 

[maui2k5]

How does everyone feel about the resorts since now being run by Marriott and that they do not have Disney bus service? I cannot for the life of me remember why, but in 2019 when we stayed at the Swan for 1 night before our Yacht Club stay, we both (wife and I) said that the hotel was nothing like we remember and would never stay there again.

Fast forward to 2021 and we have a Premium Double/Double booked at the Dolphin for this August and starting question the decision.

 

[Gitelfor]

Swan Reserve Question, I searched and couldn't find an answer. Many of the press releases say there is suppose to be 149 suites for families of 6-8. I have searched on Marriott off/on for the last two months and can't find any rooms that hold more than 5. Does anyone have any info on these "suites"? Were the press releases wrong on the number of guests?

When I search Marriott’s site for 6 adults in a single room or suite, an error message pops up that the limit is five. However, I did find this description of the Reserve on Marriott’s site:



When I search on OTA site booking.com, suites show availability for six. Searching for 6 adults+ 2 children resulted in the recommendation to book 2 guest rooms.
Here is the results page for booking. com at the Swan Reserve:

Swan Reserve search results on booking.com

Traditional Suite (Queen/Queen layout w/sofa bed)


You may need to call SwanDolphin in-house reservations, during normal business hours, for assistance.
(888) 828-8850

 

[Antonio]

How hard is it to get around now with the new bus situation? I’ve come to the conclusion that I may just walk over to the boardwalk to catch busses there. I’ll most likely walk to and from Epcot. Is it worth walking over to Boardwalk for AK, HS, MK and Disney springs? I may do the TTC transfer on the way into MK so my kids can ride the monorail but that doesn’t sound like fun after a hot summer day in the park. Is the Disney springs west side stop coming back bad? Going there we are going straight from AK so I don’t care about that. Any info would be great. If anybody has real in depth answers I’ll owe you a dole whip. Thanks a ton in advance.

 

[ICEMAN3205]

When I search Marriott’s site for 6 adults in a single room or suite, an error message pops up that the limit is five. However, I did find this description of the Reserve on Marriott’s ...

Thanks. Glad it wasn’t just me. Hopefully these suites do exist and maybe they just aren’t ready yet.

 

[Best Aunt]

How hard is it to get around now with the new bus situation? I’ve come to the conclusion that I may just walk over to the boardwalk to catch busses there. I’ll most likely walk to and from Epcot. Is it worth walking over to Boardwalk for AK, HS, MK and Disney springs?

Reminder that there are no buses from the Epcot resorts (Yacht Club, Beach Club, Boardwalk, Swan, Dolphin) to DHS. You walk or take the boat. There is a boat stop for Swan/Dolphin; no need to walk over to Boardwalk for that. (Or Uber/Lyft/taxi.)

People who have been recently can advise you about Swan/Dolphin bus versus Boardwalk bus to AK, MK and Disney Springs.

I personally hated the bus to Disney Springs even pre-COVID. It always seemed to take forever to arrive, and take forever to get there once you were on the bus.

Somebody posted on one of the DVC boards about the bus from Disney Springs back to YC/BC. (Reminder that you can click on a link even if it looks like it is still loading.)
https://www.disboards.com/threads/y...-almost-caused-a-brawl.3837822/#post-62994120

 

[SteveH]

Swan Reserve Question, I searched and couldn't find an answer. Many of the press releases say there is suppose to be 149 suites for families of 6-8.

As you found its not showing up, you might give a direct call to S/D during the day and ask for in-house reservations. It could be that they modified the resort plans and eliminated them or they have just not put them in the inventory system. So hard to say until the resort actually opens. I will say that it does seem odd for a "business" focused hotel to have so many "family" suites, if they had that man you'd think they would be on the S/D website. Very odd.

 

[The13thLetter]

How does everyone feel about the resorts since now being run by Marriott and that they do not have Disney bus service? I cannot for the life of me remember why, but in 2019 when we stayed at the Swan for 1 night before our Yacht Club stay, we both (wife and I) said that the hotel was nothing like we remember and would never stay there again.

Fast forward to 2021 and we have a Premium Double/Double booked at the Dolphin for this August and starting question the decision.

We stayed at the Swan last year for the first time (Aug 2020) so I cant really compare to what it was before, but we did not really notice any sort of issues and has a great time. The only thing we really missed was they don't have the disney channels so that does make it feel a little less like a disney vacation (we did miss stacy and the park hours channel) but not sure if they had that there before the marriott change over. We only took the bus from there once though, because when we would grab breakfast on the boardwalk we would just take the bus from there instead of walking back. We are staying at the Dolphin this August so we definitely enjoyed it enough to come back.

 

[mousegear]

Current Picabu menu. I was searching for it before we left but couldn’t find one.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Delivery service FYI.......

Several folks here on this thread, myself included, have talked about using the Amazon Prime Now delivery service, mostly for having food and incidentals delivered to the resorts. It worked very nicely.

Announced today, the Amazon Prime Now, as a separate service, will be ending by year end. It will be incorporated into the main Amazon site and app. It is supposed to be better.

Amazon Prime Now ending by year end

 

[SteveH]

Thanks @Dan Murphy for the heads up, I do hope it's just a matter of moving everything to the main app/site - it's been helpful over the years for us not only at Disney but great when sending things to our kids away from home too.

 

[AUDramaQueen]

We're here now at the Swan and walked to the Boardwalk this morning to get the bus to Magic Kingdom with no issues.

We'll also use it for Animal Kingdom. We may try the Swan bus back though. We just don't want to take any chances with rope drop.

The Disney Springs bus does drop you off all the way down by Cirque according to my parents. They took the Yacht Club one back since it got there first.

They are older and have rollaters so they take the boat to the Swan after getting dropped off at either BW or YC (or vice versa). My kids and I just walk though.

Oh and the "worn" carpet is CLEARLY the pattern and not actually worn for those that were worried about that.

 

[Araminta18]

We're here now at the Swan and walked to the Boardwalk this morning to get the bus to Magic Kingdom with no issues.

We'll also use it for Animal Kingdom. We may try the Swan bus back though. We just don't want to take any chances with rope drop.

The Disney Springs bus does drop you off all the way down by Cirque according to my parents. They took the Yacht Club one back since it got there first.

They are older and have rollaters so they take the boat to the Swan after getting dropped off at either BW or YC (or vice versa). My kids and I just walk though.

Oh and the "worn" carpet is CLEARLY the pattern and not actually worn for those that were worried about that.

We arrive tomorrow! Did you rope drop MK this morning? If so, what time did the bus come?

 

[Araminta18]

Question for anyone who has booked a costco package with tickets -- this may be a dumb question, but if we've already linked the tickets to My Disney Experience, there's no need to go to Will Call and pick up the actual tickets, right? I have an older magic band and since the tickets are linked to MDE, using my magic band to enter the park should be fine, right?

 

[AUDramaQueen]

We arrive tomorrow! Did you rope drop MK this morning? If so, what time did the bus come?

We did rope drop. We got a bus at 6:50.

 

[Wolfpack]

This will be my family’s first time staying at Swan. We are staying in July.
for anyone who has stayed recently is there anything we should expect or know ahead of time?

 

[SteveH]

@Araminta18 correct, last time we just got it all setup on MDE and our MagicBand and right in we went, no problems.

@Wolfpack a couple things, make sure you have the Swan Dolphin app for your phone (I'd link to it but appears the SD website is down at the moment). That app will show you hours and days restaurants are open or closed. Also if you are not yet aware Mears is providing bus service for S/D now, so if you go to MK or AK you will not be dropped off at the Disney Bus stops as it was in the past. MK goes through TTC. The AK bus stop isn't bad. For Epcot & DHC you can walk or take the Disney boat. The app will tell you where buses drop and pick up. Have a great trip.

@AUDramaQueen thanks for the trip update, hope you're having a great time!

 

[mickey916]

We're here now at the Swan and walked to the Boardwalk this morning to get the bus to Magic Kingdom with no issues.

We'll also use it for Animal Kingdom. We may try the Swan bus back though. We just don't want to take any chances with rope drop.

The Disney Springs bus does drop you off all the way down by Cirque according to my parents. They took the Yacht Club one back since it got there first.

They are older and have rollaters so they take the boat to the Swan after getting dropped off at either BW or YC (or vice versa). My kids and I just walk though.

Oh and the "worn" carpet is CLEARLY the pattern and not actually worn for those that were worried about that.

Thanks for the investigative reporting on the carpet! Have a great trip!

 

[katyjeka]

We've been to WDW more times than I care to admit however this will be our first time at the Dolphin. We were able to reserve a double double studio suite for a lot less than 2 rooms at Pop. The only other option for us for our dates was the cabins(dh hates the internal bus system) so I went with the dolphin. We have stayed at Swan 12 years ago and loved the location. I'm trying to find out if our room type has a balcony and where the room type is located in the building. Any help would be appreciated....would love to see pictures from someone who has stayed in this room type. Thanks everyone.