The Caribbean Beach Resort is a beautiful resort, with lush vegetation, bright buildings and sandy beaches that surround the Barefoot Lake. This hotel is located in the EPCOT area and is also located close to the beautifully themed Typhoon Lagoon. Family’s find that this Resort is often their favorite due to the themes and moderate pricing. The resort has good room sizes and makes kids all over scream, “I want to stay in the Nemo Room!” In addition to the great room themes, the Resort offers an island feel that takes you to that tropical hideaway, right at Disney World parks’ doorstep!
For those of you that have never stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort, this Resort has approximately 2,100 rooms and covers over 40 acres. Many of the rooms are themed after the Finding Nemo film with the wall boarder and the bedspread adorned with the beloved fish. However, the Nemo theme is subtle enough that often visitors do not even notice the small, adorable orange fish! But to my son, age 4, it is such a cool room! In fact, when staying in the Nemo-themed room, he asks to return from the parks simply to check that Nemo was still there!
In addition to the themed rooms, a guest staying at the Caribbean Beach Resort will find that they have a room of approximately 340 square feet. Each of these large rooms includes a table and two chairs typically situated next to two large windows allowing for the guest to bring the outside beauty in! The room includes two double beds, a mini-fridge, shower, bath, toilet, double sinks, hairdryer, coffee maker, a storage chest, television and telephone. You will find that the “feel” of the room and amenaties are a scale above that offered in the value resorts, i.e. the double sink area in the bathroom are separated by a privacy curtain allowing guests to get ready early in the morning or late at night while others are sleeping or relaxing at the table or bed area.
When checking in at the Resort, guests are quickly whisked away to the islands as they feel the breeze from the large ceiling fans and hear the tropical music found in the Custom House Lobby. In addition, children love the kid’s area which includes a coloring table and kid-sized chairs for watching their favorite Disney cartoons. This Lobby also includes restrooms, concierge services and vending machines. Guests can make their dining reservations, buy park tickets and get all of the maps needed. Be sure to note, if you are using the Disney bus system, they do not allow guests to bring their bags/luggage on their internal bus system. Instead, guests are asked to use the bell services for delivery of their bags.
Guests staying at this Resort are assigned to a resort area, i.e. Aruba, Jamaica, etc. Each resort area includes several buildings which are all painting one pastel color to help the guest identify their area when going/returning to their particular building. Should a guest have a car on their visit, the parking in relation to the rooms is extremely close to the resort room. This makes unloading and loading bags an easy task.
Next week I will begin my review of my family’s actual stay at this Resort. I will say that the stay started off extremely rocky and included an emergency room visit. Stay tuned as I begin my Caribbean Beach mini-series!
Contributed by: Natalie H. Natalie is the Disney Driven Life’s resident resort expert.
Natalie grew up in Nashville, TN. Married with one son, she lives on a farm. As if this weren’t enough to keep her on her toes, Natalie also works around the clock due to being self-employed .
Natalie often travels to both Walt Disney World and Disneyland, giving her a vast knowledge of the Disney Resorts which she shares in her posts on The Disney Driven Life. She loves the research on the resorts and appreciates input for these articles as well.
In recent trips, Natalie has begun making a habit of meeting people while in the parks. This habit inspired her personal website, Meet the Magic, http://meetthemagic.com. This site helps her connect to others as well as hold space for Disney fans to post information about their Disney related sites. Her goal with this venture is to help people to “Meet the Magic” of their choice.
I live in SW Florida, so I try to visit WDW as much as I can. Recently my daughters (ages 3 & 5) and I have been exploring the resorts one at a time. A couple of weeks ago we visited the Caribbean Beach Resort. I was impressed with the theming of the buildings and pool areas were nice. I would even like to stay there one day since they have the pirate-themed rooms now. However, one thing that didn't make me happy was how rundown the playgrounds were. Disney is usually pretty good about maintaning, but the playgrounds were dirty and falling apart. None of the other Disney hotels that I have been to have been like that. I hope they fix it.
You know, you can always write in and comment to Disney about your concerns. Believe me I do. They have a file on me somewhere with comments such as my latest, most of the plugs at the Pop Century are WARN out and will not actually hold a plug in the wall any longer! Thanks for reading. Hope you will read next week:)