My family and I just got back from a six day trip down to Walt Disney World. I'll be posting my thoughts, as well as my
So we stayed at Saratoga Springs. I have to admit I was a little nervous. My wife and I stayed in that area for our Honeymoon back when it was the Disney Institute. We had a great time (its what kicked off our whole love fest for Disney), and it worked great for a young couple. We could walk to Downtown Disney when we wanted to, the busses were no big deal. It worked out well.
Then a few years ago we went down and stayed there when it was Saratoga Springs. To be honest it wasn't as great, not because of the resort itself, but becouse our situation had changed. We were going with kids this time, and the spread out nature of the resort as well as the location on property made the resort more of a pain.
Waiting for busses to come, and then riding through all the stops with kids was incredibly different. Now we had little ones dying to get to the parks, or exhausted and ready to fall asleep. The busses just weren't as convenient. On top of that we were out in a pretty remote building so the walk to use the pool (the satellite pools weren't ready yet for the trip), was a bit of hike. The kids added to the hike since we had to take all the stuff to take care of them. Swimmies, snacks, goggles, etc.
So we've tried to avoid the resort as a rule the last few years. We tend to try to stay at Beach Club (our home resort), Boardwalk, or Wilderness Lodge, but none of those were available this trip. So with some trepidation we booked Saratoga.
Well all in all it worked out great. My wife managed to get us a room in the Springs buildings right across the street from the main pool. So going to the pool and the cafe/store there was very easy, even with kids. On top of that we had a rental car so the busses really weren't an issue. Having the car made it a lot easier to travel to and from the parks on our own time, rather than have our time dictated to us. Don't get me wrong we still took the busses occasionally (my kids love to ride on the Disney bus), but for the most part we took our cars.
The last thing that made it nice was that we had a one bedroom on the fourth floor. So we had a nice view, plenty of space, and we had a great time.
