I recently had the opportunity to do something at Walt Disney World that I had never done before – spend an entire day resort hopping. Normally when we get the chance to take a trip, we devote the majority of our time to the parks. I’ve talked about this in the past, but given the high cost of a Disney trip and the (in)frequency with which we visit, the parks are always my primary focus.
But this time was different, mostly because this wasn’t a “real” trip to Disney. I had gone to Florida for an entirely different reason (family related) but found a way to squeeze in one day to myself in Orlando. I had originally wanted to spend the day at Epcot by myself, but my family was not fond of this plan and I can’t really blame them. Disney has been something that we do all together and I didn’t want them to be upset if I managed to have this kind of fun without them.
My compromise was to visit the resorts but not purchase any park tickets and instead spend my day resort hopping and visiting as many resorts as I could. We have pretty much only seen the resorts we had stayed at in the past, with an occasional detour elsewhere. I love the Disney resorts and figured that I could check out a whole bunch when I didn’t have any park agenda for the day.
I didn’t have anything specific that I wanted to do at each resort; I wasn’t planning on getting something to eat or drink to commemorate the occasion, and I certainly didn’t want to buy a souvenir at each resort. Instead, I just wanted to “get a sense” of each one that I visited, take some pictures and do some research as to whether I would want to stay there in the future.
I’m putting this post together to walk you through my day, not as a suggestion on what YOU should do while you’re at Disney. If you have time to resort hop, I would NOT suggest doing all of these in one day; I walked just as many steps here as I do at the parks normally. So if you’re just having a down or relaxing day, this isn’t it. But I thought it would be fun to talk about what I did and since I already did the legwork (so to speak!), and I have this blog, I figured why not? Also, I'm dividing this into two parts since it's pretty long and I don't want anyone's eyes to glaze over.
I had a plan of what resorts I wanted to hit which got blown up almost immediately. My plan was to start at the terminus of the Skyliner, meaning Art of Animation and Pop Century, and then follow the Skyliner route from there. I was getting dropped off by a family member and I hit my first snag – I was told at the entrance to Art of Animation that we could not enter the property if I wasn’t staying there.
I’ll be honest, I was a bit surprised and disappointed by this. One of the selling points of a day like I had is that it doesn’t cost anything to use Disney transportation once you’re inside the Disney loop. But getting into that loop in the first place was apparently a bit of an issue. I know this can’t be the case for all resorts, as we had gotten picked up by this same family member at the Boardwalk on last year’s trip, and he was able to drive right into that resort with no issue. I wonder if it had to do with Art of Animation being a value resort, with more rooms and therefore more cars coming and going. I was told specifically that they didn’t have a cast member past the gate to stop someone from just driving into their lot and parking for free. I guess that was fair, but it was certainly unexpected.
So I had to pivot right at the start of my day. In fact, I gave up on Art of Animation and Pop altogether after this; if I couldn’t do them at the beginning of the Skyliner route, I didn’t think I could easily fit them into my plans. Instead, we were told to go to Hollywood Studios and that I could get dropped off there. This turned out to be true, though we had to tell the cast member at that gate what our plan was and we were given a “drop off” sticker that would be shown on the way out so that we didn’t get hit with a $30 parking fee. This worked for us, and the day truly began here.
I had planned to do this part in reverse, but instead, since this was my starting point, I walked from Hollywood Studios to the Crescent Lake hotels. We had stayed at the Boardwalk on our last trip, so I knew this route very well. Also, before I go on, I should point out that I used a lot of different Disney transportation on this day, but wherever possible, I walked. That’s why I ended up with so many steps and hurting legs. But my legs are always more reliable than any transportation.
My first stop here was the Beach Club. You actually pass the Boardwalk (and others) first, but I hadn’t had breakfast and I knew I couldn’t pass up the chance to get some Mickey waffles. I was going to get these at Pop but since that was out, I knew that Beach Club Marketplace sold them. So bypassed the resorts that came up first and went directly into the Beach Club, ordered my breakfast and sat outside to enjoy.
Once I was done with that, I took a stroll around the Beach Club resort itself. I had briefly been here before on our last trip but I spent some more time in the lobby and taking some pictures from the next floor up. I don’t love the Beach Club lobby, to be honest. It’s not as “beachy” as you might think it would be and doesn’t seem as grandiose as many of the other deluxe resorts. However, it does have a DVC side, and we often rent points, so I would have no issue staying here.
After this, I walked directly next door to the Yacht Club. All the Crescent Lake resorts are walkable to each other, but you can’t get any closer than these two. Even the outside of these resorts look similar, with Beach Club being a blue color and Yacht Club being a more neutral gray. I actually like the look of the Yacht Club lobby better, as I think the theming is more solid. Unfortunately Yacht Club doesn’t have a DVC villa section, so it’s unlikely that I would be able to afford staying here. Win some, lose some, I guess.
From there, I headed over to the Dolphin. Now, the Dolphin and its sister property, the Swan, are not technically “Disney” resorts, being owned and operated by Marriott, though they are on Disney property and share all of the perks of Disney hotels. We can debate semantics here, but I included these because for all intents and purposes, these ARE Disney hotels; they’re certainly more like Disney hotels than other “good neighbor” hotels in the area.
In any case, the Swan and Dolphin were built in 1990 and are certainly unique when it comes to design. They feature distinct building shapes as well as giant icons that are prominently displayed; in the case of the Dolphin, I think you can guess what that icon is. I really don’t know any dolphin that looks like these dolphins though; my family usually refers to this one as “The Fish.”
I actually liked the Dolphin a great deal. One of the benefits of this hotel (as well as the Swan) is that they are much taller than the Disney owned resorts in this area and thus offer some pretty great views that you can’t get from those other resorts. I also liked the Dolphin lobby a lot; there is a very elegant crystal feature right in the middle of fountain in the lobby. Given that these hotels are often more affordable than the similar deluxe Disney resorts, this is a sneaky good way to save some money on your vacation.
From here, I headed back towards the Boardwalk, but I didn’t visit that one just yet. Instead I made a right turn and headed towards the Swan. I actually bypassed the main building and went to the Swan Reserve, a boutique hotel that opened in 2021 right near the Swan. It isn’t as garish as the originals, which is either good or bad depending on what you think of the Swan and Dolphin themselves.
To get to the Swan Reserve, you actually have to cross over Epcot Resorts Boulevard, which I found a little jarring. That is a pretty busy road though I was lucky enough to cross it when there was very little traffic. There are crosswalks and “walk” buttons to help pedestrians, but keep this in mind if you plan on staying here. As for the resort itself, I really liked this one as well. This had my favorite view of anything in the Epcot area.
After this, I walked back to the main Swan resort. I liked that the lake outside that building had swan boats; maybe that was a little too on the nose, but I enjoyed it. The Swan is similar to the Dolphin in many ways, so I won’t rehash all of that here. I will say that I was less impressed by the Swan lobby; it doesn’t have the striking feature that the Dolphin did. If all else was equal, I would probably stay at the Dolphin, then Swan Reserve then Swan, in that order. But of course, my top factor would be cost and depending on the dates you’re traveling, it’s not consistent as to which of these is the cheapest.
To round out my trip around Crescent Lake, I returned to the Boardwalk. I was already familiar with this resort from our last trip here – you can read my full review here if you’re interested. But I did spend more time sitting and looking out at the water and the resort grounds on this day than I did in my entire week there last year. It was quite nice, though the sun was getting hot already, as it tends to do in Florida. I love the view facing Crescent Lake, which was one of the reasons we wanted to stay there in the first place. Anytime you can see Spaceship Earth from your resort, it’s a good day.
Up until now, I had only used my feet to get around. If you were staying at any of these resorts, it would be very easy to do what I did, and take as much or as little time as you wanted. Nowhere else on property are there so many resorts so close to each other. And even if you weren’t staying at one of these six resorts, if you stayed on the Skyliner route, hopping around this area is almost as easy – you just have to take the Skyliner to either Epcot or Hollywood Studios. I would recommend Epcot here, since the walk is generally shorter, no matter which of these resorts you’re going to.
I guess it should be no surprise where I headed next, based on the above – the Skyliner. For those of you who don’t know, the Skyliner connects Epcot and Hollywood Studios, with stops at the Riviera, Caribbean Beach Resort and a shared station at Art of Animation and Pop Century. The Caribbean is the “hub” of the Skyliner, meaning you can get a gondola there to any of those other stops; if you’re going between the parks, you would have to change at the Caribbean anyway. Personally, I find that the Skyliner is not the most effective way to get from one park to another – that would be walking. But I wasn’t using it to get from park to park, but instead checking out some resorts along the way. And for that, the Skyliner excels.
I walked from the Boardwalk over to the Epcot Skyliner station. It’s worth repeating that you don’t need to have park tickets or even a resort reservation in order to use Disney transportation. The Skyliner, as well as the monorail, buses and boats, is located outside the entrance to the park. In Epcot’s case, that would be the International Gateway entrance near France. I gazed longingly into Epcot for a while before boarding the nearby Skyliner.
It helped that this was both a quiet time of year and quiet time of day, because I got a gondola all to myself. Usually your party (in this case, a party of one) will get their own vehicle unless it’s really busy and backed up, as it often is early getting to the parks and late leaving the parks. But I will say it was pretty nice to have my own gondola and to float gently over Epcot and beyond. A lot has been made about the Skyliner not being air conditioned, but it’s designed to facilitate air flow and even on a hot day, your cabin should be pleasantly cool. I know mine was.
My trip wasn’t very long, as I got off at the first stop, the Riviera Resort. I had never really been here before, only passing through on the way to the Caribbean to change gondolas. The Riviera is a DVC resort and is themed after Walt’s European travels, specifically the French and Italian Rivieras. The knock on this resort has been that it’s kind of generic, or at least not as Disney themed as many of the older resorts. I understand that assessment, but after visiting there, I found myself thinking about this one a lot. I really enjoyed the look, even if on the outside, there wasn’t a lot of Disney to be found.
There are some nice touches, including tilework representing Peter Pan and Tangled on the way towards the main building. The lobby is quite impressive and there is a little bakery (Le Petit CafĂ©) and sitting area that are a nice respite from a busy trip. I went to the highest floor I could and found some wonderful views looking back at Epcot. I hadn’t seriously considered staying here until this trip but I came away thinking seriously about it.
The Riviera is “next to” the Caribbean Beach Resort. I put those words in quotes because it’s kind of on top of the Caribbean, rather than next to it. In fact, if you were staying in certain areas of the Caribbean, it probably would be quicker to take the Skyliner to the Riviera and walk backwards, rather than to the Caribbean stop and walk all the way around. Your mileage may vary.
In any case, I walked around the outside of the Riviera until I found my way into the Marinique section of the Caribbean. I continued walking south here, as I wanted to pass by Old Port Royal and check out the lobby. The Caribbean is the first non-deluxe resort that I visited on this day (it’s a moderate) and while I have never stayed here, I always liked the look of it. Nothing changed my mind while I was here. It is fairly sprawling but not as bad as I had been led to believe. It’s easily accessible by the Skyliner and has the ”poor man’s Ohana” in Sebastian’s Bistro.
Regardless, I walked through at least a large section of the Caribbean before ending up back at the Skyliner station there. The next couple of stops on my resort hopping day were going to be tricky, as they were only accessible by bus, and since there is no resort to resort transportation, I had to start at a park. I ended up taking the Skyliner back to Hollywood Studios, where I had started my day, then immediately walking over to the bus station to pick up a bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge ...
And that's where I'll stop for now. Tune in for the second part of this trip, coming soon!
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