(2014-2020) Disney's GRAND FLORIDIAN RESORT & SPA + VILLAS Information & Questions

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We have stayed twice at GF and will have a 3rd time this August. We love it, We have stayed in Conch Key and Sago Cay. Both rooms were clean and spacious. I don't recall the sofa or the chairs in the room to be soiled or stained.
We liked Conch Key sl. better because it was a tad quieter, we were on an upper floor in a corner, loved that. We had a view of the monorail and marina area.
I am excited to stay again in August, hoping for a room in Conch Key. CM staff were very nice and our mousekeepers were just awesome!!
I didn't see the negative review.
 
We have stayed twice at GF and will have a 3rd time this August. We love it, We have stayed in Conch Key and Sago Cay. Both rooms were clean and spacious. I don't recall the sofa or the chairs in the room to be soiled or stained.
We liked Conch Key sl. better because it was a tad quieter, we were on an upper floor in a corner, loved that. We had a view of the monorail and marina area.
I am excited to stay again in August, hoping for a room in Conch Key. CM staff were very nice and our mousekeepers were just awesome!!
I didn't see the negative review.

We also liked the fact that Conch Key is the first building when you get off of the boat from the Magic Kingdom. That was really nice when coming back from the park.
 
Hi, I have a question regarding the Ground floor lagoon view rooms at the non-DVC buildings. Does the room have an enclosed balcony or does it have a patio that you can walk out of like at the Poly? Thanks.
 


Hi, I have a question regarding the Ground floor lagoon view rooms at the non-DVC buildings. Does the room have an enclosed balcony or does it have a patio that you can walk out of like at the Poly? Thanks.
Enclosed patio so looks the same as a balcony but just on the ground floor- I’m pretty sure! You can’t walk out into the grounds. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, I’ve never had ground floor.
 
So I’m 13 days away from my first visit to the Grand!!! I will be getting engaged!!!!

Any suggestions for room/building requests or places around the resort that we should check out!? We are getting massages and I have a mini photo session booked! Im Anxious and excited at the same time!!!

Congrats in advance! SO exciting!!!! I love Conch Key. Maybe we’ll see you there!!
 
So I’m 13 days away from my first visit to the Grand!!! I will be getting engaged!!!!

Any suggestions for room/building requests or places around the resort that we should check out!? We are getting massages and I have a mini photo session booked! Im Anxious and excited at the same time!!!

Congratulations!! How exciting!!

All of the property is beautiful both day and night. Of course you guys should go visit the wedding chapel and the path to walk to the Poly is right there. On certain evenings they light a fire pit by the pool with water falls, I haven't seen it myself light but I have seen it in during the day.

You can have a drink in Citrico's and Narcoossee's even if your not having dinner there. They are both beautiful with beautiful views. I am sure there are people with some other great suggestions that will come on a help you out.

There are a two great spots for fireworks....Outside Gasperilla's grill and down by Narcoossee's on the boat dock.

Have a great trip and let us know how everything goes.
 
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Hi Everyone... I need Help! We just got a phone call moving our stay at BWI club level to the Grand Floridian (in 10 days). I have spent a year planning on the Boardwalk, with 2 parents, 2 kids and 2 grandparents. I know almost nothing about the Grand Floridian. We will be in a 2 bedroom suite, unsure of building or view at this point. Can someone point me to reviews, photos,, etc? What are your favorite/lease favorite things about the Grand? Anything I need to know? Any tips on GF with a 6 and 9 year old.

Cross posted.
 
Hi Everyone... I need Help! We just got a phone call moving our stay at BWI club level to the Grand Floridian (in 10 days). I have spent a year planning on the Boardwalk, with 2 parents, 2 kids and 2 grandparents. I know almost nothing about the Grand Floridian. We will be in a 2 bedroom suite, unsure of building or view at this point. Can someone point me to reviews, photos,, etc? What are your favorite/lease favorite things about the Grand? Anything I need to know? Any tips on GF with a 6 and 9 year old.

Cross posted.

I think you’ll really enjoy it! They have suites located in a few buildings, so I’m not sure which one you’ll get. But they are all amazing buildings :) if you have a touring plans account, you can actually click on the buildings, levels and rooms and see what the view would be.

Honestly, there isn’t a thing that I don’t love about the GF :) some people may feel the atmosphere is to “stuffy” but my kids almost feel like royalty when they are there. I honestly just love the whole atmosphere!
I love the proximity to the MK, a quick boat ride or monorail and we’re there. The fireworks can be seen from the GF also, which is very nice.
 
OK, I hope this works, I am no so good at this stuff......lol


He gets +++ points from me for taking care of his mama! He whined a bit, but I'm sure that's part of the claim to fame when you are doing this for an audience.

We've stayed at GF many times and are returning this summer, and I find like everywhere there are good and bad CMs. We always have two rooms on one reservation because of family size and we too have run into issues in times past with keys and rooms, but it all gets sorted out, sometimes easier than others. I've definitely experienced attitude from a few CMs over the years, but then some are absolutely wonderful. I try to remember it's their job, they aren't on vacation, and sometimes we all have off days, because life can be hard.

I laughed at the checking for dust, but it was a review after all. I agree with him about the couches. Some times there are stains that make you feel a bit uneasy.

I'm not sure what his mom meant when she said she couldn't get comfortable. Maybe she was expecting more since it's the Grand, but all in all the rooms are just as nice at any of the deluxe so it could just be an overall feeling of let down.

I also agree about the traffic on the walking paths from carts at times. I assume because of the expansive lawns and buildings there probably wasn't a lot they could do, although you would think there would be some outer paths on the back side of the building they could take, but I'm sure sometimes it's just not feasible or possible.

We stay at the Grand because I love the Victorian theme of the main building, we enjoy their club level offerings and the kids love being on the monorail. I do like BW as well and while we haven't stayed at BC we always go to Cape May and the lobby is lovely and the rooms online look pretty so I'm sure I'd be happy there too.
 
Hi Everyone... I need Help! We just got a phone call moving our stay at BWI club level to the Grand Floridian (in 10 days). I have spent a year planning on the Boardwalk, with 2 parents, 2 kids and 2 grandparents. I know almost nothing about the Grand Floridian. We will be in a 2 bedroom suite, unsure of building or view at this point. Can someone point me to reviews, photos,, etc? What are your favorite/lease favorite things about the Grand? Anything I need to know? Any tips on GF with a 6 and 9 year old.

Cross posted.

The Grand as a whole is lovely. The Club Level offerings are usually good. Breakfast is Okay. Sometimes you get mickey waffles. They have afternoon tea so if you head back to the resort for an afternoon rest you can get some yummy scones or trifle. They also usually put on a nice pre-dinner spread. The grounds are beautiful. I love listening to the piano in the evening. The pools are great. You'll have the monorail and boat options as well as buses for transportation. Close to MK and Poly and Contemporary for food offerings.

Now, just to be clear I'm not really knocking the suite, but it was a let down for us as to what you'd think of when thinking Grand Floridian Two Bedroom Suite. I'm absolutely sure you'll enjoy your stay in it, but it is not something we would choose on our own with our group who regularly stays club level at the GF.

The discounted price is usually still over $2000 which just doesn't correlate with what you get at all so you are getting an expensive upgrade so that's a plus. One could get three standard main building club level roomsl for that with a discount or even 4 outer building club level rooms for the same time period that we traveled in the summer, so in that way you are making out well.

Our experience was that on our last trip we were "upgraded" to a suite pre-arrival because they needed our rooms at the Sugar Loaf for a convention. Size wise it's basically like having 3 regular rooms. One has a king size bed, the middle living area has a pull out sofa, t.v. and table, and the other has two queens. There are small standard size balconies off the two bedrooms, but disappointingly not off the living area. We needed sleeping for 10 and so we ended up having to bring an air mattress. They said they'd give us two roll aways, but we just used our own air mattress for our young boys.

A big plus is that you should have access to both the Royal Palm Club and the Sugar Loaf Club levels with the outer room suites. That is defintiely nice, but the con of this for us is that we all preferred being in the same building with the club lounge since the building our suite was in put us the furthest away and it rained a few times which meant getting wet as we ran over. Not a huge issue, but just something we didn't like.

All in all I'm sure you'll enjoy your stay at the GF. I always say we are going to stay somewhere else next time but the kids always want to go back to GF, so that's where we end up.
 
Does anyone have a recent room service menu? We were thinking of having a lazy breakfast one day (it’s kind of a tradition!).
 
Quick question about GF Cafe. The breakfast and lunch menus seem to be the same. Does this mean that they serve everything on those menus from opening until 2pm when they stop serving lunch and have a break before the switch over to dinner?

Just wondering if breakfast food will be available for our 1:35pm lunch ADR.
 
Quick question about GF Cafe. The breakfast and lunch menus seem to be the same. Does this mean that they serve everything on those menus from opening until 2pm when they stop serving lunch and have a break before the switch over to dinner?

Just wondering if breakfast food will be available for our 1:35pm lunch ADR.
Yes, breakfast food will be available for your lunch ADR. The full breakfast and lunch menu can be ordered for either meal.
 
Yes, breakfast food will be available for your lunch ADR. The full breakfast and lunch menu can be ordered for either meal.
Do you by any chance know if Gasparellas serve bounty platters for breakfast ?...On the Disney website it says no and on another website it says they do?
 
It is still an option, but seems like people are more likely to be sitting in the lobby.
I did enjoy my stay, but would have preferred to have my sister with me. It was a solo trip so I was free to come and go as I pleased. That meant a lot of lobby time for me. The heat was excessive but as I'm used to it, being north of Atlanta, it was not unexpected. The crowds were no worse than I figured. Matter of fact, I was surprised to be able to refresh and get fastpasses while in the parks.
I was in Big Pine Key, with a lagoon view (if you can call it that when you have to look between two big trees blocking the view!). There was a new pianist in the lobby, Jaime, who I really enjoyed. He was filling in for Wes. Only heard him once but sure would like him to be on the regular schedule. It was he who was at the piano in the current commercial featuring the GF lobby.

Glad you had a great stay :goodvibes.

We have a once-in-a-lifetime long weekend booked at the Grand to celebrate our 35th anniversary.
The review got me a bit anxious and rethinking our reservation but in the end, we are going to experience for ourselves and hope it is wonderful!

Good for you! The GF is a beautiful resort and all resorts have good and bad reviews, so I'm glad you're not letting this one deter you from staying there. Hope you have a great anniversary trip :wizard:.

So I am booking as soon as packages open next Tuesday. Planning on a stay from June 9-23 of 2020. I was curious about a room request/ building preference to ask for. We are a family of four who love the pool, lagoon views, and refilling our our mugs often. I am also a fan of a late night cigar after the wife and kids go to bed, so proximity to one of the smoking benches would be nice (although not mandatory). We will be doing parks every day, but not rope to fireworks at all. We are more of a "get a late start" kind go group. Club level is not on my agenda seeing as we also do the DDDP.

We have stayed at AKL and POLY before. Last year at Poly, we had a 1st floor room in Samoa on the end directly across from the volcano pool gate. That was awesome.

Any way, any pointers would be awesome.

Anywhere at the GF is great as the grounds aren't that spread out, but my two favorite outer buildings are Big Pine Key and Boca Chica. Both overlook the courtyard pool and are close to the main building (but not too far from Gasparilla's). I can't help with smoking areas, but hopefully others will be able to help. Good luck booking tomorrow :).

While I sit here and impatiently wait for June 18th to arrive so I can book for 2020, I have a quick question...
We've stayed at GF before and have done lagoon view, outdoor TPV and sugar loaf CL and on our last trip our girls mentioned how they'd love to try the main building. Just looking to see what people thought of the RPC, we'd be looking at TPV rooms.

RPC is amazing! I can't speak for TPV as I've only stayed standard RPC, but main building CL overall is great. The lounge is large/spacious with beautiful views of the grounds. Hope you have a great time :).

So we just arrived home from a 4 night stay at GF. I posted earlier about our interactions with cast members. It was extraordinary. Every cast member we had contact with was great. Security, valets, bell services, check in....all were a pleasure to deal with. Even in the mornings when we were walking down to hall to go out for the day, any housekeeping staff that happened to be walking out of another room would greet us. I really can't think of one bad thing to say about the staff. We did a pool day on our arrival day and got a cabana. The staff was great there as well.

Our overall stay was outstanding and we had a great time. The only complaint I could even have, and it is really not a complaint, would be about breakfast at 1900 Park Fare. The food was good, but as far as breakfast buffets go, I think Boma and The Wave both have much better food. But our server was fantastic and the character interaction was good as well. Dinner at the Grand Floridian Cafe was very good. The shrimp and grits are delicious!

We stayed in a 4th floor room in Conch Key, which is basically the same room as in the review, only in a different building. Our room was clean and we had an excellent view of the castle, lake and monorail. As far as the complaints about the couch, I don't remember seeing any stains on ours and it was comfortable to sit on. However, I guess it is just kind of a plain red couch, so maybe a litter fancier couch would fit the GF better. Although I probably wouldn't have even thought about that without seeing the review. The room was in good shape, well cleaned each day and there were no issues with housekeeping at all.

We never had any issues with our magic bands while there, but we only had one room. I do know that when we went in November we booked 2 rooms at All-Star Movies because we needed at least 2 rooms for the number of people going. I booked both rooms, but they did put the second room lead name under my adult daughter. So the explanation about the same name on 2 rooms does kind of make sense.

Now I will say that we did not pay the price quoted in the review. There was a good AP rate available when we booked and, at the time the GF had better rates under the AP special than any other of the monorail resorts.

I wouldn't hesitate to stay again.

Thanks for your review. Glad you had a great time :flower3:.

So I’m 13 days away from my first visit to the Grand!!! I will be getting engaged!!!!

Congratulations on your upcoming engagement! Hope you have a magical trip :wizard:.

Hi Everyone... I need Help! We just got a phone call moving our stay at BWI club level to the Grand Floridian (in 10 days). I have spent a year planning on the Boardwalk, with 2 parents, 2 kids and 2 grandparents. I know almost nothing about the Grand Floridian. We will be in a 2 bedroom suite, unsure of building or view at this point. Can someone point me to reviews, photos,, etc? What are your favorite/lease favorite things about the Grand? Anything I need to know? Any tips on GF with a 6 and 9 year old.


I don't have any experience with the suites, but wanted to say I hope you have a great trip :).
 
Just returned from the GF on Saturday and it was AMAZING. Thank you so much to everyone on this board for providing such helpful tips. We were in Sago Cay on the 4th floor in a dormer room. I actually loved the dormer room; originally I was hesitant because of the smaller balcony but we rarely used it anyway as we had a crib set up in front of the door. The view was lovely - we looked out on the marina and to our left could see Space Mountain. Every single CM I encountered was so friendly, as well. Fireworks in front of Gaspies with music piped in was like icing on the cake. Can't wait to go back some day!
 
Just returned from the GF on Saturday and it was AMAZING. Thank you so much to everyone on this board for providing such helpful tips. We were in Sago Cay on the 4th floor in a dormer room. I actually loved the dormer room; originally I was hesitant because of the smaller balcony but we rarely used it anyway as we had a crib set up in front of the door. The view was lovely - we looked out on the marina and to our left could see Space Mountain. Every single CM I encountered was so friendly, as well. Fireworks in front of Gaspies with music piped in was like icing on the cake. Can't wait to go back some day!

Glad you had a great time and enjoyed the GF :goodvibes.
 
Are the dormer rooms only on the 5th floor, or are they on the 4th floor of some buildings too? Do corner rooms have any 'extras' like an extra window, or is there no difference?

Also, does anyone have pictures/links to show the difference between a dormer/not dormer room? Deciding which we should request for our trip in August!
 
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