Howdy, folks! My latest trip during the WDW 50th Celebration is a bit of a special one for me as it completes a lot of "bucket list" items I've wanted to do since I was a kid. I had a great year last year, and everything was lining up perfectly to make the dream vacation a reality - to stay in the Contemporary Resort. But it wouldn't be enough for me to just to stay here, I'd have to be at the top. As early as when I was at least 10 or 11, I always said I wanted to stay here in the Presidential Suite one day. Oh, to dream...but seriously, how close to that can I get down here on planet Earth? Well, close enough that a six night stay for an Atrium Club Level Theme Park View room was very doable. Club Level? At my favorite hotel? Yes! Reflecting on this trip a week later, I'm very glad I "settled" for a studio and not the suite (or a suite at all). Sorry 11-year old me, but flexibility is a virtue. Le mieux est le mortel ennemi du bien (The better is the mortal enemy of the good).
Pre-Planning:
I generally do WDW with my family, but this year I did Contemporary separate from their DVC Poly Studios. Five adults, it works, but I like my private space
We all booked our rooms around the same time, but I wanted an extra night (Saturday) before the rest of my party got into town (Sun-Thurs). As far as pre-planning activities, everything went exactly as you'd expect in terms of Disney doing their part. A fancy letter from Signature Services, a courtesy call at the 60 day mark, and even a call from the resort proper asking what time I'd be arriving. Couldn't really give a good answer, as my brother and future sister-in-law decided to head down there even earlier and offered to pick me up from the airport. I was originally going to just spend the first night by myself, but figured why not let my family chauffeurs crash with me for the first night?
Advance Dining Reservations...were a little tricky. Our family all takes turns doing one dinner during the trip, and for my pick I knew I had to do California Grill. Another bucket list item, sort of. Since I had the earlier arrival date, I ended up booking all of the reservations. The day of (60+10 mark), I thought the reservations opened up at 7AM EST, and was a little surprised to see most of California Grill gone already. Thankfully I was able to get a reservation for a little early but on the last day of our trip (the day I wanted). Parents wanted to do Paddlefish (no problem, and the most flexible reservation we had), wasn't sure about my brother. Not too long after, I find out he wanted to do O'hana for dinner. Well, you can probably guess how that went. Poorly. We got a reservation for Toledo at Coronado Springs. Every time I went to check for O'hana, nothing. Not at 70 days out, not at 50, 30, or even the week of. Oh well.
Park Reservations...another endeavor. We decide to do one park day this year. Parents and I got tickets and reservations for Magic Kingdom no problem. Brother waits too long, reservations for MK are booked up, gets the Park Hopper and a reservation for Animal Kingdom with the intention to hop to MK later in the day. Shame we all couldn't go to our park at the same time. I'm still not sure what purpose the park reservations have, but it's just how it is for now.
Day 1:
Early arrival to airport. First time flying first class with Delta. Great experience, and the two free checked bags was very welcome, I made sure to get the most out of it and brought some extra outfits along. Hadn't flown since 2019 so being back in the air was interesting. I'm only a couple of states away from WDW, so I spent more time in airports than I actually did flying. Not really a problem though, thanks to the Delta Sky Club. Having slept in the back of one of the terminals in the Atlanta airport before, this was a welcome change of pace
The worst part about flying was that Shake Shack was closed on my arrival day...so so sad. As a mini-review of flying first, I'm hooked. It's well worth the extra money to me. The worst part about doing a short distance is that it seemed whenever I was getting into my Jack and Coke the plane would preparing to land! Oh to have such problems, right? When I arrived at MCO, I wanted to check out the Burger King in Terminal 4 (it's just one of those weird memories I have of our family on our first trips to WDW), but the line was ridiculous, at 3:30PM nonetheless!. I just decided to head to baggage claim and meet my brother/SIL. Got my bags, shockingly quickly, and headed out. Quick note, but I have to express my disappointment that the Magical Express is no longer a thing. Don't even get me started on the Minnie Vans. It almost seems more practical to get a stretch limo to the resort at this point (key word being *almost*). After the airport we to a coffee shop that was, according to my brother (a barista), just absolutely awful. I had to agree as the Cubano I got was very off compared what I'm used to. We think they burned the milk. I brushed it off, he proceeded to start writing a Yelp review. Surely there was better coffee to come!
We arrived at the Contemporary at around 5PM. When I checked in, there was zero wait at the check in desk. Mobile check in must really be taking off. Good, leave some space for those of us who want to unplug and do things the old fashioned way During check-in, I was told trash/towel service was every other day and the beds would not be made - almost as if I was being given an option to opt out of any service entirely. This was pretty shocking at first but wasn't the case during my trip. Then after a little silence, everything was ready! Finally, it would be my turn to be whisked away and escorted up to the Atrium Club! At last, one of my dreams came true and I got to scan my magic band and go to the club floor! Got a quick tour of the lounge and was greeted by some of the cast members there. An odd thing I noticed - some of the suits the male CMs were wearing were about two sizes two big. Not sure if this is intentional? Maybe they had lost some weight recently, and if so good for them!
I had heard the lounge was a little on the small side, but I don't exactly have a lot to compare it to. Foot traffic didn't seem too bad during the late afternoon. I'll discuss more on the lounge later, but let's head to the room. Being on the top of the Atrium was an unbelievable feeling. I had always wanted to be able to come up to this floor, and now it was happening! Looking down to the 4th floor was mesmerizing, and looking at the entirety of the large "A" window from up here was simply breathtaking. Making my way to the north side of the hall, my room was right in the middle. Far enough from the lounge to not hear too much noise, but not all the way at the end of the hall (thank goodness). I liked the hallway redesign, though I could do without so much orange...but I digress. There's lots of Incredibles themeing, but even though I don't really like Disney IP it didn't bother me. I'm very curious about the arguably more subtle theming on the 14th floor and would love to see it in person.
OK, enough hallway banter, let's go to the room already! How would I describe the rethemed rooms at CR? Well, they are both everything and nothing like what you'd see online. The photos, sure, they show the stuff and different furniture. But the feeling of being in there is very different. Much like in the hallway, the Incredibles theming did not bother me. It wasn't only until about my fourth or fifth day I even noticed the curtains had Incredibles characters on them. Probably the noisiest item were those decorative pillows. I'd keep putting them on the couch just to find them back on my bed every day - at least I know the mousekeeping are here! The couch is OK, it did not get much use other than to lay out clothes. The single sleeper that pulls out from behind is kind of in an odd spot being right underneath the TV. The table, though heavy, can be moved thankfully and is not fixed. I would have preferred a desk like what was in the pre-renovated rooms. Beds were AMAZING, and I got some excellent sleep during my stay.
Here's a real tale-from-tech support: When I went to call bell services, the phone wasn't working - no sound out of the handset. Decided just to hop down and give Bell Services the ticket in person. Headed back up to the room, started to look around at the phone to see if anything was out of the ordinary. And wouldn't you know it, whoever cleaned the handset plugged it in to the Fax/Data port instead of the handset port. Really funny if anything, easy mistake since both ports are the same size, but that feeling of not being able to escape being an IT worker for just one single day! LOL.
Alright, let's compliment-sandwich this room review up.
Big Positive #1: the bathrooms. These new bathrooms here at the CR are my favorite on property, no question. My room was shower only, fine by me since it's just me 5 out of the 6 nights. However, having also seen the new Poly studio bathrooms, I think more people are going to prefer those. The shower at Poly has a seat/bench, something I'm a little perplexed is not included in the new CR bathrooms. The Poly bathroom layout was also split, with a shower/sink room and a separate full bathroom with tub, so two people could shower at once. I'm not sure if the non-DVC studios are like this, but if so that's a great feature. However, I think the overall feel goes to the CR. Absolutely love the lighting, monorail etching into the mirror, and the double sinks worked perfectly. I remember from an earlier trip how not-so-awesome those flat sinks were.
Negative: If there's any piece of criticism about the renovated rooms I can agree with, it's this - the rooms feel rushed. On the whole, I really the room. But...if you look closely, you will notice things. In my room, it was missing detail in the blue/gold lines, and some patch work done by some of the spotlights above the beds. The lock for the doors to the toilet was finnicky. The quality of the furniture itself is fine, but doesn't really give off a "luxury" kind of vibe. I will give some points back though - go look at the Empathy Suite in Vegas or the Rainbow Suite in Foxwoods and tell me you wouldn't come running back to the Contemporary but in all seriousness this is supposed to be a four-diamond AAA resort, at four-figures a night, with a Four Seasons quite literally in striking distance of the Contemporary. Even for me, who will die on the hill defending CR as my favorite resort, on property or not, I can't help but take pause.
But all of this...everything I had just written can all melt away as soon as you open that door to the balcony and step outside to what I'll call "the Million Dollar Disney view". I've had the great fortune to stay at WDW many times, mostly at other Deluxes with some Moderate level resorts sprinkled in there. But never, and I mean never have I experienced anything quite like this. The photos don't do it justice. You truly feel like you are on top of the Magic Kingdom resort area - not just from a height sense but you feel like you are literally right on top of the castle itself. Watching the fireworks show is nothing short of spectacular, and you can feel each individual firework booming on that balcony. Not to mention the spectacular sunsets and sunrises, waking up and looking at that castle directly from your bed is something I'll never forget.
Much more to come, but am hungry and needs break
Pre-Planning:
I generally do WDW with my family, but this year I did Contemporary separate from their DVC Poly Studios. Five adults, it works, but I like my private space
We all booked our rooms around the same time, but I wanted an extra night (Saturday) before the rest of my party got into town (Sun-Thurs). As far as pre-planning activities, everything went exactly as you'd expect in terms of Disney doing their part. A fancy letter from Signature Services, a courtesy call at the 60 day mark, and even a call from the resort proper asking what time I'd be arriving. Couldn't really give a good answer, as my brother and future sister-in-law decided to head down there even earlier and offered to pick me up from the airport. I was originally going to just spend the first night by myself, but figured why not let my family chauffeurs crash with me for the first night? Advance Dining Reservations...were a little tricky. Our family all takes turns doing one dinner during the trip, and for my pick I knew I had to do California Grill. Another bucket list item, sort of. Since I had the earlier arrival date, I ended up booking all of the reservations. The day of (60+10 mark), I thought the reservations opened up at 7AM EST, and was a little surprised to see most of California Grill gone already. Thankfully I was able to get a reservation for a little early but on the last day of our trip (the day I wanted). Parents wanted to do Paddlefish (no problem, and the most flexible reservation we had), wasn't sure about my brother. Not too long after, I find out he wanted to do O'hana for dinner. Well, you can probably guess how that went. Poorly. We got a reservation for Toledo at Coronado Springs. Every time I went to check for O'hana, nothing. Not at 70 days out, not at 50, 30, or even the week of. Oh well.
Park Reservations...another endeavor. We decide to do one park day this year. Parents and I got tickets and reservations for Magic Kingdom no problem. Brother waits too long, reservations for MK are booked up, gets the Park Hopper and a reservation for Animal Kingdom with the intention to hop to MK later in the day. Shame we all couldn't go to our park at the same time. I'm still not sure what purpose the park reservations have, but it's just how it is for now.
Day 1:
Early arrival to airport. First time flying first class with Delta. Great experience, and the two free checked bags was very welcome, I made sure to get the most out of it and brought some extra outfits along. Hadn't flown since 2019 so being back in the air was interesting. I'm only a couple of states away from WDW, so I spent more time in airports than I actually did flying. Not really a problem though, thanks to the Delta Sky Club. Having slept in the back of one of the terminals in the Atlanta airport before, this was a welcome change of pace
The worst part about flying was that Shake Shack was closed on my arrival day...so so sad. As a mini-review of flying first, I'm hooked. It's well worth the extra money to me. The worst part about doing a short distance is that it seemed whenever I was getting into my Jack and Coke the plane would preparing to land! Oh to have such problems, right? When I arrived at MCO, I wanted to check out the Burger King in Terminal 4 (it's just one of those weird memories I have of our family on our first trips to WDW), but the line was ridiculous, at 3:30PM nonetheless!. I just decided to head to baggage claim and meet my brother/SIL. Got my bags, shockingly quickly, and headed out. Quick note, but I have to express my disappointment that the Magical Express is no longer a thing. Don't even get me started on the Minnie Vans. It almost seems more practical to get a stretch limo to the resort at this point (key word being *almost*). After the airport we to a coffee shop that was, according to my brother (a barista), just absolutely awful. I had to agree as the Cubano I got was very off compared what I'm used to. We think they burned the milk. I brushed it off, he proceeded to start writing a Yelp review. Surely there was better coffee to come!
We arrived at the Contemporary at around 5PM. When I checked in, there was zero wait at the check in desk. Mobile check in must really be taking off. Good, leave some space for those of us who want to unplug and do things the old fashioned way
During check-in, I was told trash/towel service was every other day and the beds would not be made - almost as if I was being given an option to opt out of any service entirely. This was pretty shocking at first but wasn't the case during my trip. Then after a little silence, everything was ready! Finally, it would be my turn to be whisked away and escorted up to the Atrium Club! At last, one of my dreams came true and I got to scan my magic band and go to the club floor! Got a quick tour of the lounge and was greeted by some of the cast members there. An odd thing I noticed - some of the suits the male CMs were wearing were about two sizes two big. Not sure if this is intentional? Maybe they had lost some weight recently, and if so good for them! I had heard the lounge was a little on the small side, but I don't exactly have a lot to compare it to. Foot traffic didn't seem too bad during the late afternoon. I'll discuss more on the lounge later, but let's head to the room. Being on the top of the Atrium was an unbelievable feeling. I had always wanted to be able to come up to this floor, and now it was happening! Looking down to the 4th floor was mesmerizing, and looking at the entirety of the large "A" window from up here was simply breathtaking. Making my way to the north side of the hall, my room was right in the middle. Far enough from the lounge to not hear too much noise, but not all the way at the end of the hall (thank goodness). I liked the hallway redesign, though I could do without so much orange...but I digress. There's lots of Incredibles themeing, but even though I don't really like Disney IP it didn't bother me. I'm very curious about the arguably more subtle theming on the 14th floor and would love to see it in person.
OK, enough hallway banter, let's go to the room already! How would I describe the rethemed rooms at CR? Well, they are both everything and nothing like what you'd see online. The photos, sure, they show the stuff and different furniture. But the feeling of being in there is very different. Much like in the hallway, the Incredibles theming did not bother me. It wasn't only until about my fourth or fifth day I even noticed the curtains had Incredibles characters on them. Probably the noisiest item were those decorative pillows. I'd keep putting them on the couch just to find them back on my bed every day - at least I know the mousekeeping are here! The couch is OK, it did not get much use other than to lay out clothes. The single sleeper that pulls out from behind is kind of in an odd spot being right underneath the TV. The table, though heavy, can be moved thankfully and is not fixed. I would have preferred a desk like what was in the pre-renovated rooms. Beds were AMAZING, and I got some excellent sleep during my stay.
Here's a real tale-from-tech support: When I went to call bell services, the phone wasn't working - no sound out of the handset. Decided just to hop down and give Bell Services the ticket in person. Headed back up to the room, started to look around at the phone to see if anything was out of the ordinary. And wouldn't you know it, whoever cleaned the handset plugged it in to the Fax/Data port instead of the handset port. Really funny if anything, easy mistake since both ports are the same size, but that feeling of not being able to escape being an IT worker for just one single day! LOL.
Alright, let's compliment-sandwich this room review up.
Big Positive #1: the bathrooms. These new bathrooms here at the CR are my favorite on property, no question. My room was shower only, fine by me since it's just me 5 out of the 6 nights. However, having also seen the new Poly studio bathrooms, I think more people are going to prefer those. The shower at Poly has a seat/bench, something I'm a little perplexed is not included in the new CR bathrooms. The Poly bathroom layout was also split, with a shower/sink room and a separate full bathroom with tub, so two people could shower at once. I'm not sure if the non-DVC studios are like this, but if so that's a great feature. However, I think the overall feel goes to the CR. Absolutely love the lighting, monorail etching into the mirror, and the double sinks worked perfectly. I remember from an earlier trip how not-so-awesome those flat sinks were.
Negative: If there's any piece of criticism about the renovated rooms I can agree with, it's this - the rooms feel rushed. On the whole, I really the room. But...if you look closely, you will notice things. In my room, it was missing detail in the blue/gold lines, and some patch work done by some of the spotlights above the beds. The lock for the doors to the toilet was finnicky. The quality of the furniture itself is fine, but doesn't really give off a "luxury" kind of vibe. I will give some points back though - go look at the Empathy Suite in Vegas or the Rainbow Suite in Foxwoods and tell me you wouldn't come running back to the Contemporary
but in all seriousness this is supposed to be a four-diamond AAA resort, at four-figures a night, with a Four Seasons quite literally in striking distance of the Contemporary. Even for me, who will die on the hill defending CR as my favorite resort, on property or not, I can't help but take pause.But all of this...everything I had just written can all melt away as soon as you open that door to the balcony and step outside to what I'll call "the Million Dollar Disney view". I've had the great fortune to stay at WDW many times, mostly at other Deluxes with some Moderate level resorts sprinkled in there. But never, and I mean never have I experienced anything quite like this. The photos don't do it justice. You truly feel like you are on top of the Magic Kingdom resort area - not just from a height sense but you feel like you are literally right on top of the castle itself. Watching the fireworks show is nothing short of spectacular, and you can feel each individual firework booming on that balcony. Not to mention the spectacular sunsets and sunrises, waking up and looking at that castle directly from your bed is something I'll never forget.
Much more to come, but am hungry and needs break
that, and we may have gone to the arcade for a bit. I'm glad this is back, funny to see all the games still there from many years ago. I definitely spent a little too much time playing Fast and Furious in WDW as an older kid... We ended up getting our first "disney burger" from Contempo Cafe and went back up to watch the fireworks and eat some of the welcome macarons. Or maybe we watched fireworks first and then ate? I don't remember 
Once the car was packed up again, I spent a bit more time walking around the 4th floor of the CR, and went down to Contemporary Grounds for a cinnamon roll and matcha latte. Both were great, they better be for $13...cinnamon roll was tasty and big enough I had to save half for later.
I didn't mind too much since I wasn't really doing anything anyway and wouldn't have access to the pools without them. I guess with everything unpacked we would have had to either repack and drive to the lobby, or chase down a luggage cart and bring it over to the Moorea building.
So there we are, standing directly underneath the sun, and of course I forgot to put sunscreen on my head 
so it ended up just being me, my brother and his fiancée that returned to MK for the evening. Off topic but I still think the 2PM restriction for park hopping is ridiculous, wish they could have joined the rest of us earlier. I went back a little earlier, riding the monorail this time (and not a moment too soon, weather was starting to act up) since I wanted to take some time to explore Liberty Square solo. We usually just pass through this area to get to Frontierland, but unbeknownst to me Liberty Square used to be quite the bee's knees in it's heyday. Definitely check out the "Go Behind the Attraction" episode on Liberty Square streaming on Disney+, I learned quite a bit about it. Two main things I wanted to - get some chicken and waffles, and finally do the Hall of Presidents. Sleepy Hollow had the chicken and waffles I was looking for, very tasty and easy to eat without making a giant mess, quite the feat if you ask me. Hall of Presidents was next door, and I'm really glad I finally got to do this. Enjoyed the presentation, seeing the animatronics for each US president was neat. Probably won't surprise anyone but definitely be prepared to hear some heckling for our most recent presidents. from the audience. I also had the delight of sitting near a *very* enthusiastic person about the attraction. It definitely added to my experience 
we had to flag our waitress down and request it (all while trying to do this discreetly). She came back and asked us which flavor we wanted...so I guess it wasn't enough just to do it in advance? I am really hoping we did not just get lucky and my advance request meant something. After that snafu, we were able to surprise my brother with a white chocolate Congratulations cake! They really enjoyed it for the next few days, I know this because of our group text thread 
