Disney's Beach Club Resort — Hotel in Bay Lake

If Epcot is your favorite park, I’d highly recommend Disney’s Beach Club Resort and Disney Beach Club Villas. The main selling point for us is the resort is only steps away from the entrance to Epcot. ||The walk into the lobby offers an enchanting ocean scent. The villas are modern, decorated in a nautical/beach theme, and were very clean. The beds are relatively firm; however, the pillows were soft. We benefited from having a washer/dryer in our unit, along with a full kitchen - especially since it rained almost every day of our vacation which was then topped off with Hurricane Milton in the middle of our stay. It was nice of the resort to offer activities for the kids, as well as free arcade play for the day the parks were closed.||Some of the less desirable aspects of this resort tended to revolve around the mixed and confusing messages provided by cast members about expectations for guests to follow as a result of the approaching hurricane. For example, guests were told to place mobile orders for the next day’s breakfast and lunch the day prior to the hurricane making landfall. The problem with this plan was 1.) the villas aren’t connected to the resort so walking outside to physically go to the restaurant to get a mobile order was not going to be an option during a hurricane event 2.) how was one supposed to pick up a mobile order for the next day if the villas building was going to be on lockdown? We were finally told by a cast member that we should have placed our order for food boxes to be picked up the same day (for the next day). Okay, clearly not the initial instructions given. By the time we received clarification, it was 8:25 PM and the building was going to be locked at 8:30 PM. My husband asked the cast member what we were supposed to do because the instructions were not clearly or concisely stated, and we had no food in our room outside of a few snacks and beverages. We were met with no response other than, “Well this building is going to be locked.” Um, yeah, we established that fact already. Our question was about dining for the next day. ||Thankfully, the hurricane did not cause substantial damage to the resorts and parks as everyone had anticipated. Guests were allowed out of their rooms the next morning even though the parks were closed. Where things got tricky fast is guests of The Beach and Yacht Club Resort, Boardwalk, and the Swan/Dolphin were now descending on very limited dining offerings, with little to no guarantee of available seating at the few options offered. One could not rely on basically anything posted on the app. None of the restaurants were further taking ANY online reservations, so you could walk around aimlessly for hours looking for somewhere to sit down and eat a meal with no success. Cast members were themselves confused as to their own offerings and hours of operation (which honestly seemed to be arbitrary and/or based on the whim of the staff/mgt.).||For lunch, we walked over to the boardwalk area in the hope we could get table service at Trattoria al Forno. We were told breakfast was still being served at 12:30 PM (which seems weird for an Italian restaurant), the restaurant would close at 1:00 PM, and then would reopen for dinner at 5:00 PM. Online information characterized breakfast ending at 11:30 AM (as most restaurants tend to follow). There was no mention at all of lunch being cancelled at this restaurant altogether for the day. Strike one on this date. ||For dinner, we planned for table service at the Cape May buffet in The Beach Club. We arrived at the restaurant around 7:15 PM and were told no more guests would be added to the wait list until 7:45 PM. Fine. We waited in the lobby with hoards of screaming kids and their inattentive parents, and again, approached the hostess to be added to the waiting list as promised. At that point, we were informed no guests would be added to the list until 8:15 PM. Strike two. We left out of frustration, and to see if we could be seated at Ale and Compass at The Yacht Club. On our walk to The Yacht Club, we did take note of multiple, open tables at Cape May. In fact, open table seemed to outnumber the amount of diners. At Ale and Compass, we were told the wait was 45 minutes, meaning we would have been waiting to sit down at any restaurant on the premises for nearly two hours. We finally gave up, and as we were walking back to the villas, we decided to dine at Beaches and Cream. There we finally had success. We waited quite a while for what amounts to fast food offerings in a table service format, but the meal was filling and tasty. Then, we asked if we could use our dining plan snacks on milkshakes or ice cream. Our server said this was possible, but only at the outside window which was supposed to be open until 11:00 PM. So far so good. We walk outside to the window and were promptly told they were not taking any further orders (at around 9:30 PM). Strike three. My husband had finally had it with being lied to and led astray several times during the previous 24 hr. period, so he let that cast member have it (including informing them their own server instructed us to order from the outside window). ||Even with these setbacks due to the hurricane, we would stay at The Beach Club again. It is a beautiful facility with so many amenities. We only hope we never have to deal with a major hurricane again (for more reasons than one) while staying at this resort, if, for nothing else, avoiding all the confusion from the right hand not knowing what the...

We stayed at Beach Club years ago, and this was our first time back at a deluxe resort in over 10 years. It was an absolute disaster. We arrived at 1pm after a 5am flight (up at 3am). Checked in early with our companion party. Companions received an early room ready notification at 2pm. At 3pm (normal posted check-in time), we still did not have a room. Went up to the desk at 3:15pm to inquire since we had dinner reservations for 3:45pm and were still in our travel clothes and wanted to change/freshen up. After 20 minutes at the desk and multiple calls to the main line/housekeeping, we were informed that no room near our companions was ready, but they could place us in another ready room. Disgruntled, tired and about to be late for a reservation we agreed. We ended up at the very end of the resort (a 7 minute walk from the elevator) and completely opposite side from our party. We had booked this trip over a year in advance noting our party members, yet Disney did not have the capacity to place us/prepare rooms nearby each other? Not only that, but no hotel that we've ever stayed at did not have our room ready at the posted check-in time. When we asked the cast member about it, she informed us they "try our best to have rooms ready, but it's not a guarantee." This is Disney's idea of a deluxe resort? Adding fuel to the frustration, on the way to our room, we noticed a single room had four housekeepers in it chatting, with two on their phones. Our room itself was "rushed" ready (no magic) with hair in the sink, a tub that didn't drain, and stained towels.

That evening, we requested a room change if possible and were informed they could move us in two days. We agreed and thanked them, but the castmember then followed up with the comment that this wasn't normal since we "opted to not wait for a ready room" and it was "our choice to not wait." We politely reminded her we simply took any room we could get because we needed to change/freshen up after traveling for 9 hours, to which she replied "well you could have just waited for your room."

Despite the lack of empathy, we signed up to change rooms and were informed that if we brought our luggage to bell services, they would bring them up to the new room free of charge when it was assigned. So after only two nights, we packed up all our belongings as though checking out and brought them downstairs. When I received the notification that we had our new room, I called bell services to be sure they knew. The kind castmember assured us it would be taken care of, and even took the room number and luggage claim number. Comforted it was under control, we stayed late at the parks for extended hours. However upon returning to our new room at 11:30pm, we had no luggage. Called the desk, apparently the bell service "never got the notice we moved" despite us having called and specifically checking they were aware and being assured it would be taken care of. We had to wait until almost midnight for our belongings.

All in all the deluxe resort we had once stayed at is no more. The convenience to Epcot is undeniable, and the pool/Beaches and Cream are great (although the adult hot tub was broken, which was unfortunate). We did have some wonderful cast member encounters in the marketplace and lobby as well. Yet the front desk staff certain leaves empathy and kindness to be desired. I understand that there are rude, unkind people in droves these days, but we were nothing but patient, understanding and tried our best to be calm, despite our unending frustration. What should have been a relaxing stay, unpacked and "home" was a nightmare, with every night spent waiting in line at the front desk and every morning waking up exhausted and frustrated. This is our second time in a Disney resort in 5 years, and we hoped the issues we had at the moderate Caribbean Beach were isolated to that resort, but it's clear the entire system has failed. We will never stay at a Disney-owned...

The location of Disney's Beach Club resort is great and transportation options to the parks from Beach Club are also great. Also, housekeeping staff and Beaches and Cream staff were wonderful!

Worth noting that the main pool, a major feature of this hotel, just closed for renovations for the next few months.

For us, the hotel's front desk supervisor/manager's response to our request to move rooms due to excessive noise ruined our stay.

We stayed at Beach Club for a conference taking place at the resort. We go to this conference annually, usually staying at connecting Yacht Club, but this year were assigned Beach. Our room was a connecting room to the room next to it, which perhaps makes the sound issue worse, though we could hear the people above us walking around, etc, which I would think is the same in any room.

We did not know the party next door, just happened to be assigned a connecting room. Upon checking into our room, we could hear a child screaming (like a tantrum, not an emergency) next door. As parents ourselves, we were sympathetic and figured it would be momentary. However, it lasted until we left the room for a bit, and we could hear it again that evening, and again late at night. (To clarify, it was not an occasional noise or baby crying - it was a constant stream of screaming phrases we could hear word for word no matter where we were in our hotel room, even with a white noise machine and a portable fan on).

When we realized it was going to be an ongoing issue, we went to the front desk to see if there was any possibility we could switch rooms. The front desk apparently has to call a central phone number, so we waited while they did so, and the response we got was there was nowhere to move us. We asked about the possibility of moving the following day if noise continued to be an issue, or even moving to another resort if that would be easier to do, and the cast member said she would go in the back and check, then get back to us.

She returned with a gentleman who we were told was the on-duty front desk supervisor or manager (sorry - I forget which was said specifically). He initially told us that when had looked a few hours prior around 3pm, there were no rooms, but that he would check again just to confirm in case they would be able to move us (which he never did because he was never using a computer to check while he spoke with us).

We were then given a surprising speech about how we could not inconvenience other travelers just because we wanted to move. It was never our intention to inconvenience anyone - we just wanted to be able to sleep ourselves, particularly when on property for a conference with early start times. I said as much, and then we said if nothing could be done, there was nothing else to say and we would just go deal with the noise. The supervisor/manager stopped us when we turned around to leave and said we should stay and talk until we "found common ground" but this just involved more of the same speech where we felt like we were not allowed to speak and were just made to feel like we were rude or unreasonable for asking if it was possible to move to a non-connecting door room.

The noise went on for hours that night and we were unable to sleep. We did not ask for anything the rest of the weekend and just stayed out of the room and away from the lobby as much as possible because it was uncomfortable to be there.

If they were truly unable to move us, then it is what it is, but we should have just been politely told as such, rather than belittled for asking. It would have also been nice if the manager had actually rechecked availability like he said he would, or if an employee would have come and heard what we could hear before assuming we were unreasonable. We have stayed on property at almost every WDW resort and have never had a similar issue with noise or similar treatment by a...