I have developed a fascination with this resort. What can you tell me about it? Is it a central bus station or multiple stations? What are the highlights there? What are the cons?
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I have developed a fascination with this resort. What can you tell me about it? Is it a central bus station or multiple stations? What are the highlights there? What are the cons?
We love Old Key West - it's our original home resort for our DVC membership. Actually, when we bought, it was called Disney Vacation Club resort!
There are at least 5 bus stops (maybe 6?) throughout the resort, including one at the main Hospitality House. There is also an internal-only bus, but if you know where you need to be, you can grab a theme-park bus or Disney Springs bus to get to another OKW bus stop, too.
High level pros: Rooms are big - largest of the DVC resorts. A studio at OKW has 2 actual queen beds (not a pull-out), and a mini-kitchen area with small fridge, microwave, etc. All the rooms have an outdoor balcony, either with a water view or golf course view. The main Hospitality area is awesome, with a large pool (w/ slide), poolside play areas for the little kids (sand and slides, etc), play areas for the bigger kids (tennis courts, basketball nets, shuffle board, ping pong, fitness center, etc). The boat transportation will take you to/from Disney Springs much of the day. I believe you can also rent a boat to float around the canal on your own!
High level cons: The resort is very spread out, so if you don't get a room near the hospitality area, you might need to take a bus or car to enjoy that area (Note -when making a reservation, you can request "close to hospitality house"). But there are quiet pools throughout the resort, so you can certainly enjoy time at a pool without being in the main area with everyone else! The food options are a bit limited. Olivia's is very nice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But it's still just one option. They do have some snacks you can get by the main pool, too. One potentially BIG con is when OKW was built, even though the buildings go 3 or 4 floors up, they didn't build elevators initially. They did add a few additional new buildings to the resort after they could close up the marketing areas where they had the demo rooms and sales people. In those buildings only, they did add elevators. But if you cannot or won't do steps, you need to request a building with elevator accessibility or a first floor room.
I'm sure others will have some thoughts, too. As I said, we still love OKW. It just has a homey and peaceful feel when we are there. We have some amazing family memories there. If you get the chance, I would recommend you give it a try and see what you think!
There are multiple stops. I prefer staying near hospitality house. There is a boat available to Disney Springs from hospitality house and there is also a sit-down restaurant here. The rooms are very large. Depending on where you stay, you could experience noise from buses as buses travel very close to the rooms in some locations of this resort.
Thanks for the info. :) I'm even more excited to try it now.
I don't have too much to add. This is also our home resort, but we have only stayed there once...last year during Hurricane Irma. We loved it. It's beautiful, great location (close to Epcot and Disney Springs). It has one of the golf courses that goes through/adjacent to part of it.
We loved our experience there, although it was a bit different than what you would normally get because of the hurricane. We were confined to the resort in the day leading up to the hurricane, and spent some time around the Hospitality House. WDW had sent Chip and Dale to keep guests occupied, and we wound up with a GREAT character interaction - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGbkWyKBhwo
The hurricane hit us at night, and we slept through it. We never lost power/internet/cable. The next morning, we were out and about around 10am (parks closed for damage assessment/cleanup of course), but they got the pool open by 3pm and we all went swimming. Here is a little video of the minimal hurricane damage around our building (which also shows you where our ice machine was): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNKXVVtiKAo
This is only complaint - that the ice machines are located at the bus stop. So we had to walk down the street to get ice in the bucket.
Previous posters have covered things pretty well, but I just wanted to add that you may not get a "feel" for the vibe of the place on a drive through. Many years ago, we were offered a great last minute deal to stay at OKW. We didn't take it because we weren't familiar with the place. But when we were in WDW, we decided to drive through to see what we'd missed-not much, we decided. Then we joined DVC, and on one trip had to extend an extra night. The only thing available was OKW, so we reluctantly took it. Surprisingly, we LOVED it when we were there-just the casual vibe, and the homey (to us) feeling.
I wonder why a lot of DVC members prefer to stay at other places.
Not that I can speak for all DVC members, but I think one of the perks of DVC is the variety that's available to members at the WDW location. There are times we prefer to stay at Beach Club or Boardwalk due to location (during some of the EPCOT festivals, for example). There are times we prefer to stay at AKL for the restaurants or proximity to AK. But we never intentionally avoid OKW - it's not the perfect location all the time, especially since they've opened so many other DVC resorts. But it is a peaceful, relaxing place to stay.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cinderelley
I think it gets a bit of a bad rep since quite often it's one of the few resorts that tends to be available for late reservations - but one of the reasons for that is because it's so large with so many rooms. There naturally will be rooms available there longer (same with Saratoga).
We don't always stay at OKW, but when we do - I really look forward to those days. And we have stayed there many, many times, having bought there originally when it was The Vacation Club - and was the only location available!
That makes sense. I bet you are you glad you bought early on. Your prices must have been amazing compared to what they are now.Quote:
Originally Posted by ThanxForNoticin
No question - the prices to buy new from Disney are now more than 3x what we paid for our original contract. But the 25+ years of memories are the real value!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Cinderelley