I wanted to thank all of you wonderful people for all the help over these last few months planning our first adventure at the Dolphin Resort. We returned yesterday from our very first stay at the Dolphin Resort. We've visited the resort for dinner several times, but this was our first time actually staying there. It was TERRIFIC! We stayed for 12 glorious nights and loved every minute of it. At check-in, we upgraded to an Epcot fireworks view with balcony for an additional $20 per night. WORTH EVERY PENNY! Dh is a major fireworks fan, so he was absolutely thrilled. We synced the IllumiNations music from Youtube with the fireworks, so we were able to enjoy the music while watching. It really added an extra element of enjoyment. We opted into the 'green' program, so that we only received housekeeping every 4 days. We received $5 vouchers for everyday we didn't get housekeeping. We still received a daily bag with water bottles and coffee. We used the vouchers for meals.
We enjoyed several meals at the Swolphin, and found that the discounts differed with each location. We received the Tables in Wonderland discount at Bluezoo, Kimonos, Fuel, Il Mulino and the Cabana Bar by the pool. We received the AAA discount at Picabu and Fountain restaurants. All were enjoyable experiences, but we were a bit disappointed in the food quality at the Fountain and Cabana Bar & Beach Club. Everything else was delicious!
We spent almost every afternoon by the pools due to heat. Finding chairs was difficult, especially on weekends. We always managed to find something, by circling around. When we were there, there were no umbrellas by the beach chairs at the Swan lap pool. Is that normal? There were only umbrellas at the big tables, not the lounge chairs. For this reason, we never sat by that pool. Shade was essential. Otherwise, the pools were great fun. I mentioned earlier in the thread, that I couldn't get over how different it felt not being at a Disney owned pool. It was soo much more relaxing with drinks being permitted near (and even inside!) the pool, lots of different sized floaties permitted for the kids, and just generally not so strict rules. I saw many kids learning to be more brave in the pools by jumping off their dads' shoulders in the water. Know what I mean? This is never allowed at Disney pools these days (I've seen lifeguards whistle wildly when they see this), and all the kids were having a great time. I have fond memories of doing this with my dad back in the day!
Boat and bus transportation worked very well. We did walk to DHS once, but with all the construction and extra walking, we took the boat the rest of the time. Whenever we shared a bus with BWI (which was every time we returned from Animal Kingdom), we would simply disembark at BWI and walk back to the Dolphin. It was faster than staying on the bus and we just love strolling around the Boardwalk. It was such a treat being so close to Jellyrolls too! When going to Magic Kingdom for rope drop, we grabbed the bus at the Swan in order to get a seat.
We hope to return to the Dolphin in the future. We did have the incredible Hotwire deal though, so I'm sure we'd be paying a lot more money next time. I'll have to see if I can talk dh into it! For now, we have a wonderful memory of an amazing trip. Thanks again, everyone!