We returned Sunday after staying a week at Caribbean Beach. We had been moved to a preferred room in all the hotel shuffling months ago (originally booked at POFQ) and I have to say I am glad we were able to request the Martinique section. If you are a preferred room, I would highly recommend this. We went to the 1st bus stop for our MK and AK days and there were people from other parts of the resort, including Barbados, who began walking to this bus stop because the waits at the others were so long. At even the 2nd stop (in front of the lobby) the lines were really bad. The bus would fill (because of social distancing) at our stop and then not be able to stop at the other stops. They honestly needed way more buses than they were running for the amount of people that were there. We arrived around 7:20 am at the stops but buses began coming around 8:00 or later. Most of the drivers asked who had been there first, but not all. Since we were there early, the bus issue wasn't a problem for us but I can completely understand the other guest's frustrations. We heard from multiple people that they gave up and took an Uber. I do not know how the buses were running on the other side of the resort.
For the skyliner and HS, I would highly recommend arriving before 8 am and walking to the main hub even if you are closer to Riviera. Before we left we had read that 8:20-8:30 would be fine as an arrival time, that was not the case for last week. We arrived before 8 am for HS and were about 10 families back. And with having to get off and switch if you came from Riviera, it was totally worth the walk to go to the main hub and not be told to go to the back of the huge line. They were taking the first 8-10 groups from the CBR line and then would starting taking groups from the other hotels (POP, etc) who were arriving; then come back to the CBR line for a few groups, back and forth. Those that arrived from other hotels (after the first 5 or so groups) were told to go down the ramp to the back of the line. No way was it worth risking that from Riviera so we were glad we walked to the main hub from Martinique.
None of these transportation issues affected us as we arrived early, but I can only imagine how many others got to the park quite late because of them so I wanted to give a heads up. Getting there early is still the name of the game!
I also wanted to confirm that there were no microwaves in the main areas, but we did request one when we got there and one was brought up to our room about an hour later. I know those are limited so we were happy that it worked out.
We enjoyed our time at the resort and had a great week overall, but it sure felt like a new learning experience after so many trips under our belt!