EDIT: Added info as to family friendliness.
My wife and I stayed 7/27-7/30. We loved our stay! Coronado has always been our favorite moderate, but the tower makes us love it even more!
I will say that of all the Disney owned resorts we have stayed at (most of them), this was the least "Disney" of them all. We are 100% okay with that, but could see some being a little disappointed if they were expecting more Disney theming. With that said, we experienced this on a couples trip. It was very nice for this. We have an 8 year old who has been an AP for three years now and has had his fair share of stays on Disney property. He is okay with not having the everything Disney at the resort. We would have zero issues with staying at the Gran Destino tower with him. In fact we have reservations that include him for F&W and another around Thanksgiving.
Tower
The front desk seemed to have the same wait as the old check-in at El Centro. On a Saturday around 12 noon, we waited about 15 minutes after. The main lobby is a little different with large tables that you can set at. There are a few lounge chairs around as well.
The elevators are really nice after you get used to them. You press what floor you want to get off at and it will give you the letter of what elevator you are to get on. Make sure you pay attention as sometime it seems that letter disappears quickly.
Just for reference:
Lobby bar (Barcelona Lounge) and the exit to the ground level to go to the pool or 3 Bridges is on Floor LL.
Laundry Room is on Floor 3.
Toledo/Dahlia Lounge is on Floor 16.
We did not eat at Toledo, but did check out Dahlia Lounge, Barcelona Lounge and 3 Bridges. The view from Dahlia Lounge is beautiful and definitely worth going up to see even if you don't plan on visiting the lounge. It can be a bit loud up there if it is busy as there is not many materials there to absorb some of the sound. You can order apps there, but we did not try any. The Barcelona Lounge had one of the best margaritas I have had (Santa Margarita). They do have a couple of apps, but not much else than charcuterie.
PRO TIP: If you are in the tower at night and there is a lighting storm going on, go to the Dahlia Lounge and check out the storm. Absolutely beautiful to watch.
Rooms
The room standard tower room feels larger than the other standard rooms at Coronado. Between the beds there is a very wide night table which is a very nice touch for us. We both use CPAP machines and there was plenty of room for our machines, glasses, phones and we were still able to keep the phone plugged in.
Personally I like the bathroom setup. It is a little different than other rooms on Disney property as the shower is in the same space as the sink. There is a rolling privacy door that blocks the bathroom from the hallway area inside of the room. Warning..... if you do not close the privacy door, when someone walks in and you are in the shower, they will see you in your birthday suit! Keep that in mind if you want to get a shower and your luggage from
MDE hasn't arrived yet.
The TVs are neat. When you turn it on there is a nice Spanish music theme loop playing. You can select from a few Disney movies on demand (all free). There is a guide that makes it nice to navigate to what you want to watch instead of flipping through every channel. You can connect your phone to it using chromecast or something of the sort. I had never used it before and it was kind of cool. There is also an option to see your photos from your trip on your memory maker. This didn't work for us for some reason, not sure if it was because we are APs or what, but it wasn't worth the time to figure out.
PRO TIP: If your setting in bed and wonder what the switch between the beds is for as you keep flipping it back and forth while nothing is happening, check one of the switches at the door as you walk into your room. There is one labeled MASTER. If that is flipped on, the switch between the beds turns lighting on above the headboards. We found this out after day 3 of wondering what the heck that switch did.
3 Bridges Bar & Grill
We had a dinner here on one evening. There is a good selection of seating to go with. There is traditional bar seating, tables and lounge couch/chairs. We sat in a lounge chair area. There were tables between them to hold your drinks and apps. I would not recommend this if you have an issue with eating a meal in a lounge chair. As far as the food, it was great. We had the shrimp corn dogs, a special of the day corn cheese dip and the Signature Burger. All were fantastic.
PRO TIP: As of the end of July, they did offer an AP discount of 10%. I didn't really look to see if it included alcohol, but usually AP discounts do not. They did NOT accept TiW at that time.
In general, the new bridges really changes the accessibility of the resort. It cuts down the walk to the front if your in Ranchos as well as the walk to the pool if your in Casitas.
Buses
The location of the transportation bus stop is very close to the front door. It is down hill a little, but there is a handicap accessible ramp if you cannot do stairs. We didn't really notice a difference at all in bus frequency compared to all of our other stays in the past couple of years.
I think what was great though was the new bus stop for the MDE. There is now designated stops for the MDE and it has some seating and cover. We only arrived on MDE from Destino, and did not depart on MDE.