Walt Disney World SWAN, DOLPHIN & SWAN RESERVE RESORTS Information & Questions

Thanks Dave. I really wanted a balcony room, so I don’t mind paying the additional fee, but seen lots of people posted about room requests/upgrades and never seen anyone post that they paid when they received them. I was just curious if this was different from the norm. I found it interesting that the Front Desk didn’t say you can’t have adjoining rooms with balcony requests, but instead just said she only had a room on the 2nd and 3rd floor. I would have understood if she said it wasn’t possible due to the layout.
Sometimes, if there are many unsold rooms, a no charge, upgrade/special request may be met as an accommodation and bit of pixie dust or luck. Other no charge upgrades may be due to guests' elite status with SPG (Gold or Plat). Even with elite status, no comped upgrade is ever guaranteed.
 
Checked into the Dolphin on Friday and asked for two room requests in advance -balcony and adjoining rooms. I was disappointed that to get the balcony room, they charged me an upgrade fee of $10.00per night per room and we’re on two different floors,so no adjoining room either. Is this typical for the Dolphin to charge you for a room request? We had a resort view room booked by Costco.
Oh bummer! I wondered how this would work. We are booked at the Dolphin for 6/26-7/7 and we asked for a specific room based on not wanting to hear the footing horn all night long from the boats. When I did that Costco called me back and said I’d be upcharged. So we will see what the room request form I filled out gets us next week. I’m sorry it didn’t work for you :(
 
Sometimes, if there are many unsold rooms, a no charge, upgrade/special request may be met as an accommodation and bit of pixie dust or luck. Other no charge upgrades may be due to guests' elite status with SPG (Gold or Plat). Even with elite status, no comped upgrade is ever guaranteed.
I think you'll see less upgrades with Marriott too, at least that has been the general feeling from other threads I've read. Time will tell I suppose.

I did that Costco called me back and said I’d be upcharged. So we will see what the room request form I filled out gets us next week. I’m sorry it didn’t work for you :(
The Costco rate is such that any change will almost almost always cause a $ upgrade. Back when I put in our request in January all I asked for was to be away from the elevator and of course any possible upgrades ;) We got our request and were at the end of the hall with to bays of windows - loved it.
 
Just got back after 5 nights at the Dolphin. We have stayed at Pop our last 2 trips. Overall, Dolphin was great. The room was a good size, the beds were very comfortable and the pool was great. I did miss that Disney feel you get from a Disney themed resort and the wait for buses to return to the Dolphin was very long on a couple of occasions. The staff was very responsive. I would definitely recommend it to others.
Thanks for the feedback, mb, and welcome home.
 


The Costco rate is such that any change will almost almost always cause a $ upgrade. Back when I put in our request in January all I asked for was to be away from the elevator and of course any possible upgrades ;) We got our request and were at the end of the hall with to bays of windows - loved it.

Hey SteveH I love your avatar pic.... from Trader Sam? :woohoo:

And just chiming in regarding costco room requests.... when I was there in May with a Costco pkg I had used the email link to request our two rooms be: adjoining if possible or very close together (last trip we were on separate floors before I put up a fuss :rolleyes2) and in the west wing. I mentioned that we planned to spend time at the pool so anything close to the pool would be helpful. Well we had wonderful rooms, connecting on the first floor with patios that faced the pool. We were told these were "upgrade fireworks view" rooms but we were not charged anything extra. We were not in our room any night to see fireworks but we guessed they would have been the HS fireworks and being first floor not sure how much you would actually have seen. But we loved our room location, so close to pool, Picabu and bus transport.
 
For those of you holding the SPG Amex (or possibly other AmEx cards), I just saw that I had an am ex offer of $60 off $300 or more on SPG Hotels through 9/4. Just so happened to have a Swan stay booked and checking out 8/31. Nice!
Great!! Thanks for the heads up.
 


Oh bummer! I wondered how this would work. We are booked at the Dolphin for 6/26-7/7 and we asked for a specific room based on not wanting to hear the footing horn all night long from the boats. When I did that Costco called me back and said I’d be upcharged. So we will see what the room request form I filled out gets us next week. I’m sorry it didn’t work for you :(
The view from our room and the extra space on the balcony is still worth the extra amount from the Costco price. I wish the Costco booking would let you select different room categories when booking, then you know what to expect. Overall, impressed with our first visit to the Dolphin.
 
Does anyone know if there is any food available at Phins,on Sunday when they have the Bloody Mary-Sunday Sips -other than the food in the fancy Bloody Mary's-I will be just getting a regular one.
 
Hey SteveH I love your avatar pic.... from Trader Sam? :woohoo:

And just chiming in regarding costco room requests.... when I was there in May with a Costco pkg I had used the email link to request our two rooms be: adjoining if possible or very close together (last trip we were on separate floors before I put up a fuss :rolleyes2) and in the west wing. I mentioned that we planned to spend time at the pool so anything close to the pool would be helpful. Well we had wonderful rooms, connecting on the first floor with patios that faced the pool. We were told these were "upgrade fireworks view" rooms but we were not charged anything extra. We were not in our room any night to see fireworks but we guessed they would have been the HS fireworks and being first floor not sure how much you would actually have seen. But we loved our room location, so close to pool, Picabu and bus transport.
How quiet was your room? Was it loud with the pool nearby? I'll be at the Dolphin for a runDisney event and I'm thinking it would be nice to have a first floor patio room, but I want to make sure I can get to sleep early the night before the race. I stayed at Pop on the first floor once and it was loud most of the night with people passing by and the elevator nearby. Is is unreasonable to think that I could get a quiet first floor patio room preferably with a nice view? I don't mind paying for the patio, but is there an area that I could request that would be quiet and scenic? It will be my first time at the Dolphin.
 
For those of you holding the SPG Amex (or possibly other AmEx cards), I just saw that I had an amex offer of $60 off $300 or more on SPG Hotels through 9/4. Just so happened to have a Swan stay booked and checking out 8/31. Nice!

Sounds great. Are you planning to keep your SPG card come August?
 
How quiet was your room? Was it loud with the pool nearby? I'll be at the Dolphin for a runDisney event and I'm thinking it would be nice to have a first floor patio room, but I want to make sure I can get to sleep early the night before the race. I stayed at Pop on the first floor once and it was loud most of the night with people passing by and the elevator nearby. Is is unreasonable to think that I could get a quiet first floor patio room preferably with a nice view? I don't mind paying for the patio, but is there an area that I could request that would be quiet and scenic? It will be my first time at the Dolphin.

Our room was very quiet. It was not on the main indoor hallway that runs the length of that wing, it was a turn down another corridor so the only people walking by inside were people staying on that particular hall. We did not notice any noise from outside at night at all. The only minor thing was several mornings we sat on our patio to eat a quick breakfast and people do walk by on the sidewalk. Most said a quick hello but it was not intrusive. We just loved the convienience. One time three of us went to the pool and one stayed in room to rest so we just walked over from our patio. It was super short walk to Picabu which we used for breakfast twice and bought snacks from. It was a short walk to the bus as there is a flight of stairs right off that main hall and to go to the boat you just stay on the same floor. You might feel a bit cut off from the lobby unless you make an effort to go upstairs. One trip we were at the very end of the east wing and my goodness that was a looooooong walk from anything! PS. No elevator nearby.
 
Our room was very quiet. It was not on the main indoor hallway that runs the length of that wing, it was a turn down another corridor so the only people walking by inside were people staying on that particular hall. We did not notice any noise from outside at night at all. The only minor thing was several mornings we sat on our patio to eat a quick breakfast and people do walk by on the sidewalk. Most said a quick hello but it was not intrusive. We just loved the convienience. One time three of us went to the pool and one stayed in room to rest so we just walked over from our patio. It was super short walk to Picabu which we used for breakfast twice and bought snacks from. It was a short walk to the bus as there is a flight of stairs right off that main hall and to go to the boat you just stay on the same floor. You might feel a bit cut off from the lobby unless you make an effort to go upstairs. One trip we were at the very end of the east wing and my goodness that was a looooooong walk from anything! PS. No elevator nearby.
Thank you!
 
Thank you!

Maybe I should have added that there were no rooms directly on that main hallway, rooms were all down separate hallways. You can sort of see what I mean by looking at the shape of the west wing.
 
Sounds great. Are you planning to keep your SPG card come August?
I called because the annual fee hit and I got a retention bonus of 5,000 starpoints. Not great, but enough for me to justify the annual fee. The free night on your cardmember anniversary, could be enough to keep me around... if S&D or similar level hotels are eligible. Until august I will use my SPG for my everyday spend like I've been doing, but after that, if I keep it in my wallet it will be for the free night and the amex offers and the bonus categories (I have the business card and it will have 4x on U.S. restaurants, gas stations, on cellphone services... which is in effect slightly higher than the 1x Starpoints I'm getting now.
 
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I called because the annual fee hit and I got a retention bonus of 5,000 starpoints. Not great, but enough for me to justify the annual fee. The free night on your cardmember anniversary, could be enough to keep me around... if S&D or similar level hotels are eligible. Until august I will use my SPG for my everyday spend like I've been doing, but after that, if I keep it in my wallet it will be for the free night and the amex offers and the bonus categories (I have the business card and it will have 4x on U.S. restaurants, gas stations, on cellphone services... which is in effect slightly higher than the 1x Starpoints I'm getting now.

Don't want to hijack this thread with credit card talk, but I have a Chase Sapphire Reserve that I will use for everyday spend. Will keep my Starwood Business Cards for bonus categories as well but I'm dumping the personal card.
 
Don't want to hijack this thread with credit card talk, but I have a Chase Sapphire Reserve that I will use for everyday spend. Will keep my Starwood Business Cards for bonus categories as well but I'm dumping the personal card.
Thoughts on the new Marriott card?
 
Just an update on the schedule for the return of Friendship boat service from / to Hollywood Studios. It looks like they are going to miss today, and the most recently listed June 24th date.

The new statement: ... temporary closed until approximately June 29, 2018.

Dave
 
How quiet was your room? Was it loud with the pool nearby? I'll be at the Dolphin for a runDisney event and I'm thinking it would be nice to have a first floor patio room, but I want to make sure I can get to sleep early the night before the race. I stayed at Pop on the first floor once and it was loud most of the night with people passing by and the elevator nearby. Is is unreasonable to think that I could get a quiet first floor patio room preferably with a nice view? I don't mind paying for the patio, but is there an area that I could request that would be quiet and scenic? It will be my first time at the Dolphin.
Make sure you do not get a room that is a connector. We were in a room with a connecting door and you could everything in the room next door.
 

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