We are still reeling from all the exciting announcements Disney dropped at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event.
Art of Animation
Disney revealed a TON about new lands, new rides, new restaurants, parades, stage shows, and SO much more. But, that doesn’t mean there weren’t still announcements missing from the big event — especially when it comes to Disney World hotels. And, unfortunately, we’re pretty sure that Disney isn’t going to fix this hotel problem anytime soon.
Disney announced so many exciting new things coming to the parks in the future. We’re talking about new lands, rides, restaurants, and more. And, while we did get an update here and there about Disney World hotels, we didn’t get the news we were hoping for — that more affordable hotel options would be coming soon.
Pop Century
Before the big event, we had reached out to you all to find out what you most wanted Disney to announce, and quite a few folks replied that they were hoping new hotels would be on the horizon — especially more Value and Moderate Resorts. Disney has different types of hotels that fit a variety of budgets, but there aren’t a whole lot of “budget” hotels. The last value hotel that opened at Disney World was Art of Animation in 2012 — over twelve years ago.
Art of Animation
Other than that, though, there are only four additional budget-friendly hotels: Pop Century Resort, All-Star Movies Resort, All-Star Music Resort, and All-Star Sports Resort. When you consider that there are over 25 Disney World hotels, that doesn’t seem like much.
But wait, what about the Moderate Resorts? We’re glad you asked.
Caribbean Beach Resort
Disney World moderate hotels are slightly more expensive than rooms at value hotels, but not quite as expensive as a fancier deluxe one. Still, though, there are only five options to choose from: Caribbean Beach, Coronado Springs, Port Orleans Riverside, Port Orleans French Quarter, and the Cabins at Fort Wilderness.
This means that over half of the Disney World hotels are Deluxe or at the highest price point. And, unfortunately for us, it doesn’t sound like Disney is planning on changing that anytime soon.
Coronado Springs
The Cabins at Fort Wilderness have been recently replaced, this is true — but as far as value hotels go, it looks like we’re going to be stuck with what we’ve got for a while. That’s not to say these hotels aren’t great — we love each one of them for their own reasons (especially the prices!) and now that the Skyliner has been added the value at Pop Century and Art of Animation has skyrocketed.
We know that Disney is a business at the end of the day, and businesses are supposed to make money. But we certainly aren’t the only ones who think some more affordable hotel options could be a great improvement to the overall Disney World vacation.
©Disney
No matter how you feel about all the news Disney dropped at D23, one thing is for sure — you can count on the Disney Food Blog to keep up with all the latest news and announcements you need to know! Stay tuned for all your Disney news needs and more!
EVERY MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT for the Disney Parks from D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event
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What sort of new Disney World hotel would you like to see? Tell us in the comments.
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Guests without cars are pretty much relegated to stay on property. The rest of us can stay at a nearby, very nice hotel much cheaper and has breakfast included.
So that answers the question as to why Disney can charge more for hotels—because they can!’
We would like to try every Disney hotel, and we’ve tried many, although we can afford to stay at some longer than others. I agree that there needs to be more Value and maybe even more Moderate category hotels. The Value hotels always fill up first, and there’s almost always Deluxe availability at the last minute. Although I’m not sure Disney has much motivation to build Value (or even Moderate) hotels when people are already dissatisfied with crowd levels at the parks. I just wish that they had made some more value-focused decisions with the recent properties that they already built. Transitioning the Fort Wilderness Cabins to DVC has been a painful blow to us, because that was our go to Moderate. It hasn’t tempted us to go DVC, and the Cabins lack many things that DVC customers expect in a 1-bedroom (at least a second half bath, and washer/dryer), so that one seems particularly off target. As Judy said – most of the people staying off property are probably making that choice to get a nicer hotel for a BETTER PRICE. If those locations can afford to do that, so could Disney. I don’t criticize Disney for many of their cost choices or price increases, but the hotels should be less expensive, or they should more consistently have discounts. We have almost every Disney membership except DVC (and the super expensive ones like Club 33), travel at non-peak, and there’s rarely a decent discount that we’re eligible for on our trips. The only reason we got one last time is that I bought an annual pass, which I did only because our stay was long enough that the room discount almost completely offset the cost of the pass.
We just came back yesterday from WDW. The LAST thing I would hope for is more value-priced hotels. The “guests” started a fight on Main Street, cut the lines, cursed up a storm and were very loud and obnoxious. I realize Florida is hot, but when did it become ok to come in the Park half-naked?!? (short shorts and no underwear is NOT a good look, people!) The poor Cast Members were yelled at or completely ignored when giving directives. Some were hesitant to do their job for fear of their safety. I pray for Disney to jack up the prices for tickets, food and resort rooms to price out the garbage.