5 Steps to Picking the Right Disney Hotel
Step 1: Choose from on or offsite
An Offsite hotel is a hotel that is not owned by Disney and is not on Disney property. An Onsite hotel is a hotel on Disney property, usually owned and operated by Disney. There are a large variety of hotels on and off Disney property with a wide range of themes and prices. First, take a look at our "Staying Onsite or Offsite?" and "Disney World Resort Benefits" pages to decide which one is right for you.
Step 2: Determine your price range
Disney has three different categories of rooms. Deluxe, Moderate, and Value. Deluxe hotels feature elaborate themes and decorations throughout the entire resort, large rooms, nicer pools, better restaurants, and live entertainment like the live band that plays in the lobby of flagship Disney's Grand Floridian Hotel. Moderate hotels are the midrange hotels of Disney's collection. The themes are nice, but not as grand as the Deluxe hotels, and rooms are mid-sized. Value hotels are the cheapest out of all of Disney's hotels. Value hotels have minimal themeing and smaller rooms than ones found at Deluxe and Value resorts.
Step 3: Select a hotel
Which hotel you stay in depends on preference. Do you want to splurge on a big room and stay within walking distance to the Magic Kingdom? You'll want to stay at Disney's Contemporary Resort. Don't want to spend a lot on a hotel but love the Little Mermaid? You'll love Disney's Art of Animation Resort. To help you decide we have in-depth overviews on every Walt Disney World hotel. You may also want to consult our list of WDW resort refurbishments to see if any hotel construction will impact your stay.
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Step 4: Select a specific room (or view)
One of the first decisions you'll have when booking a Disney World hotel room is which view to select. To help you decide, we have more than 30,000 individual photos of what you'll see from the window of every Disney World hotel room. For example, lets look at Disney's All-Star Sports Resort.
The first page shows you a map of the entire resort. On the left side is a set of filter options you can use to find exactly the room you want:
- Room Type Includes Disney's description of the view, and the bed type in the room (if we know it). All-Star Sports has Standard and Preferred views, most with double beds. Moderates will show queen beds, and so on.
- Walking Distance to Lobby Useful for cutting down on walking time
- Walking Distance to Transportation Allows you to find rooms near bus stops, monorails and boats
- Floors If you prefer ground or upper-floor rooms, you can specify that here
- Sound Level Helps find the quiet rooms at the resort (yes, we actually measured this)
- Accessibility Identifies ADA-accessible rooms by feature, including roll-in showers and more where available
- Our Picks Shows only the rooms which the Unofficial Guide (TouringPlans.com's associated Disney guide book) has determined to be the best at the resort.
- Prices You can also filter by price by entering the date you're checking in. Keep in mind this is the "rack rate" price - usually Disney will offer discounts depending on vacation package and time of year.
Step 5: Request a specific room
We can't book your room for you (you'll need to contact Disney for that), but we can help you get the exact room you want you can using our Automatic Room Request feature. With it your specific room request can be automatically sent to your Disney resort, a few days before you arrive. This increases your chances of getting exactly the room you want.
Why is this helpful? Our research shows that Disney is most likely to take notice of a room request that comes in via fax - that's right, fax - a few days before checkin, as opposed to requested when booking. This can be the difference between a room with a view of the pool or one with a view of the laundry room - at the same price. Fortunately, when you are subscribed to TouringPlans.com we can handle this hassle for you in two quick steps:
- Once you find the room you want in our room view finder, click the link in the upper right corner to choose it for your trip. It will show up in your trip dashboard with a link to the fax details we'll be sending.
- Finally, add in any special celebrations, such as birthdays or anniversaries, along with your name and reservation number for the fax
That's it. We'll automatically send the request to your Disney hotel, 5 days before you check in. This means that you don't have to remember to do it on exactly the right morning. And if Disney's systems are down, we'll automatically keep trying until it's sent. We'll also send you a notification when your request has been received.
