Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa

Grand Floridian Hotel is lovely checking in was fine bell boy took cases out car then that’s when it went all wrong after a nine hour flight we were looking to get showered and go out but our cases were not brought to our room till 11.30 pm 5 hours after we had checked in we tried call bell services from our phone option 2 several times to be cut off called reception who was nice and transferred me across to bell service to be on hold for 8 minutes to then be cut off when I went to bell services in lobby took him nearly 10 minutes to locate the cases to be told bell boy will bring them over some 20 minutes later waste of an evening and not a great start to our holiday Read less

We stayed at this hotel in September 2024 for almost a week. Our reservations were all over the place because we kept changing the dates (adding additional days) and wanting to try club level. When we checked in, what we had had us moving rooms over 5x and we were trying to see what could be done to keep only 1-2 rooms. All that was offered was to fully downgrade the entire experience or pay over 1k a night to upgrade. Neither were viable options. We ended up sitting at the front desk after 10+ hours of travel for well over and hour and a half, trying to figure this out. We ended up just taking the downgraded room and had to give up our club lever. This was just the start to the trip. The second day, we spoke with the front desk about the awful time we had and they said they'd give us dinner credit. What they didn't tell us was that expired within one day. We had eaten at the cafe for dinner and they had these amazing gluten free rolls. I was craving them that day and asked the front counter to see if I could just take a few rolls to go. I was told no. They "don't do carry out". All I wanted was bread. The manager was so dismissive of us and didn't even offer to let us come sit to order rolls. We were fine paying for them, but the answer was a hard and fast nope. We had breakfast at 1900 ParkFare Sunday morning. I had a reservation for 11:15 and wasn't seated until 11:43. I was told to "wait over there" then "no, over here, sorry. Oh, no, sorry, I didn't mean there, over here." Then the worst happened. We have food allergies and have to be very, very careful. We were given the menu for the allergies and talked to the chef who came out to see us. There were chocolate muffins that were allergy friendly. We specifically asked about pea protein being in the muffin, as its one of our allergies. We were told no, its safe, over 3x. We ate a little bit of them, but were still unsure. We wanted to be extra, extra sure, and had the ipad of ingredients. pea protein was listed in the top. Right there. After being assured we were safe. We pulled out the epi-pen and sat there. The manager rushed over to check on us, gave us water (we asked for no ice and were given ice...) and gave us her card. Katie told us that the meal was "on us". ...we had eaten soup and muffins. We had barely gotten to eat, so yes, it makes sense it would be "on us" when we hadn't even gotten to enjoy the meal. We rushed back to the room, feeling sick. That was it. No one at any point came to check on us, call, make sure we didn't need emergency services, or anything. At this point, I wanted to switch hotels. I even contacted the number on the card Katie gave us and reached out. I got no follow up. We had received an email asking "how are we doing" and I responded to a one question "survey" that only allowed you to type 500 characters and asked no other questions that this was one of the worst experiences. Had this been a Double Tree or something, I could understand, but for an expensive, flag ship hotel, it was like we didn't matter at all, weren't special, and got mediocre treatment. After i submitted that, we got a phone call about 30 min later. We spoke to the night manager and I told him all that was going on. They upgraded us to club level for the rest of the trip, which was super nice but... Even that had issues. One positive note I'll add was the staff in the club food area were incredibly kind, friendly, and understanding. They seemed to have been told about us. Unfortunately, because we got sick, we weren't able to use our park tickets or even go into the parks at all. We ended up spending the next 6 days in the hotel room. Other issues include: -House keeping coming to clean at 9am (same time the parks open, but not everyone goes to the park for rope drop...) -House keeping not coming at all -House keeping coming 5x throughout the day even though we didn't need anything and were still in the room -The "best of the best" (club level) rooms are located in the main building, which means very echoing, loud sounds from downstairs lobby (so many screaming kids) at all hours - Pool music playing LOUDLY from 10-10. Its not even Disney music. While laying in bed, ill, I thought I was at some circus in the 50s. -Disney+ isn't even available to watch -Screen projecting blocking YouTube so we couldn't even watch our own shows -Extremely limited TV options (~20 channels at best) -Waiting for our luggage from bell hop on the first night. They did NOT tell us they couldn't leave it in the room. We had gone to dinner after the events at the front desk, and wanted to go right to bed, but there were no suitcases waiting. We had to call, wait 15 min for them to call us back, and then another 15 for them to bring them up. Apparently they can't leave them in the room and we needed to be present, but we were not told this and would have made other arrangements. -Paying $40 to valet park "all day" at 8pm. No nightly discount? -Being told by the lead, Billy, at the club level area that they'd help refund the tickets we weren't able to use. They would "get that taken care of and give us a call to confirm" and we never heard back (seems to be a theme for them). Had to ask someone else the next day for some help with this. They did end up extending our tickets out 2 years, but would not refund them. So we have 2 years to possibly return, but I'm not sure if we will ever be able to come back... One very positive note: The chef George is AMAZING. He went well out of his way to make sure we could eat well and asked us every night what we could stomach and what we would like. He went out of his way over and over and over again to make us special, safe meals for our allergies (we have multiple allergies). George was the highlight of the trip and the day each day. One night he made us HIS OWN special ratatouille recipe. It was AMAZING. Its not on any menu, but if you see/find George, ask him to make it, if you can. The best meal we had in a very long time. He even added fish from one of the fancier restaurants, just to make sure we had protein. Truly an amazing guy. All that to say, a big issue we had with this place was the cost. Had we been paying $150-250 a night, there wouldn't have been an issue. But at $700/night for 8 nights? This treatment was ridiculous. We were not taken care of, cared about, looked in on after a HUGE issue on their part, were stuck in a hotel room for a week, and had a miserable time. It was nice of them to bump us up to club level, but that only happened because i left a one-sentence review on the "survey" and got a phone call and told them we wanted to change hotels. Beyond terrible experience. Will never, EVER come back to this hotel. Read less

Absolutely fantastic stay at the Grand Floridian. My wife and I stayed at the Grand Floridian for a 5 day/4night stay in celebration of my wife's birthday from September 15-19th. I had reserved a theme park view room and added the preference of a higher floor. At the time, only two queen beds were available, but we were offered a King bed on arrival by the wonderful person at check-in. I wish I could remember his name, but he also ensured that my wife had a personalized birthday tag/button. We had arrived at 2pm and our room was ready early. The Bellman Pierre, provided us with a guided tour as we drove to our room. We were greeted with the most beautiful room we have ever stayed at on Disney property, complete with a personalized message on the television addressing my wife's birthday and enchanting background music. The room faced the Seven Seas Lagoon, Cinderella's castle and also a view of both the Polynesian and Contemporary resort. This was on the fourth floor and had a dormer balcony with a small table and seating for two. Very romantic. We spent two of the nights watching the Magic Kingdom fireworks right from our balcony while the soundtrack for the fireworks played on one of the higher TV channels. On one of the nights, we also watched the boat parade on the Lagoon as the full moon rose above the resort. Simply perfection. The first night we ate at Citricos, our server was Dan and he was great. The food was amazing and probably some of the best we have ever had on Disney property. Compliments to the chef. All of the staff in the restaurant were fantastic, and a special thank you to the lovely lady who got us a table by the window. During our stay, we also frequented the Enchanted Rose and again were met with incredible service. A special shout out to Matthew who made the experience special and his wine and drink suggestions were perfect. As for the room itself, it was impeccably clean and housekeeping did a fantastic job refreshing our room daily. Everyone we encountered at the hotel was pleasant and helpful including the front desk staff, photographer, the wonderful piano music, the greeters and Bell captain, and the staff at the pool bar where we had lunch. Great turkey sandwich. On the last night, our room was sprinkled with "pixie dust" and we arrived to our room from a long day at the park only to be greeted with a very special birthday surprise from someone at the hotel who had noted that it was my wife's birthday. This was totally unexpected and was the best thing that has ever happened in over thirty years of visiting Walt Disney World. Checkout was smooth, and the hotel held our bags while we had a final day at the park. Thank you Mohammed and Omar from bell services. Parking was easily accessible and we had a great experience from all forms of transportation during our stay (monorail, buses and boats). I would highly recommend the short walk to the Magic Kingdom on the well lit path from the hotel. My wife and I are annual passholders and I rarely write reviews, but after this experience I felt the need to share what an amazing experience we had at the Grand Floridian. In my opinion, it is the flagship of the Disney resorts and exceeded all of our expectations. Over the past year, we have stayed at the Beach Club where we had exactly the opposite experience, an absolutely horrible hotel stay with no response from management even though we were told someone from hotel management was going to contact us . They never did. This was followed by a pleasant stay at the Contemporary that was uneventful, but nothing compared to the great experience that we had at the Grand Floridian. This will now be our preferred hotel for all future stays. There was some renovation work going on during our stay, but we were warned about this prior to booking and it did not detract in any way. Read less

We booked a theme park view room, and it did not disappoint. From arriving, to bell desk, to front desk, everybody was very polite and friendly. Even the people working on the golf buggies around property said hello. The hotel was nicer than I anticipated, and was pleasantly surprised. The room wasn’t the biggest but did us for what we needed, the sofa bed was ideal for the toddler. Fridge was handy to keep some drinks in. Room was very quiet, we didn’t get disturbed at all. The pool area was nice. The view of the fireworks was fantastic, and perfect for us with a toddler as he could watch the fireworks with us, then go straight to bed without the long wait getting out of the park. We would 100% recommend the Grand Floridian and will stay here again in the future. Read less