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

[Marthasor]

I have the a dolphin grand suite booked in April. Price was right compared to villa pricing at Boardwalk, and I find the fact there are so many food options on site (which I guess I can do take out?), as well as availability of room service. Some questions as I’ve never stayed at Swan/Dolphin.

1) my Marriott account is only showing the parlor, should it be showing both parlor and the room as two separate rooms?

2) any requests you folks recommend I make? Stuff like room location, etc.

thanks

Thank you!

We are staying in a suite, and our arrangements will be the teenagers get the beds, while I get the sofa bed. How are the rollaway beds? Am I better off with a rollaway bed (assuming I can get one), or is the sofa bed comfortable enough?

I'm assuming the rollaway beds can fold up and out of the way when not in use?

Yes, for suites it is now common to only see the parlor reservation in your Marriott account - did you also receive an e-mail from the resort? That e-mail typically states how many bedrooms you've reserved with your suite. We just stayed in a Swan, 2-bedroom, grand suite and I only saw the parlor in my account - I just made sure I had the e-mail with me when we checked in in case there was an issue with the number of bedrooms, but there wasn't.

I would opt for the rollaway and not the sofa bed. We saw some in the hallway while housekeeping was moving them around last week and they had real mattresses on them. I can't recall, but they were either folded or at least standing upright when I saw them, so it seems there is a way to store them, a bit, to make more space in your room when not in use.

 

[melking23]

your friendly neighborhood Karen.

I like you

 

[Gitelfor]

Does anyone recall when the Swan and Dolphin had Concierge Level? If so, where were the lounges located?

It had to have been almost 20+ years ago.

 

[Dan Murphy]

I recall, yes. Not sure of the floor at the Dolphin but I seem to recall the 8th floor in the Swan. And a few years less than 20, maybe 18 or 19 years?

 

[Dan Murphy]

Does anyone recall when the Swan and Dolphin had Concierge Level? If so, where were the lounges located?

It had to have been almost 20+ years ago.

Mama T and Thabo ran the place in the morning.

 

[Gitelfor]

I recall, yes. Not sure of the floor at the Dolphin but I seem to recall the 8th floor in the Swan. And a few years less than 20, maybe 18 or 19 years?

If I am not mistaken, the former Concierge level was still labeled, as such, at some point within the last ten years, or so, even though the service was no longer available. I wonder if the numbers did not justify maintaining it.

 

[Gitelfor]

Mama T and Thabo ran the place in the morning.

You have quite a sharp memory, Dan!

 

[Luisfba]

If I stay at Swan/Dolphin, and still buy some magic bands.. (kids love those things).. is the only use for them at that point:
- park entry
- lightning lane entrances
- memory maker (?)

Can I still use them when dining on disney property to charge to my credit card on file, or does that only work if staying on property so it charges to your room?

 

[Luisfba]

Does Swan/Dolphin have the mobile key or still uses cards for keys as only option?

 

[mickey916]

If I stay at Swan/Dolphin, and still buy some magic bands.. (kids love those things).. is the only use for them at that point:
- park entry
- lightning lane entrances
- memory maker (?)

Can I still use them when dining on disney property to charge to my credit card on file, or does that only work if staying on property so it charges to your room?

I believe the charging back to your room only works if you are staying at a Disney resort so that won't work at the Swolphin. Park entry, LL, and memory maker should be all you can use it for.

 

[SteveH]

Does Swan/Dolphin have the mobile key or still uses cards for keys as only option?

Here is a post a couple weeks ago that helps out.

 

[Scalemaster34]

Does Swan/Dolphin have the mobile key or still uses cards for keys as only option?

Both... Mobile Key will be in your Marriot App once your room is ready. But had to show up at the desk for some "security" reason at check in and went ahead and got cards for the rest of the family.

 

[Luisfba]

Yes the bus service changed around end of September 2020.
1. This thread i posted a while back may help. Spaces for MK are C3 & C4 at TTC.
2. Yes, you can walk to BW or YC/BC. Many guests opt to do this and have done so without issue.
3. For me I would not bother with using the Disney bus for AK, where it drops you off (see my post in #1 is nearly the same distance from taking the Disney bus service.

If you don't yet have the SDR Mobile App you need it, once loaded click on the I'm On Property then Transportation and it will give you all the info for the locations of drop off.

thank you. That’s a lot of help.

If they have their dedicated buses, my guess is they are more reliable with respect to timing as the WDW buses? Are the rounds for each park about every 20 minutes?

when I was looking at staying at Boardwalk I was thinking I would do a ride share to AK as I’ve had bad experiences waiting long there. But if more reliable than the Disney buses I may just do the bus.

 

[Scalemaster34]

thank you. That’s a lot of help.

If they have their dedicated buses, my guess is they are more reliable with respect to timing as the WDW buses? Are the rounds for each park about every 20 minutes?

when I was looking at staying at Boardwalk I was thinking I would do a ride share to AK as I’ve had bad experiences waiting long there. But if more reliable than the Disney buses I may just do the bus.

At the end of the day you can miss time things (walk up as a bus pulls off) and have a longish wait anywhere... and at any time a bus could break down or something happen that throws off the schedule. I don't think anything is ever a constant when there is always an issue. I've had bad experience happen at several resorts or parks in the past.

I'd say S/D bus service is fine... other than the MK drop off at T&T rather than at MK.

 

[Bgriff]

A few data points from my stay at the Swan this week (booked direct with Marriott using points):

Did not have any issues with booking 7am ILL. (Well, didn't have any issues relating to being eligible; did have some generic Disney IT glitches that foiled my first few attempts at RotR but managed to get it to work by 7:04am at which point I was able to book a 6:45pm ILL ... but it worked out in the end.) I think the issues reported have mostly been at SR but wasn't sure so just wanted to provide the data point. Also no trouble using early park entry via Magic Mobile.

I had considered the SR when booking but having stayed I would 100% say Swan unless the SR is a lot cheaper. Swan was nicer than I was expecting -- the room seemed to have been renovated/refreshed fairly recently with the latest Westin bathroom fixtures and style, and overall was very fresh and nice. Even if there weren't the various bad reviews about elements of the SR's rooms, I thought the Swan was nice enough that there wasn't much more a brand new hotel could offer anyway. Plus the SR being farther from HS, Epcot, and MK-direct buses at the Boardwalk would all have added up to more walking at the start or end of long days of walking, which I was glad to have avoided.

We did go to dinner at Amare one night during our trip as it had reservations while most everything else was booked up, and it was good, and would happily eat there again, but don't need to stay there.

I also loved the location -- HS is definitely the hardest park to manage these days so being able to walk there for early hours was super valuable. In the end, because of extended holiday hours we didn't even fully maximize early hours (we would have had to take the connectivity risk of being out of the room at 7am in order to do that with early park hours starting at 7:30am this week), but we still managed to get there shortly after 7:30 and hit Tower of Terror, Rock and Roller Coaster, and Runaway Railway with minimal waits before 8:30.

As for the MK bus situation, we ended up doing afternoon-and-evening-only MK (with a collection of Genie+ Lightning Lane bookings built up by the time we arrived), and the Swan bus to TTC to the monorail was very easy in the mid afternoon. There's really no easy transport option when we left right after the fireworks, but we opted for the bus to the Boardwalk, where we were able to get onto the second bus after a total wait of ~20 minutes. I did miss the nice coach buses the Swan is now using as we rode on the packed city-bus-style Disney bus though. It is a not-entirely-short walk from the Boardwalk bus stop to the Swan, though (and an even longer one to the SR of course).

 

[Luisfba]

In order to be able to make ILLS reservations at 7am on the travel day, can I do it simply because i have a reservation or do I need to have done online check in? (How early does Swolphin allow online checking anyways?)

thanks

 

[Grabnar]

Not sure how Marriott handles rewards space but just dropped a spot for 1/4-1/11-22 for Swan Reserve; cost me 300k pts

 

[PrincessDJC]

Yes, I have a CSR. Interesting that it doesn't show for different cardmembers, I had no idea!

I never see any of the swan or dolphin on the chase portal with CSP.

 

[Dan Murphy]

A few data points from my stay at the Swan this week (booked direct with Marriott using points):

Did not have any issues with booking 7am ILL. (Well, didn't have any issues relating to being eligible; did have some generic Disney IT glitches that foiled my first few attempts at RotR but managed to get it to work by 7:04am at which point I was able to book a 6:45pm ILL ... but it worked out in the end.) I think the issues reported have mostly been at SR but wasn't sure so just wanted to provide the data point. Also no trouble using early park entry via Magic Mobile.

I had considered the SR when booking but having stayed I would 100% say Swan unless the SR is a lot cheaper. Swan was nicer than I was expecting -- the room seemed to have been renovated/refreshed fairly recently with the latest Westin bathroom fixtures and style, and overall was very fresh and nice. Even if there weren't the various bad reviews about elements of the SR's rooms, I thought the Swan was nice enough that there wasn't much more a brand new hotel could offer anyway. Plus the SR being farther from HS, Epcot, and MK-direct buses at the Boardwalk would all have added up to more walking at the start or end of long days of walking, which I was glad to have avoided.

We did go to dinner at Amare one night during our trip as it had reservations while most everything else was booked up, and it was good, and would happily eat there again, but don't need to stay there.

I also loved the location -- HS is definitely the hardest park to manage these days so being able to walk there for early hours was super valuable. In the end, because of extended holiday hours we didn't even fully maximize early hours (we would have had to take the connectivity risk of being out of the room at 7am in order to do that with early park hours starting at 7:30am this week), but we still managed to get there shortly after 7:30 and hit Tower of Terror, Rock and Roller Coaster, and Runaway Railway with minimal waits before 8:30.

As for the MK bus situation, we ended up doing afternoon-and-evening-only MK (with a collection of Genie+ Lightning Lane bookings built up by the time we arrived), and the Swan bus to TTC to the monorail was very easy in the mid afternoon. There's really no easy transport option when we left right after the fireworks, but we opted for the bus to the Boardwalk, where we were able to get onto the second bus after a total wait of ~20 minutes. I did miss the nice coach buses the Swan is now using as we rode on the packed city-bus-style Disney bus though. It is a not-entirely-short walk from the Boardwalk bus stop to the Swan, though (and an even longer one to the SR of course).

Thanks for the review, Bgriff. Sounds like a good trip.

 

[DCLMP]

And Swan it now is! Price dropped so for less than $10/day more we’re at Swan now

Were you able to link your reservation? I booked a room for November. It won't link. I'm going to give it a few days before I call.