Walt Disney World Swan Resort in Orlando, FL

The location of this hotel is excellent but our frustration with inconsistent /contradictory information and services leads me to rate the hotel 2 stars. Bell services made up the rules as they went along which was unnecessary and aggravating. We parked where everyone else parks to check in but the fellow from bell services told us there was no parking there. I pointed to the 20 other cars parked there and he told me the car in front of ours belonged to the manager. I know I should not engage but I did - I told him that I am aware that all employees, including the manager, must park in the employee lot. Then he said the car actually belonged to the owner of the hotel. Grrr. Ok so now a publicly traded corporation, the stock of which I have owned in the past, is owned by a person who happens to be parked with all of the other cars where people are checking in? It’s not. Fine - we decided that we would let it go and not engage. I stepped out to check in while my bf parked the car. The gal at the front desk was great - when we asked where we were supposed to park for checkin, she told us that the area we were first shooed out from was the correct spot. My bf came in and reported that the bell services fellow continued to harass him. I honestly don’t know what the issue was. We weren’t difficult or rude. We are DVC members and have Disney annual passes, so we decided to go to Epcot until our room was ready. The location of the hotel is outstanding and the grounds are beautiful. We came back a little while later, after our room was ready. I asked at the front desk whether we are able to use the luggage carts to bring our luggage in (like the rest of the Disney hotels) and she told us yes, just let bell services know. We walked to the parking lot and tried to use our room key to exit (like all directions say to do) but it didn’t work. After a long time trying to reach the parking lot help line, the person who answered in very broken English didn’t offer any help. At that point, my bf was yelling at me to tap the card, which I did 100 times and it didn’t work, and the help line guy was useless. My car sat there blocking the exit for what felt like an eternity. Finally I told the help line guy my room number and asked him what the heck the problem was because it’s not my fault the card wasn’t working. He finally opened the gate and we drove around to unload our bags. For all the hassle and cost, you'd think they would have a working system by now and/or be responsive when their system does not work. The bellman outside was super condescending when he told us that we were not allowed to bring our own bags to the room and we had to use bell services. Fine. We did. I decided at that moment we’d never be back. I don’t like to use bell services when I am physically capable of bringing my bags to my room. Others may not feel that way but I do and there’s nothing wrong with that. If the Waldorf Astoria in Boca Raton is fine with it, I find it offensive that a lesser hotel is condescending about it (poser hotel?). The room was beautiful but (1) very few electrical outlets; (2) the bathroom door doesn’t close unless you slam it hard and lock it, (3) the tv clicker didn’t work, (4) the phone didn’t work, and (5) I had to call several times (from my cell phone) to get a microwave sent to my room. The artificial intelligence answering the phone told us that there were microwaves on the 9th and 6th Fl W. So we went in search of them. The AI answering service is giving wrong information. There is one on 6 East but that is too far to be reasonable. There are none on 9 or 6 West. That was wrong and sent my bf on a wild goose chase. When the gal from housekeeping finally brought the microwave after more than 40 minutes, she asked if there was anything else we needed. I told her that the t.v. clicker didn’t work. That has happened to us at DVC resorts and housekeeping just usually exchanges the remotes. However here, the gal told us we’d have to call the engineering department about it. I don’t know how we’d go about doing that. We just made due - some employees were great but there were too many very frustrating annoyances that we figured we’d just checkout the next day and be done with it. Lastly, at checkout, I calmly let the desk clerk know that we had a pretty rough stay. She said she would push her manager to comp us some Marriott points to try and make it up to us. That never happened.

This hotel is huge but does a good job of managing the crowds. The rooms were clean and close to Disney (Epcot and Hollywood Studios). The coffee shop did a great job at managing the number of people there each morning. Il Mulino was fantastic and so good at accommodating our large party of 10. The one thing that the hotel was missing was a lobby bar. There is one in the Dolphin across the way though.

This is not a Disney resort per se, operated by Marriott. The service was top notch. The room was comfortable and clean, actually the whole place was impeccable. We ate one breakfast at the Garden Grove which was excellent. Just a short walk to Boardwalk or Epcot. Water taxi service to Hollywood Studios. My one and only complaint was paying for parking $38 per day and a tacked on resort fee of $45 per day that I was not expecting.

They don’t have our room we requested and not ready at 3pm. We stayed at The Green last time her and this is our first time at the Swan. Not a good start to our vacation. We were here on time and still not ready. Don’t recommend unless you want disappointment. So here we sit waiting for a room past check in time.

We booked a room two days ahead of time for March 1. We arrive at 10:30 PM that night after 10 hours at the park to check in and there is NO ROOM AVAILABLE. They give us some BS about housekeeping is still cleaning the room. UH NO- check in is 4:00 PM! There were 5 other couples in the same boat as us. We asked for a refund and they refused because we booked through hotels.com. They offered us 100 bucks to use at the hotel bar that closed in 15 minutes and free valet for our trouble. NO THANKS IT'S MIDNIGHT. We left and drove 2.5 hours home. We had to fight with this hotel for DAYS to get a refund from hotels.com cause the hotel wouldn't answer any of their calls. AVOID AT ALL COST.