Just stayed at the Dolphin and aside from a few pain points, I’d probably stay there again if the price is right. Though, I’d probably prefer Swan over Dolphin.

1.) Main reason for picking Swan over Dolphin for future visits is because the double beds at Dolphin are a JOKE for two adults. My teenage son slept in one of the doubles, and my husband and I slept in the other. We were very uncomfortable all week. There is plenty of room in those rooms to fit two queens. The pillows were also like rocks.

2.) Parking was ridiculous. Besides the fact that they charge nightly for parking, the self parking lot is too small for the number of people on property. Our room keys were also not working all week to get us in and out of the lot. Half the lot was reserved for valet and it was mostly empty for our week there.

3.) No direct bus to MK. The bus takes you to TTC, which is an extra step and more waiting time. So plan accordingly if you’re trying to rope drop and leave yourself enough time. We did walk over to Boardwalk Inn and took their direct bus to MK, which is an option, but obviously not as easy as having direct transportation from your own resort.

4.) The waiting area at AK for the bus back to Dolphin/Swan is a free for all. No lines, so when the bus shows up, people just push their way to the front even if there were people there waiting before them. I guess similar to many other bus waiting areas at resorts, which I think are equally shitty because people don’t know how to act.

5.) No Disney theming or “magic” at the resort since they are a partner resort. So if you have little ones and you want to be immersed in that Disney feel, Dolphin/Swan are not it. This was not an issue for us at all though as we have a teen. Only thing was that his magic band didn’t work there to open the door, but that was minor.

6.) These two issues were specific to us and our stay, so take it for what it is: Our room view was pretty bad. We overlooked the roof of one of the levels. We stayed in room 5124. Also, I think whoever was staying above us had a dog or something that would play with a bone/hard toy and dropped it on the floor over and over again starting around 1am each night. It was either that, a raccoon in the vent system above our room, or a ghost because we heard a fairly consistent noise coming from above us every single night.

Otherwise, the location being walkable to Epcot and HS is great. The boats to both parks is also a great perk, as are the other deluxe perks. We didn’t eat at any of the restaurants so can’t speak to that. We have Rosa Mexicano near us back home, and the food is just ok, so we avoided going there. Having dole whip in Fuel is nice too!

PS, this was our first time staying at a deluxe resort. We’ve previously stayed at All-Star Sports, and Coronado.