During the last week of August, my family and I spent a week at the Beach Club 
Resort in Walt Disney World. The Beach Club Resort is considered a Deluxe Resort and is located walking distance to EPCOT and a short ferry ride to Hollywood Studios. Besides standard rooms, the resort also has one and two bedroom suites that can accommodate larger families.
I chose the last week of August because although it was still hot and a bit rainy, I wanted to take my children there without having to pull them from school. It was a good decision. Since a good portion of the country had just started returning to school, the crowd at all the parks were not so bad. Even without Fastpass we were able to wait for just a short time on a lot of the attractions.
The night before we left to go to Orlando, I took advantage of Disney’s Online-Check in. This was a breeze to do and when we did arrive to our resort, via the Disney Magical Express, we were able to grab our key to the world cards on our own line for Online check ins. The whole process took 5 minutes while there was a line next to me waiting to do regular check in. My only “bummer” of the week for me is that I missed by one week the chance to use Disney’s new Magicbands. Magicbands are everything your key to the world card did but with new features like reserving Fastpass on it and syncing it to Disney’s new My Magic+ account where you can store your reservations you made before your trip. I did utilize the My Disney Experience app on my smartphone which came in quite handy throughout the trip.
The best way to describe our experience at the Disney Beach Club Resort was, 
we loved it!! We stayed in a lagoon view room which was a wonderful view from our room to watch the fireworks at night from Hollywood Studios. The room we had was average size and tastefully decorated to the theme of “Beach club” but I noticed right away that it was a more subtle decor compared to the other resorts in the Moderate and Value. That goes for the entire hotel as well. Unlike the resorts in the other priced tiers, we also noticed immediately how we didn’t have to walk very far to go to the restaurant, lobby, pool, bus stops or food courts. Everything was just pretty much right there.
We had a chance to eat in four of the restaurants/food venues in the resort. When we arrived, we ate at Beaches and Cream. It’s a 50’s style ice cream parlor that also serves sandwiches. The portions were very big and the food was very good. We also did a character buffet breakfast one morning in Cape May restaurant who features Goofy, Minnie and Donald. The food and experience was again very pleasing. Two quick service eateries that we had breakfast and lunch also fitted our needs.
The highlight of the resort for my kids was the pool area. The pool area, 
Stormalong Bay, is shared with the Yacht Club Beach Resort located directly next to the Beach Club and can only be used by people who are staying at the Beach Club and Yacht Club . It features: a life-size shipwreck where you zip down one of the highest hotel waterslides, a lazy river, 3 whirlpool spas, kiddie pool—complete with a miniature waterslide—and a sand beach that slopes gently into the main pool.
Another wonderful touch to this hotel I loved was the activities at night they had for the kids (and adults ; ) ) Every night at 7:30 they had a campfire on the beach (we were unable to go to them so I can’t tell you what is was about) and at 9:00pm, they showed a different Disney movie right on the beach near the lagoon. It was a great wind down from a long day.
As I mentioned the location of the resort to the theme park truly does become an advantage at staying at a deluxe resort. The ease and short travel time to EPCOT and Hollywood Studios was really a nice feature which allowed us to spend the day at the pool and then just walk over for dinner or rides at one of the park.
On the day of our departure, since we had a late flight, we took advantage for the first time Disney’s Airline Check-in. Between the hours of 5am -1pm. You can check your baggage and get your boarding passes all before leaving the resort. I felt this was a wonderful feature. Once it was time to leave the resort, all we had to do was grab our carry-ons, get on the bus back to the airport and then head straight to security and the gate. Disney already transported our luggage to the airport. Wish all resorts could do that!
All in all we loved our stay at Disney Beach Club resort and HIGHLY recommend it for families with children.
Angela
