In this post, we review the Gran Destino Tower at Coronado Springs. This post supplements our existing review of Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort, which you can find here.
Gran Destino Tower and Coronado Springs
The Gran Destino Tower is not its own distinct hotel. Rather, it is a tower located at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort. Practically, this means a few things.
First, Gran Destino rooms are booked as a special category of room at Coronado Springs. Standard views are of the front of the building (traffic / parking lots, but if you’re near the top you might of a view of Epcot or Hollywood Studios) water views are of the lake and the rest of the resort. Here’s a screenshot showing Gran Destino Tower rooms at the bottom of the search results for Coronado Springs rooms:
Second, Gran Destino shares a bus with the rest of Coronado Springs. Typically, Gran Destino is the last pickup before heading to the parks, but I’ve had experiences where Gran Destino was dropped/picked up first, as well.
Third, Coronado and Gran Destino share all other resort-specific amenities, like pools and fitness centers. The resort check-in desk and concierge for all Coronado Springs rooms are also located in the lobby of the Gran Destino Tower.
Gran Destino Tower at Coronado Springs Basics
Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort is a moderate resort at Walt Disney World, which means it should fall between the value resorts and deluxe resorts in price and quality.
If you’re considering Coronado Springs, you may want to read some of our other posts. We have a ranking of the best Disney World moderate resorts. We also have a guide to all the hotels of Walt Disney World. And here are our reviews of all the moderate resorts (links open in new tabs):
Review of Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort
Review of Gran Destino Tower at Coronado Springs (you are here)
Rack rates for standard rooms at Gran Destino Tower at Coronado Springs in 2024 range from $316 to $638 per night. Those are prices for non-club level, non-suite rooms.
That $316 starting price in 2024 is well below $487—the lowest price for a deluxe room you’ll find in 2024, at Animal Kingdom Lodge. But Gran Destino Tower, as we’ll see, is easily as good a hotel as any of the deluxe resorts at Disney World.
Guests at all of Disney’s hotels get access to a variety of perks, including access to Early Theme Park Entry and the ability to book your individual Lightning Lanes at 7AM (as opposed to when the parks open).
Coronado Springs is also home to a convention center, which makes it unique among the moderate resorts. This appeal to business-types is further accentuated by with addition of Gran Destino Tower.
Booking Gran Destino Tower
We booked our most recent Gran Destino Tower room with the help of our stellar travel agent Lauren Quirk of Travel With Character LLC. We booked a Club Level room, which cost $477 nightly, or $92 more than the $385 nightly rate for a standard Gran Destino room without Club Level.
When new room deals were announced, Lauren immediately got us a reduction of $143.10 nightly, bringing the room rate down to about $334. This is exactly the sort of reason we recommend booking with a travel agent with experience booking Disney vacations.
Arrival and Check-In
Since Disney has ended their Magical Express shuttle service from Orlando International Airport you’ll have to find your own way from the airport if you’re flying in. These days it makes most sense to check in via the My Disney Experience app. Set your arrival time to a little before you’re planning to be at the resort. If you’re lucky, you’ll have a room assigned before you arrive. In that case, you can skip the desk (your phone or Magic Band can open your room; if neither of these works for you, the desk will have to issue a key).
If your room isn’t assigned in the app by the time you get to the hotel, or if you need to get a physical key, you’ll need to swing by the desk. The Gran Destino desk is used for all Coronado Springs check-ins, so it can get quite crowded.
When staying Club Level, make sure to visit the club’s concierge desk for any check-in information.
From check in we went straight up to the Chronos Club Level Lounge, and then over to our room.
Standard Rooms at Gran Destino Tower
The bulk of this post is actually based on a visit where we were upgraded to a Deluxe Suite, presumably because of room availability issues. Now that we’ve had a chance to stay in a standard room, let’s talk about those. We’ll start with a video:
Here’s a gallery of photos of the room (use the arrows to navigate):
And the bathroom:
Overall I absolutely love the rooms at Gran Destino Tower. It is one of our top go-to hotels at Walt Disney World, mainly for the ambiance and rooms.
I’ve only had one problem with a room at Gran Destino Tower. One stay we had a room facing the parking lot (“standard view”) and could hear the buses beeping as the raised and lowered pretty late into the night. That said, we’ve had standard view rooms since and didn’t have this problem, possibly because the simple white noise machine that we bring for our toddler was enough to drown it out. Additionally, though, I think the Water View might be worth the cost:
Deluxe Suite at Gran Destino Tower
On our first stay, we were upgraded to a Deluxe Suite. That room had a rack rate of $755 vs. the $477 we originally paid, for an upgrade value of $278. Here’s a video walkthrough of the room:
Now we’ve got some photos of the room:
And of course, the bathrooms. The final two shots are the bathroom attached to the living room, the rest are master bathroom shots:
I’ve already written that the Coronado Springs rooms are my favorite moderate rooms—and some of my favorite rooms across all tiers—on property. These are good, modern rooms with an appropriate touch of theming.
The Gran Destino rooms show no signs of breaking this trend. There were ample outlets and USB ports, along with an abundance of space (well, you know, I was in a suite, so…).
Gran Destino Tower Lobby, Grounds, and Layout
As noted above, the Gran Destino lobby is now the resort lobby—all guests check in there. Here’s a gallery of photos, with some discussion below.
The lobby has ample space for sitting and working, which fits the push for business-type guests. It’s also nice for bloggers and partners of bloggers who need to work while bloggers are at the parks.
The lobby is on the second floor. Vehicles drop off there, and the lobby overlooks the Barcelona Lounge, which is all the seating you see from above. The actual bar is “hidden” right under the lobby.
There’s no doubting that, in its own way, the Gran Destino Tower is one of Disney’s most beautiful hotel buildings. The hotel is perfect if you need a new iPhone background.
You’ll have to leave the tower to access a pool. The smaller Cabanas and Casitas pools are relatively close, and the feature pool at The Dig Site is probably about five minutes away walking.
Also inside the tower are: Dahlia Lounge, Toledo Restaurant, and a Fitness Center. I don’t have information on the Fitness Center, but let’s move on to discuss the dining options.
Gran Destino Restaurants and Bars
As always, all guests have access to all restaurants on property, so Gran Destino guests will also want to swing by our Coronado Springs review to read about the other restaurants on-site. We’ll just be briefly covering the dining and drinking options in the tower itself here.
Barcelona Lounge
As previously mentioned, the Barcelona Lounge is the bar “under” the lobby, on the ground floor of the tower. It offers coffee beverages, alcoholic beverages, and small bites. Because it’s a “lobby” bar, we found service to be a bit lacking outside they bar during the day. They understandably expect that many people are just lounging around, so you’ll want to be proactive if it doesn’t look like anyone is coming to your table.
Dahlia Lounge
Located on the 16th (top) Floor of the tower, Dahlia Lounge is a bar offering incredible views, drinks, and small bites.
Toledo Restaurant
We haven’t had a chance to visit Toledo Restaurant, also on the 16th Floor. Disney Tourist Blog has a thorough review.
Transportation at Gran Destino Tower
Y’all know I’m not about to forget to complain about bus transportation at Walt Disney World!
The biggest downside of the moderate resorts is that their gigantic footprints require multiple bus stops, which adds to the already often-frustrating experience of Disney bus transportation. Coronado Springs has four bus stops.
According to Cast Members, Gran Destino should be the last pickup on the way to the theme parks. I’ve had it as the first and last stop returning from the parks.
If you drive, you’ll seriously cut down on your transportation times at the moderate resorts. If you don’t drive, we generally advise to use Uber to get to the Disney parks in a pinch.
As part of this stay, I did use my first Minnie Van to get to Magic Kingdom. Because Uber cannot drop off at the Magic Kingdom date, the best alternative to a bus for direct drop-off is a way overpriced Minnie Van. I paid $35 for the ride to Magic Kingdom. Uber probably would have cost about $10 for that same distance.
Conclusions
For starters, you should be able to look at all the photos in this review and decide whether the aesthetic of Gran Destino is for you. This isn’t Art of Animation or Animal Kingdom Lodge—it’s more of a typical chic, modern hotel. If you’re thinking “it’s not Disney enough,” well it is meant to appeal strongly to business travelers, so I’m not surprised.
The rooms at Gran Destino are some of the best on property and, to us, the best of the moderate rooms. And with the variety of dining options in and near the tower, and the nearby dig site pool, you can’t fault it on the amenities front.
Where you can continue to fault the resort is in its transportation. With the Disney Skyliner gondola system a Caribbean Beach, Coronado continues to lag alongside Port Orleans Riverside and the All Star resorts when it comes to getting around.
Do I blow this problem out of proportion? Maybe. Many guests visit and have no bus issues at all. But then every one out of a dozen times I need to ride a bus, I wind up waiting 20 minutes, or there’s that time it took Emily an hour to get from our room to Magic Kingdom from a moderate resort.
And here’s the thing. If you’re visiting for four days and have four mornings to rope drop four big rides, then just one of four mornings going poorly can really be a thorn in your $5000 trip.
But if you can look past that issue, or if you can throw down the money for Uber, Lyft, Minnie Vans when you’re in a hurry, then Gran Destino offers one of the best values on property.
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