Whether you’re itching to enjoy the great thrills of Hollywood Studios or planning a weekend visit for the latest Epcot festival, you might want to spend a little extra time picking your hotel so you can make the most of your time at those two parks. In this post, we’re going to talk about the best hotels for visiting Hollywood Studios and Epcot.
About This Post and Related Posts
This post focuses specifically on the hotels that make it easy to visit Hollywood Studios and Epcot. We’ll link to several other relevant hotel posts as we go on. One semi-related post I want to call out immediately is our post on Best Theme Park Views Around the Monorail. That post focuses on the hotels around Magic Kingdom, specifically rooms with theme park views. It’s a good place to start if you’re considering a Magic Kingdom focused trip.
Why Hollywood Studios And Epcot?
For starters, it makes sense to talk about these two parks together because it’s really easy to get between them, and the hotels that are good for visiting one are good for visiting the other.
Specifically, Hollywood Studios and Epcot sit on opposite ends of the BoardWalk area, meaning that the hotels that have walking / Friendship Boat access to one are the ones with walking / Friendship Boat access to the other.
Moreover, these are the two parks on the Skyliner. So the hotels that have Skyliner access are going to provide you good access to both of these parks.
Because the two parks are so close together, it will often make sense to park hop between Hollywood Studios and Epcot. But even without hopping, you could spend one day at Hollywood Studios and one day at Epcot, enjoying easy access to both. The net result of all of this is you can actually put together a pretty nice weekend trip that just visits these two parks.
This can make sense particularly for groups without small children, who might not need to visit Magic Kingdom and who might get a lot of value of out the latest Epcot festival, but we’ve also enjoyed the opportunity to take short trips with Zoe that focus just on these two parks.
Quick Words of Caution About Epcot Visits
Before we get into the details of the hotels, I need to highlight two things about visiting Epcot from these hotels.
All the hotels in this post will use the International Gateway entrance at Epcot. This entrance is located between the France and UK pavilions. This can impact your rope drop strategy. This entrance is good if you want to rope drop Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure or Frozen Ever After, but not if you want to rope drop Test Track.
At some point (not yet, as of publication), Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind will stop using a virtual queue and will use a regular standby line. At this point, being able to rope drop Cosmic Rewind will be a big deal. Under current rope drop protocols, you’d be at a huge disadvantage attempting to rope drop Cosmic Rewind from this entrance. I don’t know if Disney will chance the protocols when the virtual queue ends, we’ll have to see.
The other point is specifically for the hotels on the Skyliner. Sometimes the Skyliner shuts down, e.g. for weather. In this case, guests of the Skyliner hotels have to take buses from the front of Epcot. It’s about a 13-minute walk from the front of Epcot to the International Gateway, which could mean lots of wasted walking time if the Skyliner is closed.
As of this update, we have no worries about booking these hotels for trips focused on Epcot and Hollywood Studios. When Cosmic Rewind moves from a virtual queue to a regular standby queue, we’ll reevaluate this based on how rope drop changes.
Disney’s Hotels In The BoardWalk Area
There are three hotels operated by Disney that are around the Boardwalk, between Epcot and Hollywood Studios. These are:
These are all Disney hotels, and you’ll get all the perks that Disney hotel guests get. These are also all deluxe Disney hotels, meaning you’ll get access to Extended Evening Hours.
Our current favorite of these three is BoardWalk Inn, but there are things to like about all of them. BoardWalk is slightly closer to Hollywood Studios, which gives it the most balanced location of the three. We have a post that talks more about choosing between BoardWalk, Yacht Club, and Beach Club.
Staying at these hotels, you’ll be a 5-10 minute walk from Epcot’s International Gateway and a 15-25 minute walk from Hollywood Studios. Alternatively, you can use the Friendship Boats, which will put you 5 to 15 minutes from both parks. (And it might make sense to go from Yacht and Beach Club to Epcot’s Skyliner station in order to get to Hollywood Studios.)
The Swan, Dolphin, and Swan Reserve
The Swan, Dolphin, and Swan Reserve are Marriott-operated hotels adjacent to the BoardWalk area. They share Friendship Boat service with the three Disney hotels mentioned above, and you can also walk to Epcot and Hollywood Studios from these hotels. It’s about a 20-minute walk to both Hollywood Studios and Epcot.
As of this update, Swan, Dolphin, and Swan Reserve get some of the same perks as Disney hotel guests. Notably, they have access to Early Entry and 7AM Individual Lightning Lane booking. They also currently have access to Extended Evening Hours.
The advantage these three hotels have over BoardWalk / Yacht / Beach is price. For example, picking a random weekend, a three-night stay at Beach Club totals $2,310 and at The Dolphin $1,148.
The disadvantages are mostly just small things related to not being booked at an actual Disney hotel. You’ll have worse transportation to Magic Kingdom, for example, taking a bus to TTC, not to the park directly. You also might find the hotels don’t have the same “Disney Magic” as Disney hotels. Whether any of this justifies hundreds of dollars a night is a matter for a different post.
The Skyliner Hotels
The next four hotels are located on the Disney Skyliner, the gondola service connecting these hotels to Epcot and Hollywood Studios. Read our Complete Guide to the Disney World Skyliner here.
Here’s a crude map of the Skyliner with travel times in minutes:
Riviera Resort
Riviera Resort is a DVC property (not really relevant for the purposes of this post) that is notable for having the shortest Skyliner trip to Epcot. Every Skyliner trip to Epcot passes through the Riviera resort station. It takes about 9 minutes to get to Epcot via Skyliner and 11 minutes to get to Hollywood Studios, with a transfer at the Caribbean Beach hub.
As a Disney hotel, Riviera Resort has all the perks of Disney hotels, including Early Entry. Guests also have access to Extended Evening Hours.
We’ve never stayed at Riviera Resort. While the prices might sometimes make sense, we’d generally prefer to be at BoardWalk, Yacht Club, or Beach Club when we’re in the “deluxe” level of prices.
Caribbean Beach
Read our full Review of Caribbean Beach Resort here.
Caribbean Beach is a moderate resort and the hub of the Skyliner system. Guests who stay at Pop Century or Art of Animation will have to change Skyliner lines at Caribbean in order to get to either of the parks. Guests who stay at Riviera will have to transfer at Caribbean to get to Hollywood Studios.
It takes about 6 minutes to get to Hollywood Studios from the Caribbean Beach Skyliner station and about 14 minutes to Epcot. You’ll also have walking time from your room to the station, and some rooms are closer to the Riviera Skyliner station than to the Caribbean hub station.
As a Disney hotel, Caribbean Beach grants you access to a wide range of Disney perks, including Early Entry. However, since it is not a deluxe hotel, you will not get Extended Evening Hours.
Besides being the hub of the Skyliner, Caribbean is notable for a select set of new “Under the Sea” rooms. You can also pretty easily get to Riviera Resort if you wanted to visit their bars and restaurants, too.
In recent years, we haven’t found the “hub” location of Caribbean Beach to be too great a perk. As such, we usually price up into a deluxe hotel around the Boardwalk or down into one of the value hotels on the Skyliner, which we move onto next.
Pop Century and Art of Animation
Read our review of Pop Century here.
Read our review of Art of Animation here.
Read our comparison of Art of Animation and Pop Century here.
Pop Century and Art of Animation are two value resorts that share a Skyliner stop. It takes about 12 minutes to get to Hollywood Studios via Skyliner, with a transfer at Caribbean Beach, and 20 minutes to get to Epcot via Skyliner, with a transfer at Caribbean Beach.
The value resorts are the most cost-effective way to get access to Disney perks like Early Entry, but you will not get Extended Evening Hours staying here.
Because of their Skyliner access, these two hotels are prices more expensive than the other value resorts—the All Stars. Pop Century and Art of Animation also rarely share buses, another transportation advantage over the All Stars.
In general, we find the transportation advantages of Pop Century and Art of Animation to basically always justify booking one of them rather than the All Stars. For trips focused on Epcot and Hollywood Studios, we find that even the long-ish Skyliner travel times are tolerable at these prices.
Best By Bus — Gran Destino Tower
Finally, I want to close with one option that isn’t on the Skyliner or in the Boardwalk area. Gran Destino Tower is a tower at Coronado Springs. Buses at Coronado Springs make multiple stops, but generally Gran Destino will be the last stop, meaning buses from the tower go directly to the parks. Gran Destino Tower is also one of our favorite room options at Disney World.
Coronado Springs is located pretty close to Epcot and Hollywood Studios, usually have drive times of under ten minutes. This makes it a relatively good option for visiting these two parks. The biggest downside is that we’ve had mixed experiences with the buses coming back. Gran Destino Tower usually isn’t the first stop coming back from the parks, which will add a few minutes to your commute in that direction.
Any in any case, I’d rather have the Skyliner or walking / boat access, if possible. If you’re willing to spend a bit more, taking an Uber or Minnie Van to or from Coronado makes for incredibly quick trips to and from Hollywood Studios and Epcot.
All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered
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