As part of a visit to Disney World a few months back, we got a surprise upgrade at Disney’s Contemporary Resort! In this post I’m going to show some photos of the room and offer commentary along the way. Here’s a look at a Deluxe Room in the Garden Wing of Disney’s Contemporary Resort!
About This Post and Related Posts
This post is not a full review of Contemporary Resort. I have a separate review of Contemporary, which includes a look at the Theme Park View room in the Main Tower, here.
This post is going to mostly be an informal photographic look at a Deluxe Room in the Garden Wing of Contemporary. ICYMI, Contemporary basically comprises three parts:
The Main Tower has all the amenities and sets of expensive, often high-floor rooms
The Garden Wing is a set of lower rooms a short walk from the Main Tower
Bay Lake Tower is a DVC tower at Contemporary (rooms are “studios” or “villas”)
You can figure the Garden Wing rooms have worse views and will add about 3 minutes of walking to/from the Main Tower. With Garden Wing rooms starting around $200/night less than Main Tower rooms, I have to believe some “wow” factor when it comes to being in the tower is at play here. I never heard Zoe complain about being in the Garden Wing, so I’ll probably be open to it going forward.
One purpose of this trip was a visit to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. For party trips, I like to be at a monorail resort so I know I’ll have the option of easily walking back to the hotel after the party.
I chose the Garden Wing at Contemporary because it had been a long while since I’d stayed in the Garden Wing, and an AP discount was available that brought the nightly rate for two nights in a Water View down to $430.
Yes, we had booked a Garden Wing - Water View room that came to $859.21 for the two nights. But when we got to the room, we were surprised to find it was a Deluxe Room! The Deluxe Room seems to price $60 to $100+ more than the Water View room, which makes this a pretty nice upgrade.
One thing I sort of get a kick out of is that the King and Deluxe rooms only fit three adults (the sofa is just a twin), but the lower-priced queen rooms fit up to five adults. Not shown above, but a “Main Tower - Water View” room comes in at $811 excl. tax.
As always, I didn’t ask for an upgrade, nor do I believe I’m big enough that Disney cares to give me upgrades (and if they do, joke’s on them because it can honestly annoy me when I don’t get to review the room category I booked). Sometimes inventory management just works out that way.
A Look at A Deluxe Room in Contemporary’s Garden Wing
I’ll post some pictures and galleries of the room, with commentary along the way. Tap into the galleries to get better views. The basic idea of the Deluxe Room is that it’s bigger than a typical Garden Wing room, with a more unconventional layout.
This is the view upon entering the room. The living/bed area is sort of U-shaped, with the bathroom cutting across the top from the entrance to the bed. This is pretty nice for parents, as they can bypass the living room and their sleeping child to get between the bed and the door.
The Garden Wing rooms mostly retain the Incredibles theming you’ll find in the Main Tower. I say “mostly” because I believe the suites in the Garden Wing still don’t have Incredibles theming. (On a related note, there’s also this bonkers Edna Mode room category in the Main Tower.)
While wide angle lenses don’t help, there really is a sense in the room that it’s too much space. It feels like what it (probably) is—an attempt to make use of some extra space in the building design. But with a coffee table, another table, a TV console, and another console, I’m not sure what else I might have wanted.
I suppose it’s notable again that the room only fits three, and the couch is only a twin bed. For a better use of space, they could have used a different couch, or maybe substituted the console on the far wall for a kitchenette. But then you’d have this weirdo quasi-suite room category with unique fixtures to manage—I can see why they didn’t go that route.
I’m torn about whether I think these rooms could justify increased cost. Being in the Garden Wing, you’re more steps from the public spaces of the Main Tower. This means if you’re the type to lounge around in a lobby, you might prefer the extra room space instead while in the Garden Wing.
Indeed, since we were there for a party night, I actually wound up staying up late to update some content. It was nice to have a little extra space so that I wasn’t typing away right next to either of my sleeping roommates. Although, again, the table is still right between the two beds, while the other side of the room feels more spacious.
But, even as Zoe’s love for hotel pools has grown, I’m still a parks person first. I justify the prices of the monorail resorts because they’re close to Magic Kingdom. I don’t imagine often paying $700+ per night to sit around my hotel room when I could walk ten minutes to Magic Kingdom.
The bathroom felt nice and spacious. This one had a walk-in shower, while the last room I had in the Main Tower had a tub. If tub/shower setup is important to you, this merits further inquiry.
Altogether, while I was delighted to have the extra space for this trip, I just can’t imagine justifying settling at this price point. If you want to splurge at Contemporary, you’ve got the Main Tower. If you want the best (er, second best?) prices around the monorail, you’ve got the Garden Wing’s regular rooms. I will say—if you had to fit a crib in your room, too, then I can see this room category making sense.
In general, though, while it’s a nice and spacious room, it isn’t much more than nice and spacious.
Have you stayed in a Deluxe Room at Contemporary? What did you think?
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