Reviews of Bay Lake Tower (Disney Vacation Club)
Reviewed by Geri604 Review Date: 04/19/2014
Rating: (9) Recommended
Things started out shaky - the cast member who checked us in reversed two digits of the room number - finally realized it after 3 trips back to the desk. But once we got to the right room - WOW! We had booked a lake view and were on the MK end of the building (room 8204), so we had a great view of Wishes every night.
The room was surprisingly quiet too - the only time we heard any noise from our neighbors was when we were on the balcony. There was no noise through the walls or in the hallway. Having the 2nd bathroom (in a 1BR) was great. We ended up using the shower in the 2nd bath instead of the walk-in because it had a stronger spray.
The only downside was that there was no food or shopping in the building. And being at the far end of the hall (2nd to last room), it was a pretty long walk to get to the Contemporary. It didn't bother me, but my mom uses a walker and dad hurt his leg during the trip, so they'd have to take a break in the elevator lobby.
Pros:
beautiful view, locationCons:
far walk to food and shopsReviewed by WarEagleAuburn Review Date: 04/06/2014
Rating: (8) Recommended
Bay Lake Tower is a beautiful hotel. We used our vacation points to book a 2 bedroom and were happy to find 3 full baths! Location just can't be beat--you can walk to Magic and take a monorail to Epcot. Negatives: loud music coming from the pool area that reached the 6th floor, even with noise cancelling fans. Cast members were using a very loud microphone, too, and this was during normal nap time for kids...1-3pm. The food court they share with the Contemporary is simply awful. Food was all sitting in steamer bins or microwaved.
Pros:
Beautiful hotel, fabulous locationCons:
Pool area noise travels, terrible quick food courtReviewed by mg0914 Review Date: 02/03/2014
Rating: (10) Recommended
12/29-1/4 family of four in a studio with a theme park view.
This was our fourth stay at BLT. You can't beat this place for the location - within walking distance of Magic Kingdom! Everything about our stay was wonderful from beginning to end. We interacted with many cast members - front desk, bell services, restaurant workers, bartenders and others. They were all incredibly friendly, helpful & patient.
Bay Lake doesn't have a quick service restaurant it's true. But it's literally a five minute walk to the Contemporary so I'm not sure why this is even mentioned as an issue.
It's a beautiful hotel just to walk around at. You've got Bay Lake on one side and MK on the other. The monorail's going by overhead, you have a view of the Grand Floridian across the lake. There's no doubt about it - this is our favorite hotel.
We ate at the quick service, Contempo Cafe twice and the food is really good for a quick service restaurant. There's plenty of seats too. The gift shops have pretty much everything you're looking for (except for resort items - don't know why but Contemporary is one of the few hotels with no resort items).
Buses ran on time for us. It's always hit or miss when you're in WDW but we never waited long. It was tight at times in our little studio but that's okay. We're used to it. We usually get a studio to maximize our points - especially at Christmas time when points are at a premium!
Everything in the room worked well. Beds are super comfortable - as comfortable as any we've slept on at WDW. Bathroom setup isn't great but the "pantry" area has plenty of room - lots of draws and shelf space. While people packed MK on NYE we watched the fireworks from our balcony.
Awesome time as always at BLT!
Pros:
staff, location, roomCons:
n/aReviewed by simg1f Review Date: 01/13/2014
Rating: (6) Recommended
Between 10/12/13-10/19/13, my party and i stayed at Bay Lake Towers.
We have stayed at this hotel in the past and were excited to return.
The experience that we had at this establishment this time around was positive overall.
While some of the staff members at this resort were incompetent and the door handle to one of the doors to one of the rooms broke, the decor of this hotel was gorgeous and clean.
I'd definitely stay at this establishment again and would recommend it to others.
Pros:
Close to the Magic Kingdom, the Contemporary Resort and a monorail stationCons:
Broken door handle and some of the staff were incompetentReviewed by angiem0217 Review Date: 10/24/2013
Rating: (10) Recommended
We recently purchased a DVC membership and our first stay was at Bay Lake Tower in a lake view studio. The rooms are very nice with a kitchenette. The location was amazing! The monorail to MK and Epcot was great. We actually walked home one night after we left MK. The top of the world lounge has the best views of the fireworks that I have ever seen and this is my 20th trip to Disney.
The only food at Bay Lake is the pool bar but the walk over to Contemporary was quick and easy. We were on the DDP and ate quick service at Contemporary and Polynesia for lunch.
Buses were great, never waited too long for any bus service. Customer service was top notch.
My 6 year old loved the pool and slide at Bay Lake and Contemporary. We were able to use both pools. We went during busy summer season, but resort never felt crowded. I would recommend this resort. Our next trip, we will try out the new Grand Floridian.
Pros:
great room, great pool, locationCons:
noneReviewed by jeconk Review Date: 10/22/2013
Rating: (9) Recommended
After looking at several Disney hotels for our extended family trip to Disney, we chose Bay Lake Tower because of its location and room size. We had two suites...one two bedroom suite for us and a one bedroom suite for friends who met us there. (we live in different states and meet for vacations.)
After a bad experience at Disney on our last visit in 2007, our stay this time more than made up for any misgivings that we had about Disney. The hotel is very nice with a great pool and the location cannot be beat. Less crowded than Contemporary but still close to what you needed.
Our suite was very adequate for our family of 9 and the three bathrooms were great. There was more closet space than we needed which is something not always found in hotel rooms. Having a washer/dryer and full kitchen made it nice as well. The sliding doors on the bathrooms were a nice difference that I was skeptical about when I read about it, but was functionally a great thing. The only negative for our room would be the dining table. Very hard seating and also the L shaped bench seat made it inconveient for the people to get in and out of the seating if you weren't on an end.
The public areas of Bay Lake Tower are nice..great pool and pool area, great sitting area outside and many activities. The location next to Contemporary allows guests to access the water sports over there easily as well. The only negative in this area is the limited time of snack bar at the pool. Since Bay Lake Tower does not have their own food location, it would be nice if the pool snack bar could open early and stay open later to allow for guests to get beverages and some snacks without walking over to Contemporary.
I guess that would be another negative for bay Lake Tower...no on site food location. Anytime you wanted something, you had to walk over to Contemporary which was time consuming.
The location is great with nice views of Bay Lake, the Contemporary, Grand Floridian and of course the Magic Kingdom. Being able to walk to Magic Kingdom is another plus. We sometimes walked over there when we had a some extra time to kill....something you would not do if you had to take Disney transportation.
We arrived at 10:00 a.m., knowing that our rooms would not be ready (and we planned on that going in...we just wanted our tickets and go off to a park.) Lo and behold, our friends room was ready and we were able to take all of our luggage from both parties to their room! What a nice thing to be able to get the luggage out of the vehicles before going to the park! We received a text at 3:30 that our room was ready, which we didn't mind because we knew that it could be 4:00 p.m. before rooms would be ready.
Now for the highlight of our trip: the customer service at Bay Lake Tower. Never before have I had customer service agents go out of their way to fix a problem as I did at Bay Lake Tower.
After we checked in and dropped off our luggage in our friends room, we headed for Epcot. When we got to Epcot, we found that the Keys to the World cards for all 9 of us in our room would not work. A very nice customer service agent at the Epcot gate took care of us and "fixed" the problem. (since it took her 20 minutes, she gave us a fastpass to any ride in the park.). Then when we went to lunch, the same problem happened. The Manager of Sunshine Seasons stepped in and again came to our rescue and solved the issue. When we returned to Bay Lake Tower later in the day and reported the issues to a wonderful lady named Paula at the front desk, she took over our case....she then discovered that our cards would not open our room and the entire reservation was messed up. Not an issue....she got us in our room so we could unpack and she went to work on our problem. An hour later, she returned with new cards and had solved the entire problem. She also did some other things to make up for the problems that we had and looked out for us the rest of the week. The next day, when the agent who checked us in (Jeff) found out about our issues of the day before, he too apologized and took care of us. Both Paula and Jeff called us during the week and spoke to us whenever they saw us to make sure things were good and that there were no other problems. They went out of their way to take a bad situation and turn it into a good one. Instead of us complaining about the problems that we had, we are praising Disney for the way the situation was handled...that is what true customer service is all about.
We do not get to Disney often due to finances, but when we do return, we will have a tough choice...go back to Bay Lake Tower for the wonderful customer service or try another hotel. The experience that we had because of Disney Cast members will long be rememberd.
Pros:
Fantastic Staff and customer service; great locationCons:
Have to walk to Contemporary for food most of the time. Showing wear and tear, elevators closest to Contemporary always crowdedReviewed by jjcscanlon Review Date: 08/10/2013
Rating: (9) Recommended
We had a 9 night stay at BLT (7.31-8.9.13) and chose to wait for a room to be ready in order to get our preferred "high floor" location vs. taking what was available when we checked in. It was certainly worth the wait since we were assigned one of the few studios available on the 16th floor/top floor.
Even with the top of the world lounge just down the hallway, I have to say this was one of the most quiet rooms I've ever had. Probably a result of the Grand Villas being on the floor - and their main access is apparently on the 15th floor. A cast member said so many of the grand villa guests do not realize they can access parts of their unit from the 16th floor as well. If that adds to the quiet hallways on 16 - well good for me!
We had a lake view that over looked the BLT pool area as well. It was fun being able to watch the parasailers and the Big Ferry boats going back to their base during "non-peak" MK commuting time. By pure luck we also had a bonus being able to see a nighttime satellite rocket launch at Cape Canaveral from our balcony...very cool.
We stayed in a studio and I knew to expect it to be very small from other reviews. We're a family of 4. We brought an air mattress with us to give our boy and girl their own space. Disney probably isn't fond of air mattress use, but the foyer of the studio is very large and my 16 year old daughter had her own "studio" with in a studio.
The full size pullout couch which my 6 foot, 13 year old son slept on, worked out well for him. He said it was comfortable, but would have been hard to share with anyone since he slept more on a diagonal. This piece of the furniture is the only one in the unit that looked like it had some rough wear and tear.
The queen size bed was very comfortable as were the pillows and linens.
I had also read reviews where people said it was odd that the bathroom sink was in the kitchenette area. This was not the case in our unit. The bathroom sink was, well, in the bathroom. Not sure why our layout was different.
I had also read people complaining about having no lock on the sliding bathroom door. We DID have a lock, but it wasn't where you would expect it. The door handle was on the right of the sliding door, but the lock was on the left side - a little lever to push out to prevent the door from being opened.
The check in was easy and the cast members were all helpful throughout our stay.
The top of the world lounge was nice. Two nights we watched Wishes from the front balcony with lots of others. But I don't think many people know there's a back balcony behind the bar as we were the only ones there to watch the Electrical Water Parade as it passed by BLT at 10:10pm (immediately following Wishes). A big bar menu, but small dining menu - but at the hour we were there, we weren't looking to eat (except my son had mini corn dogs which he gave a thumbs up).
Activities at the pool were enjoyed by many. We went to the pool almost everyday but only one day, and very late in the day, did they come around with bracelets to give you to wear to prove you belonged at that pool. BLT guests could go over to the Contemporary pool as well.
Two of the nine days the walkway access to the contemporary was closed, but they did leave messages the night before to notify guests. Not an inconvenience at all.
The location of BLT was great to walk to/from the Magic Kingdom and easy access to the monorail to get to other MK-area hotels or Epcot Monorail. We were able to take boats to get to the Hoop De Doo Review as well as an Archery class my daughter took.
Leaving Epcot one night just as illuminations let out, the monorails were not working and the bus line (to TTC) was over-crowded. We jumped in one of the many cabs there and it cost about $18 including tip. We thought it was well worth it, as we figured the wait for the bus would be long, and then having to loop around to all the other resorts once we transferred to the resort monorail at the TTC.
We were staying here to cross off our list of all the DVC resorts we've stayed at and had fairly flat expectations based on some reviews I had read. We weren't here to pound the parks every day - but to equally balance park days with relaxation days at the resort. I have to say, we really enjoyed ourselves and would probably stay here again.
Pros:
LocationCons:
smaller units than some other DVCsReviewed by KTSabie Review Date: 07/29/2013
Rating: (9) Recommended
We stayed here for 6 nights in June 2013. We had three different rooms for our travel group. We all had lake view, but we could all see Magic Kingdom from our balconies. The rooms were clean, fresh and looked well maintained. The CMs were friendly and helpful.
I didn't love sharing a bus with Polynesian and Grand Floridian. We had a few wheelchairs in our travel party and because of the bus sharing, we had to wait for another bus when there was generally room on the bus for some of our party, but not for those in wheelchairs.
Pros:
Views, locationCons:
Shared busesReviewed by bigrigol23 Review Date: 06/28/2013
Rating: (10) Recommended
Stayed in a one bedroom villa from 6/21-6/25 w/lake view. Paul the guard at the front gate had all of us laughing before we even got out of our car. Arrived at 12:30 pm and our room was ready, did the online check in so the the check in at BL took about five min. Room was spotless and on our second day house keeping unexpectedly cleaned our room and folded our clothes. Lake view is the way to go, you can go up to the deck to see the MK fireworks and you can see the electric water parade from your room, plus the lake view is less points than a MK view which over looks the parking lot. Our villa was on the fifth floor where the bridge to the Contemporary is located so it was very short trip to get something to eat or to get to the Monorail. Nice pool and slide, pool could be a little deeper and a little cooler. This was our first stay at Bay lake and we would stay there again for sure.
Pros:
Monorail, close to MK, viewing MK fireworksCons:
noneReviewed by nrymut Review Date: 06/16/2013
Rating: (8) Recommended
We are seasoned DVC members and this was our first stay at this resort. We were promptly greeted upon arrival and check in was quick and easy. The room was nice and one of the cleanest I have seen in recent trips. Unfortunately the foyer toilet would not flush, but it was fixed promptly. Rooms are showing wear and tear. The blind on the door to the balcony was severely torn and the wooden chair gouged. We had no difficulty using the monorail or walking to MK. For other resorts we drove. View of fireworks from front of resort was very good. We didn't even try to go to the observation deck. Pool was a little small and crowded. Glad we tried it but we prefer other DVC resorts. This is a very good place to stay if you want to spend most of your time in MK.
