Reviews of Caribbean Beach Resort (Moderate Resort)
Reviewed by beaner1219 Review Date: 01/07/2014
Rating: (10) Recommended
Stayed first week of Dec. Room was ready at check in, 9:00am.
We had bracelets and they worked great. Food at port Royal was great.
Room was always clean when we returned from parks
Pros:
Room, buses,fodCons:
NoneReviewed by PAProfessor Review Date: 12/29/2013
Rating: (5) Recommended
This was our 18th visit to WDW and our 5th resort. We checked in on Nov. 15th and left on Nov. 22.
Check-in was not smooth as at other resorts. Reservations were not correct and my DD's room was not connected as we had reserved. We had done this on every other visit. We booked preferred rooms months in advance since my wife is in a wheel chair and I was coming off surgery that mandated very little walking. I called the WDW reservations to make them aware of my latest situation and they assured me housekeeping had it under control. We ended up in Trinidad North but on the back side requiring a 3-4 hundred yard walk to Old Port Royale. Odd since I viewed several non-handicapped families exiting rooms that were right next to OPR.
The second hint things were not going well was the musty smell upon entering the room. Obviously the carpets had been cleaned but were not allowed to dry properly. They were damp in spots. The beds at this resort are too small for a moderate. House keeping was not up to usual WDW standards until the last 2 days when a new HK'er came on duty.
The MAJOR complaint at this resort is busing. It has 7 or 8 stops. Depending on where the bus entered the resort many times it was full and did not stop or it had 20-30 people standing packed in tight. One morning we waited 50 minutes until we called on the bus stop phone. We kept track of the time and on average we consumed 2-3 hours a day waiting and traveling on buses at CBR. At the price that is unresonable.
The resort is huge but does have a nice pool. The food court is only OK. This resort needs major updates like the gift shop and it's selections.
The employees at OPR were great and very friendly and helpful, especially the concierge desk.
We have stayed at PC, ASM, CSR, POR and now CBR and this seems negative. We have never in 18 visits complained but this is our absolutely last visit to CBR.
Pros:
LandscapingCons:
Check-in, room, busingReviewed by districtdisneygirl Review Date: 12/02/2013
Rating: (9) Recommended
We were very happy with the Caribbean during our 7 night stay. We had excellent Mousekeeping and enjoyed the beautiful surroundings and relative serenity of the resort. We requested a room close to Old Port Royale and found that it was a very short walk to food/beverage/shopping each day as well as our bus stops.
Pros:
Beautiful landscaping, Quiet/peaceful, Convenient transportationCons:
No refrigerator in room, wish food court/bar were open laterReviewed by nursenita Review Date: 11/29/2013
Rating: (8) Recommended
Enjoyed every day of my 8 days at the resort.
Pros:
private beach areas, king size beds, QuietCons:
no refrigerators in roomsReviewed by sarhend Review Date: 11/25/2013
Rating: (7) Recommended
Just got back from a one week stay at the Carribean Beach. We enjoyed our room somewhat dated but well maintained. Queen beds would have been nice but the double beds and pillows were very comfortable. We liked that the shower was seperated from sinks. Allowing someone to get ready while someone else was in the shower. The room size was very decent. From reading other reviews, we were somewhat worried about the size of the resort and the distance from one location to the other. We were quite happy to be in Jamaica. We often crossed to Old Port Royale and took the bus there. In general, we did not wait too long for buses to the parks. The Bell service was very helpful in getting our bags to our room and then to the customs house to catch the Magical Express. We enjoyed the foodcourt. Found there was a good selection. Had an excellent meal at Shutters. Did not get a chance to try the pools. If you're looking for a tropical feel, this is for you. If you're looking for something that has all services centrally located then this might not be for you.
Pros:
Tropical feelCons:
DistanceReviewed by SCOTTMOP Review Date: 11/24/2013
Rating: (8) Recommended
We stayed 11/15-11/23 in bldg 26 in Martinique. This was a preferred room and well worth the extra. Originally we picked POFQ but had to switch to get free dining. Our room was a stairway away from a short short walk to the bus depot and Center town. Buses did make a few pick ups but never it seemed to all they had. The resort is big and has an internal shuttle. the further away you are the longer it takes to get to the center of the action as the internal does stop at each bus stop. Mousekeeping did a great job. I would stay here again only if I could get same building.
Pros:
beautiful resort, beaches, marinaCons:
rather bigReviewed by Siage77 Review Date: 11/14/2013
Rating: (9) Recommended
Awesome hotel! Worth the money! Huge pool area and smaller beach areas. Plenty of pool seating and nice pool bar. Great great food court and rooms were perfect! All the sections have their own private pool area and laundry so you dont have to walk to main area. Front desk was great. The lovely check in girl fixed our magic bands
Pros:
Awesome pool and food court!Cons:
NoneReviewed by Ninja Mom Review Date: 11/03/2013
Rating: (5) Not Recommended
I will begin this review with my check in and the point that my room requests were not met, so I requested that they reassign my location. Doing so meant that they would not inform me of my room location until 3:00 pm on the dot, even though I confirmed from the area housekeeper that the room was ready earlier. This was an unnecessary disadvantage when transferring from a different resort and having to access your luggage, which was on premises and stored at the inconveniently located Custom's house.
The fact that the Customs House was located away from the main resort area meant that upon check in and check out you had to journey to and from this location, which I felt was an unnecessary step in accomplishing your goal. The departure for the Magical Express is from this Customs house location and there are only uncomfortable wooden benches OUTSIDE to sit on, so that was another negative about this resort.
Transportation: The inter-resort bus was a cumbersome affair and you could count on at least a 25 minute or more trip if you needed to depend on it to deliver you from one location to another. The inter-resort bus seemed to only be making two loops an hour so this detrimentally impacted on the wait times for using this bus. This could eat a lot of time out of your schedule, especially if you needed to use the food court and were at the further reaches of the resort and chose not to walk.
The resort is large, too large in my opinion and uses a whopping 8 bus stops. If you add in the time to load/unload scooters etc you could easily find yourself on this bus for a "Disney lifetime". Because of this transportation arrangement the bus never empties or loads all at once, so you frequently find yourself getting on a crowded bus and hoping to be in the right area for other riders to get off and vacate their seats.
Located in the "Center" of the resort is the food court area. There is plenty of seating both indoors and out and the fare is similar to what you would find at the other large Moderate hotel food courts. The cashiers we had were NOT familiar with the different pricing on the offerings if you purchased a partial entree and often automatically defaulted to charging us the FULL dining plan price for a PARTIAL entree order, thinking that we were on the dining plan (We were not on the dining plan and said so repeatedly). We informed them before the transaction began that we did not have the full entree but they simply did not know how to ring up anything else and we constantly had to show them where the buttons were on their own cash register to ring up our purchases correctly! Every time we purchased entrees at the food court this happened so it was not an isolated problem. Let the buyer beware when venturing into this food court for a purchase!
In the lobby of this food court area there is a Concierge desk where you can receive assistance with airline check in and other matters thus saving you a laborious journey to the dreaded Customs House. This area was frequently busy but I noticed that managers were helping armed with ipads. Customer service both at this location and at the Customs House was both professional and proficient.
Housekeeping: I thought Housekeeping was great. Our room was clean and all of our daily requests, which were listed on our tip envelope, were met. On Sunday there were no Housekeepers to be found so we called and requested a time for a room cleaning. This was promptly met. The laundry rooms were clean and in good working order as well as the pool areas.
The main pool is the noisy mess in that afternoons that you would find at any Disney resort but the quiet pools are nice with regular sweeps from the staff to tidy up and check for misaligned chairs and discarded towels. There were many hammocks located on property as well as beaches where one could find lounge chairs to relax in.
To sum up my review, the one advantage to this resort is the lovely theme.
Amongst the many disadvantages (Cumbersome transportation, awkward Customs house location, too large resort size) are the tiny, "full" sized beds. With two people in them they are way more than "full", so expect to be sleeping both on top of your spouse and off the edge of the bed simultaneously. I could never recommend any resort that offers these undersized beds. At the prices Disney charges it's way past the time that these should be replaced with Queen sized beds and they are a limiting factor in our enjoyment of the room.
For us Caribbean Beach Resort is a one and done. We are glad we tried it, but we know for us and our parks centered Disney vacation this is not the resort for us. If however, you value a resort for it's charming setting and relaxed feel THIS is the resort for you. If we ever decide to go to Walt Disney World and spend much of our time hanging out at the resort and enjoying the amenities, then this would be the resort for us. It's tropical setting and loads of quiet areas available to sit and relax are perfect for this type of Disney Vacation. For running back and forth to the parks, in our view not so much.
Pros:
beautiful settingCons:
too many bus stops/ poor seating in lobbyReviewed by momof3inMadisonAL Review Date: 10/09/2013
Rating: (6) Recommended
Don't usually stay in a moderate and have to say I was pretty disappointed. There were no fridges during our stay. So every morning we had to walk all the way to Port Royal to get breakfast. We were in a preferred room in Jamaica. It was a 10-15 min walk across lake.
Theming was minimal. The Nemo wallpaper border was about it - and it wasn't really great. Maybe I should have paid extra for a pirate room After staying in AoA suite last month, I found CBR of lower quality. The extra floor space compared to a value resort is really just wasted space. Will stick with AoA next time.
Pros:
—Cons:
Distance to get coffee in amReviewed by wegoshopgirl Review Date: 10/04/2013
Rating: (10) Recommended
Sept. 2013 was our fourth time staying at CBR. We love this resort! It is nice to actually have a resort that you can relax a little bit at. Love the hammocks and beaches! The pool is awesome, but it is aggravating that the slides close so early (you won't make it if you stay til park closing). The surroundings are so beautiful and serene, but hard to remember your way around sometimes. The bus stops at every island in the resort, so this is a nuisance at times. Having a separate location for check-in and guest services (the Custom House) can be time consuming too. Over all we highly recommend this resort. The good definitely outweighs the bad. There are even fans in the rooms. And with the free dining plan (instead of free quick service dining) it really helps to make up for the additional cost of staying in a moderate resort.
