Reviews of Saratoga Springs Resort (Disney Vacation Club)
Reviewed by jasmine0201 Review Date: 02/03/2014
Rating: (9) Recommended
The room we had stayed at was clean and the bed was comfortable. This is a nice room, except for the coach. The resort is huge. Disney does everything on a large scale. The parks are spread out, so as to handle the crowds and the many different forms of entertainment.
I enjoy the walks from our room to the main house. In the parks, the I enjoy walks from one ride to another ride. The employees are pretty good at there jobs. We had always been treated well. Will be going back to Disney for many years.
Pros:
Quite and cleanCons:
Each time we had sat down on the coach. We sank about 6 inche or more.Reviewed by Fishfamily Review Date: 01/31/2014
Rating: (7) Recommended
We went from Jan 4th to Jan 11th. All the Disney hotels are nice. What I enjoy about staying at a Disney resort is being in the Disney bubble all week and having everything function perfectly. All I have to do is get my kids moving in the morning and the Mouse does the rest. That was the case at Saratoga. We decided being close to the bus stop was better than being close to the restaurants. We got a room in The Grandstand which was one minute from the bus stop (and the first one on the line in the morning, first stop on the way back) and about five minutes from the main building/restaurants.
That location was perfect. It was early January and we get moving early with a 4 and 2 year old, two mornings we had our own bus. On the return trip we only waited more than 10 minutes twice. One night there was a big crowd but clearly Disney ordered more buses because they just kept coming one after the other.
Saratoga has the boat to Downtown Disney, that's nice.
We only ate at the quick service restaurant which is pricey for what you get, Disney has gotten very greedy about it's food pricing. The soda refill policy is annoying as well, I mean, soda is pure profit.
The location is only okay, long bus ride to MK, medium bus ride to Epcot and Hollywood Studios.
This is the least appealing deluxe resort in my view. A late 1800s horse race theme isn't very exciting to me, my kids were completely indifferent.
If you get over the lack of appeal everything else is nice, several pools, clean and so on. We have other resorts we want to try so we probably won't be back to Saratoga soon but we enjoyed our stay there.
Pros:
Got a great location for our familyCons:
Theming is not very excitingReviewed by MouseDaddy Review Date: 01/04/2014
Rating: (8) Recommended
We stayed here for 5 nights just prior to Thanksgiving, 11/22-11/27. Myself, DW, twin 12 yo DD & DS and both grandmas shared a 2 bedroom villa at Congress Park. Room was awesome...clean, great theming, with plenty of space for all. View of Downtown Disney, Characters in Flight, Cirque etc.
Bit of a hike from our room to the Artist's Palette or High Rock Spring pool... it's a really large resort that takes up a huge amount of acreage. But a pleasant stretch of the legs in nice weather and we had a car so I'd drive over to pick up coffee & danish on more inclement mornings. And hey, it's Disney, so how bad can it be to have to walk around a little?
The pool area is impressive with a nice bar area and the arcade right there. Lots of activities around the resort and we participated in a few poolside games and had a great time at the nightly marshmallow roast/smores campfire.
While we loved Artist's Palette and ate several meals there, a bit disappointing that AP & The Turf Club are the only dining options on property. Especially with a resort of this size and the TC's restricted hours it would seem another casual sit down/counter option or two might be appropriate.
We really enjoyed the equestrian theming of this resort and found it to be very relaxed & restful. We've stayed previously at GF and our fav the Beach Club and found Saratoga to compare favorably. Great attention to detail as with all WDW resorts.
Circumstances dictated we drive to the parks so can't comment on resort bus transportation. The pedestrian walkway/boat dock near our building was closed due to the construction on the new Disney Springs so we had to grab a boat from the dock near the golf course. We did use the boats several times over our stay and encountered no issues.
Overall it was a great trip and all agreed it was a very nice resort that we'd be happy to stay at again.
Pros:
Proximity to Downtown DisneyCons:
Large resortReviewed by Keelie Review Date: 12/23/2013
Rating: (9) Recommended
We stayed here for one night before transferring to the Grand Floridian Villas and we were pleasantly surprise with how much we liked the place! It was beautiful and bell services was quick to load us into a golf cart and get us to our room. We were right near the walkway to Downtown Disney (which was closed) and could see the balloon and Fulton's boat from our porch. The room itself was really nice and spacious and we were close to a quiet pool, bus stop, and had a short walk to the main building.
The one time we did take the bus it took forever though. There are 4 or 5 stops at this vast resort and it does eat up some time. We figured out the fastest way was getting off at another stop and just walking back to ours, but had we stayed there longer I think this would have put a damper on the trip. This is definitely a resort designed around you having a car!
Pros:
Location near Downtown Disney, beautiful roomCons:
bus transportationReviewed by Siage77 Review Date: 11/14/2013
Rating: (8) Recommended
We stayed only one night on 10/31/13. The check in was fast. Our magic bands gave us trouble but i realize they re still in the testing phase. The room was very nice. Bed and sofa bed were comfortable.Main pool area was beautiful. Nice slides and tons of activities for kids for Halloween. At night there was a halloween party with contests and characters. Food court and restaurant were delicious!!Our hotel was a little far from main area. There was a closer pool that was quieter however
Pros:
Great pool/lots of eventsCons:
Room was far from main areaReviewed by Mich97 Review Date: 08/30/2013
Rating: (7) Recommended
This is our home resort and we usually love it. It nice and clean. We usually don't have problems with bus service either. We did have one problem this trip. Usually our room is ready for us when we check in - be it at 11am or 4pm. And while I realize that officially check-in time is 4pm, they actually did not release that room to us till almost 4pm (we had checked in about 12pm). Although I found the wait inconvenient we did make use of the pool. And considering the location of the room that we got, I'd say it was worth the wait.
Pros:
—Cons:
—Reviewed by michaeltigue Review Date: 07/20/2013
Rating: (8) Recommended
Had an amazing stay at Saratoga Springs. We've stayed there many times actually. Paid $162 using www.saratooga.com, which specializes in arranging DVC rentals for Saratoga Springs. Amazing pricing.
Pros:
clean, beautiful, patios, kitchenette, golf course, water, boat ride, basketball, poolsCons:
large layout, not close to parksReviewed by wattage Review Date: 04/11/2013
Rating: (8) Recommended
We stayed four nights at Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort (3/31 – 4/4/13). Me, My wife and daughter stayed in a deluxe studio in the Paddock area of the resort – one building over from the new pool area. We were close to the back exit of the resort which was convenient for us as we had a car. I highly recommend having a car if staying at Saratoga as the busses take a long time to get to the parks and you are forced to waste a great deal of time waiting for the busses to pick you up.
Our studio was on the second floor directly across from the front stairwell. The room was quiet and clean. The beds were very comfortable and the towels were nice and thick. We stayed using our DVC points so we received towel and trash service only on day three. We had no mechanical issues like our last stay in October 2012. The resort has new locks that only require you to touch your card-key to the lock for it to open your room. We packed thinking we had a washer and dryer in our room, but a studio does not come with that luxury. So we had to utilize the guess laundry on two occasions. The laundry areas were free to use, and had enough washer and dryers that we never had to wait to use either.
The grounds and building of the resort are beautiful and well maintained. I’ll still only stay at Saratoga Springs ONLY if I cannot get in at any other resort, but this trip it was not a bad place for our four nights.
Pros:
Grounds, staff, poolsCons:
LocationReviewed by kermike Review Date: 04/09/2013
Rating: (9) Recommended
We had the pleasure of staying from 5/30-4/6, I had checked-in online so I could request the Grandstand area since this is first on the bus stops. Staying at Grandstand, we were close by to a smaller pool which was not busy and nice because no chaos. We where traveling with friends and had the 2 bedroom Villa that fit the 8 of us very well. Having onsite laundry made the packing easier.
Pros:
Cleanliness, Staff and TransportationCons:
Evil Black snake I ran into..Reviewed by bill_p Review Date: 03/25/2013
Rating: (8) Recommended
My family of 4 stayed in a studio for a week, and had a great time. We were in Carousel, close to the buses (and also fairly close to the Paddock pool). The room was a good size for a week's worth of clothes and supplies, and the fold-out bed was very comfortable for our kids (12 and 8). The older daughter is approaching that "teen angst" phase, and probably would have preferred a hotel with a Haunted Mansion theme, but by our 2nd morning there was talking about how much she loved the setting.
The staff was friendly. Service at the Turf Club was wonderful (Rob was our server). Buses were almost always quick to arrive.
Yes, the sections are spread out, so until you learn your way around, it can be a bit of a hike, but overall, we very much enjoyed our stay here and are looking forward to coming back.
