Walt Disney World Swan

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1200 Epcot Resort Blvd.
Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830
(850) 747-8057

Location. Topped by two giant swans, the aptly named Walt Disney World Swan in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., is a massive resort stocked with endless amenities and convenient guest services. Guests can take a short riverboat ride from the hotel to Disney's Hollywood Studios™, Epcot® and Disney's Boardwalk entertainment area. A short walk across the street lands guests at Fantasia Gardens Miniature Golf, where even the smallest guests can putt with small plastic clubs.
Hotel Features. The hotel shares recreational activities with Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort, including a swimming complex suitably coined The Grotto. This three-acre water playground is complete with waterfalls, slides, water volleyball and spa tubs. Active guests can enjoy four tennis courts, a basketball court and a jogging path. Guests can paddle along Crescent Lake, or play volleyball on the hotel's white sand beach. The hotel also features enormous convention facilities, various gift shops and a children's camp with arts and crafts, movies and video games. Dining options include the Garden Grove Café, traditional Italian fare at Il Mulino New York Trattoria and Japanese sushi at Kimonos. Thoughtful amenities include computer rentals, ATM, laundry facilities, concierge services and currency exchange.

Guestrooms. Sophisticated guestrooms, designed by renowned architect Michael Graves in 2003, include views of the resort, Crescent Lake or the pools. Guests appreciate high-speed Internet access for a fee, refrigerators and in-room safes. Westin Heavenly beds feature down comforters (bedspreads) and pillowtop mattresses.

Expert Tip. At each of the restaurants on different days, children will love character dining, where Disney characters come to guests' tables to entertain, sign autographs and pose for photographs.

Guest Reviews: Walt Disney World Swan

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Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin: 1500 Epcot Resorts Boulevard | Orlando, FL 32830

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating:: Based on 1,120 traveler reviews

Most Recent Traveler Reviews:

“Big name, little quality”

Sep 1, 2010 cach23, Orlando, Florida

Entering our room we found the AC not working and had to wait for repair. Ok, one problem though BIG in the middle of a hot summer. (The cleaning staff... more »

“It's not a hotel, it's a city”

Aug 30, 2010 daveydave12, Miami Beach, Florida

If you are looking for an intimate hotel with personal service, don't stay at the Dolphin. We stayed for one night at the Dolphin, a gigantic hotel which shares grounds... more »

“Spent a few nights here last February...”

Aug 29, 2010 brianz09, Richmond, VA

Spent a few nights here last February. Too cold to enjoy pool and spent most of the last night dealing with jet blue problems, but the location was perfect. One... more »

“Classless establishment that doesn't fit in with Disney's reputation.”

Aug 29, 2010 timbo59, florida

Despite being locals with regular access to Disney World through our annual passes, we try to stay in one of the resorts each year as a little bit of a... more »

Despite being locals with regular access to Disney World through our annual passes, we try to stay in one of the resorts each year as a little bit of a bonus for our kids. We’ve stayed in everything, from deluxe resorts to the budget variety, and just try to mix it up from year to year. This time around we decided to try something different and go with the Dolphin resort, which is on Disney property but run as a separate entity – that should clue you up straight away.

As per usual, with our stay still weeks away we decided to take a peek at the resort during one of our regular visits to the parks in order to familiarize ourselves with the place. We’ve always found that such a leisurely orientation makes life a lot easier for the day we actually turn up to book in, as we already know where things like the swimming pool, restaurants, the best rooms, access to the parks, and so on are – it even helps in so far as learning how to get to the resort, as Disney World can be notoriously difficult to navigate by car, even for locals as familiar with the property as we are. Crucial signage is sometimes lacking at points where you need to turn.

So we turned up yesterday afternoon, in the midst of pouring monsoonal rain, and I dropped my wife and kids off at the main entrance to save them getting wet, after which I detoured down to find a place to park. To my surprise I discovered that it was ticketed parking – Disney resorts NEVER charge for parking – and that the fee was an excessive $12 per day. It was a double surprise actually, as we had specifically asked the booking agent on the phone if it was okay to come over and take a walk around, as is our usual want, and she’d never mentioned anything about having to pay a parking fee for the privilege. As we were only going to be there for an hour or so I asked the guy at the gate if the charge was pro-rated, as I obviously had little interest in paying $12 for an hour’s worth of parking – we could have easily driven over to the nearby Boardwalk, parked for nothing, and strolled over to the Dolphin, as we had intended making the walk in the other direction any way. ‘Yeah’, came back the reply, ‘and the first half hour is free’ when I told him we were only going to be there for a short time.

When I caught up with my wife and told her about the parking situation she promptly went up and asked the desk to take care of it, however small the charge, firstly because she felt that the booking agent should have mentioned it, which would have changed our method of entry, and because it hadn’t been cited as one of the charges we’d have to deal with as a cost of staying at the hotel – it had been touch and go which of the resorts we were going to stay at, and the price quoted to us had been what had swayed us to go with the Dolphin.

Now comes the part where one sees the major difference between Disney properties and places like the Dolphin, which I believe is run by the Sheraton group. The woman at the desk proved to be as snotty as possible, and curtly told my wife that it was just a matter of doing business with the Swan and Dolphin, and that they had no control over the parking (as far as comping us the fee) as it was apparently ‘outsourced’. That is utter rubbish, at least as far as denying the ability to get us through the gate. An acquaintance who works in management at a resort near Universal has had me visit the establishment on a number of occasions for business purposes – where they have similar ticketed parking – and he has never had a problem issuing me with the appropriate ticket to get me through the exit without a fee. My wife then promptly called up the booking agent, got to talk to the same person she’d booked with originally, and asked her why the parking fee hadn’t been mentioned? More hyperbole. This time the woman claimed that as most of the guests chose to arrive without a car she hadn’t thought about mentioning it when my wife had asked her to quote the full price – even though my wife had told her we were locals. What did she think we were going to do – hitchhike to the resort from the other side of Orlando? Or get Scotty to beam us across? To top it off, I had just driven through a car park as big as any at Disney’s resorts, and it was as jam packed with vehicles as one could imagine! The woman then tried further rationalizing the Dolphin’s position by stating ‘and bear in mind, we DO provide free shuttle service to the parks from the hotel!’ Big deal – Disney resorts also offer the same service sans the charge for parking, on top of which we didn’t need the shuttle service. Aside from having our own vehicle, our premium annual passes entitle us to free parking at any of the theme parks year round – that’s one of the reasons why we pay the extra for them. The woman proved as rude and abrupt as the one at the desk, and we ended up cancelling the booking and called Disney on the spot to book into one of their own resorts, Port Orleans, a moderately priced favorite of ours – and at an actual saving over the Dolphin’s fees, both disclosed and undisclosed.

To round off the afternoon, as we tried exiting the Dolphin’s car park, we discovered that the genius at the booth either didn’t understand what the term pro-rated meant, or had simply lied to us in order to get us into the car park. The fee to exit was a flat $12, regardless of whether we had been there all day or – as in our case – for an hour. The first half hour was free, so we were essentially being charged $12 for half an hour’s use of the facility – who in their right mind would pay that knowingly? The idiot at the booth wouldn’t own up to his mistake, even when he got his supervisor on the phone at our urging – screw the customer rather than admit ignorance or misinformation – and we ended up having a slanging match on the phone before they finally let us out – cars backing up behind us in the rain will do that for you.

All in all it was an unpleasant experience with a hotel group who shame Disney both by their back door charges and by their appalling attitude. We are heavy duty Disney users, taking our kids to the parks 40 – 50 times a year, and we have been guests at their resorts on a number of occasions as well. All through those years we have seen Disney’s staff pushed to their limits by guests who act in the most appalling manner at times and wondered how they keep their cool under such extreme provocation – contrary to popular belief, they do not get full blown courses in how to manage guests, it all by and large stems from the Disney mystique and the general attitude of the employees themselves. In turn, from the perspective of frequent visitors such as ourselves we have rarely had cause to complain about the staff or the parks because in general we just marvel at what a great product Disney puts out and how wonderfully well the staff (I should say cast members) handle themselves in what are often pretty adverse conditions. If you ever have any issues (the hotels, the parks, etc) they bend over backwards to try and accommodate you, be helpful, and give you that big sunny Disney smile. And I couldn’t even begin to list the many small gestures of kindness and friendliness exhibited to our children through the years that went beyond the requirements of the job by the staff – everywhere and anywhere. Then you see snotty behavior like that with the Dolphin and you wonder how the two can coexist, because the Dolphin staff live and work by a totally different and odious model.

In short, it wasn’t the overall expense of the parking fee that bothered us, because we have paid 2 – 3 times the Dolphin rates to stay at Disney resorts - it was just principle. We don’t like being slugged with back door fees that don’t get disclosed, particularly when Disney as a whole doesn’t charge them for its own resorts in the same area – and I personally have a problem with paying decent money to stay at a hotel only to have to pay for the privilege of parking my car there! Most of all, we don’t like the poor attitude of the staff, either at the hotel or on the phone – it’s total anathema to all that Disney tries to represent itself as, and the Dolphin and Swan are on Disney property.

So for anyone looking to book at either the Dolphin or the Swan, take into account two things –

- 1) that their hidden charges add $22 for every night of accommodation at the resort – if you bring your own car or hire one. Aside from being hit with the daily parking fee, there’s also a mandatory resort fee of $10 per night which, glory be, entitles you to use their fabulous exercise room – oh, but what if you don’t want to use it? Tough! Take that out and you’re paying $10 a night for two bottles of water (wow, water!) 60 minutes of local calls (makes a lot of sense. If you’re local you’d use your cell phone, if not how many people do you actually know locally?) and internet use, which seems a tad excessive when Wi-Fi is offered free of charge in many places these days.

- 2) if you’re looking for the same level of cordiality and professionalism associated with Disney’s parks and resorts, you’ll be sadly disappointed. « less

“The exposed gem, good but pricey”

Aug 29, 2010 123schnitzel, north america

The swan and dolphin were great hotels!! I stayed at the swan, so my review will be about the swan. Before I even got in to the hotel, I liked... more »