Hotels: Islands

caribbean beach

It depends what you are in the mood for. Coronado Springs has a spanish culture theme behind it. So if your looking for something more cultural i suggest Corando Springs. If you want something that deal with just haning out on the beach than do Caribbean Beach Resort

Coronado…. easy. Here’s why:

1. Coronado, while nicely spread out (which is good), isn’t near as spread out as Caribbean. The more it’s spread out, the more bus stops within the resort (meaning a longer commute to the parks). And a good percentage of the rooms are pretty close to the main building, where (usually) is the last bus stop before the bus heads over to the park, and at park closing (often, but not always) is the first stop back. If you request water view you significantly increase your chances of being near the main building and not at the Ranchos section (which is the farthest away section).

2. I hear that Caribbean beach doesn’t have elevators. After all the walking you do during the day, walking up a flight of stairs (or 2) might not be fun for you.

3. Caribbean Beach has it’s Registration building separate from it’s Old Port Royale center (and kinda out of the way). If you only need to check in & out there it’s not a big deal, but if you need to do business in the middle of the trip (like if you lose a credit card & need one mailed to your resort, happened to me 2 trips ago) it would be a hassle at a place like that. Registration at Coronado is much more convenient.

4. The sit down restaurant at Coronado IMO is pretty good. Never ate at the sit down when I stayed at Caribbean years ago, but it sounds like it doesn’t really represent Caribbean food at all, while Coronado does have some Nuevo Latino dishes (roast duck w/ mole sauce is good, and the chimichurri dipping sauce for the bread is good).

5. Coronado seems to also have more variety in the archectiture & landscape of the buildings & grounds.

6. Coronado is a convention hotel (and the ONLY moderate convention hotel), which has several advantages. A significant one is that it attracts a lot of conventioning adults, who are a lot less likely to bring noisy kids with them & won’t be going to the parks as often as others. The result is a relatively quieter resort with probably less people on the busses.

7. Another perk of it being a convention hotel: the fitness center. Coronado is the only non deluxe property in WDW that has one. And my last trip there I lucked out and was literally 12 paces away from it (a 10 second walk). And it has a salon & massage place there as well.

8. And if you are one of those people who never really go on vacation even when you are vacation, Coronado has a business center which might be helpful.

Definitely Coronado Springs. It is newer than Caribbean Beach (which feels very outdated) and has terrific shopping, dining (the Pepper Market is great!) and the Mayan-themed pool is fabulous.
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I would go with the Caribbean beach resort. That is my moderate pick, when I have enough $$ to stay in one.

I just booked our first trip to WDW and after months of research decided on Port Orleans – French Quarter. If the trams didn’t stop at French Quarter first, I probably would have gone with Port Orleans – Riverside.