Disney's Coronado Springs Resort

Disney’s Coronado Springs Hotel. We stayed here for 5 days, the week that Disney shut down for coronavirus, and we left the day the parks closed (march 16th). It's a nice hotel, we stayed in a building that was right next to one of the shuttle stops, which made it really easy to come and go from the parks. The shuttles came by regularly and it was really convenient. The room was comfortable. Not a ton of room to store luggage. We had 2 people in the room, we both had a large suitcase that we slid underneath the beds (the beds are raised high enough off the ground to store luggage). There wasn't a lot of room to move around and there was only one chair. Not a lot of space for a family to fit comfortably, but it wasn’t any smaller than a typical hotel room. It was comfortable enough for 2 of us. There was plenty of counter space to store backpacks, snacks, cameras and phones. There was a mini fridge to store food. I was surprised that they didn't offer free Disney programming, just a small couple of unpopular short movies. We spent very little time in the room though, which is probably the case for most guests. There are several swimming pools. The one near our building was nothing special, but it was big enough to have a lot of people hanging out in it. We didn't use it. We had Disney bracelets to open the doors which was really convenient, however they didn't work at first and we had to walk a really long distance from the lobby to our building, then back again, just to get our bracelets to work. The lobby is nice and has a nice bar. There's a small but sufficient gym. There's also a big cafeteria. We were being fed for free as guests of Disney, but I bought a coffee and an oatmeal for about $20 there the first day. I didn't see any food I was excited to eat, but it works if you're hungry. We ate at the parks or at Disney Springs for most of our meals. Because coronavirus was starting to cause worldwide panic the week we arrived, Disney removed all the extra toilet paper and tissue from our room. We were rationed 1 roll of toilet paper for the week, and they put one tissue in the tissue holder for looks, but removed the actual tissue box. It was an interesting time, but we had a blast. Parks were as crowded as they always are. We got a message from Disney on Thursday that the park would be shutting down on Sunday. Very few people left, the lines were long until the very last day (when the parks finally cleared out quite a bit), and hand sanitizer didn't show up at most parks until Saturday, though most of them were always empty. They still insisted we use our fingerprint to get into all the parks (except Epcot). Some parks would wipe the fingerprint scanner after each use, some didn't wipe them down ever. We always carry our own hand sanitizer which we used constantly. I saw one lady with a whole pack of Lysol wipes, but other than that, it didn't appear that anyone was taking any extra precautions. Nobody was wiping down the ride handles, people weren't washing their hands before they ate, people were sneezing and coughing and not covering their mouths, parents were letting their kids lick their fingers after touching ride handles etc. Nobody seemed particularly concerned or aware that the rest of the world was shutting down at all. We flew home during one of the busiest mass exits from the state of Florida that has probably ever been seen. Lines were hours long, people were jam packed like herds of cattle, some people were starting to wear masks, but it was not the norm. We made it home and surprisingly, we didn't get sick. We had fun. In hindsight it was irresponsible of us to stay and enjoy the parks, but we weren't all that aware of how risky it was at the time, and we were completely sheltered from the real world, and Disney carried on as usual. If I came to Disney again, I wouldn't hesitate to stay at this hotel. Nothing particularly special about it, but it was clean and nice and convenient to stay on a Disney property so we could take the shuttle.

Definitely my favourite place to stay so far at Disney, we stayed in November 2019, the Christmas decorations were slowly going up as it was the beginning of November, the parks had more up than the resort, but by the end of our stay it was fully decorated and it was beautiful! We stay in the Cabanas area, used the swimming pool and hot tub, everywhere was always so clean, the rooms were just perfect, the right amount of amenities available, we enjoyed the refreshing walk to go and get our breakfast, whilst the food was almost the same every day, it did make it easier for us, we didn't have to spend too much time deciding what to eat - at this time, we had the quick service dining plan, so it was super useful. The staff, as we always find at Disney, were just so lovely, they always say hello, give you a smile and if you have any little ones they will sometimes go out of their way to make them giggle and have a bit of fun whilst around the resort. The cleaning staff are really pleasant too, they will always say hello to you, and if you ever need anything extra like towels or bedding, just ask! The activities they do around the resort we never actually did any, but we were by the pool when they did those events and the seem like great fun for the children. I'd highly recommend staying here, the renovated rooms are really nice, they give you body wash and shampoo/conditioner from the H2O range and there is also a hairdryer and an in room safe - free of charge.