Taste of Disney

Let me start this review by explaining why I chose to stay at the Beach Club Villas. At the beginning of this trip (before the rest of our family arrived), it was just my husband and me. Our favorite park is Epcot so when it was just the two of us, we planned to spend most of our time there. So I started out by looking for a room at either the Boardwalk or Yacht & Beach Club because of their close proximity to Epcot. We love being able to walk to the International Gateway entrance to Epcot from our hotel room, so that was my biggest priority when choosing a hotel for the two of us. With the 25% room only discount that was offered at that time, the least expensive room available for our 3 night stay (Thursday – Sunday) at these three hotels (Boardwalk, Yacht Club and Beach Club) was a standard view room at the Beach Club. But then in my online search I saw that a studio villa (standard view) was also available on the Villas side of the Beach Club for just a little more money. It had been more than 10 years since we had stayed at the Beach Club Villas so the idea of staying there again was intriguing. After doing some quick research I discovered that the villas had been recently refurbished (Dec. 2023) which was a plus. Another draw for me was having a microwave in the room. We often have leftover food when dining at Epcot that is left behind, so I thought having the ability to reheat and eat leftovers would be a money saver. However, the biggest advantage is how close the Beach Club Villas building is to Epcot…

As you can see, after exiting from the main entrance of the Villas building you merely have to walk around the far end of the Beach Club hotel building and you are at the walkway to Epcot. From what I can tell, only if you were assigned a room at the far end of the Beach Club hotel (by the quiet pool) would you be closer to Epcot. So this was what sold me on staying at the Beach Club Villas.

Now on to the review of our 3 night stay at Disney’s Beach Club Villas…

Upon arrival at the Beach Club Resort, we parked our car in the area closest to the Villas building. Carrying most of our luggage with us, we ended up walking around much of the exterior of the building before we found the main entrance. The elevator at this entrance took us within a few steps of our room on the 3rd floor.

Our assigned room, #325 (shown in blue on the above map found online at the ParkInfo2Go.com website) was a Standard View Studio, the least expensive room category offered at the Beach Club Villas. Our room faced a wooded area and behind that was Epcot.

Here is photo of the view from our balcony…

We were able to see the Epcot fireworks above the trees one evening from our balcony.

And speaking of our balcony, it was small with two chairs and a small table…

The odd thing about our room though is that it was a Handicap Accessible room, which we did not request or need. I believe there are only a couple of Handicap Accessible Studio rooms on each of the 5 floors of the Beach Club Villas so I felt a little weird about having one of these when we did not need it. Before unpacking that evening I went to the Beach Club lobby desk to see if there were any regular rooms available at either the Villas or the hotel side of the resort but was told that the only room available was on their Club Floor, which came with a very hefty price.

Consequently, we stuck with Room #325 for our 3 night stay at the Beach Club Villas. So let me show you photos of this Handicap Accessible room and explain how it differs from a regular studio.

First of all, the queen size bed sat lower to the floor than usual. This was my first clue when entering this room that it was Handicap Accessible.

This was not something we were used to, but decided it was no big deal since the mattress was comfortable.

There was also a double-size Murphy bed which pulled down from above the sofa…

The third bed is a single bed that pulls out from the console below the tv…

Although we did not pull this out, I’ve seen photos and appears to be a little smaller than a twin size bed so it would likely only be comfortable for a child. However, I believe the room occupancy for the Beach Club studios is for 5 adults. When the bed is not pulled out then this functions as a small table. Also pictured on the right is an armoire. In this Handicap Accessible room this took the place of a regular closet.

Next up is the kitchenette area of our studio villa room…

As far as I could tell there were no modifications here for Handicap Accessibility. The mini-fridge here was bigger than the ones they now have in the regular Disney resort rooms. For comparison, here is a photo of the one we had at the Contemporary resort…

As you can see, these are more like a wine cooler and are small enough to fit inside a cabinet. They hold a lot less than the mini-fridge we had in our Beach Club Villas studio.

In addition to the mini-fridge this area had a small sink with a dish cloth and dish soap provided. However, note that there were no plates, cups or silverware provided other than plastic ones.

Also note that while the regular rooms at the Disney hotels have Keurig single serve coffee makers, the studio rooms at the BC Villas were upgraded to the Keurig (K-Duo) coffee makers where you could make either a single serve cup or a 12 cup carafe of coffee.

A nice bonus feature of the studio villas (something I wish they had in their regular Disney hotel rooms) is the microwave, which was medium in size. Also I found a toaster and an extra roll of paper towels in the cabinet above the microwave.

The biggest difference between this Handicap Accessible room and a regular Beach Club Studio room is how the bathroom area is set up. In a regular studio room the bathroom is separated into two rooms. The closet (replaced by an armoire in Handicap Accessible room) and counter/sink/mirror are located outside of the room which has the toilet and tub/shower.

This is how I prefer hotel bathrooms to be set up, especially at Disney World. When you have multiple people trying to shower and get ready in the mornings, the separation of these areas of the bathroom makes it so much easier.

So that it why I was disappointed with the bathroom set up of our Handicap Accessible room…

As you can see, the bathroom was quite large, which is good for someone in a wheel chair or using a walker. Also of note though is that it did not have a roll-in shower, but there were hand rails in the combination tub/shower. While the extra floor space of this bathroom was pretty much a waste of space for my husband and me (we would have preferred more counter space and a second sink), it would probably be of benefit to families with small children needing to take baths. In many hotel rooms there is very little space between the tub and the toilet for a parent to supervise/help during bath time. This was not the case in this bathroom. There was plenty of floor space!

There were a few problems with this bathroom. First the tub/shower drained very slowly so while taking a shower you would find yourself standing in a pool of water. Also the fan did not work so the mirror would be fogged up after showering.

My husband’s biggest gripe though regarding this bathroom was that there was no towel bar to hang a wet hand towel or wash cloth by the sink/counter area. Consequently he was hanging them on the makeup mirror, which kind of drove me crazy when I wanted to use it, lol.

Ok, so now my overall feelings regarding our stay at the Beach Club Villas. First of all, I would have to say that I was a bit disappointed in the “look” of this recently refurbished room. The decor seemed pretty dull and reminded me of the room at a Holiday Inn Express (which btw, also had a mini-fridge and microwave) that we’d stayed in during our drive down to Florida. However, the Beach Club price was more than 4 times more. Yikes! Disney considers this DVC property to be “DeLuxe” and charges a DeLuxe price to stay there however to me it felt more like an overpriced Moderate.

For various reasons (explained previously) I was also disappointed with being assigned to a Handicap Accessible room. The one advantage though was that this room was located right next to the elevator so we could leave our room on the 3rd floor and exit the Villas building in about one minute. From there it was a very short walk to the Beach Club Marketplace (the resort’s quick service restaurant/gift shop) and the lobby, which are located in the Beach Club’s main building. And even better, it was only a 7 minute walk from there to Epcot’s International Gateway entrance. Or even less to the Skyliner station, which we took to Hollywood Studios one morning. That was fantastic! So even though I was disappointed with the room itself, its location mostly made up for it.

So I will end this review with that famous quote, “The three most important factors in determining the desirability of a property are “LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!” If staying a very short walk away from Epcot is desirable to you, then I recommend the Beach Club Villas. If this is not a priority for you, then there are better options available at cheaper prices.