Our Reason
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be so lucky as to stay even just one night at the Disney’s Grand Floridian. Even though the hotel is a bit on the older side, I have always known that if Disney does it’s lower end hotels as good as it does, then the top of the line would be exquisite. Boy was I right!
On October 18th, 2007, my husband and I were married at the Wedding Chapel, on the property of the Grand Floridian. One of the perks of having our wedding there was that we were given the opportunity to pick one night in any of their hotels to stay for free. After politely refusing the All Stars, (ha!) we of course chose the Grand Floridian.
On our many planning visits, we begged and pleaded with the bellmen at the Grand Floridian to allow us to just see the type of room we would have on the night of our wedding day. The room was appropriately called their “honeymoon suite”, and to be honest was a bit smaller than the rooms at their other hotels, but made up for it with the marble tiled tubs, cute chair at the end of the bed, and the one of a kind view. We were psyched.
The surprise I never could have imagined!
Finally our wedding day arrived. While I was getting ready, my future husband went to check into our room. He immediately realized that something was different when the bellman got on his walkie-talkie saying “(Our last name) has arrived!” over and over again. Then they handed him a room key that was a different color than any other ones we had even seen.
So, fast forward to after the wedding. We walked along the walkway, from the ballrooms to the lobby, carrying all of our flowers, and headed for our room. The moment we arrived in the lobby of the hotel, the workers came to take our bags and escorted us to the fifth floor.
In the elevator, the very polite concierge had to insert a special key to get us to the fifth floor. We, honestly just thought that must be where the rest of the honeymoon suites were. After getting to the elevator, we walked down the hallway, and finally arrived at our room.
The bellman opened the door, and to our surprise, it was obvious that this was not the type of room that we had been showed months earlier. Not in the least.
To start off, the entry room was almost the size of a small hotel room by itself. There was a hat rack to the left, and a marble tiled bathroom, complete with a phone on the wall, to the right.
As you can guess, our initial reaction was, “ah, our you sure this is our room???”
The room
The room had a full living room that had antique plates that were glued (I admit, I tried to take the down, just to see. 🙂 ) to the wall. There was an over-sized armoire, with a large flat-screened TV. Plus a dining room table with chandelier, and an antique phonograph that actually worked in the corner. And that was just the first “section” of rooms. The other side of the suite had an ottoman, a four poster king sized bed, complete with little chocolates on the pillow that were wrapped in gold foil with a picture of Cinderella’s castle. Next, there was a changing room with two large closets, and two very plush robes ready for our use in the closet. That led into the second bathroom, that was adorned in more tan marble, with a large jacuzzi tub, complete with a collection of the Grand Floridians Spa shampoo, soap and accessories.
After watching our shocked expressions as we admired the furnishings, the concierge asked us if we needed anything else, and after asking for something to drink, he quickly returned with about 8 different varieties of soft drinks. Talk about efficient!! And no attitude! 🙂 And did I mention it was probably 1 am.?
We spent most of our time wondering from room to room, just admiring all the old decorations, trying not to fall asleep from exhaustion, to adequately soak it all in. I have stayed in many suites before, but none like this one. It was exquisite, and immaculately clean, with everything you could possibly need.
In the morning, my new husband went down a floor to get breakfast from the “concierge” buffet. Although I wasn’t even hungry, I found myself eating my weight in their delicate bagels, fruit and coffee. We sat outside, on one of our four balconies, and took in the beautiful grounds of the Grand Floridian. It was so peaceful!
My adventure
Generally when I travel, something goes inadvertently wrong, and I find myself in a crazy adventure that gives me something to write about later. So after an entirely perfect night and morning, it was only a matter of time before everything unraveled right??
After our wonderful breakfast, my husband and I noticed that although we remembered to bring a change of clothes with us, we had forgotten to get our shoes out of our car. And our car was at Saratoga Springs…quite a ways away… and we were supposed to check out of the Grand Floridian in like 10 minutes. Keep in mind this room goes for thousands of dollars a night, and if we were late checking out, our honeymoon money would have disappeared. The only shoes either of us had were the shoes we were married in. Are you picturing this? Hooker heels (hey, I needed the height for my dress!) and tux shoes, with shorts and t-shirts coming down the concierge floor elevator. Although the room was complimentary, we were still hoping to carry the illusion that we were completely elegant and exceedingly wealthy. It appeared as if our only other option was to get back in our wedding attire…
Realizing how dumb it would look to have a bride in a wrinkled dress going on the monorail, we finally came up with an alternative plan. We called and asked the concierge to see if they could bring us slippers.
They finally brought the slippers. You know, the papers ones you get after a pedicure. They also informed us that we had until 3 pm to get our car and check out, or else we would have to pay for the room. Surprisingly, they were really nice about the whole thing.
So, we sucked up our egos, and walked out of one of most expensive rooms, through Disney’s finest hotel, in our white, paper, flat, uncomfortable slippers. Thankfully, everyone in the hotel was very sweet; although I’m sure there were some snickers behind our backs.
Since this is a review about the hotel and not Disney’s transportation, I’ll spare you the details of what happened next. Let’s just say, that after having to explain to several people why we were in slippers, and getting off at the transportation and ticket center, thinking we could get to the Saratoga Springs, (we were wrong!) and running in our slippers trying to catch various buses, we finally did make it to our car. We were however helplessly late.
We called the Grand Floridian on the way back to the hotel, begging helplessly for them to spare our limited honeymoon money, and after talking to many people, they finally relented.
We had to be let back into the room by the concierge. I was luckily allowed to take some last minute photo’s of the suite. Come to find out, it was our sweet little cleaning lady that had spoken up for us so we wouldn’t have to pay. When we left, she told us to have a wonderful day, and congratulations. I felt bad that we were her last room, but she assured us that it was her pleasure. Thank God!
Conclusion
After being spoiled with this hotel, it made it hard to leave and go check into the Contemporary. And we love the contemporary! Everything was just second to none. From the friendly employees, to the music playing in the Victorian styled lobby (that is an experience in and of itself!), to the friendly lady that talked to us while we were enjoying a Bloody Mary in their bar; everything was just more than we could have imagined.
Most people probably avoid this hotel because of the cost. But I think everyone should try and splurge and stay here at least once. I would definitely say this hotel is worth every penny. Wait, we didn’t pay for it. 😉 Well, it would be worth every penny! I guess we did kind of pay for some of it with the cost of the wedding.
After returning home, we googled the Grand Floridian room prices and found out we were in the Victorian suite, that was actually about 1200 square feet in size for about $2,000 a night.
It was not a time to forget. And how could we! I will never look at white slippers the same again!
