Caribbean Beach Review!

Caribbean Beach Resort.

Our last trip was for my 50th birthday. We brought the whole family. That’s me, my wife, and our 3 kids; 16, 12, and 9. Five people in total. The last time we brought the WHOLE family, we reserved two adjoining rooms at All-Star Movies. This time, we decided to try the 5th sleeper at Caribbean Beach.

My first impression when we pulled up was sheer tranquility. We’ve stayed at everything from a deluxe resort to value resorts, and this was beautiful. It did remind me of a Caribbean island. The resort is humongous, but it was easier to navigate than I thought.

On a previous trip, we’d visited Caribbean Beach almost by accident. We had “resort hopped” around the monorail loop while we were staying at Pop Century. We visited the Polynesian and finally the Grand Floridian. To get back to Pop, we had to figure out a way there. It’s not a huge task, but when your youngest kids want to ride the Skyliner, we had some navigation to consider.

We ended up taking the monorail to Magic Kingdom and then taking a bus to Caribbean Beach. Our plan was to be dropped off at the bus station and then take the Skyliner back to Pop. The thing we didn’t know (and the other 5 people on the bus with us who were doing the same thing), was that there were MULTIPLE bus stops at Caribbean Beach. Luckily our bus driver asked us what we were trying to do, so we explained it to him. When we left Trinidad, he dropped us off directly at the Skyliner location.

Surprisingly, we stayed in the Trinidad area of Caribbean Beach during our stay, so we have some pre-knowledge of the Skyliner and the bus stops. Our room was in front of the Sky Glass Grill and a small walk to the bus stop. If you’ve stayed in Trinidad, you know how close that bus stop is.

The Skyliner, on the other hand, is a bit of a walk away. It’s not far and the walk is beautiful (around the lake), but it’s a good walk, a little less than half a mile. From the Caribbean, if you’re going to Hollywood Studios or Epcot, there’s no transfer from the Skyliner; you stay on it for the whole trip. Hollywood Studios is a straight shot and at Epcot there are two turns – one at the Riviera and another near the Speedway before landing at the International Gateway.

The buses bring you to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom if you need to travel there. The one drawback to multiple bus stops in resorts with multiple stops is that they will pack the buses full before moving and that means if you’re on one of the first stops, you’re going to wait for some time before being on your way to Magic Kingdom or Animal Kingdom.

We also didn’t know – until the last day there – that there is an ‘internal transit” bus that runs to bring to other locations within Caribbean Beach. We didn’t get a chance to go to the main lobby during this trip, unfortunately. That’s okay, it just means we’ll have to go back!

The Spy Glass Grill was a fantastic find, and being so close to it was nice. The offerings it has for both breakfast and lunch/dinner are superb. Our family LOVES Disney Chicken Tenders and French Fries, and Spy Glass Grill doesn’t disappoint. I also had the Cuban Sandwich for dinner one night. It was spectacular. I’ve had authentic Cuban sandwiches and this one was close.

Now on to the room. I need to be clear here; we are a family of 5 and we rented a 5th Sleeper. While the room was spacious, there wasn’t enough room for us all to be comfortable. For the price we paid, we likely could have spent a few hundred dollars extra to rent two adjoining rooms and we’d have been more comfortable.

Essentially, the 5th Sleeper is the same as a standard/preferred room with a queen bed, a pull-down murphy bed, and then a pull-down single sleeper. This is a close image of the actual layout:

The queen bed closest to the wall, near the bathroom, is CLOSE to the wall. There’s very limited space on the “nightstand”. Same with the nightstand between the queen and the murphy bed. Instead of a table and chairs, there is a coffee table, and the 5th sleeper is closer to the door with the “dresser” and counter space where it’s pictured above.

The closet and storage space are plentiful, however, the dresser space is not enough for a whole family staying in the room. We managed it well, but ideally, we’d have been much better off with more drawer space. The space between the 5th sleeper and the window is fantastically big. It’s big enough to fit an inflatable mattress if you’d be inclined to bring one. We used it as a place to keep our shoes and souvenirs.

Now, I said all of that and I need to follow it up with this; we don’t spend a ton of time in the rooms we stay in. We rope drop the parks and we stay until close. On the off chance we do come back to the room(s), we don’t come back for long. So, day to day, we’re in the rooms to shower and sleep. Still, more room to stretch out during those times would be nice.

We learned a lot on this trip, one being that we need 2 rooms for our entire family. The 5th Sleeper just isn’t enough.

All in all, Caribbean Beach was everything we thought it would be and more. The room didn’t fit us but that was OUR fault. This is 100% a resort we’d stay at again!

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