Best Disney Moderate Resort

[mydogisanidiott]

Which is the best out of Coronado Spring, Port orleans FQ, Port Orleans RS, and Caribbean beach?

Staying for one week 2 adults with free dining plan? No car.

What time of year? If during one of the Epcot Festivals (F&W etc) I’d go with the Caribbean Beach for access via the gondolas. Port Orleans FQ is a nice compact resort, RS has nice landscaping/buildings but is much more spread out (so multiple bus stops).

Port Orleans Riverside is our favourite. It’s so quiet and relaxing - a little oasis after a day in the parks! While you’re there, take the boat/bus/walk to FQ for some beignets because they’re heavenly!
Coronado's theme is less distinctively "Disney”, but it feels more modern and sophisticated. I loved the bar/restaurant with the balcony at destiny tower! How about a week at each?

Last week in August.

My initial though is the vibe of PORS seem much more us - relaxed outdoorsy vibe with things to see and do on site. and a little oasis like you say. But then I’m torn by the skyliner at CB?

How would it be getting Ubers from PORS to the parks each day and then feee transportation home or vice versa. roughly how long will it take from leaving the room to arriving at the park

We’ve not done Disney before. But I expect we will do around 5-7 hours at the parks most days and the rest of the time relaxing at the hotel/ shopping/water park or exploring Disney Springs or resort hopping

My personal favourite is PORS but it is big. We always have a car but happily used the buses to get to the parks, not used Uber there. To get to a waterpark you have to go to Disney Springs and change bus which is a faff.

I am not a fan of gondolas and haven’t stayed at CBR for more than 20 years but for the last week of August it would be a consideration.

I wouldn’t choose to stay at Coranado Springs.

As this is your first visit to WDW are you aware how huge it is. It takes a while to get anywhere.

We always took the bus when we stayed at PORS. To Magic Kingdom was about 10-15 mins tops. Epcot and Hollywood a bit longer and Animal Kingdom is the longest but busses ran pretty frequently.
The resort is really big (4 stops) so depending on where your room is you may have a decent walk to the bus stops. You can request a room closest to a stop though. Our room was a HIKE from the main lobby, but extremely close to the North bus stop, which was pretty nice after a long day in the parks.
The busses go clockwise around all 4 stops and we did see busses get full in the morning before they made it to the final stop (Magnolia Side).
Also, at night, you can always take the FQ bus if the Riverside bus is full. I believe you can take the boat from FQ to Riverside, but we usually walked since we enjoyed the view.

I’d price up swan or dolphin plus food -deluxe perks and can walk /boat to 2 parks very easily.

My kids stayed at Conorado Springs with their dad two different occasions. The we’re going to stay at PO the second time but liked CS so didn’t want to change incase it wasn’t as good. I guess there’s pros and cons to all.

These are all such helpful comments. I’m wondering f if PORS might be too big.

Maybe FQ would work better with a boat to Disney springs.

I will have a look at some you tubes!

I have in mind and hour to travel door to door each day.

We've stayed at both Riverside & French Quarter in August.
Personally, we wouldn't return to Riverside as it was way to big, room was grotty (but apparently they're being rennovated) & the bus stops & service were terrible.
French Quarter was lovely. Nice sized, rooms were fresh, only one bus stop, peaceful & quiet. Cons were the pool was always crowded with most sunbeds reserved and no one using them & the quick service restaurant was awful.
Having looked around Caribbean Beach, it's way too big for our liking but the Skyliner is great.
If we went back to a moderate, we'd try Coronado Springs but in the Grand Destino Tower.

POR is gorgeous, stayed there twice. But having stayed at POP last summer I would go for Caribbean Beach for the skyliner and easy access to Epcot for all the dining options and to Hollywood Studios. Request a room in the Aruba area and use the Riviera Resort skyliner station.

Not a moderate but I wouldn’t exclude pop century. Great access to skyliner for transport. It’s more budget than the ones you have listed but it isn’t one of the really budget options more somewhere in the middle. Good transport with the busses and has the advantage of being the first stop on the skyliner so it’s easy to get a seat.

pop centre isn’t on the dining plan - you only get one quick service per day.

I really want the dining plan!

Ahh ok. Are you getting a good deal on the dinning plan? Just asking as I know a lot of people don’t really rate it value wide as much now.

Get a quote to upgrade the POP dining plan. See how it compares with Caribbean or Port Orleans.
PO and POP both have good QS offerings. Didn’t enjoy PO’s table service, so that wouldn’t sway me. And it’s so easy to get to other resorts or the parks for table service.

I've only stayed at Caribbean Beach Resort- but would happily recommend it.

Have a fab time!

We booked Caribbean beach resort but the rooms had been renovated and had a pull down second bed instead of two proper beds so changed to PORS. We loved it, didn’t feel big and our room was lovely. Loved the quick service restaurant for brekkie and the pool after a long day was perfect for us. We always drove to the parks, and a couple times caught the boat to Disney Springs for dinner and could both have a drink, though long queue to get back.

Another suggestion is a split stay. We did dolphin then animal kingdom lodge for a weekend then back to dolphin. The lodge was lovely but I was over seeing giraffes from my room by day 3.
it also mean you would plan to have that 2-3 days with a dining package and eat a ton then.
then just eat how you want rest of the time. We went during food and arts so often just snacked around the world. Or did monorail bar crawls so really didn’t fancy huge meals to then go on rides.
as an accountant, trying to min/max the dining plan would probably ruin all fun of having it.