Disney's Yacht Club Resort

Disney's Yacht Club Resort opened on 5 November 1990, a five-storey hotel that Robert A.M. Stern designed in the shingle style of the old summer hotels of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. It stands on Crescent Lake beside its pastel sister, the Beach Club, with its own lighthouse on the lake, the BoardWalk across the water and Epcot's International Gateway a short walk along the shore. Inside, the lobby is a yacht club's, all nautical touches. Guests get 30 minutes' early entry to the parks every day of the stay and, as it is a Disney Deluxe resort, extended evening hours on select nights, benefits Disney says run through 2027. There is no resort fee.

The rooms come in two views and two levels. Resort View rooms look over gardens, rooftops or the car park, and Water View rooms over Crescent Lake or the Yacht Club's quiet pool; both sleep up to five adults, with a king bed or two queens and, in some rooms, a day bed. Club Level adds a lounge serving refreshments 7am to 10pm, a concierge and Disney's trip-planning service, and Disney sells its Water View rooms on a view over a Stormalong Bay lagoon. Above them sit the suites, from the Turret Suite to the Captain's Deck. On a Tuesday in early February 2027, Disney prices the Resort View at $656 a night before tax and the Water View at $774.

Stormalong Bay is the reason to book. It fills three acres between the Yacht Club and the Beach Club: a sand-bottomed pool you wade into from a sloping beach, a circular lazy river, three whirlpools, an elevated sun deck and, across the lakeside walk, a life-size shipwreck, from whose mast one of the highest hotel slides at Walt Disney World runs 230 feet back to the pool. Small children have the Shipwreck Pool and its miniature slide. Only guests of the two hotels and the Beach Club Villas may swim here, and Disney keeps it out of pool hopping. The Yacht Club's own Admiral Pool, in a quiet garden with a whirlpool, is the calm alternative, and the poolside cabanas, with cocktail service, are kept for guests of the two hotels.

The trade is the entry room and the works next door. Guests in Resort View rooms have found their windows facing a roof, a car park or the bus stop, and the Beach Club is under visible exterior maintenance through late 2027, with daytime noise. On busy days the shaded loungers go early, and Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom are a bus ride away. Book it for an Epcot and Hollywood Studios week with children who want their afternoons in the water.