I recommend staying in the main building which is all Club Level Rooms and Suites. The Club Level Lounge on the 4th floor has food offerings throughout the day. The view over the lobby is fantastic. At 4pm everyday the orchestra begins and it is a wonderful place to be. Afternoon tea time is also a must do when staying here.
Dining
- Victoria & Albert’s – A long-standing AAA Five Diamond Award-winning restaurant at the hotel, with a menu created nightly and an award-winning wine cellar. The restaurant offers 3 experiences, each with its own menu and wine list: the main dining room, Queen Victoria’s Room, and the Chef’s Table. As of 2008, children under 10 are not permitted in this restaurant.
- Cítricos – American food with a Mediterranean inflection. Serves dinner nightly. It operates in a location that was formerly an Italian restaurant called Flagler’s that operated until 1997.
- Narcoossee’s – A waterside seafood restaurant with an open kitchen and views of Seven Seas Lagoon and the Magic Kingdom fireworks show, Wishes. Serves dinner nightly.
- 1900 Park Fare – Buffet dining with Disney characters including Mary Poppins and Cinderella. Inside this restaurant is “Big Bertha”, an organ built in Paris and used from 1909 to 1955 in a Grand Rapids, Michigan amusement park called Ramona Park. The organ’s instruments include pipes, drums, bells, cymbals, castanets and a xylophone, and are played by a piano-roll score. It plays short concerts periodically during mealtimes. Serves breakfast and dinner daily.
- Grand Floridian Café – Traditional American fare, with fresh fruit, seafood, and burgers. Serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily.
- Garden View Lounge – A small tea room located off the first floor lobby, serving traditional afternoon tea and offering character themed parties.
- Mizner’s Lounge – A bar and lounge serving drinks and appetizers.
- Gasparilla Island Grill – A 24-hour counter service restaurant with an adjacent arcade.
- Beaches Pool Bar and Grill and Courtyard Pool Bar – Poolside bars at the main pools, which in addition to drinks also offer some light meals and snacks.
Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa is a AAA Four Diamond Award–winning, Victorian themed luxury hotel and spa located at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. The property opened on June 28, 1988 as the Grand Floridian Beach Resort. The name changed to Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa during the fall of 1997. The resort contains 867 rooms among six buildings at an average of 400 square feet (37 m2) per room. A standard room can sleep up to five people. In March 2017 rates ranged from $629 per night for a standard room to $3,500 per night for the presidential suite. The resort is owned and operated by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.
The Grand Floridian is categorized as a deluxe resort, one of four types of accommodations at the Florida site. It is also distinguished as Disney’s flagship and most opulent resort.
History and influences
The Grand Floridian was inspired by the Victorian era beach resorts built along Florida‘s east coast during the late 19th century and early 20th century; its exterior is modeled after the Mount Washington Resort in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire and Hotel del Coronado in Coronado, California, with red gabled roofs and white walls. Additional design inspiration was taken from the Belleview-Biltmore Hotel in Belleair, Florida. The resort’s outer lodge buildings — Sago Cay, Sugarloaf Key, Conch Key, Boca Chica and Big Pine Key—are named for islands in the Florida Keys. The hotel’s main building features a five story lobby, a replica cage elevator, stained glass domes, and Italian marble floors with inlays of various Disney characters. During daytime hours, a grand pianist performs in the main lobby while a house orchestra plays on the second floor balcony every evening.
Initially, Walt Disney wanted a Polynesian resort (reflecting Adventureland), the Contemporary Resort to echo Tomorrowland, and other resorts that mirrored the ‘lands’ of the Magic Kingdom. Main Street and The Grand Floridian act as analogous reflections.
Along with Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort, the Grand Floridian sits on the shores of the man-made Seven Seas Lagoon near the Magic Kingdom. The hotel occupies land that had been earmarked for an Asian themed resort during the initial development of Walt Disney World Resort in the late 1960s. In 1988, The Beach Boys filmed a music video for their song Kokomo. In 1992, a 40,000-square-foot (3,700 m2) convention center opened adjacent to the hotel, which contains a business center.
The hotel has completed some major renovations in recent years. Since 2007, all guestrooms, restaurants, retail shops, and common areas of the resort have been updated. In 2011, the Grand Floridian Spa and Health Club underwent an extensive 18 month remodel. In 2013, the hotel completed a remodel of all pool areas along with the installation of a beachside fire pit and children’s water area themed to Disney’s Alice in Wonderland.
The Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa
Completed in 2013, the Disney Vacation Club building at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa houses 147 villas and studios.
