In his first feature for DVCNews.com, contributor David Mumpower shares his thoughts on the Top 5 Disney Vacation Club resort pools.
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Did Saratoga Springs' High Rock Spring make the cut?
Infrequent visitors to Walt Disney World don’t spend their vacation time in the same way as Disney Vacation Club members. They have to attack the trip as if they might not return for several years. This time constraint forces them to miss out on some of the best parts of The Walt Disney Company’s resorts, including the pools. Most of them simply don’t enjoy the free time needed to hang out at the pool for hours on end.
As a DVC participant, however, you’re in a different position. You visit the parks so often that joining a program to stay at Disney’s best hotels on an annual basis represented a viable financial solution for you. You also know from experience that spending all day at the parks is the best way to burn out quickly. DVC members employ better strategies for managing their vacation time. And one of the best of those is recuperating from several hours spent at the parks by lounging at the pool.
Let’s be honest about the fact that if you’re a DVC member, you have strong feelings about Disney’s pools. Your favorite is probably the one at your home resort, but that’s because it truly does start to feel like a second home after a while. It’s your pool at your home, and it’s a better one that you could ever possibly afford. You should love it, even if you have to share it with several strangers. If we’re being honest, however, some of the DVC pools are better than the rest. Here are the best five DVC resorts ranked solely based on the quality of their pools.
5) Villas at Disney's Wilderness Lodge
If rustic is your thing, you probably love Wilderness Lodge and its accompanying pool. Silver Creek Springs is a majestic place to enjoy a swim or simply relax. Disney updated the entire space in December of 2014, so it’s one of the freshest pools available to DVC members currently. One of the highlights of the update is a children’s splash and play area. The last time we visited, raucous laughter echoed across exterior of the facility, exemplifying how much kids love their new playtime options.
The conceit of Silver Creek Springs is that the water starts in the hotel lobby and trickles all the way down to the pool. A gorgeous waterfall is part of the delivery mechanism, and it provides a breathtaking view as you walk around the buildings. The pool itself is extremely large, clearly intended to accommodate as many children as possible. The thematic Roaring Forks is an A-frame building offering quick service meals on the go. Similarly, Disney designed the hot tubs as geyser-and-hot springs-based, an extremely clever touch. Silver Creek Springs is a wonderful pool clearly intended for families with small children. Staying here will provide those special memories that last a lifetime.
4) Disney's Old Key West Resort
Parrotheads, unite! Old Key West and Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa are the oddities among DVC’s Walt Disney World properties. Disney designed them to cater to an older clientele who may or may not have brought the kids/grandkids along for the trip. The pools at both facilities still offer plenty of activities for children, of course, since they’re Disney properties. They cater just as much to adults, though, and that’s anomalous for Disney resorts.
Cove Pool at Disney's Old Key West Resort
As a Jimmy Buffett fan, I love that Old Key West plays his musical stylings as a regular part of their musical rotation. That doesn’t play a factor in the ranking, though. What’s tremendous about the pools here is that they play up the tropical setting familiar to Florida residents and guests. There’s even a lighthouse to reflect the island themes of Key West itself.
As far as tributes go, Old Key West delivers all the special touches one would expect from Disney. The sand castle theme of the slide is an especially nice touch, and I adore the ornamental dolphins reinforcing the beachfront atmosphere. The figure-eight-shaped pool is also one of the largest of any DVC property, which means that even when there’s a crowd, guests enjoy plenty of room to maneuver.
Old Key West gets bonus points for its sheer volume of pools. There are four of them including the main pool discussed above. There’s also one at South Point Road and Miller’s Road. Finally, one of the hidden gems across the DVC properties is the Turtle Pond area. The quiet pool here is larger in size for a secondary offering. It’s also connected to Turtle Shack Poolside Snacks, a favorite of savvy DVC members who aren’t obsessed with booking Hospitality House. While it doesn’t factor into the ranking, Turtle Shack offers some of the lowest meal prices of any Walt Disney World establishment. If you’re on a budget, you should keep it in mind.
3) Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas
When people think of Disney's Animal Kingdom and its accompanying lodging, the pool is not the first thing that springs to mind. It is, after all, a celebration of animals, many of which are rarely seen in their natural environments save for this one place in Orlando, Florida. The lack of focus on the pools is completely understandable, but Jambo House offers a wonderful one nonetheless.
While building the twin lodges by the fourth gate, Disney's Animal Kingdom, Disney cast members appreciated that children would embrace the concept more than adults. And children want to spend time at the pool while they’re on vacation. Disney would have done a disservice to their customers if they hadn’t built a great pool. From a design perspective, however, there was a significant hurdle to overcome. The pool has to persuade children to leave their decks, the ones that include views of the animals outside, to go swimming. Anyone who has seen a kid’s face while they’re enjoying the view at Animal Kingdom Lodge understands the difficulty of this.
Fortunately, the Jambo House pool is plenty good enough to achieve that goal. Uzima is a lively 11,000-square-foot space, including everything from one of the best waterslides at a Disney resort to one of the most popular swim-up bars, Uzima Springs. It’s the largest pool on Disney property, although there are some semantics involved with that corporate determination. There’s also a 67-foot waterslide that you’ll be hard-pressed to get your children to leave once they discover it. Some people like it as much as anything short of Blizzard Beach/Typhoon Lagoon.
Uzima Pool at Jambo House
The genius of Uzima is that it’s built to entice people of all sizes to take a dip. It’s a zero-depth entry, so everyone big and small can wade their way in until they’re comfortable. Parents who worry about their children swimming in the deep end can place them in the tremendous kiddie pool instead, and that option should also provide peace of mind to the adults who worry about children *ahem* having accidents in the water. Of course, if that’s something that concerns you, options two and four are better bets. One final note about Uzima is that it’s open 24 hours, which isn’t the case for most other Disney resort pools. You can take advantage of this if you’re a night owl or early bird who wants a more private swim.
2) Disney's Polynesian Villas & Bungalows
This resort is one of the most difficult to rank, because it’s new to DVC and currently has only one pool open to guests. As part of the refurbishment of the property to add DVC villas, Disney originally closed the Lava Pool, leaving the modest quiet pool as the only option for guests. During the spring of 2015, the hotel received its first DVC guests just in time to debut the improved Lava Pool. They immediately closed the quiet pool to work on it as well, leaving guests with only one pool once again, albeit a vastly superior one.
The new Lava Pool at Disney's Polynesian Villas & Bungalows
Given its lofty placement, I obviously hold the Lava Pool in great esteem. It’s a visually stimulating recreation of a volcano that reinforces the theme in subtle ways. One of the largest changes during the refurbishment was increasing the size of the deck area, the place where people would ostensibly watch the volcanic eruption. The slide provides the hidden benefit of making the rider feel as if they’re performing a watery, Indiana Jones-esque escape from the oncoming lava. These aren’t things that most guests will ever consider while using the pool, but they’re sublime touches for those who do.
All of this misses the forest for the trees with regards to the Lava Pool, though. The reality is that the Polynesian is one of the original Disney resorts. Staying here connects the guest to the resort’s illustrious history. It’s the place where John Lennon quit the Beatles! What’s greater than that? Disney reinforces the iconic nature of one of their signature properties in myriad ways, and it imbues the pool with the exotic island themes that make you feel like you’ve swam all the way from Florida to the Polynesian Islands. Plus, the view of Seven Seas Lagoon is inimitable.
1) Disney's Beach Club Villas
Some people instantly read this and were ready to skip down to the comments section to argue that Stormalong Bay (and Beach Club as a whole) is overrated. That may be true - personally, I don’t think it is - but no matter where you stand on the issue, it’s still THE best pool at Walt Disney World. In fact, while I haven’t stayed at the properties in Japan, China, or France (I keep losing one to one votes with my wife to visit these places), I still maintain that it’s the best resort pool of any Disney property in the world. It’s a functional water park only a few steps outside Beach Club.
Stormalong Bay at Disney's Yacht & Beach Club Resorts
Stormalong Bay is the obvious, honestly not-even-up-for-debate choice as the best pool at a DVC property. It’s the lifeblood of the entire hotel property, and that’s true even if I include Disney's Yacht Club in the discussion. All roads on this side of Crescent Lake lead to the mini-water park. This spacious three-acre water space is so large that it includes a lazy river section, which is reason enough for me to vote it number one. The person who invented the lazy river is a hero of the common people.
Of course, there are other touches that enhance the appeal of the pool. I’m a huge fan of the sandy flooring that provides a beachfront feel to a manmade body of water. The aquatic motif includes a beautiful waterfall and the showstopper of the entire Beach Club exterior, a shipwreck. One of the most memorable experiences for Beach Club guests (or simply people walking down this path) is the first time they see the unforgettable beached ship. There’s even a hidden secret to the wreck. Following the path will lead you to a pair of waterslides, and the adult one is among the best across all DVC resorts.
The developers of Beach Club also thought ahead with regards to the needs of more private guests. There are a trio of quiet pools entitled the Tidal, Admiral and Dunes Cove. For obvious reasons, they experience much less traffic than the showier Stormalong Bay. People who want to enjoy relaxation without fighting a crowd can enjoy all three, although the Admiral is technically for Yacht Club guests. So, DVC members staying at Beach Club will never lack for poolside enjoyment, whether they choose quiet pools for privacy or Stormalong Bay for its jaw-dropping level of entertainment.
Disney Vacation Club member David Mumpower first visited Walt Disney World when he was six years old. The little brat promptly threw a tantrum because he couldn't find a comfortable shirt to wear around the park. Fortunately Disney shirts got a lot less itchy over the years. David current writes for a number of websites including "Theme Park Tourist", "Box Office Prophets" and "How Well Do You Know." To contact him click HERE.
