Disney’s Contemporary Resort Review

On the shores of Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake, and a just a hop skip and a jump from the Magic Kingdom, you’ll find one of the original hotels on property, the Contemporary.

One of the biggest selling points of the Contemporary is the location. It is the closest of the Magic Kingdom resorts to the park. You can easily walk over, which takes about 10 minutes. You can also take the monorail, however just know that you’ll stop at the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC), Polynesian, and Grand Floridian before you finally make it to the Magic Kingdom. However, when leaving the park, the Contemporary is the first stop on the resort monorail line, so what we love to do is walk to the Magic Kingdom when we’re still fresh, and monorail back after a long day when we really don’t want to walk any more!

Another bonus of the location is you can book rooms in the tower that get great Magic Kingdom fireworks views, and if you book the other side of the tower, you can see the Epcot fireworks in the distance. You can even watch the electrical water pageant from your room!

On our most recent stay here, we booked a theme park view room with club level access. One unique thing about the Contemporary is that there are actually two club levels. There is the Atrium Club Level which is where most of the standard club level guest rooms are, this is located on the 12th floor. Then there is the Tower Club Level, which is the floor above (although will be floor 14 in the elevator), and mostly has the suites, although there are one or two regular or king bed club level rooms on that floor as well. The lounge for the Tower Club is typically less busy due to the fewer number of rooms that it serves, however in our experience the lounge for the Atrium Club was never overly crowded, we’ve seen much busier club level lounges at other Disney resorts.

We’ll get into the rooms and the club level in a bit, but first a bit more about the hotel.

If you are staying in the tower you have the choice of theme park view room or water view rooms, both are actually very nice, with the Bay Lake views being a bit more serene, but they do miss out on seeing the Magic Kingdom fireworks from the room. This is one nice thing about the Contemporary, where other resorts will have the non-premium views looking out onto a parking lot, in the tower both sides afford nice views.

In addition to the tower, there is also the Garden Wing. These rooms tend to be a lot less expensive to book and are in a three story side building that offers views of the property, parking lot, and the lake. There had at one point been two garden wings, however one was demolished to make way for the DVC side of the resort, Bay Lake Tower.

As mentioned before, the Contemporary is one of the original hotels on property, and it does in some aspects show it’s age. While the rooms have been refurbished in recent years to add The Incredibles theme, some of the public areas have gone without refurbishments for some time. The activity and pool area at the rear of the resort is one of those areas. While they have added a newer style pool, one of the old pools is still there, and while on one hand it is fascinating to see how pools were built back in the 1970s, on the other, it looks so incredibly dated.

There is also a cluster of four small buildings in the pool area that house a bar and activity room that just take me right back to the 1980s, although I suspect they were built even before then. That being said, this didn’t detract from our enjoyment of the resort, but if you’re expecting theming along the lines of Animal Kingdom Lodge or the Polynesian, you’re not going to get that here (unless of course you’re expecting 70s somewhat brutalist architecture).

I will preface my next comment with saying that we love staying at the Contemporary, however of all the Disney resorts we’ve stayed in, this has felt the least Disney to us. The first time we saw the lobby year ago, our immediate reaction was it felt like we walked into an office building. Now, that visit was prior to the most recent renovations and they have made the first floor lobby more Disney since then, but the lobby still lacks the big wow factor we’re used to seeing in other Disney Deluxe resorts. Granted, this isn’t a huge deal, and there is definitely the wow factor once you make your way up to the fourth floor concourse, but when you first arrive at check-in it does still have a mildly office building vibe. This may of course be due to the fact that the Contemporary is a convention hotel, and has quite a bit of convention space in the first few floors.

Alright, now to get into the details…

The Rooms:

The rooms have all been refurbished to an Incredibles theme. There is quite a bit debate over whether this is appropriate for a Deluxe resort, but we enjoyed the theme. It was not as subtle as other theming of late in the deluxe resorts, but it wasn’t gaudy, and some of the details we found to be really cute like the super suits in the closet and the monorail on the bathroom mirror and one of the lamp shades.

The rooms in the tower are quite large, some of the largest on property, however a huge chunk of that space is taken up by the bathroom. Outside of the suites we’ve stayed in, the bathrooms here were the largest we’ve seen on property. There is a huge double sink sink, a massive bathtub/shower combination, and of course the water closet. These bathrooms are gorgeous and it is so nice to have so much space. That being said, there were a few things we didn’t like about them, although nothing that was a deal breaker.

First, unlike other Disney resorts, everything is essentially contained in a single room. Whereas in other resorts the sink area is pulled outside of the water closet and shower area, here it was all in one place, so we couldn’t have one person getting ready at the sinks while the other showered. So we had to take turns in the morning getting ready which ended up taking a bit longer.

Another thing that was a bit odd about the layout of the bathroom was the towels were in the water closet, not right next to the shower. Just a weird design choice.

With the large bathroom area, the size of the sleeping area of the room is impacted a bit. While the sleeping area felt wider than other resorts, the length felt a lot more compressed where there was only about 18” on the sides of the bed to the walls.

Although I think the strangest design choice for these rooms is for some reason Disney thought it would be a good idea to have the beds connected to the each other. Our first night there I could not for the life of me figure out why my bed kept shaking every 30 minutes or so. We discovered in the morning it was because the beds are essentially one platform, so when the person in one bed moved, it made the other bed shake. Again, while annoying, this wasn’t a deal breaker for us. The location still outweighed the cons, and there is a lot more to love about the resort other than the location.

The view we had was the theme park view room of the Magic Kingdom, and being able to sit on the balcony at night to watch the fireworks and not having to deal with the crowds was amazing. Especially when we brought some drinks and desserts back from the club level lounge! They even will play the fireworks music on the room tvs (I believe it was on channel 72), but I will warn that if you leave the door open to hear the music from the tv, you will come back inside to find tons of bugs in your room!

Most standard rooms have two queen beds, a sofa, a small coffee station with a beverage cooler, and then some built in storage. There is a safe in the storage area as well as extra blankets and pillows.

The Property:

While the location of the Contemporary is amazing, the property is just ok. The entire front of the resort is mostly just parking and roads and a convention space, and the back area is relatively small compared to other resorts. There are two pools (not including the DVC side), some outdoor games, a small beach, and a marina.

There are some nice photo ops, including a Mickey statue which conveniently has a stand to prop your camera/phone on to get pictures!

Near the pool area there is a recreation activity area where you can actually do quite a few activities. One of our favorites is the mosaic making, which we 100% recommend trying out.

The newer pool is nice, it’s a decent size and they tend to have a lot of activities going on during the day. The old pool is just ok, it is small and dated, and there is a large drop off from the edge to the water which seems like it could present some safety issues. The old pool also does not have a lifeguard, so it is swim at your own risk.

At the marina you can rent boats for the day to fish, or you can rent one for a fireworks cruise. Starting at 3:00PM the water taxis between the Contemporary, Wilderness Lodge, and Fort Wilderness will run, which is a nice option to hop over to another resort for dinner or just to take a peak.

The Dining:

The Contemporary has some great dining options. At the very top of the resort you will find California Grill. This was at one point Top of the World, which my parents remind me often is where they saw Mel Torme perform, however it was rebranded the California Grill years ago and in the past few years has change to only serve a prix fixe menu. While I do personally think the prix fixe menu is a downgrade from what they used to offer, they still have some of our favorites such as the goat cheese ravioli.

One huge advantage to the California Grill is of course the views. If you can snag a reservation to be there during the Magic Kingdom fireworks, you can get an amazing view of them while eating your dinner. Don’t worry if you can’t get a reservation at that time, you are allowed to come back after eating and view the fireworks from the observation deck if you have an earlier reservation.

On the first floor just past the check-in desk, you will find Steakhouse 71. Here they offer breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They have a decent menu with a lot to offer other than just steak. The French onion soup here is delicious, and if you like smash burgers, this is a good place to get one.

On the fourth floor in the main concourse you will find Chef Mickey’s. This is a character dining experience, and while the food isn’t the best at the resort, it is a very popular restaurant due to the character meets.

There are a few quick service locations and bars as well. There is the Contempo Cafe for some quick bites for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. There is also the Contemporary Grounds for some coffee and light bites. For bars, there is the Outer Rim, which is in the main building, and then the pool, the Sand Bar.

Club Level:

There are two club levels at the Contemporary, the Atrium Club and the Tower Club. The Tower Club is mostly suites, with one or two standard club rooms, while the majority of the club level rooms are on the Atrium Club floor.

The Atrium Club level is one of our favorites on property. It has some of the best club level food that we’ve experienced, the lounge never felt overly crowded like it has at other resorts, and we loved how close the rooms are to the lounge. Of course, the cast members working club level there were amazing as well.

Our favorite meal at club level is their breakfasts, and this is for all club levels. One thing we loved about the Contemporary is they have a make your own mimosa station set up in the morning!

Breakfast offerings are pretty standard, eggs, bacon, a cheesy hash, sausage, avocado toast, and fruit were all in the rotation.

Lunch is just light snacks, they had fruit, some uncrustables, and my personal favorite, house made chips.

The hors d’oeuvres service is really nice at the Contemporary, they typically have a few hot dishes, one of our favorites is the pork, and then they also offer sushi most nights! For the hors d’oeuvres service they do have pour your own wine and beer, but if you want some during the day you just need to ask and they’ll be happy to bring some for you.

Conclusion:

So is the Contemporary our favorite deluxe resort? No, it doesn’t quite meet that mark, however we will certainly stay there again. Being so close to the Magic Kingdom is amazing, especially if you are doing a Halloween Party, Christmas Party, or After Hours event there, the quick monorail ride home makes staying here 100% worth it for us.

We also love the club level here, so if we’re staying club level this is certainly at the top of our list. However we do prefer the vibe at other resorts more than this. We like the room layout at other resorts more, and like the grounds of other resorts much more than at the Contemporary. So while we’ll definitely stay again, usually we book it for only two or three nights to coincide with a Magic Kingdom party, and then move to one of our favorite resorts afterwards.