Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort
Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort is a Caribbean-themed moderate resort hotel at Walt Disney World in Florida. It opened on October 1, 1988, as the resort's first moderate hotel, a new category between the deluxe hotels and what would later become the value tier.[1] Its villages are arranged around Barefoot Bay, a 45-acre lake, and since 2019 the resort has been the central hub of the Disney Skyliner gondola system.
History
Caribbean Beach was built with 2,112 rooms, then one of the largest hotels at Walt Disney World, in two-storey buildings grouped into villages around the lake. At opening, check-in took place at a separate building, the Custom House, while most facilities were concentrated at Old Port Royale. Only part of the room inventory was ready on opening day, with the remaining villages following as work finished.
The resort has been altered more than most Disney hotels. Pirate-themed rooms were introduced in the Trinidad South village in 2009. A major reworking completed in 2018 rebuilt Old Port Royale as the resort's single arrival point, moving the lobby, dining and shops there and closing the Custom House. Part of the Barbados and Martinique villages was then demolished to make way for Disney's Riviera Resort, which opened in December 2019 on the northern shore of Barefoot Bay and substantially reduced Caribbean Beach's room count. The Trinidad pirate rooms were later replaced with rooms themed to The Little Mermaid.
On September 29, 2019, the Disney Skyliner opened with its hub station at Caribbean Beach, transforming the transport position of a resort previously served only by bus.[2]
Theming and layout
The resort's two-storey buildings are painted in bright pastel colours and grouped into five villages named for Caribbean islands: Martinique, Barbados, Aruba, Jamaica and Trinidad, the last historically divided into Trinidad North and Trinidad South. Each village has its own small pool, bus stop, laundry and stretch of white-sand beach with hammocks along Barefoot Bay. At the centre of the lake is Caribbean Cay, an island of paths and play areas reached by footbridges.
Old Port Royale, styled as a Caribbean port town, contains the lobby and main facilities beside Centertown. The main pool there, Fuentes del Morro Pool, is themed as a Spanish colonial fortress, with water slides emerging from its walls, water cannons and a shipwreck play area for children. Because the resort covers some 200 acres, walking distances from the outer villages to Old Port Royale are considerable; an internal bus circulates between the villages. The Skyliner hub stands near Jamaica, while guests in Aruba are close to the Riviera station. Skyliner lines run from the hub to EPCOT, Disney's Hollywood Studios, and to Disney's Pop Century Resort and Disney's Art of Animation Resort.
Dining and amenities
Centertown Market, at Old Port Royale, is the resort's quick-service restaurant, and Sebastian's Bistro, named for the crab in The Little Mermaid, provides table-service dining with Caribbean and Latin-influenced dishes. The Banana Cabana pool bar stands nearby, and the Spyglass Grill serves the Trinidad village. The Calypso Trading Post at Old Port Royale is the main shop. Recreation includes the fortress pool and village pools, beaches, a marina with boat and bicycle hire at various times in the resort's history, playgrounds and jogging trails around the lake.
See also
- Disney Skyliner
- Disney's Pop Century Resort
- Disney's Art of Animation Resort
- EPCOT
- Walt Disney World