Over Thanksgiving (2010) we stayed at the Holiday Inn located in Walt Disney World. We last visited Walt Disney World for our honeymoon (July 2008) and stayed at the Royal Plaza (now the B Resort) located next door to the Holiday Inn. After having such a great experience at the Royal Plaza, we were a little hesitant to stay elsewhere. However, as a member of Priority Club Rewards, I was inclined to work on my Crack the Case promotion.

I was invited to take part in the Crack the Case promotion, and if I meet certain stay requirements up till May 2011, I receive bonus points. With planning for a future trip to Hawaii, I felt inclined to try and meet my requirements to stock up on points towards future stays. Therefore, we looked into the Holiday Inn at Downtown Disney.

Since the hotel is brand new, the reviews via TripAdvisor were great. On top of it, to our surprise, the rates over Thanksgiving were fantastic ($99/night). So we booked the hotel from Wednesday to Sunday.

We flew into Orlando (MCO) and arrived at the hotel around noon. Luckily, they had our room ready. The disappointing thing was that we reserved a resort view room. However, it’s not what you think. A resort view is a view of the resort area, not the Disney parks. The website description was completely off in this regards, so we were disappointed. However, we weren’t there for the view as we wouldn’t be in the rooms for long.

Overall the resort was beautiful and new. The room was adequate with one king bed. We were quickly brought a crib for our infant.

Before I forget, one thing we were extremely concerned with was bed bugs. My wife scoured the internet for reports of bed bugs. During our stay we quickly inspected the room and didn’t find any evidence of bed bugs.

Perhaps our best moment at the hotel was the pool. We went in the pool on Wednesday night after returning from Hollywood Studios. The pool was great! It was heated to the perfect temperature and was so relaxing to know we were swimming in November while it was freezing and snowing back home.

Another one of our favorite aspects of staying at the Downtown Disney resorts but not a Disney resort is the transportation. There is a separate bus route exclusively for Downtown Disney resorts. The best part is it’s not nearly as crowded, typically, then the Disney resorts. We never had to wait for a second bus, although we did have to stand one time on the bus, which is expected during park closing time.

Overall, we would absolutely stay at this Holiday Inn again as the price and accomodations exceeded our expectations.