Disney World Grand Floridian

Grounds of the Grand Floridian

In a last minute decision we decided to go to the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival at Walt Disney World in Florida.  Even though we were staying  on the Florida West Coast 2 hours away in Sarasota, FL we chose to find accommodations inside the park at Walt Disney World, something that we had never done before.  On the Walt Disney World website I found that at this late date there were no rooms available on Disney property.  By chance I checked Priceline.com and found that we could get a room for 2 nights at the Grand Floridian with Palm Club access for $750 per night.  The Grand Floridian is Disney's premiere resort hotel and is on the monorail line.  At the time I did not know what Palm Club access was but we booked the room anyway.
The Palm Club is the upper 3 floors of the Grand Floridian and includes amenities such as private lounge areas, a private concierge desk, free wine, beer and liqueur as well as specialty prepared hors d'oeuvres available all afternoon and into the evening.  It also includes a very nice continental breakfast in the morning.  The artistically presented hors d'oeuvres alone were a sight to behold.

Grand Floridian Lobby

We arrived at the Grand Floridian in the early morning since we wanted to spend the day in the park and take advantage of the free parking for hotel guests.  The valet took our suitcases and put them in storage until our room was ready which wouldn't be until the afternoon.  In the meantime we were invited to go upstairs to the Palm level to take advantage of the Palm Club offerings which we did.  We admired the beautiful lobby and all the arrangements of fresh flowers before finding the elevators that allowed us to use our "Magic Bands" to access the upper floors which were the members only Palm Club level. We went up and had some complementary coffee and pastries before walking to the Grand Floridian platform and getting on the monorail for our day in the park.

Monorail approaching Grand Floridian Station

One of the big advantages of staying at the Grand Floridian Resort is convenient monorail access from the hotel station to the Parks. A short monorail ride to the transportation center and then onto another monorail and we were at the gates of Epcot.

About mid-afternoon as we were admiring the topiaries we got a text that our room was ready.  This was a great time to have a glass of wine, sample some of the Grand Floridian's legendary Hors D'oeuvres and leave the topiaries behind.

One of the more than 100 topiaries at the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival