Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort
Caribbean Beach is Walt Disney World's original Moderate resort and the largest of them, five Caribbean-island villages set around a 45-acre lake called Barefoot Bay, with white-sand beaches, hammocks and a fort-themed main pool. It's the hub of the Disney Skyliner, the aerial gondola that carries you, pram and all, to EPCOT's back door and to Hollywood Studios. Old Port Royale in the middle holds the dining, the shops and the feature pool, and a cluster of rooms in one village is themed to The Little Mermaid.
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Is it worth it?
Strongest for families heading to EPCOT and Hollywood Studios who'll use the Skyliner and want a tropical, beachy base.
Caribbean Beach opened in 1988 and families rate it far more highly since the Disney Skyliner opened in 2019 and made the resort the gondola hub for EPCOT and Hollywood Studios. It sits above the cheaper Value resorts and below the Deluxes, and the Moderate rate gets you queen beds, a fort-themed feature pool with a proper toddler splash area, a sit-down restaurant and grounds families rate as the resort's best feature.
It's a big site with long internal walks, and Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom are bus-only and can run long from here. Where in the resort your room sits makes a real difference to how much you walk each day.
Best for
There's plenty for little ones to do between park days without spending anything, the beaches, the island playground and the campfire. It suits a family happy to make the resort part of the holiday rather than just a bed.
The Skyliner
The resort is the gondola hub, so you board straight for Hollywood Studios or EPCOT with a pram unfolded. Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom stay bus-only.
No lifts
Every building is two-storey with stairs only. With a pram that's a daily carry unless you get a ground-floor room, so ask by phone.
Which village to ask for
A Standard room in Jamaica sits nearer the Skyliner than a pricier Preferred one, with building 45 roughly halfway between the gondola and the food if you want to name one in your request.
The Little Mermaid room
The themed room in Trinidad sleeps five and has a fold-away bed that clears the floor for a baby or toddler by day.
Where is it?
The EPCOT Resort Area of Walt Disney World, set around the Barefoot Bay lake, next to Disney's Riviera Resort.
Quick facts for UK families
The five island villages around Barefoot Bay
Barbados, Jamaica, Martinique, Trinidad and Aruba, each a cluster of two-storey buildings around the lake.
Caribbean Beach opened in 1988 as Walt Disney World's first Moderate resort, priced below the hotels that came before it, and it's still the largest of the Moderates at around 2,100 rooms. The theme is the Caribbean, split into five villages named after islands, Barbados, Jamaica, Martinique, Trinidad and Aruba. Each is painted in its own colours, from Jamaica's sunny yellow to Aruba's pink and teal, and each has its own quiet pool, a white-sand beach on the lake, a bus stop and a laundry. Around it all runs Barefoot Bay, a 45-acre lake with a paved promenade, hammocks, palms and a small island in the middle you reach on footbridges.
Reviewers are consistent that the buildings themselves are the plainest theming of the Moderates, bright but closer to a Florida condo than to a film set. The lake, the beaches, the hammocks, the tropical planting and the promenade are worth a walk at sunrise or sunset, and the whole loop is a good pram walk. It's a large site, over 200 acres, so picture some distance between the far villages and the middle of the resort before you book.
Old Port Royale in the middle, the Skyliner off the sides
The dining, shops and feature pool sit at Old Port Royale in the centre; which village you request decides how far you walk to them.
Everything shared is at Old Port Royale in the centre, with check-in, the food court, the table-service restaurant, the shop and the feature pool. The two Skyliner stations are the other fixed points. The main hub is on the south-west side near Jamaica, and a second station sits across the water at the neighbouring Riviera Resort, a five to ten minute walk from the Aruba and Martinique villages. The farthest rooms are a twelve to fifteen minute walk from Old Port Royale. An internal shuttle loops the villages every twenty minutes or so, though guests often find walking the lake quicker than waiting for it.
Which village you're given matters more to a family than the room category does. The Preferred rooms cost more and sit near Old Port Royale, but that premium was set before the Skyliner existed, so a Preferred room is often farther from the gondola than a cheaper Standard room in Jamaica. Jamaica is the village most families settle on, near the main Skyliner hub and the largest beach, with building 45 well placed about halfway between the gondola and the food. For anyone with a pram, a ground-floor room can be requested but isn't guaranteed, so the advice guests repeat is to phone the resort to flag it rather than rely on online check-in, and to treat any building request as a hope rather than a booking.
The rooms
Standard, Preferred and King on the official booking, all about the same size, plus a Little Mermaid room that sleeps five.
The rooms are a fairly generic part of Caribbean Beach, and guests say so; the standard rooms are among the plainer ones at Walt Disney World. At around 300 sq ft with two queen beds and a double sink, though, they're among the larger Moderate rooms, which helps when a whole family is getting ready in the morning. The standard rooms have laminate floors rather than carpet and refreshed soft furnishings, in the same layout throughout. Every room has a mini-fridge, which cools rather than freezes, a coffee maker with Joffrey's pods and Twinings tea, a safe, USB points and the "Hey Disney" voice assistant. The rooms open onto exterior walkways rather than balconies, so a standard room has no balcony.
| Room | Size | Sleeps | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 300 sq ft (28 m²) | 4 + cot | Two queen beds, with a view of the resort, a courtyard, the lake, a pool or the woods. A Standard room in Jamaica sits nearest the Skyliner. |
| Preferred | 300 sq ft (28 m²) | 4 + cot | The same room nearer Old Port Royale, for a higher rate. The premium predates the Skyliner, so it sits farther from the gondola. |
| Little Mermaid room | About 300 sq ft (28 m²) | 5 | The themed room in Trinidad. A raised queen, a fold-away Murphy queen and a child-size pull-down, freeing floor space by day. |
| King | About 300 sq ft (28 m²) | 2 | One king bed, for a couple or one adult with a small child in a cot. |
The standard room is 300 sq ft (28 m²); the others are about the same size. One child under three sleeps in a cot on top of the figures above.
The themed rooms are in Trinidad, and they're the ones to look at for a family with a baby or toddler. These are the Little Mermaid rooms, which replaced the old pirate-ship rooms in 2023, so if you've seen the pirate rooms online, they're gone. The theming is deliberately subtle; the reason to book one is the beds. There's a raised queen, a queen that folds down from the wall as a Murphy bed and doubles as a sofa by day, and a child-size pull-down for a fifth sleeper. With the Murphy bed up you get real daytime floor space for tummy time or a crawling baby, which the standard rooms with their two fixed queens don't have. The bathroom is a step up too, with a sliding door, twin sinks and a built-in child's step stool, though the glass shower door is worth a thought with a wobbly toddler about. To book one, request the Little Mermaid room and building 34 or 35 in Trinidad, the two closest to the Skyliner, since the other Trinidad buildings are a long way out.
Where to eat at the resort
A food court, a family-style restaurant, a pool bar and a lakeside counter, with more within a short walk at Riviera.
The main place for everyday meals is Centertown Market, the food court at Old Port Royale, done up as an indoor Caribbean street market rather than a canteen. You order at the counter or through the My Disney Experience app and collect with a pager, and there's a Grab & Go window alongside for a fast snack when a toddler's patience runs out. The food gets better reviews than most Disney food courts, with Caribbean-leaning mains, a bakery and Disney Check children's meals that meet Disney's nutrition guidelines. The Cuban fries, seasoned fries under a mustard and Swiss cheese sauce with ham and pickles, are the side most reviews single out, and for a novelty drink the Bubbles of the Sea is a non-alcoholic green tea, pineapple and guava cooler, though the tapioca pearls in it aren't for a baby or young toddler. High chairs are available, and the app lets you filter for allergies when you order.
A family feastSebastian's Bistro, the sit-down restaurant
Sebastian's Bistro is the resort's only table-service restaurant, named after the crab from The Little Mermaid and set on the waterfront at Old Port Royale. It serves dinner only, and it works differently from a normal restaurant. It's an all-you-care-to-enjoy family feast, a "Taste of the Caribbean" that arrives on shared platters of citrus chicken, mojo pork, beef, baked fish, rice and beans and candied plantains, with the kitchen refilling anything you want more of. The house-baked pull-apart rolls with guava butter and the coconut-pineapple bread pudding are the two things nearly every review singles out. It's widely rated one of the better-value sit-down meals at Walt Disney World, well under the price of the famous family feasts at the Deluxe hotels and far easier to book. There's no separate children's menu, so children pay a child price and eat the same food; for a fussy toddler the rolls, the plantains, the mild fish and the bread pudding usually cover it while the adults eat freely. If you're on the Disney Dining Plan, children aged three to nine eat free here with an adult's plan, which shifts the value again; how the plan works is on our tickets and passes guide. It's also the only Moderate restaurant with its own rum programme, a tasting flight of Caribbean rums and a build-your-own rum old fashioned, if the meal doubles as an evening off. It's worth booking ahead, though the walk-up wait is often short. For a family with an allergic child it's a good place to sit down. It has a dedicated allergen kitchen space, accommodates the top nine allergens and can bring gluten-free rolls and a gluten-free brownie on request, and it's rated one of the easier places to eat gluten free at Walt Disney World. Flag the allergy to your server when you sit down.
Poolside, lakeside and in the roomBanana Cabana, Spyglass Grill and delivery
Banana Cabana is the bar beside the feature pool and the only place to eat without leaving the poolside, so you can stay put while a drink and some lunch come to you. It has lights made from steel drums, a communal table built from a boat and hanging swing seats children enjoy. Over in the Trinidad village, Spyglass Grill is a walk-up counter with a covered patio over the lake, handy for that side of the resort and rated for its breakfast in particular, where the Mickey-shaped churro waffles are a hit with children and aren't on the Centertown menu. For coffee there's a Joffrey's kiosk at the main Skyliner station, and Blue Runner delivers pizza and other food to the room in the evening, which is useful once a baby's asleep. Caribbean Beach is also one of the few resorts with Coca-Cola Freestyle machines inside some of the guest buildings, not just at the food court, so with a refillable mug you can fill cold drinks and water a few minutes from the room, which helps in the Florida heat.
A walk to Deluxe diningDinner at Riviera, next door
Caribbean Beach is the only Moderate you can walk to a Deluxe hotel's restaurants from. Disney's Riviera Resort sits across Barefoot Bay on land that used to be part of Caribbean Beach, and many rooms are a five to ten minute walk from its dining. That includes Topolino's Terrace, a rooftop character breakfast with Mickey and friends rated one of the best on the resort, so you can book a Deluxe character meal a few minutes from a Moderate room. Riviera also has a quick-service café and a pool bar. Caribbean Beach guests can use Riviera's restaurants, though not its pool.
The pools, the beaches and the water play
A fort-themed feature pool with a toddler splash area, a quiet pool in each village, and beaches for looking, not swimming.
The main pool, Fuentes del Morro, is themed as an old Spanish fort, with stone turrets, water cannons children fire across the water and two waterslides, one spiralling down inside a turret. It has a zero-entry side that slopes in from dry land like a beach, which suits a baby or a child who can't yet swim, and it's the only pool with lifeguards, towel service and a whirlpool. Beside it is a separate water-play area themed as a shipwreck, the part little ones use most. It has a zero-depth wading area, child-size slides, squirt cannons and a big bucket that fills and tips a drench of water every few minutes. It's built for young children, open to those 48 inches (122 cm) and under, and life vests are free. Each of the five villages also has its own quiet pool, a simple heated rectangle with loungers and no slides or lifeguards, handy for a dip near your room.
The feature pool and the water-play area close for maintenance for a spell most winters, usually in January or February, so if you're travelling then it's worth checking the official resort page for closures over your dates. It doesn't affect the rest of the year. Every village has a white-sand beach on Barefoot Bay with hammocks and loungers, but you can't swim in the lake, so the beaches are for sitting, paddling at the edge and the view, with all the swimming in the pools. For a family with toddlers that's a small safety plus, since there's no open water to keep them from. In the evening, from the Jamaica beach and the footbridge between Old Port Royale and Jamaica, you can catch a distant glow of EPCOT's Luminous fireworks across the water. It's a glow in the sky rather than the full show with its barge effects, but for a family whose toddler can't make an eleven o'clock park bedtime it's a version of the fireworks you can see from the resort itself.
Out on the groundsThings to do around the resort
The grounds are the resort's strength for a family with young children. At the centre of the lake is Caribbean Cay, an island you reach on footbridges, with hammocks, a playground for ages two to twelve and a lawn where a Disney film plays outside most nights. There's a marshmallow roast at a campfire on Martinique Beach in the evening, cheap craft sessions such as seashell painting and Mickey tie-dye and giant lawn games at the marina like Connect 4, chess and cornhole that toddlers can join in with help. The marina hires out bikes and covered four-seat surrey bikes for the lakeside path, along with non-motorised boats, and runs a guided catch-and-release fishing trip from the island. There's a sand volleyball court at Martinique with balls to borrow from the marina, and a marked jogging trail for a run round the grounds. The wildlife is what many small children like best. The paths are full of little lizards that dart about and hold still to be watched, and there are turtles and fish to spot from the bridges, with a nature guide from the front desk to turn it into a walk.
There's a free activity programme most days as well, run by the cast and worth a look on the resort's recreation calendar when you check in, since it changes day to day, with poolside games and trivia by the feature pool and a few things aimed squarely at little ones. A daily Hidden Character Hunt sends children round the resort to find a Sebastian photo prop and collect a small prize at the front desk. There's a Skyliner scavenger hunt too, and the transport drivers hand out collectible Disney transport trading cards, 33 in the set, which a child who loves the Skyliner will want to complete. Hair-wrapping and face-painting are usually set up by the feature pool in the warmer months. For a quiet game there are hidden Mickeys to spot, the easiest being the one on the pirate ship's wheel at the splash area and the upside-down pair on the coat-shelf brackets in the rooms. The resort has no spa or gym.
Getting around by Skyliner and bus
A gondola to two parks and buses to the other two, each with its trade-offs.
Caribbean Beach is the hub of the Disney Skyliner, the aerial gondola network, and being the hub means you board straight for your park while guests at the two Value resorts on the line have to change here. The gondola runs direct to Hollywood Studios in about six minutes, and a short ride to EPCOT from the Riviera station across the water, or with one change from the main hub. It drops at EPCOT's International Gateway, the back entrance, which puts you close to Frozen Ever After and Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, two of the rides that suit little ones best. A pushchair rides on unfolded, which the buses don't allow, and about half the cabins are wrapped in Disney characters, so there's a "will we get Moana or Elsa" game to keep a toddler happy. The cabins aren't air-conditioned, worth knowing with a baby in the Florida heat, and the gondola stops in lightning and high winds, common on summer afternoons, though it runs in rain. It closes for about a week most Januarys for maintenance, with buses filling in.
The Skyliner only serves those two parks. Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom are bus-only, and this is the one to plan around, because Caribbean Beach has more internal bus stops than any Walt Disney World resort, one for each village plus Old Port Royale. That makes those journeys long, usually twenty-five to forty-five minutes and occasionally worse, which is a lot with tired children at the end of a day. Where your village sits changes the wait: Martinique is first on the loop and Aruba is last, so Aruba draws the longest waits for the late trip back. Plenty of families with a car drive themselves to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom to skip the stops. Self-parking is free at each village and theme-park parking is free for resort guests, so for a family with a hire car those two long bus routes become a drive you park for nothing at either end. A Minnie Van, Disney's premium pick-up, drops right at the Magic Kingdom gate for those late nights.
Checking in and early entryArrival, the app and early park entry
You can check in on the My Disney Experience app before you arrive. As an on-site guest you get Early Theme Park Entry, which lets you into any of the four parks ahead of the general public, usually by about half an hour, though it's worth confirming the current window for your dates. On the Skyliner that early start counts for a lot, since the gondola drops you near EPCOT's quieter back-door rides before the main-gate crowds arrive. Resort guests can also buy the paid Lightning Lane passes to skip queues up to seven days ahead. Bell Services will hold bags on either side of the stay, along with any grocery delivery you've sent ahead.
Babies, toddlers and the day-to-day
A summer baby-kit programme, the shop and the practical gaps to plan around.
For a family with a baby travelling in summer 2026, Caribbean Beach is one of only four Walt Disney World resorts in the "Cool Kids' Summer" programme, which runs from late May to early September. In that window the resort lends baby and toddler kit for the room free on request, including bottle warmers, sterilisers, infant baths, nappy bins and night lights, along with travel cots, and it runs twice-daily character greetings with Mickey and Minnie in the lobby, a poolside party, the beach campfire and a bedtime pyjama party with a story. A travel cot and bed bumpers are free year-round; the rest of the kit is tied to the programme, so check what's on offer for your dates on the official site. All resort guests that summer also get a free water-park day on their arrival day, which pairs well with a long flight from the UK, though it's a dated offer so confirm it's still running before you count on it.
Away from the summer programme, the everyday practicalities are straightforward with a couple of gaps to plan around. The main shop, Calypso Trading Post at Old Port Royale, stocks the basics you run out of, from sun cream and over-the-counter medicines to nappies, wipes and jars of baby food, though not formula, so bring your own or have it delivered. It's also home to a tradition unique to this resort. You can have a real hollowed coconut painted with a tropical or Disney design, then address and post it to a US address through the mail, or simply take it home, as a souvenir the children help make. For a cheaper keepsake, there are a couple of pressed-medallion machines near Old Port Royale that stamp a Disney design onto a coin for pocket-money change. Grocery firms deliver to Bell Services, which is the cheaper way to stock up on nappies, formula and snacks for the week. There's no baby-care centre at the resort, so nappy changes and feeds happen in the room or the air-conditioned Old Port Royale lobby, which has seating and charging points. Housekeeping comes every other day rather than daily, worth knowing with a bin filling with nappies, and there's a self-service laundry in every village.
Services and getting helpOn-site services and first aid
The front desk and Bell Services in Old Port Royale are the point of contact if something goes wrong. There's no staffed first-aid room at the resort; at any Walt Disney World hotel first aid is a parks-only facility, so if a child is ill or hurt you go to the front desk or Bell Services, who will call Disney's health services if it's needed. Old Port Royale also has a 24-hour cash machine, currency exchange at the front desk and a mail service for postcards and packages, handy if you've landed from the UK without dollars. Accessible rooms are available and the Skyliner has accessible boarding; because rooms are pre-allocated, an accessible room or any specific accessibility need is best arranged when you book, through Disney's accessibility line, rather than left until you arrive.
Loves and gripes
The praise families repeat, and the gripes that come up most often.
What families praise most is the lakeside promenade and beaches, the hammocks on the island and the lizards, turtles and evening campfire that keep little ones busy for nothing. Sebastian's comes up again and again for how much food you get for the price, and so do the cast members, the Banana Cabana bartenders especially. The gripes are consistent too. The stairs are the one families with a pram raise most, since there are no lifts. After that it's the buses to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, which can arrive near-full in the morning rush and take the best part of an hour to work back round every village stop at the end of a tiring day. A room a long way from both the Skyliner and the food draws the same complaint about the walking, and the standard rooms get called plain. A few families also book expecting to swim from the beaches and find they can't.
Questions parents ask
A few things families check before booking, plus the official links and when this guide was last updated.
Will a family of five fit in one room?
Yes. The Little Mermaid room in Trinidad is built for it, sleeping five, and some standard rooms can add a child-size fifth bed alongside the two queens. Either is a safer bet than booking two standard rooms and hoping they connect, since connecting rooms here aren't guaranteed.
Is the Skyliner enough, or will we still need the buses?
You'll use both. The gondola only reaches EPCOT and Hollywood Studios, so those are gondola days and Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom are bus days. Keep the bus in mind as the backup for the trip home and for any day the gondola isn't running.
Where can we warm a bottle or keep milk cold?
The room fridge keeps made-up bottles and milk cold, but it has no freezer, so you can't refreeze ice packs in it. In summer 2026, under the Cool Kids' Summer programme, the resort lends bottle warmers and sterilisers for the room at no charge. Outside that window it doesn't, so bring your own travel warmer and steriliser if you're going any other time of year.
Can we eat a proper meal without leaving the resort?
Yes. For the sit-down meals, book as far ahead as you can, up to 60 days out. Sebastian's family-style dinner is the resort's own, and next door at Riviera the Topolino's Terrace character breakfast books up as fast as the headline restaurants. The food court and pool bar cover everyday meals with no reservation.
Are there Christmas decorations at Caribbean Beach?
Old Port Royale gets tropical festive décor over the Christmas period, jewel-toned garlands, wreaths and trees rather than the traditional red and green. As a Moderate, though, it doesn't have one of the big signature gingerbread displays; the gingerbread house and the gingerbread carousel you'll have seen in photos are a Deluxe-hotel feature at Walt Disney World, so it's worth setting that expectation if you're booking a December trip.
Caribbean Beach photos
The fort pool and Old Port Royale, the standard rooms and the Little Mermaid room, all in one gallery.
Open the Caribbean Beach photo gallery →
Useful links
- Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort: the official hotel page for rooms, dining and live prices.
- Disney's Riviera Resort: our guide to the Deluxe hotel next door you can walk to for dining.
- EPCOT: our guide to one of the two parks on the Skyliner line.
- Tickets and passes: how tickets, Early Theme Park Entry and UK booking work.
- Walt Disney World with little ones: our guide to the resort, its parks and getting there.
Last updated 9 July 2026.
