Disney's Contemporary Resort
Disney's Contemporary Resort is one of Walt Disney World's two original 1971 hotels, an A-frame tower on Bay Lake with the monorail running straight through its fourth-floor atrium. It's the closest resort to Magic Kingdom, with a paved path to the gates as well as the monorail, so a midday trip back or a walk home after the fireworks needs no bus. Chef Mickey's character buffet, the rooftop California Grill and the Bay Lake Tower villas are all part of it.
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Is it worth it?
One of the two hotels that opened with Walt Disney World, and its closest to Magic Kingdom. You pay Deluxe prices for that location rather than for the pools or the theming.
Disney's Contemporary Resort is one of the two hotels that opened with Walt Disney World in 1971, and despite the name it's the oldest on the property. The shape is what you notice first, an A-frame tower rising to a fifteenth floor with the monorail gliding straight through the inside, across a fourth-floor atrium called the Grand Canyon Concourse. For a family with young children the reason to stay is simpler than any of that. It's the closest resort to Magic Kingdom and you can walk there in minutes, so you can head back for a midday nap or walk home after the fireworks with a sleeping toddler, no bus queue and no folding the pram. The monorail, a boat and Chef Mickey's character breakfast are all here too, on the doorstep.
The reasons to think twice are just as clear. The pools are among the weakest of any Deluxe at Walt Disney World, the theming is mid-century architecture rather than a Disney story, and the Grand Canyon Concourse reads as dated. There's live exterior building work on the Tower's Magic Kingdom-facing side into late 2027, and EPCOT needs a change of monorail rather than a direct ride.
Best for
You're building the week around Magic Kingdom and will use the short walk to the gates several times a day.
Walk to Magic Kingdom
The closest resort to the park, about eight to ten minutes on foot, with a security check on the path so you skip the main-gate queue.
The monorail through the lobby
A full-size monorail glides through the fourth-floor atrium. Train-mad little ones can watch it for free from the café tables.
Chef Mickey's
The only character buffet at Walt Disney World where you meet all five of the Fab Five in one sitting. Worth it for the characters, though the food is weak.
Tower, Garden Wing or Bay Lake Tower?
Three separate buildings at different prices. Only the A-frame Tower has the monorail running through it.
The price
Deluxe rates, with the theme-park-view rooms at the top of them.
Building work in 2026
Live exterior work on the Magic Kingdom-facing face runs into late 2027. That's the theme-park-view side, so choose the view with care.
Where is it?
On Bay Lake next to Magic Kingdom, on the resort monorail loop that also serves the Polynesian and Grand Floridian.
Quick facts for UK families
The A-frame, the monorail and the three ways to stay
An A-frame rising to a fifteenth floor, with the monorail running through its fourth-floor atrium, and three separate places to sleep, the Tower, the Garden Wing and Bay Lake Tower.
The Contemporary is an A-frame that rises to a fifteenth floor, its outer walls sloping inward around a central atrium, on the shore of Bay Lake beside Magic Kingdom. That atrium, the Grand Canyon Concourse, sits on the fourth floor and holds the restaurants, the shops and the monorail platform, with guest-room balconies rising ten storeys above it. The defining piece of it is a ninety-foot ceramic-tile mural by Mary Blair, the Disney artist behind the look of it's a small world, made from around eighteen thousand hand-painted tiles of stylised birds, animals, flowers and children. Somewhere in it one goat has five legs where the rest have four, long retold as a deliberate nod to imperfection, though nobody can prove Mary Blair meant it. There are around twenty-two Mickey shapes hidden in the mural and around the resort, four of them in the tiles, and finding them is a free half-hour that keeps an older toddler busy on a morning you're not in the parks. The theming is this architecture and this art rather than a story world, which is the resort's character, and its main limitation if you want an immersive Disney setting.
The monorail runs straight through the building. A full-size train slides silently into the Concourse through glass airlocks at each end, stops at the platform, then glides out again, and it's a free show a train-obsessed toddler will remember. You can watch it over breakfast from the tables at the Contempo Café counter or from Chef Mickey's, and it isn't audible inside the guest rooms, so a light sleeper won't hear it. Only the Resort Monorail stops here; the Express line passes through without stopping.
There are three separate places to sleep, and choosing between them shapes the whole trip. The A-frame Main Tower puts you inside the monorail experience, with every restaurant, the shops and the arcade on your floor or a lift away, and the rooms are themed around The Incredibles. The Garden Wing is a lower, separate building beside the Tower, cheaper and quieter. Bay Lake Tower is a separate tower next door, opened in 2009, holding the resort's Disney Vacation Club villas and joined to the Concourse by a covered sky bridge.
The history in the buildingThe 1971 original and how it was built
The Contemporary opened on 1 October 1971 as one of Walt Disney World's two first hotels, and it was the flagship until the Grand Floridian arrived in 1988. It's the most solid surviving piece of Walt Disney's unbuilt EPCOT city, which was planned around a central tower of shops and restaurants with monorails running through its base. Walt died in 1966 and never saw it built. The A-frame was raised with United States Steel, and the rooms were built as complete modules in a factory on Disney land, wired, plumbed and furnished, then craned into the steel frame. The old story that the rooms were designed to slide out like drawers for refurbishment is a myth, since the modules were fixed in place once the frame closed around them. One more piece of history sits in the building, as President Nixon gave his "I'm not a crook" press conference in the resort's Ballroom of the Americas in November 1973.
Which building and which room to request
The Tower for the monorail, the Garden Wing for a lower price, Bay Lake Tower for space, and the floor and the direction your room faces both matter.
The A-frame Tower is the resort's signature building. The monorail runs through it, the Concourse dining and shops are inside it, and it holds the Incredibles-themed rooms on floors up to the fifteenth. The Garden Wing is worth understanding before you book, because it's cheaper for a reason. It's a three-storey building attached to the Tower by a covered walkway, with the same room décor at a lower price and a quieter feel, but no monorail runs through it and you can't see one from the room. A ground-floor Garden Wing room with a Bay Lake patio is quieter and lets you step straight out with the pram first thing rather than waiting for a lift.
Whichever building, the direction the room faces changes what you see. A theme-park view looks west toward Magic Kingdom, with Cinderella Castle and the fireworks beyond the car parks and roads of the Transportation and Ticket Center. A Bay Lake view faces east over the water, quieter, and it's the side that sees the nightly Electrical Water Pageant. The floor matters more than people expect for the fireworks, since the fifth and sixth floors look straight at the car park and the eighth floor and up is the sensible minimum for a clear view of the show.
The rooms
Most are in the Tower and the Garden Wing, with two very different Bay Lake Tower villas and a smallest-on-property studio to steer around.
The main building holds around 655 rooms, split between the A-frame Tower and the Garden Wing, and Bay Lake Tower adds about 295 villas. Every Tower and Garden Wing room was re-themed around The Incredibles, with a red, black and gold palette, super-suit motifs and a monorail-shaped lamp. The theming sits entirely inside the guest room and nowhere else in the hotel, so a child who loves the film will enjoy the details while the rest of the resort tells no Incredibles story. Reviews are split on it, with some finding it over the top for a Deluxe room and others light and fun, and the Garden Wing version came out the better of the two. The standard rooms have a useful family feature, a split bathroom with the toilet in its own room away from the sinks and shower, so more than one of you can get ready at once. Every room has the "Hey Disney!" voice assistant, which can order extra towels and amuses a toddler.
| Room | Size | Sleeps | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard room, Main Tower | About 437 sq ft (41 m²) | 5 | A split bathroom with the toilet separate from the sinks and shower. Two queens and a day bed, or a king. Priced by view, either Magic Kingdom for the fireworks or the quieter Bay Lake. The eighth floor and up for a clear fireworks view. |
| Garden Wing room | Size not published | 5 | The same Incredibles décor in the lower building beside the Tower, cheaper and quieter. A ground-floor Bay Lake patio room is the quieter choice with a pram. |
| Tower suites | Size not published | 6 to 10 | One and two-bedroom suites and a two-storey Presidential Suite, all with club-lounge access. Bedding runs up to four queens and a sofa bed. |
| Bay Lake Tower Deluxe Studio | About 339 sq ft (31 m²) | 4 | The smallest Disney Vacation Club studio at Walt Disney World. A kitchenette and one tight bathroom, with pull-down Murphy beds. Fine for two adults and a baby, tight for four. |
| Bay Lake Tower one-bedroom villa | About 803 sq ft (75 m²) | 5 | Two full bathrooms, a full kitchen and a washer and dryer in the villa, plus a separate living room a child can nap in. |
| Bay Lake Tower two-bedroom villa | About 1,152 sq ft (107 m²) | 9 | Three full bathrooms, a full kitchen and laundry, with room for two cots. |
| Bay Lake Tower Grand Villa | About 2,044 sq ft (190 m²) | 12 | A two-floor, three-bedroom villa with four bathrooms. There are fourteen of them. |
Sizes are approximate, and Disney doesn't publish a figure for the Tower suites or the Garden Wing rooms. A cot or travel cot is free on request, on top of the occupancy above.
Which Bay Lake Tower villa suits a family
Bay Lake Tower is worth a closer look for a family, because its villas are better finished than the Tower's Incredibles rooms, with pull-down Murphy beds that free up daytime space and sleep better than the old sofa beds. The decision within it is the villa size, and it matters. The Deluxe Studio is the smallest Disney Vacation Club studio at any Walt Disney World resort, with a kitchenette and a single cramped bathroom, workable for two adults and a baby and tight for four. The one-bedroom villa is the one to weigh against the studio for a family with young children. It has two full bathrooms, a full kitchen and a washer and dryer in the villa, so you can make up bottles, warm food and wash swim nappies in the room, plus a separate living room a child can nap in. The two-bedroom fits two cots at once, which is the reason a larger family looks at it. Bay Lake Tower has no restaurant or shop of its own, so you cross the sky bridge to the Concourse for everything, which is worth remembering for a two-in-the-morning bottle.
The concierge tierClub level and the concierge lounges
The Contemporary runs two club-level lounges rather than the usual one, the Atrium Club on the twelfth floor and the smaller Tower Club on the fourteenth. Both serve food and drinks across five stretches of the day, from a continental breakfast to evening nibbles and desserts, with balconies over Seven Seas Lagoon and Magic Kingdom, and you get access on your arrival and departure days whether or not the room's ready, which helps either side of a long flight. It's a steep premium that pays off most for a family who'll spend real time at the hotel rather than leave at dawn and return at bedtime.
The restaurants
Ten places to eat without leaving the building, from a rooftop signature to the Fab Five character buffet, a 1971-themed steakhouse and a counter beside the monorail.
You can eat well without leaving the building. The official line-up runs to ten places plus a Disney Vacation Club lounge on top of Bay Lake Tower, and three of them are the reasons to book. Character dining and the rooftop signature go fast, so reserve those as far ahead as you can, sixty days out for a resort guest, while the counters and lounges take walk-ins. Menus and prices move, so check the current ones on the official site.
The character buffet little ones come forChef Mickey's
Chef Mickey's is on the fourth-floor Concourse and it's the reason a lot of families with young children book the Contemporary. It's the only character buffet at Walt Disney World where you meet all five of the Fab Five, Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto, in their chef outfits and in a single sitting, and all five come round every table. It serves breakfast and dinner, both buffets, which suits a toddler who changes their mind halfway through. The food is the weak part. It's widely rated poor and you go there for the characters rather than the cooking, with breakfast the better meal, and croissant beignets with dipping sauces, sticky cinnamon rolls, Mickey waffles and mac and cheese among the things a small child will actually eat, plus a line of six character-themed desserts added in 2026. It's loud and busy, which toddlers take in their stride, high chairs are there, and it's visible from the monorail for a wave on the way past. It's one of the harder tables to get at Walt Disney World, so book it the day your sixty-day window opens and don't count on walking in.
The rooftop signatureCalifornia Grill
California Grill is the signature restaurant on the fifteenth floor at the top of the A-frame, reached by its own lift from the second-floor desk. It's a three-course fixed-price dinner of Californian cooking with a show kitchen and a sushi counter, at the top end of Walt Disney World prices, and it's listed in the Michelin Guide for Orlando as a recommended restaurant, though not a starred one. The reason it matters to a family is the fireworks. The lights dim and music plays inside as the show starts, and anyone who dines there on a given evening can also go back up to the fifteenth-floor observation decks for the Magic Kingdom show, on any reservation time, by showing the dinner receipt at the second-floor desk, and the view is one of the best on the property. The fixed-price dining room isn't the place for a toddler who might need to leave, so families are better off in the California Grill Lounge, which takes walk-ins with no reservation, serves the same food from the same kitchen at the same price and is easier to slip out of. Book an early sitting when small children are at their best, eat, then come back for the fireworks. Children under three eat free.
The 1971 steakhouseSteakhouse 71
Steakhouse 71 is on the first floor, a casual sit-down restaurant themed on the resort's 1971 opening, with geometric Mary Blair-style art and vintage construction photos on the walls. It does breakfast, lunch and dinner, it's easier to book than Chef Mickey's or California Grill and often overlooked, and it has a children's menu and high chairs. The signature is a stack burger topped with pork belly, and there's a fifteen-layer chocolate cake, one layer for each floor of the tower. Next door the Steakhouse 71 Lounge takes walk-ins, with a shorter menu that includes a loaded mac and cheese and peanut-butter-and-jelly chicken wings that children find funny, which makes it the low-commitment option on a night you don't want to plan.
The counter with the monorail viewContempo Café and the coffee counter
Contempo Café is the counter-service place on the Concourse, and it's the only quick-service spot at Walt Disney World where the monorail slides past the tables while you eat. Order ahead on the app and you can walk in and collect with almost no queue, which is worth a lot with a fractious toddler. The food is well regarded for a counter, with a braised beef bowl and a four-cheese patty melt among the best of it, kids' meals including pasta and a rotating range of cupcakes it's known for. The self-serve drinks stations here take the resort refillable mug, worth buying once for a family who'll pass through often. Down in the lobby, Contemporary Grounds is a Joffrey's coffee counter with pastries and latte art, handy for a coffee before the morning walk to Magic Kingdom. The counter menus change often, so check the day's on the app.
Bars, and a rooftop for membersThe bars, and the lounge on Bay Lake Tower
For a drink, Outer Rim is a beverage-only lounge on the Concourse looking over Bay Lake, with the Electrical Water Pageant visible from its terrace in the evening, a quiet adult spot while the children eat grabbed food from the café nearby. The Sand Bar serves burgers, hot dogs and cocktails at the feature pool, and the Cove Bar sits at Bay Lake Tower's pool for its own guests. On the sixteenth floor of Bay Lake Tower is the Top of the World Lounge, with one of the best fireworks views anywhere on the property, but it's gated to Disney Vacation Club members who bought at least 150 points directly from Disney. Renting points to stay in a villa doesn't get you in, and cash guests can't visit, so most UK families booking here won't be able to use it. Families who are eligible can book a complimentary fireworks viewing ahead or add a paid Wicked Wind Down package, with special-effects glasses that turn the fireworks into Mickey-head shapes for the children. If you want variety without a car, the monorail loop puts the Grand Floridian's and the Polynesian's restaurants a few minutes away with no park ticket.
Pools, the beach and things to do
A feature pool with a slide and a toddler splash pad, a quieter second pool, Bay Lake Tower's own pool, and a lake beach for sitting rather than swimming.
The main pool is the resort's clear weakness. It's unthemed, rated among the weakest of any Deluxe at Walt Disney World, and it fills quickly. It's the Feature Pool between the Tower and the Garden Wing, with a curving waterslide and two whirlpool hot tubs, and what's useful for young children sits just outside its gates, a separate zero-entry splash pad with interactive sprays and no overhead dumping buckets, which suits a toddler who can't yet swim. Shaded cabanas by the feature pool can be hired for the day, with padded seating, a fan, a fridge and a television, a paid extra worth weighing for a base in the shade with a baby in the Florida heat. The Bay Lake Pool near the Garden Wing is a calmer, quieter round pool with no slide, and it's the quieter of the two for a swim with toddlers. Bay Lake Tower has its own Bay Cove Pool, with a zero-entry shallow end, a spiral slide and a water-play area, and it's the better pool for young children, though it's for Bay Lake Tower guests only, on a key card.
On the lake there's a white-sand beach with sand toys and a volleyball net, for sitting and building castles rather than swimming, since you can't swim in the lake, and it's one of the best spots to watch the nightly Electrical Water Pageant, a fifteen-minute parade of illuminated floats on the water at around ten, quiet enough that it won't wind up a woken toddler. The marina hires out boats by the hour, among them the little two-seat Sea Raycer speedboats a child of twelve who's five foot tall can drive with a younger one riding along, and it runs guided catch-and-release fishing trips, including a shorter children's excursion with the gear provided, plus private Fireworks Cruises for a small group booked well ahead, all paid extras with prices that move. Plenty costs nothing. There's a nightly marshmallow campfire, films on the lawn some evenings and a silent disco on others, an arcade, basketball, tennis and pickleball, giant lawn games, a jogging path of just under a mile (about 1.5 km) and at Bay Lake Tower a Community Hall with crafts, board games and a photo scavenger hunt for its guests. The Olympiad fitness centre on the third floor is free to guests aged fourteen and over, with massage and spa treatments bookable there, so one of you can fit an early workout or a treatment while the other has the children. For souvenirs, Bayview Gifts on the Concourse is the resort's main shop, stocking resort-branded and mid-century monorail merchandise, clothing, sun cream and confectionery, and pressed-coin machines around the resort turn out a cheap medallion a child can make themselves. The convention centre here is large, so when a big convention's in residence the lobby, restaurants and pools get noticeably busier.
The festive seasonThe gingerbread castle and Christmas at the resort
At Christmas the Concourse behind the Fantasia shop holds a large gingerbread Cinderella Castle, built by the bakery team over several weeks, and it's the only gingerbread display at Walt Disney World you can see from the moving monorail. It sits at child eye-level and needs no park ticket, so it works as a free stop on a low-key first day, with a wave from the train on the way past. A tree of around seventy feet stands outside, one of the taller resort trees on the property, and the lobby carries a mid-century palette of blue, teal and gold. Halloween is lighter, seasonal food and merchandise rather than an overlay, though the resort's real festive-season advantage is the short walk home, which matters most when you're carrying a tired child back from Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at Magic Kingdom.
Getting to the parks
The walk and the monorail put Magic Kingdom minutes away. Everywhere else is a bus, and EPCOT means a change.
The Contemporary is the closest resort to Magic Kingdom, and a paved, flat, half-mile (0.8 km) path runs to the gates, about eight to ten minutes from the Tower lobby and a touch less from Bay Lake Tower, the nearest hotel building of any to the park. Allow ten to fifteen minutes door to gate with a pram. Nothing folds, there's no bus and no schedule, and there's a security checkpoint on the path itself, so you clear bag check at the resort end and skip the queue at the main gate. That walk is the resort's real advantage with a young child, since it means no bus and no schedule for a midday return or an after-dark trip home. The monorail is the other way in, stopping on the Concourse and reaching Magic Kingdom in a couple of minutes, with prams riding on unfolded, though in practice the walk is often quicker than waiting for a train, so the monorail is as much the experience as the transport. In 2026 the path passes the Tower's construction face, so expect to see scaffolding along part of it.
Everywhere else is less of a headline. EPCOT has no direct monorail, so you ride to the Transportation and Ticket Center and change onto the EPCOT line, and that line is old and unreliable, so for a fixed dining time it's better to take the bus. Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Disney Springs and the water parks are all bus journeys of roughly twenty to forty minutes, and prams fold on the buses. A boat runs from the marina across Bay Lake to Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness, more an outing than a commute. The upshot for a Magic Kingdom trip is that you don't need a hire car at all, since the walk, the monorail and the buses cover everything, which spares a UK family the car-seat faff on park days.
Checking in, and the building workArrival, the app and the 2026 building work
You can check in on the My Disney Experience app before you land and use your phone or a MagicBand as the room key. Bell Services holds bags and any grocery delivery on either side of the stay and will tag and store a pram, and self-parking and valet are available for a daily fee that changes. As a Deluxe resort the Contemporary gets the resort perks. Resort guests get early entry to any park thirty minutes before it opens, and on select nights Deluxe guests get up to two hours after close, which both Bay Lake Tower and the Tower qualify for. Dates change, so check the app, and for how park tickets and early entry work in detail, see our tickets and passes guide.
The building work is worth planning around. Live exterior work on the Magic Kingdom-facing face of the Tower began in 2026 and is scheduled to run into late 2027, with balconies and windows on that face taken out and boarded over. That's the theme-park-view side, so a theme-park-view room booked in this window risks daytime drilling, workers on scaffolding past the balcony and scrims across the view. The wider project takes in the Concourse and Bay Lake Tower too, and it has slipped before, so if you want a Magic Kingdom view, phone the resort to check which faces and views are affected for your exact dates, or book a Bay Lake view instead. None of it stops a stay.
Babies, toddlers and the day-to-day
Free cots, a shop of basics to top up, in-room sitting, and the practical things a full villa kitchen solves.
A cot or travel cot is free on request, and worth asking for when you book. Disney doesn't hire prams at the resorts, only inside the parks, so bring your own travel system or have one delivered, and Bell Services will store it. For the odd forgotten thing, Fantasia Market on the Concourse is a small shop that stocks nappies, swim nappies, wipes, formula, baby food, bottles and dummies in a few sizes at premium prices, so confirm what's actually on the shelf at the counter. For a proper baby shop it's much cheaper to have a grocery firm deliver to Bell Services, who'll hold it until you arrive, and in a Bay Lake Tower one-bedroom or larger you can cook simple meals, sterilise and wash swim nappies in the room, which many families with a baby say made the biggest difference to their week. Room-service runs all day for the cash hotel rooms, which helps with an early-waking baby or a late meal after the fireworks.
There's no baby-care centre at the Contemporary, so feeds and changes happen in the room or a restroom, and the resort added its first single-stall companion restroom, which is easier for changing a baby, and the front desk can point you to it. For an evening out, in-room sitting can be arranged through Disney's contracted service, with the front desk giving the current operator and rates, and it's worth sorting a couple of weeks ahead. First aid is on the property and the nearest urgent-care clinic is a short drive, arranged through the front desk. Housekeeping is daily in the cash hotel rooms and lighter in the Disney Vacation Club villas, and the villas from the one-bedroom up have their own washer and dryer, with self-service laundry on the second floor for everyone else. A quiet reset when a small child's had enough is easy here, since the lake beach, the calm Bay Lake pool and the covered sky bridge are all easy places to step away to.
Accessible rooms and DASTravelling with a wheelchair, an ECV or a disabled child
Accessible rooms are available in both the Tower and the Garden Wing, with roll-in showers, lowered beds and visual alarm systems, and connecting rooms can be requested in either building. Ask for the features you need when you book and confirm the exact fit with Disney before you travel, since the rooms aren't guaranteed and Disney doesn't publish how many there are. The half-mile path to Magic Kingdom is paved and flat and takes a wheelchair, an ECV or a large travel system, and the monorail station is step-free and takes wheelchairs and ECVs with a cast member's help, so a family travelling with a grandparent or a disabled child reaches the park the same easy ways as everyone else. The Disability Access Service, which offers a return-time alternative to waiting in a standing queue for guests who can't do that, is arranged through Disney rather than at the hotel, and the eligibility and sign-up rules have changed in recent years, so check Disney's official accessibility page for the current process before you count on it.
Loves and gripes
Families praise the walk and the villas, and flag the food, the rooms and the price.
The walk to Magic Kingdom draws the warmest reviews, and it's the after-dark version families single out, wheeling a sleeping toddler home from the fireworks rather than queuing for a bus. Parents in a Bay Lake Tower one-bedroom or larger repeatedly call the full kitchen and in-villa laundry the thing that made the biggest difference to a week with a baby. The monorail sliding past the breakfast table, the refurbished villa rooms and the fireworks from a high theme-park-view balcony come up again and again.
The loudest complaint is Chef Mickey's food, which reviewers call overpriced for what turns up on the plate. The Incredibles rooms split people, some finding them light and fun, others cheap and over the top for a Deluxe. The recurring verdict is that you pay for the location and little else, and at these prices the dated Grand Canyon Concourse and a main pool that fills quickly draw the most criticism. Families who booked the Garden Wing for the lower rate sometimes feel short-changed of the monorail-resort experience, and a big convention in residence makes the lobby, restaurants and pools noticeably busier.
Against the other DeluxesHow it compares to the other Deluxes
On the hotel alone it rates in the lower half of Walt Disney World's Deluxe resorts, and the case for it rests on the walk. If your trip is built around Magic Kingdom and you'll use the walk several times a day, few resorts match it, and the Grand Floridian and Polynesian on the same monorail loop give you the monorail but not the walk. If you want immersive theming, the Polynesian, the Grand Floridian and Wilderness Lodge each tell a stronger story. If pools are high on your list, the Contemporary is the wrong Deluxe. If EPCOT is your main park, or you do single long park days without midday returns, the location premium is hardest to justify.
Questions parents ask
A few things families check before booking the Contemporary, with the official links below.
Can we stay at Bay Lake Tower without joining Disney Vacation Club?
Yes. The villas are bookable by renting points from a member through a broker such as David's or the DVC Rental Store, and for a one-bedroom villa that's often cheaper than a cash Deluxe room while giving you far more space, a kitchen and laundry. In return you get weaker protection, since rentals are usually non-refundable, and renting doesn't grant Top of the World Lounge access. Read the broker's terms and take travel insurance that covers the villa cost.
Will the 2026 building work disturb a nap or an early bedtime?
The work is daytime only, so an early bedtime is unaffected, and it's a daytime nap on the Magic Kingdom-facing side that could catch the drilling and the workers on the scaffolding. None of the work stops the pools, the dining, the monorail or the walk to the park.
How do we watch the fireworks if our child's asleep before nine?
Book a theme-park-view room on the eighth floor or higher and watch from the balcony, with the show's soundtrack piped to the room television on channel 105, so one of you can stay in with a sleeping baby. From a Bay Lake room you won't see the Magic Kingdom fireworks, though you will catch the quieter Electrical Water Pageant on the water at around ten.
When in the trip does Chef Mickey's fit best?
Because it's at the hotel and needs no park ticket, it fits an arrival afternoon or a rest day rather than hours you've paid to spend inside Magic Kingdom. An earlier sitting tends to land better with a toddler, before the day tires them out. It's a popular table, so pin down the slot as soon as your dates are set.
Do we need to bring a car seat for the Disney transport?
No. The buses, the monorail and the boats don't use child seats, so you can reach every park and Disney Springs without one. You'd only need a seat for a hire car or a booked car service, say an off-site day out or a big supermarket shop. For everyday bits like nappies and food, a grocery firm can deliver to Bell Services instead.
Is the Contemporary too grown-up for a toddler?
No. The look is mid-century architecture rather than anything childish, but small children are welcome everywhere, and the things they'll take to are concrete ones, the monorail through the atrium, Chef Mickey's, the splash pad by the feature pool and the short walk to Magic Kingdom. If you want a resort that feels playful to a small child in itself, the Polynesian nearby has more of that feel for less.
Is a Disney package booked from the UK ATOL-protected?
A flight-inclusive package through the Walt Disney Travel Company, Disney's own UK arm, is ATOL-protected under ATOL 10401 and comes with the resort guest benefits, and several UK Disney specialists sell ATOL-registered packages too. Booking the room direct with Disney in US dollars is often the cheapest headline rate but carries no ATOL cover, and renting Disney Vacation Club points for a Bay Lake Tower villa carries none either. Weigh the protection against the price, and take travel insurance that covers the full trip cost whichever route you pick.
Contemporary photos
The A-frame Tower and the grounds, the Incredibles rooms, the pools and the beach on Bay Lake, all in one place.
Open the Contemporary photo gallery →
Useful links
- Disney's Contemporary Resort: the official hotel page for rooms, dining and live prices.
- Bay Lake Tower at Disney's Contemporary Resort: the official page for the Disney Vacation Club villas.
- Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa: our guide to the other monorail Deluxe families compare it with.
- Magic Kingdom: our guide to the park the walk and the monorail both reach.
- Tickets and passes: how tickets, early park entry and UK booking work.
- Getting around Walt Disney World: how the resort's buses, monorail, Skyliner and boats work.
- Walt Disney World with little ones: our guide to the resort, its parks and getting there.
Last updated 9 July 2026.
