I'm hearing many people saying they like Cabana Bay overall compared to SF. The exterior looks more luxurious at SF but is that all?
I can give you my personal opinion, since I stayed at Cabana Bay a couple weeks ago
. A lot of what I"m going to say is going to sound critical, but I don't mean it that way. Before I left, I had heard so many great things about Cabana Bay from this site, but when I stayed at Cabana Bay we spent most of our time over at Sapphire Falls. Riding the boat from Sapphire Falls is a lot easier than riding the bus (this was a big one for us). When you get off the bus from Cabana it lets you off near the same area of the parking garage where regular off site guests park, and its a pretty busy area. You have to walk a pretty good distance through Citiwalk to get to the parks. Also, the lines for checking your bags when getting off the bus were pretty long. At Sapphire, they check your bag before you load the boat and it was just an overall much easier and quicker experience. The buses were many times crowded and sometimes you had to stand.
The overall theme at Sapphire is much more beautiful and relaxing. The pool area had a better water slide too. And in my experience, the staff treated you much better at Sapphire (maybe because its newer?). The people at the Starbucks at Cabana Bay were just plain rude. I'm talking about "I hate tourist" type of rude. Also, at Cabana Bay they REALLY wanted you to use the valet parking. I've never used valet parking before in my life (I'm just a country boy from North Carolina). So I kept telling them no, mainly because I wasn't sure how it worked. But pretty much they don't take no for an answer because they keep telling you over and over that its the same price so you should use it. And even when you tell them no they keep on about it until you give in. I didn't like using it, because every time we wanted to leave the hotel we had to wait 10 to 15 minutes for them to pull our car around. There was a lady out front who worked the valet and she could be rude at times as well. They had guys who would run out and grab the cars and the lady up front would tell the guys which car to get in what order and give them your keys. I"m not sure how the parking works at Sapphire Falls.
The tipping point for us was at the end of the night, after a long day at the parks (when your body is sore and tired), would you rather get on a boat straight to your hotel in a relaxing ride on water with beautiful lights everywhere you look? (Not to mention those gorgeous waterfalls) Or do you want to walk all the way through Citiwalk and the parking garages to get to a line with hundreds of other people waiting in another line, wondering to yourself "Are we going to make this bus or are we going to have to wait for the 2nd or 3rd one?" Waiting for the buses at the end of the night was like waiting on the Monorail at Disney World, which was pretty bad. Normally the buses at Cabana you never have to wait during the day. Its only at night coming back to your hotel is when it gets bad. We finally started just riding the boat back to Sapphire Falls, and then crossing the street by the stop light to get back to Cabana Bay. A lot of other Cabana Bay folks were doing the same thing. That felt dangerous because you were always having to cross traffic. I would not recommend doing it with kids. There is a walkway from Cabana Bay that you can get to Sapphire Falls, but its way out of the way and its much quicker to just cross the street by the stop light. That's why a lot of people were doing it. I'm thinking it might be a THING, because near the end of our trip, one of the boat ladies asked everyone on the boat to please raise their hand who is riding from Cabana Bay. Nobody raised their hand, even though probably half the people on the boat were from Cabana Bay. We were afraid to raise our hands because the boat lady seemed like she was going to kick anyone from Cabana Bay off the boat. This was during the middle of the day so I didn't think she could do it, but I still didn't take any chances.
If you have a family of 5 or more you may still want to try Cabana Bay due to the family suites. But in my opinion, that little extra room was not worth it overall. Especially because the rooms are divided by really super thin doors and one room can still see when the tv is on in the other room. As for the customer service at Cabana Bay, I tried to take it in stride. I know its not the norm. Maybe it was just a bad week. At one point I was tempted to go up front and complain, but I didn't want to be THAT GUY...so I just let it go.
At Cabana Bay they play 60's music everywhere, which is cool at first. But when coming from the beautiful ambience of Sapphire Falls, it makes Cabana Bay come off as not as luxurious. It makes you really feel like you are in a value resort. I know there will be people who will chime in saying that their stay at Cabana Bay was wonderful, and I think that is because they are comparing it to Disney value resorts, because at the time Sapphire Falls was not built yet. And yes, Cabana Bay is heads and tails above Disney all star resorts. I've read people say that Cabana Bay feels like a "moderate" resort. But to me, I think Sapphire Falls is like a Deluxe. And I think if Sapphire Falls was not the
same price as a family suite at Cabana Bay....I wouldn't have been nearly as critical of Cabana Bay. But now that Sapphire is built right next door...you can tell the difference.
Cabana Bay is not bad at all. But when you can see Sapphire Falls is just RIGHT THERE....for the same price....it really brings down Cabana Bay's appeal.
I hope I didn't upset anyone by saying these critical things. It was just my experience, but I know that everyone's experience is different.