Our Stay at Shades of Green
Let me start by saying Shades of Green is a great value. It’s close to the monorail and Magic Kingdom. Disney counts it as a moderate resort so you get the extended evening hours on select days. The hotel rooms and bathrooms are big (two sinks!). But for us these things just didn’t do it for us. Our favorite hotel is Pop Century. Yes the rooms are tiny at POP BUT it has easy transportation to the parks, I can mobile order food from the quick service (ie Mickey waffles) and did I mention it’s on the skyliner route….
But back to our stay at Shades. If you don’t know Shades of Green is a military resort. Only active duty, retirees and some select others can stay there. Check in was easy and painless. Our room wasn’t ready yet so they take your phone number and call you when it’s ready (which for us was around 2:30). Once your room is ready and you need a luggage cart the bellman has to do it for you. So if you have already parked your car (which we had) you have to drive your vehicle back to the front of the hotel to unload all of your stuff. This was a pain and I wish they would have been able to just give us the cart.
The resort is BIG and the walk to our room once we got back to the hotel was LONG. I’m pretty sure our room was about as far from the lobby as you can get. The room was quiet which helped even though I was in a room with a loud snorer. They have a few dining options but for us they weren’t the greatest. My son and I at breakfast one morning at the buffet. It has everything you would expect on a breakfast buffet and was very reasonably priced for being on Disney property. It was $3.50 for my son’s breakfast. That’s amazing. But who really has time to get up and eat at a buffet on their Disney vacation. You want to get up and go go go. Dinner options get a little slimmer. There is a fancier restaurant or you can get pizza, fried rice or made to order pasta down where the buffet is in the morning. Don’t get the pizza…been there, done that and YUCK. There is also a “sports bar” restaurant but we didn’t go there because it was not close to our room. We also did not try the grab and go option which is down by the buses.
Now can we talk about transportation….The buses run every half an hour. This can seem like forever if you just miss a bus. Now on the bright side you can just walk to the Polynesian Resort and catch a Disney bus or the monorail depending on what park you are going to that day. Its about a 10 minute walk and it’s pretty quick. The shades bus that goes to Hollywood Studios also goes to Animal Kingdom first so that takes up a good chunk of time. We walked to the polynesian for all of our transportation. The security to get on the monorail at the Poly is quick and simple and much less than the lines at Epcot or Magic Kingdom. I could go on and on about the transportation. Ask any questions in the comments.
This is the current Shades of Green bus schedule
I’ll sum up the pros and cons. These are just my opinions.
PROS:
Walk to the Polynesian was fairly short so that you can take Disney buses or the monrail.
The rooms are huge compared to Disney value resort rooms
The room price is cheap compared to other Disney properties
CONS
Parking at Shades is $15/ night. You do not get free parking at the Disney Parks. If you drive to the parks you will have to pay the $25 for parking.
Transportation take a while. The bus ride to get to Hollywood Studios could easily take 30 minutes. Also you need to pay attention to the bus schedule or you could be waiting for the buses for a while.
There is 100% ID checking. This even includes when on a shades bus. The security guard will come on the bus on the way back to the hotel and check EVERYONE’S IDs. This goes quick but after a long day at the park can seem like it takes forever.