So it only took me nearly three decades of being alive, but I finally stayed at a Monorail Resort at Walt Disney World. Sure, my boyfriend and I spent two nights at a Value Resort to defray the cost of three nights at the Contemporary, which I also got a slight discount on because I was participating in Marathon Weekend but HEY IT STILL HAPPENED.
If I’m being totally honest, I used to kinda be repelled by the aesthetics of the Contemporary, and if I had all the monies in the world, I’d do concierge level at the Polynesian, my wondrous dream hotel. But despite those two hotels plus the Grand Floridian all being Deluxe Monorail Resorts, I’d classify them as each having distinct and separate price levels, ranging from the Contemporary’s “I guess we can make this work for a few days” to the Poly’s “only if we find a box of money somewhere” to Grand Flo’s “holy shit let’s just fly to Europe or something.”
I had a renewed interested in the Contemporary after hanging out there for a bit in my Monorail Resort Tour of January 2013, and Marcus firmly believes in the benefits of a Nice Hotel Room, so we went for it. But first we had two nights at Pop Century, a hotel that I gave good marks to when I stayed there with Marcus and my parents and sister a few years ago, but somehow felt dated and cramped and uncomfortable since then. We checked in and I think the first thing I said was “I remember these rooms being bigger.”
The first thing Marcus said was “I can’t believe we have to share a pond with those Art of Animation nerds.”
We got through our two nights, one of which had a very early morning for me as I ran the inaugural WDW 10K, then we packed up our shit and brought it to bell services to transfer to the Contemporary. Though I had read that this is a commonly used, free service, the people working at bell services at Pop seemed confused by our request, which made me nervous. They kept saying it would be awhile before our stuff would arrive at the Contemporary, which was really not a problem for us since we were going to park hop that day and check in to our new hotel much later in the afternoon. But their quizzical glances were making me apprehensive, and I thought about maybe carrying my marathon outfit and shoes around with me all day in case they lost our luggage (I did both the 10K and the full marathon in January). But Marcus told me that was stupid, and pulled me away from the desk and onto a bus to the parks.
In the midafternoon, we made our way to the Contemporary, where our luggage was recovered almost instantly and the people at the front desk were insanely courteous, outgoing and helpful. Like, compared to Pop Century … it was ridiculous. Everyone at the Contemporary was exuding warmth, whereas at Pop, we asked questions and got raised eyebrows and meandering answers and a woman who kept trying to charge us for something we’d already paid the balance for and another cast member who showed us iPhone photos of her inner thigh tattoo (unsolicited, of course, and that’s a long story that I swear is not that interesting, but suffice to say we did not want to see her ink or that part of her body).
We were super amped to move to a different hotel. Sorry not sorry, large fiberglass statues.
We had a Garden Wing room at the Contemporary and Marcus was super bummed about not staying in “the main building with the monorail” but he cheered considerably when he realized that a) our building was literally steps from the main building and b) I had requested a ground room floor so we had our own mini patio with a sliding door, comfy deck chairs and a view of Bay Lake.
Seriously, gaze upon this. We loved it.
OK, here’s the part of this post where I am just going to gush about how much I loved the Contemporary and this room. THIS FUCKING ROOM. It was huge, HUGE, and the beds were STUPID COMFORTABLE and made the Pop Century beds feel like a pile of old sheets on top of a cinder block heap, AND IT WAS CLASSY AND NOT OVERLY THEMED, LIKE A HOTEL FOR ADULTS, CLASSY ADULTS WHO LIKE NICE THINGS, with its sizable couch and two giant comfy-ass beds and large flat TV atop a fun light-up panel…
Actually, there was this subtle, modern mood lighting EVERYWHERE in the room, including in two spacious closets that had a nice coffeemaker in the middle, and the bathroom, with its door separating the toilet from two separate sinks and vanities and a tub that you might actually want to bathe in and its NICER BATH PRODUCTS OH MY GOD.
OK OK OK. Deep breaths. Did I mention the desk? There was a huge desk, sliding panels, which Marcus actually did a pretty good amount of work at … he deferred the marathon because of his foot injury, so while I was running the WDW Marathon on Sunday, he was working.
So … basically … hotel of my dreams that I will cherish now forever and ever.
Of course the fun doesn’t stop with the room. I never really felt like I had enough time to take full advantage of everything the Contemporary had to offer. Marcus was around the hotel a bit more than I was and appreciated that the hotel had a full-service coffee shop and a ton of restaurant, bar and quick-service options.
We utilized the monorail like crazy. Though I’m going to be staying at the Yacht Club when Marathon Weekend 2015 rolls around — you know, the Deluxe Resort with an amazing-smelling lobby and the best pool ever that happens to be located right at World Showcase’s doorstep — I’m going to have to take a bus to the races, even though they’re within walking distance (if only they’d let us cut through EPCOT at four in the morning!) and I am definitely going to miss taking the monorail to the start of the WDW Marathon. It seemed so civilized.
Speaking of the pool, we did spend a morning swimming. Since the resort isn’t overly themed, there aren’t any cool statues or fountains. It was just a decent-sized pool with two hot tubs. That no one was in or even nearby. WE HAD IT TO OURSELVES AND IT WAS AMAZING. And! There was a slide, a fun twisty slide, that I went down a million times and Marcus was all “I’m too cool to go down a slide” and then I made him do it and he loved it BECAUSE WHO DOESNT LIKE WATER SLIDES COME ON. They’re the best, and it’s definitely the highlight of the Contemporary’s pool.
I honestly can’t believe I used to find the Contemporary ugly. I mean, I guess some areas could use a refurbishment or at least a few splashes of color but everything about it is now completely charming to me. The darling A-frame, the weird ’80s and ’90s ambience of the conference room floors. Everything old is new again, you know, and I can’t decide if I love this in an ironic way or perhaps a kitschy way or if I just am genuinely smitten. You never know with me, but my devotion is unyielding. And come onnnn how glorious is this graphic design-y logo?
I would get a tattoo of that. I’m not even joking (says the girl with Tomorrowland on her arm).
Even when the logo is paired with the resort’s name in an admittedly dated typeface I love it. It’s like, I dunno, the font is the exact right degree of dated. Like any more dated and it’d be too retro or cool, like some ’50s area thing that we all love right now because of fucking “Mad Men” or something, you know? It’s kinda awful in a more recent way and that’s what makes it amazing. GODDAMN I LOVE IT SO HARD.
Here is a thing that I love, definitely not ironically: the Mary Blair mural. Because who the fuck doesn’t.
Also on my list of tattoos to get: five-legged goat.
So I guess those are the majority of my thoughts on the Contemporary. I mean, I could probably go on and on about it but now I’m just kinda getting sad that I’m not staying there again until who knows when SO GOODBYE FOR NOW SWEET MONORAIL HOTEL I’LL LOVE YOU FOREVER
