Disney’s moderate hotels are a small collection of resorts that bridge the price and stylistic gaps between the value and deluxe resorts. In this post, we discuss the moderate resorts, including the basic things to know about them, reasons to stay at moderate resorts, and, of course, the ranking of all four (well, “five”) of Disney World’s moderate resorts!
We’ve reorganized our hotel content to be more targeted for what readers specifically want in a given post. It used to be all in a single post, and that was unwieldy and messy. Besides the reviews of every hotel (links are found later in this post), we now have the following posts:
Complete Guide to Disney World Hotels — post to start picking your hotel and for understanding the key differences between the different hotels at Walt Disney World Resort
Benefits of Staying at a Disney Hotel — covers the perks associated with Disney hotels
Best Disney World Value Hotels — in-depth mostly objective look at and ranking of the value resorts
Best Disney World Moderate Hotels (this post) — in-depth mostly objective look at and ranking of the moderate resorts
Best Disney World Deluxe Hotels — in-depth mostly objective look at and ranking of the deluxe resorts
Ranking of the Best Disney World Hotels — our subjective ranking of all the Disney hotels
If you’re looking for an introduction with quick, practical information about all the hotels, check out the guide post. If you’re looking for more detailed analysis, visit the different categorical rankings (like this one). And if you just want to know what two people who do this for a living think of every hotel, check out that last link.
Disney World Moderate Resort Basics
If you’d like to skip to the rankings, just click here. Otherwise, we’ll start with some basic things to know about the moderate resorts.
There are four moderate resorts at Walt Disney World: Caribbean Beach, Coronado Springs, Port Orleans — French Quarter, and Port Orleans — Riverside. Standard rooms at the moderate resorts price from $260 to $475+ per night (including tax) for 2024.
Like the value resorts, Disney moderate resorts (with limited exceptions) have “motel-style” doors—facing outside with no inside hallways. Also like the value resorts, each has a food court, usually offering something close to American fare—pizza, burgers, sandwiches, etc. But unlike the value resorts, and like the deluxe resorts, all but one of the moderate resorts has at least one table service restaurant (Port Orleans French Quarter guests will need to walk over to Riverside for table service).
As for theme, Disney moderate resorts are sort of closer to the deluxe resorts than the value resorts—not in terms of depth, but at least in terms of style. You won’t see any giant statues of Disney characters or giant Coca Cola cups at these resorts. You’ll see more subtle design elements chosen to reflect the theme.
Because they carry such large footprints and are built around lakes, Riverside, Caribbean Beach, and Coronado Springs are all serviced by buses that make multiple stops. Overall we find this much more of a problem than a convenience. I’ll concede we’re big walkers, but we just never find the time it takes the buses to make multiple stops to be worth the convenience of not having to walk to a single stop.
Caribbean Beach has lessened this problem somewhat with the introduction of the Disney Skyliner, but you’ll still have to deal with buses to get to Magic Kingdom or Animal Kingdom.
If you have a car at Disney World, you may find the moderate resorts significantly more tolerable, as there tends to be parking available near each building. Parking is once again free, and you get free parking at the theme parks.
And of course, if you’re willing to Uber / Lyft / Minnie Van, you’ll be in a better spot. We almost always wind up using rideshare one or two times when we stay at the moderate resorts.
Reasons to Stay at Disney Moderate Resorts
If you’re already set on the moderate resorts and want to skip to the ranking, click here. While in our value and deluxe rankings we have a whole “reasons to picks this category” list, we don’t feel as strongly about the moderate resorts.
It’s hard to articulate, but basically we think there’s a very limited “sweet spot” at the moderate resorts in terms of price and quality for us (spoiler, it’s Gran Destino Tower). The value and deluxe resorts offer much clearer trade-offs.
Moderate Resorts vs. Deluxe Resorts
If the deluxe resorts are in our price range for a trip, we don’t consider the moderate resorts a viable alternative. For the most part, we wouldn’t step down to the moderates to save money if we were comfortable with the price of our deluxe option. The drop in quality is significant enough to make it a different trip.
Gran Destino Tower is an exception to this. As a hotel, Gran Destino Tower is arguably better than several of the deluxe resorts. It still suffers from a subpar transportation situation, but this can be relieved with a small rideshare budget.
Moderate Resorts vs. Value Resorts
On trips when price is an issue, you’ll be choosing between the moderate resorts and the value resorts. The main reason we ever pick the moderate resorts over the value resorts is theming.
You can look at the pictures of all the value and all the moderate resorts—if being surrounded by gigantic colorful figures isn’t your style, you’ll probably prefer the moderate resorts.
Room size is something of a perk—but how much? We’ve stayed in value rooms as a group of four adults. It wasn’t great, but it also was only for about 30 minutes before bed and 30 minutes before leaving in the morning.
If you need extra space for getting ready, two people get ready while two get breakfast, then you swap. Either way, an extra 10% to 20% space doesn’t really attract us to the moderate resorts.
Slightly better food courts and an okay table service restaurant don’t really move the needle for us. If dining options are important, you’re mostly going to need to stick to deluxe resorts or to eating outside your resort hotel (which is a good option anywhere, honestly).
Then there’s rooms. The value resorts have recently been fully refurbished, while the moderate rooms range from “best rooms at Disney World” (Gran Destino Tower) to “somehow still in need of refurbishments” (Caribbean Beach standard rooms). This is going to be a hotel-by-hotel, or even a room type-by-room type situation.
Most the most part, moderates have rooms with two queens beds, though there are a few king bed rooms, a few double rooms, and some 5th sleeper rooms.
As for price, you will find times when an ongoing offer at a moderate bring it into competition with available value rates. While we will take French Quarter and maybe Riverside over Pop Century at comparable rates, we’ll usually pick Pop over Coronado Springs and Caribbean Beach at similar rates.
It’s finally worth noting that if you’re interested in going up to the deluxe resorts, keep in mind those have a huge price range. There’s a wide gap between a peak night at Grand Floridian and an off-season, discounted rate at Wilderness Lodge.
Disney World Moderate Resort Rankings
With only four resorts, ranking the moderate resorts isn’t such a challenge.
Like our other ranking posts, the top spot gets the most discussion because we lay out how it compares to the other hotels. That said, with each moderate offering something unique, you’ll only get a complete picture reading the entire list. For more pictures of each resort, and for a walkthrough of a room at each resort, click through to the reviews.
And as with our value and deluxe rankings, we try and keep this somewhat objective. Even though we might prefer some small touches here and there, this list focuses mostly on the things that will most significantly impact your vacation.
Honorable Mention: Disney’s Fort Wilderness Cabins
2024 Rates: $466 to $920
Review of the Cabins at Fort Wilderness
Note: That cabins will be renovated into a new DVC property projected to open in 2024. If you’re interested in staying here, I recommend spending more time researching which types of cabins (old vs. new) are available and which you’ll be booked into if you make a reservation.
Okay…lots of people (including Disney sometimes) consider the cabins at Fort Wilderness to be a “moderate” option, but it’s sort of a silly comparison.
For starters, they’re priced significantly higher than the other moderate resorts, occupying the space between the moderates and deluxe in terms of pricing.
But more importantly, the Cabins are a unique Disney accommodation. This isn’t at all like your typical hotel stay. You have a private cabin, among a gigantic campsite with its own deep roster of activities. Going pretty much anywhere else at Walt Disney World requires a car or multiple buses.
All of this is to say that while you should definitely consider the Fort Wilderness Cabins, they aren’t really comparable to the other Disney resorts.
Overview of the Disney Moderate Resort Rankings
You can pretty simply break these rankings down into key points:
Port Orleans French Quarter has good rooms, isn’t too big, and has a single bus stop
Coronado Springs has the best rooms, but is large and has multiple bus stops
Port Orleans Riverside is the most beautiful, has good rooms, but is big and uses multiple bus stops
Caribbean Beach has okay rooms, is big, uses multiple bus stops, but also has the Skyliner
Not to cheat you out of a list, but you really could pick any of those bolded points and say “that’s enough to lift it above the other moderate hotels” because they hotels are pretty similar in terms of quality.
We still rank them, and that ranking basically reflects how much value we find in the above bolded items. This isn’t a case like the value resorts or the deluxe resorts where there are some close calls but the overall gap between first and last is large. The overall gap between first and last on this list is very small.
One More Thing…
There’s one last thing I want to say about these rankings. Instead of comparing the resorts, you might instead compare the room types. Coronado has both standard rooms and rooms in the Gran Destino Tower. Caribbean Beach has standard rooms and “Under the Sea” rooms. Riverside has Bayou rooms, Mansion rooms, and Royal Guest Rooms. Throw in French Quarter, and you’re talking about eight room types across these five resorts. Just something to keep in mind.
1. Port Orleans Resort — French Quarter
2024 Rates: $289 to $476
Review of Port Orleans Resort — French Quarter
Port Orleans French Quarter is our pick as best moderate Disney Resort.
Port Orleans French Quarter is one of the two “Port Orleans” resorts at Walt Disney World. The other, Riverside, is next on this list. It’s worth quickly explaining the names.
The two hotels used to be completely unrelated, with wholly different names. French Quarter was “Disney’s Port Orleans Resort,” and Riverside was “Disney’s Dixie Landings Resort.” In early 2001, for reasons not publicly acknowledged—but also not exactly shocking—Dixie Landings was rebranded, and the names of the hotels were changed to what they are today.
While you should confirm with the hotel before booking, most reports indicate this is the only situation in which guests of one hotel can use another hotel’s feature pool (Yacht Club and Beach Club, of course, share a single pool). This makes some sense, given that the names both begin “Disney’s Port Orleans Resort.”
Nevertheless, they are booked separately, have different check-ins, and are physically separate hotels. The pool sharing also isn’t a huge perk of either hotel. For these reasons, we consider them separately for the purpose of this post.
French Quarter has a lot going for it. It’s a beautiful resort, and the New Orleans detailing is wonderfully executed. It hits the sweet spot between “grown up” and “fun” better than any resort, which is maybe just a benefit of the chosen theme.
With no table service restaurant on-site, guests are left to either boat to Disney Springs (a great trip to make) or to walk a few minutes over to Port Orleans — Riverside. This is probably the only real flaw we find in this resort, though.
What really sets Port Orleans — French Quarter apart not only from the other moderate resorts, but from every other resort at Walt Disney World, is its intimate charm. With just over 1000 rooms, Port Orleans — French Quarter is the smallest of the moderate resorts. It’s also smaller than any of the value resorts.
The longest walk from the main building to a room at French Quarter is 5 minutes. At Riverside, it’s 9 minutes. Head over to Caribbean Beach and you’ll see something similar, with the longest walk being 12 minutes.
That’s a small difference (though maybe not with luggage and kids in tow), but it’s also worth noting that most rooms at Riverside are more than five minutes from the main building, while none at French Quarter are.
For the most part, French Quarter has its own bus that makes a single stop at the resort. This is a stark departure from the other moderate resorts, all of which utilize multiple bus stops. And it’s this advantage that really puts French Quarter in the top spot on this list.
Multiple bus stops aren’t the worst thing in the world, but keep in mind that some mornings the 10 minutes of extra travel time can cost you 30 minutes—or more—of wait time for your first ride. Disney’s bus transportation is already less than ideal—adding multiple stops doesn’t help.
French Quarter sometimes shares buses with Riverside, but this is rare. Either way, having a single stop most of the time (especially during peak hours) beats never having a single stop by a longshot.
As far as room quality, French Quarter is just about in the middle of the pack. French Quarter recently had a soft refurbishment that brought wood floors, improved TVs, and some other small changes.
The rooms are about the same quality as the new Riverside rooms and the Caribbean Beach rooms. Coronado Springs has the newest rooms and the best rooms in this category, while the old Riverside rooms (which are currently being refurbished) lag behind.
2. Coronado Springs Resort
2024 Rates (Standard Rooms): $260 to $470
2024 Rates (Tower Standard Rooms): $316 to $638
Review of Coronado Springs Resort
Review of Gran Destino Tower at Coronado Springs
Coronado Springs is a tough one to rank. And to be clear, the Gran Destino Tower is our personal favorite moderate option. The aesthetic might not be for everyone, but we enjoy the design, along with the modernity of the Tower and the rooms. This is definitely a “our preference might not be yours” situation. Gran Destino is a great hotel, but I’d say French Quarter is probably the better Disney hotel.
Before Gran Destino, we had Coronado Springs below Port Orleans Riverside. The hotel is pretty strongly geared toward conference guests which impacts the hotel in ways that are subtle to casual guests but jarring for more seasoned Disney fans. For example, it houses a sports bar, Rix Sports Bar and Grill, that’s more like ESPN Zone than anything you’d expect to see inside a Disney hotel.
That said, the hotel isn’t devoid of the family-centric identity that drives Disney. The Dig Site pool area is often regarded as one of Disney’s better pools, for example.
The real highlight of Coronado Springs is the rooms. These are the best rooms at the moderate level, having received an extensive refurbishment in 2018 (while that’s “ages ago”, somehow the other hotels have still not caught up). The Gran Destino rooms are even newer and are also excellent.
Like Port Orleans — Riverside, the transit situation at Coronado Springs is poor. The resort is huge and buses make multiple stops. But that’s the thing—if you’re a conference guest, a high quality room and a sports bar are a lot more important than bus times to Magic Kingdom for rope drop.
3. Port Orleans Resort — Riverside
2024 Rates (Standard Rooms): $289 to $476
2024 Rates (Royal Rooms): $353 to $554
Review of Port Orleans Resort — Riverside
By a mile, Riverside is the most beautiful of the moderate resorts. I don’t really care that the “mansions” aren’t actually housing the best rooms on property, they’re still really cool to look at.
While in terms of general guest experience, the size of Port Orleans — Riverside is a challenge, it also makes the resort perfect for a “slow” visit. A walk around Riverside is unlike a walk around any other Disney hotel, with the bayou and mansion scenery really impressing throughout.
The new rooms are a good upgrade, but I think Disney made a poor choice leaving them behind the quality of the Coronado Springs rooms. For such a beautiful retreat to be held back by Disney going halfway with the refurbishment is a real shame.
We’re most interested to see what happens to the Royal Guest Rooms. As our review noted, while these are really cool rooms, they’re also in poor shape. It isn’t shocking that these rooms wear more quickly—they’re more complex, and have more patterned surfaces and detailing.
Given the premium the Royal Guest rooms charge, we really think Disney needs to give them an extensive refurbishment. That said, most guests seem more blown away by the design than disappointed with the wear.
If you don’t mind the extra transit and don’t need the newest rooms, Riverside is a fantastic pick.
4. Caribbean Beach Resort
2024 Rates (Standard Rooms): $268 to $505
Review of Caribbean Beach Resort
Review of Under the Sea Rooms at Caribbean Beach Resort
Caribbean Beach resort has had substantial work done over the past few years, transforming the lobby area and main building. The food court is one of our favorites, the table service restaurant is also good, and the lobby is beautiful as well (though arguably not as good as the new lobby at Coronado).
The rooms also received a two rounds of light refurbishments, which gives them about the same quality as French Quarter and the new Riverside rooms, but still short of the new Coronado Springs rooms.
While Caribbean Beach has some scenery to it, it definitely doesn’t compare to Port Orleans — Riverside. This is partly a result of the theme. Caribbean Beach sort of just feels like another “Florida” hotel (sorry—once Emily pointed this out to me I couldn’t unsee it, and now I fear you won’t be able to either). This actually might work fine for many guest, to be fair.
And then there’s the Disney World Skyliner. Caribbean Beach is now connected via Skyliner to both Hollywood Studios and Epcot. This is overall an enhancement to the resort, but it comes with the caveat that no transportation option is perfect. Weather can cause Skyliner downtime. You’ll need to use the International Gateway entrance to Epcot even if that isn’t the best option for you. And if the Skyliner is down even twice during your trip you might find it completely lost any use to you.
For the right guest on the right type of vacation, the Skyliner arguably makes Caribbean Beach the best moderate option at Disney World. If you need to return to your hotel midday or if you’re spending a lot of time at Epcot or Hollywood Studios, then the Skyliner is a huge perk. Now that we travel with a toddler, we love the Skyliner.
But if you’re always spending full days at the parks, you’ll probably only take the Skyliner a few times max. Add in that you can always just take an Uber / Lyft / Minnie Van to any hotel in a pinch, and the Skyliner—while a cool, fun, and fast mode of transportation—just doesn’t lift Caribbean Beach over the other moderate hotels.
All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered
Don't be overwhelmed by Disney World planning! Take a second to check out our most important content and you'll not only be an expert, but you'll save big $$$ along the way.
Just starting out? Check out our Walt Disney World planning guide! If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disney World crowd calendars. For picking your hotel, check out our Walt Disney World hotels guide.
When it comes time to book we’ll help you find discount Disney World tickets. Decide whether you need a dining plan in our Complete Guide to Disney World Dining Plans! And don't forget to book those Disney World Advance Dining Reservations!
Don't forget to master your Disney World Genie+ and Lightning Lane strategy a few months in advance. We'll keep you out of long lines so you can maximize the magical time in the parks! We've got park-specific guides as well: Magic Kingdom Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, Epcot Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, Animal Kingdom Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, and Hollywood Studios Genie+ and Lightning Lanes.
Know what to ride with our guides to: Magic Kingdom rides, Hollywood Studios rides, Epcot rides, and Animal Kingdom rides! Plus learn about the water parks with our guide to Blizzard Beach and our guide to Typhoon Lagoon! And for some some fun prep, check out our Ranking of Every Ride at Walt Disney World.
Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.