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A Cheapskate Guide To Disney Resort Pool Hopping

By admin

clown pool
By Amanda, Disney’s Cheapskate Princess.
The more money you pay for on-property accommodations at Walt Disney World, the nicer your resort pool will be. More cash = fabulous pools. It’s a simple financial fact that we can’t all afford to stay in the Disney Deluxe Resorts.  A topic that can make a lot of people get irritated quickly when they talk about a Disney vacation is “Pool Hopping.”  Pool hopping is simply staying at one resort and swimming at another. So how can you pool hop at Disney World and not wind up in hot water? And the water I am referring to is not one of the hot tubs…
Bay pool
Disney has an “open resort” policy where you are legally allowed to visit their resorts and enjoy their amenities. This means you can sit in the Grand Floridian Resort and Spa lobby and listen to the pianist. You can walk through the Animal Kingdom Lodge and enjoy the original African artwork. You can wander through the Cars Land section of the Art of Animation Resort and take your photo with Mater and Lightning McQueen. But Cast Members are very swift to say that you cannot swim in the pools if you are just visiting from another resort.
Disney rules regarding pools are pretty straight forward. You may use the pool/pools at the specific resort where you are a registered guest.  You may not hop to another pool at another resort and use their pool.  Most Disney Resort pools have signs displaying this information for guests. They usually read something like, “This pool area is for the exclusive use of  (fill in Disney resort name) guests.”
So how can you swim in Disney pools if you are not a registered, room-key carrying guest at the resort?
Contemporary
There’s only one simple, legal, answer to that question, and that is for you to join the DVC, the Disney Vacation Club. I have heard occasional stories of people swimming in Disney Resort pools without actually staying on property, but those people are taking the huge gamble of being thrown out when discovered, or worse, arrested for trespassing.
Every so often, swimmers may be asked by a Life Guard to show their room key to verify they are allowed to swim at that specific pool. That was a risk I was not ever willing to take, being escorted out of the pool area, my mug shot winding up in the newspapers, my children crying as they stuffed mommy in the squad car. I think people who do take this risk are clearly not thinking about the possible outcomes. I know rule breakers probably won’t be arrested, but I’m not one to take or advocate other people take risks or break rules. And honestly, breaking the pool hopping rule is just not fair to the people who paid lots of hard-earned money to stay there.
Grand pool
I am a Vacation Club Member. When we took the DVC tour, our DVC representative explained that pool hopping was not only legal for DVC Members (with some stipulations,) it was encouraged.  This was presented as a big perk of the DVC program. So I heard this and stick-to-the-budget financial thought flew straight out the elegant-curtained windows.  Pool hopping, pool hopping, Disney Pool Hopping!!
I love Disney pools, and while I have not stayed in all the Disney resorts, I have swam in a fair amount of their pools, the pools on the “Pool Hopping is O.K.” list. Truth be told, I’ve swam in more Disney pools than I have actually spent the night in their numerous resorts. Why again was this possible? How do you pool hop without risking possible arrest and public humiliation when you’re caught swimming illegally?  Join the Disney Vacation Club.
Animal pool
Once you’re in the DVC, or The Club as I call it, when you use your membership to stay at a WDW DVC  or Disney’s Vero Beach Resort, you and any guests staying with you are allowed to pool hop to certain Disney resort pools when they are not at full capacity. That, those of you Couponing to Disney, is how you legally pool hop.

Membership has its privileges, but there are certain blackout dates for members when resort occupancy is high. There are also pools even DVC members cannot ever pool hop in while they are staying at another resort.

  • Uzima Pool and Samawati Springs Pools at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge
  • Disney’s Art of Animation Resort
  • Bay Cove Pool at Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort
  • the leisure pool at Disney’s Beach Club Villas
  • Stormalong Bay at Disney’s Yacht & Beach Club Resorts
  • the pool at the Disneyland Resort in California

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pool

Vacationers pay a ton of money to go to Disney World. The nicer resort you stay in, the more money you will pay. It’s morally unethical to swim in a resort pool you did not pay to swim in. It’s also embarrassing if you get caught there illegally, so don’t take the risk.  Let the people who paid for those pool privileges enjoy them.

For the people who paid for DVC privileges, you will really enjoy the pool hopping option. The summer after we joined the DVC, we used our new points to stay at Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort. I’ll be honest, I was so broke from paying that membership down-payment, we decided not to charge park tickets on our Disney Visa. We used a set of one day tickets from a prior trip, and we spent the next five days pool hopping.  I called it the GREAT 2008 DISNEY POOL TOUR. It was absolutely, positively fabulous. It was so great, it took the sting out of my DVC bill each month.

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Grand night

Without a DVC membership, you can tour the resorts and decide which pools you like, and then save your money for accommodations there. That way, no one has to call the  Cheapskate Princess for bail money.

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Thanks for stopping by Couponing to Disney for a quick Disney Resort tip. Keep clipping those coupons and keep dreaming Disney.

We’ll see you next Friday night at 8 p.m. central for some more  Cheapskate Princess tips and tricks. Keep clipping coupons and saving money and keep dreaming Disney!

Amanda

Disney’s Cheapskate Princess

Come see us at Disney’s Cheapskate Princess on Facebook and Cheapskate Princess on Pinterest.

Join The Conversation: 2 Comments



Comments

  1. 2

    JM says

    The Bay Lake Tower pool isn’t that great anyway. It’s nice, but it’s in the shade of the building for a lot of the day, and when we visited there in January it was much too cold to swim. Even though we were guests at BLT, we walked over to the Contemporary pool to swim, where it was in the sun and much warmer. In the summer, however, that shade might be welcomed.

    Reply

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