The Grand Floridian is the flagship resort in Disney World. It is located on the monorail across the Seven Seas Lagoon from the Magic Kingdom.
Transportation is one of the main reasons that people stay here. You can take the monorail or a boat to the Magic Kingdom. If you want to go to Epcot, you take two monorail rides. To get to Animal Kingdom and Hollywood studios, you take a bus.
It is a fairly small resort, so any building is a good location!
Our room had two queen beds, and a beautiful porch overlooking the pool. The boys always like when mousekeeping does fun things with their blankets and toys! Our room was technically a "standard view" room. The above picture was from our porch though! There are no parking lot views at the GF, and we could actually watch the fireworks from our room! It doesn't get much better than that!
One of my favorite parts of the Grand Floridian are the flowers! There are flower arrangements inside that are just spectacular. I know this is a strange thing to list as my favorite part of the resort, but it just made me so happy to see these flowers everywhere we went!
The flowers outside are simply gorgeous too! They are everywhere, and they are dense. They just put a little skip in my step every time I see them!
The pools at the GF are fantastic. There is a 24 hour pool with these fun splashy things (that's a real word for sure).
I didn't take a picture of the main pool, but it does have a great slide. We also enjoyed the awesome splash playground! Note the monorail going by in the back! So fun!
Dining at the GF is absolutely amazing. Starting from the quick service all the way up! The quick service is called the Gasparilla Grill. This is where you go to grab an easy meal and fill your refillable mugs. I loved the mahi mahi rueben and at it many times on the trip! There is also a pool bar by the 24 hour pool, and a walk up counter (with lobster sliders!) at the main pool.
There is character dining at 1900 Park Fare. For breakfast, they have Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Alice, Mad Hatter, and Mary Poppins. At dinner they have Cinderella, Prince Charming, the Stepsisters, and Lady Tremaine. I honestly thing the food at this character meal is one of the best. I mean, they have red velvet pancakes. What else could a person want or need?
There is another table service dining location called the Grand Floridian Cafe. We meant to make it here on this trip, but, well, we weren't hungry!
There are two lounges where you can grab a quick drink and some great light fare--the Citricos Lounge and Mizner's. There is live music playing outside of the Mizner's loung in the afternoon and evening that just makes the lobby of the GF magical.
Moving up from there, there are two signature restaurants and one that isn't on the dining plan. Narcoossees is situated alone on top of the Seven Seas Lagoon. That means you can overlook the Magic Kingdom, the monorail, and all of the ferries going by. It is a gorgeous location. They also have a Sunday brunch, which we tried out with the boys. The food was spectacular! Also, George got this hilarious bloody mary that was probably enough food for breakfast just with the add ons!
Citricos is inside the main building, and the fare there is lovely. The final dining location inside GF is Victoria and Alberts. This is the only dining location on property with a true dress code and age limit. It is absolutely fine dining, and you should expect to spend a lot of time (and even more money) on the experience. We honestly feel that we can bring our (crazy) little boys to any location for dining on Disney property, but this is the one exception. If you did want to have this experience, and your children are with you on vacation, you can always take them to one of the kids clubs (the closest would be Lilo's Playhouse) or if they are under three, you can call the in-room babysitting line too!
There are other really fun extras inside the GF! On most days in the afternoon, Cinderella and Prince Charming coming out and walk with the children to the lobby.
They have a dance and take a few pictures. At christmas time, they build a life-sized gingerbread house in the lobby. At Easter, the lobby is decorated with Easter Eggs made by the pastry chefs on property. The extra touches just make it even better! I love the sweet Disney nods on the floor!
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