The Beach Club Renovations

Before I discuss my recent vacation to WDW, I thought I would talk about the room we stayed in. We stayed in a newly renovated room at The Beach Club. The '90s beach resort theme is finally getting updated to a more modern look. Work began on the fifth floor in November, and has continued down to the fourth floor, which currently is being renovated. If you're unfamiliar with the old design, here's a link to a thread someone created with photos on disboards: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3025413 Although it's not exactly the same as the room we stayed in, they had a king bed and appear to be in a corner room, it's basically how the rooms used to look.

We stayed on the fourth floor in a section already redone. They began work on a hallway near ours while we were there, putting up a temporary wall with access only for emergencies. We couldn't use the main elevators, but we had an elevator close to our room, so it wasn't a big inconvenience. We would have to walk the same distance anyway. The hallways also are being redone. The hallway has a nice new carpet that fits the beach theme, with many hidden Mickeys. The "Little Mermaid" characters found on the old rugs are no more. There are two different types of rugs as you will see below. Both blend very well together:

    The beginning of the hallway has a blue rug. Notice the second star fish in a circle from the bottom has a smaller one above it, and a circular shell shape, creating a hidden Mickey.

The other new rug design

Looking down our hallway. The walls are grey now as opposed to turquoise.

Close-up of the rug. Note the Hidden Mickey bubbles.

Our room's doorway is now teal instead of white. 

The room now is completely redone with new pictures on the wall, drawers, night stands, lamps, beds, etc. The beds have a soft cushion on the headboard. Previously the headboards were wooden. The cylinder shaped pillow was white, but now is blue.

The new beds with new headboards as well as comforter.

Other bed with new picture of a shell next to it. Previously, there was a painting of a beach.

 Nightstand between beds. Note the odd highchair looking thing. I believe it's supposed to be shelves. The backboard also has outlets to charge phones, etc. This is also the best picture of the rug in the room, it's light brown with swirls. The old rug was dark brown stripes with smaller light brown stripes between.

Now lets move on to the desk in the right corner of the room, opposite the beds. The desk has another smaller desk under it in case more room is needed. The desk is similar to the old desk, the main difference is that the desks used to have white legs and a darker top, but now it is all wooden. The chair used to be completely different. It was a white wooden chair with a cushion on the seat. Now the whole chair has a cushion. The lamp is different as well. Continuing the trend of The Grand Floridian Resort and Spa replacing their Mickey shaped base on the lamp with a more standard lamp, we have a glass lamp. It used to have a base that looked like a lifeguard chair with Mickey Mouse sitting on top.While the old Mickey lamp was a nice touch of Disney, the new lamp really doesn't bother me

 The entertainment center next to it is a lot bigger now. Like the old desk, it was white with a dark top. It had four tiny drawers and one cabinet door. Now we have three large drawers in the middle, with three smaller drawers on the right, and one drawer with a cabinet door below it on the left. The TV also used to hang on the wall above the desk on a wooden base that was completely separate from the desk. Now the base is built into the drawer. The drawer knobs look like sea shells.

Close-up of the drawer knobs

 Although the room in the beginning link only shows a bare wall next to the doorway in the entry hall, I see in other pictures online that rooms had this drawer area too. It had the same motif as the old desk and drawers; white with a dark top.

The picture on the wall above the drawers: a photo of a beach with Mickey and Minnie cartoons flying kites added to it.

The cabinet has a mini fridge inside

The fire escape plan is usually found on the back of the door, but now has been moved to the right of the door on to the vent.

The bathroom area is redone as well. Our bathroom is across from the desk with the coffee maker and Mickey and Minnie beach picture above it. The bathroom has two sinks outside an open area. The room in the link above had only one sink. The toilet and bath tub are in a separate room on the left, with a door so someone can use the bathroom while someone else uses the sink.

The old design had a large seashell in the in the middle of the front sink area, now it has six octagons. The beige wallpaper with sailboats is now a grey wallpaper. The oval mirror with a seashell on top is now a rectangular mirror. The bottom shelves are lower to the ground, so you can fit more in there. It's also natural wood color instead of painted white.

The bathroom appears to have a new toilet and tub. The tile behind the tub is new as well, the old design was a beige-ish color square tiles. The floor is grey wood, which kind of evokes a boardwalk to me. Before it was tile the same color as the old shower tile. The wood also goes out to the sink area, while before it was the rug the rest of the room had. The old shower curtain had sailboats matching the wallpaper in the sink/ bathroom area. It's hard to see in the picture, but it now resembles bubbles and has hidden Mickeys and Mickey shapes around it.

We had a very large balcony in our room, I believe most rooms have smaller ones. We had a door with a window to the side as opposed to a sliding door. I'm not sure if it was always like that or if it was redesigned. Probably the former. The link shows brown and blue striped curtains in the old design. Now it's a tan color. The curtains also slide down now as opposed to shutting from the side. One problem we had was that the curtain sticks out, leaving the outside light to get in. It wouldn't be a problem, but we had a light right outside our room that was on all night, so it shined into the room. We told the front desk, but they said there was nothing they could do. We got some fastpasses for our inconvenience though. That was the only real problem we had at the resort.

Patio furniture looks the same as it was in the old design

Our view of the quiet pool. We could see The Swan & Dolphin hotels and the Boardwalk across the way. We could also see the Tower of Terror in Disney's Hollywood Studios behind the Boardwalk.

So that's the renovated room! I think it was a nice redesign, the old look was a lot more 90s' looking and this look finally brings the resort into the 21st century. Some touches are gone, such as the Mickey Mouse Lifeguard lamp, but new ones were added; the Mickey and Minnie painting, hidden Mickey shower curtains, etc. There's still a long way to go in this renovation. Only one and a quarter floors are done, so there's still three and 3/4s to go. I don't know if they are going to be redoing the Beach Club Villas either. The Yacht Club should be redone after the Beach Club is finished, though. Please share your thoughts or ask questions about the renovation below and follow me on twitter at https://twitter.com/Grndcnyncncrse.