Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort 2018 Construction Update
It’s been a few months since our last visit to Walt Disney World’s biggest hotel construction project, so we headed over to Caribbean Beach Resort to check in on the re-imagining of Old Port Royale, and the construction of the Skyliners and Disney’s Riviera Resort. In this post, we’ll share photos of the construction, and offer some thoughts on staying whether you should stay here in 2018.
Right now, Caribbean Beach Resort is very much an active construction site, with multiple projects being worked on simultaneously. This began last May, and was originally scheduled to be completed by late last year. At some point, the project became more ambitious in scope, and around Christmas, offered a revised completion timeframe of Late Summer 2018.
April 7, 2018 Update: Spyglass Grill, a quick service dining spot adjacent to the quiet pool in Trinidad South, is now opened. While normally a quiet pool dining option (we’d stop short of calling it a restaurant) wouldn’t merit coverage on the blog, this is the first phase of Caribbean Beach’s refurbishment to open, and the food is reportedly pretty good. It reinforces our recommendation to request a room in Trinidad if you’re going to stay at Caribbean Beach in the next few months, too.
Note that this anticipated Summer 2018 timeframe for completion still applies to the Old Port Royale “port of entry” and Centertown projects (consisting of the all-new waterfront dining for Shutters, counter service dining, shopping, and pool bar). If current progress is any indication, it’ll be more like late summer or early fall that the work is done.
Those completion dates most definitely do not apply to the adjacent Disney’s Riviera Resort or the Skyliner projects, neither of which will be finished before 2019. After walking through some of the work, we’ll assess whether guests planning late 2018 vacations should book stays at Caribbean Beach.
Before we get to that, let’s provide context for what you’re going to be viewing, for those of you unfamiliar with the layout of Caribbean Beach Resort or who haven’t seen the construction in person. For a basic primer on CBR, read our comprehensive Caribbean Beach Resort Review.
Note that you should start by reading our last Caribbean Beach Resort Construction Update if you have not already. That covers a lot of the temporary shopping and dining areas at the hotel, and we don’t revisit any of those because nothing has changed.
One thing we do have to add about dining at Caribbean Beach Resort right now is in-room pizza delivery. Prior to our visit, a friend had told us this was an ongoing “issue” at CBR because they didn’t have the kitchen facilities on-site to prepare pizza.
Instead, all pizzas ordered were being driven over from Pop Century, and in some cases, took over 2 hours to arrive. During our visit to Caribbean Beach, sure enough, we saw a golf cart with the Pop Century logo on it. Knowing that, I’d probably skip in-room pizza delivery, but that’s just me.
Actually, I’d probably go a step further and skip eating at Caribbean Beach Resort entirely. The temporary buffet and food trucks look like they leave a lot to be desired. If you’re planning a Walt Disney World vacation in the near future, the temporary dining set-up is something you should look at, to see if it’s serviceable for you.
We’d skip the parking lot food tent, and have food and alcohol delivered for a much cheaper price—see our Tips for Grocery Delivery at Walt Disney World post for more info.
Above is a 2018 map of Caribbean Beach Resort from DisneyWorld.com, with my notes about current projects added. If you look at an older map, you’ll notice the Barbados section and part of Martinique of Caribbean Beach Resort have vanished, as has part of Old Port Royale.
Pardon my rudimentary Photoshop work here, but in blue above is the work being done on Old Port Royale and Centertown, which stretches from the parking lot to waterfront, and abuts Martinique. In green is the former Customs House check-in area for Caribbean Beach Resort, which is being demolished.
In yellow is (roughly) one of the Disney Skyliner gondola station plots. There will also be another Skyliner station down by Jamaica, in the bottom left corner of the map. Work has also now started on this second plot, and it’s a surprisingly large area.
Finally, there’s the Disney Vacation Club component, Disney’s Riviera Resort in red. The work on this project is visible throughout Caribbean Beach Resort, and is especially bad from Martinique, the Old Port Royale area, and Aruba. You can hear this construction from literally anywhere in the resort.
Here’s a quick video of progress on Disney’s Riviera Resort as of early 2018:
We already know that Disney’s Riviera Resort won’t open until Fall 2019, because Disney has announced that. Since our last visit, Disney’s Riviera Resort has progressed quite a bit. It’s now gone vertical and is several stories tall, with huge crews actively working on it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney’s Riviera Resort is actually ahead of schedule, ready to debut by late Summer 2019 to start filling rooms for the busy fall and Christmas seasons. This makes sense–with Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge scheduled to open in late 2019, having these hotel projects wrapped up well before then is going to be essential to meet increased hotel demand.
By contrast, not much progress is apparent on the work occurring at the Centertown and Old Port Royale complex since our last visit in September.
It’s certainly possible that some of the biggest strides have been made in areas that are not visible, but my reaction to seeing this was, “that’s it?”
Given that Centertown and Old Port Royale are integral amenities to the resort that is currently operating, finishing those projects in an expeditious manner should be Disney’s priority–not getting the new DVC resort built. Of course, new DVC means new membership dollars, and Caribbean Beach doesn’t seem to be having problems filling its rooms, so there’s that.
This is not to say that the Centertown and Old Port Royale project won’t wrap up by late Summer 2018. I’d hazard a guess that this work could be finished in the span of a few months if there was a sense of urgency about it, so finishing in ~7-8 months (still technically summer) by moving at a snail’s pace is entirely possible.
That brings us to the question of whether you should stay at Caribbean Beach Resort in 2018? I’ll start by giving you my personal answer, as to what we’d do (and will be doing), and then follow with some factors to take into consideration since there’s no one-size-fits-all answer.
There is no way we’d book a stay at Caribbean Beach Resort between now and August 2018. The negative impact of the work is too high for us, there aren’t currently enough incentives to get us to stay in an active construction site, and the likelihood of things getting dramatically better between now and then seems pretty low.
There is very little chance we’d book between August and October, as even if the Centertown and Old Port Royale project finishes in that time (and it probably will), the Skyliner and Riviera Resort projects will still be noisy and visible. However, a good promotion–Free Dining availability here but not elsewhere, for instance–could sway us.
We will likely stay at Caribbean Beach Resort for a few nights during our Christmas 2018 trip, in part because we want to review all of this new stuff at Centertown and Old Port Royale. Also, in part because we anticipate the Skyliner and Riviera Resort projects being far enough along that they will no longer negatively impact the guest experience at Caribbean Beach.
All of those ‘answers’ are specific to us, and obviously, your mileage may vary. With that said, here are some things to consider if you’re planning a trip to Walt Disney World in 2018 and are on the fence about Caribbean Beach Resort.
First, a big selling point of Caribbean Beach Resort is its “Polynesian Lite” rooms and relaxed tropical ambiance, and scenery to explore. During this construction project, that tropical scenery is impacted and the previously relaxed ambiance is filled with the sounds of bulldozers and cranes.
We expect this significant negative impact on the resort’s ambiance until late 2018. It will get better once Centertown and Old Port Royale reopens, but the big offenders in this regard are the Riviera and Skyliner work. If you want a Moderate with ‘resort’ ambiance right now, I’d recommend Port Orleans Riverside.
If you like to enjoy meals at your resort, steer clear of Caribbean Beach right now, and until at least “late summer.” The makeshift dining options are literally a giant tent and several food trucks in a parking lot. It all feels a bit like something that might pop-up on the far corner of a Wal-Mart parking lot for the Fourth of July. Definitely not what you’d expect from Walt Disney World.
Without question, the impact on the resort’s tropical serenity and the dining options are the biggest downsides of staying at Caribbean Beach Resort right now. If for some reason these things don’t matter to you, by all means, book a stay…at Pop Century, and save some money. (Because if dining and ambiance don’t matter, what’s the difference between a Value and a Moderate?)
If you’re a Caribbean Beach Resort fan, the downside of postponing a stay here for too long is that the nightly rates will undoubtedly increase once all of this work is done. We doubt this will occur once the Centertown and Old Port Royale ‘up-scale’ waterfront areas open, but it certainly will once the Skyliner debuts and offers non-bus transportation to Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Epcot.
This basically leaves a window of Fall 2018 until Late 2019 as the sweet spot for enjoying improved amenities at current prices. If you can swing it, that’s what we’d recommend doing, and requesting a room in Trinidad, buildings 44-46, or buildings 51-53. I just hope that once the dust settles, Caribbean Beach Resort once again has the heart and tranquility of the resort I fell in love with when we first stayed there.
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Your Thoughts
Do you agree or disagree with our assessment of the construction impact on Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort? Have you stayed here since the work began? How did it affect your stay? Planning on staying at Caribbean Beach anytime soon, or will you wait until work is done? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
We are looking at booking in June of 2019 and this resort is on my list to check out once packages are released for next summer! Do you think June 2019 would be an okay time to stay at this resort?
Transportation is NOT a problem but I was not happy about a food truck, only buffet and a tent for a dining area. Eat anywhere but CBR, and there are lots of great places. The staff at CBR go out of their way to assist guests anyway they can
My daughter and I are staying at CBR from March 22-25 and will be glad to give an update when we go! Comments above are helpful! We too will be out and about during the day. Does anyone have a recommendations about Trinidad or Aruba as good choices for the bus transportation?
I just returned last night from CBR (3rd March, 2018). I was in Trinidad North 31 building – far enough away from construction that I never heard anything BUT and its a big but. I did not pay well over $3000.00 to eat in a tent (well constructed) but still a tent. $15.00 for a breakfast buffet when I only eat toast, yogurt and coffee is not acceptable. At the old CBR of one could buy all those things separately but now you would have to walk to a guest room in Martinique to find anything like that. I do not want buffet for lunch or dinner – I want a choice of entrees. Needless to say I did not eat at CBR but was upset over the breakfast issue. Have to say the staff are absolutely marvellous. One night, came back at around 8:30 and there were about 30 people lining up to pay for the dinner buffet and I only wanted an orange juice drink and was not prepared to walk to Martinique to get it. A member of staff spoke to me found out my problem and (unknown to me) she left and came back with a bottle of juice and refused to let me pay. CBR should put a “marketplace” store in each cluster of buildings. If it should rain and there is a long line up of guests wanting to pay for the buffet, or if its chilly – essentially you are lined up in the cold/wet weather. It really is bad and I think, regardless of losing money and logistics aside, Disney should have closed CBR down during the renovations. Transportation was as it has been for the last few years – very good and efficient at moving people but too long to wait and dangerous situation when the buses are completely full, too much danger of people falling over. Don’t stay in Aruba – far too close to the construction site. One final remark – hated the food truck – simply don’t eat the rubbish they were serving. I also don’t go on vacation to eat at a food truck.!
We will be there March 24-26. This resort has my daughter’s favorite pool so still hoping to enjoy the pool time.
We like the Carribean Beach Resort. We will be there in August 2018. Stayed there in 2017 June for the first time and got the 75$ Giftcard per day…stayed there 2 weeks…do the math, we used the money for merchandise, tips and everything else. And we got upgraded from the cheapest room available to a pirate room, we didn’t mind the long way with our rental car.
The food in the telt is ok, we went there sometimes for breakfast. They have air conditioning and usual breakfast buffet with Mickey waffles, pastries, fruits, and much more. I would not mind keeping the tent…. but they could have a bigger variety at the food truck….at least some french fries instead of lays chips (that`s not real food, oh and they have no taste!) The burger there was ok…but we got it just if it was late and we were tired and didn`t drive to another place. We did,t hear any noise but you had to drive a little careful where they were working. The only thing we were not all happy about was the room service… no new shampoo or soap. they made the bed and took the trash out, but that was it, Hope that gets better this time.
Thanks for the update.
We’ve had issues with housekeeping at resorts that weren’t under construction, but Disney has always gone above and beyond to make it right. We even made it clear that we were just letting them know in case the room was accidentally skipped or additional cast member training was needed. We didn’t ask for or expect any compensation, but the manager sprinkled some pixie dust and discounted our room and sent a gift basket with the nicest note attached!
We are going in December of 2018 for Christmas. Do you think the construction will have died down and we will enjoy our stay?
I’m about to book a stay at CBR for mid September. Do you guys think that’s a good idea?
I’m staying in beginning/ mid June 2018, how do you guys think it will be then?
Staying there again this April for a night. Got an insanely good deal though ($171 + tax for a standard room). It’s worth it now if you plan on spending all day at the parks anyway.
Tony G,
Check the prices now. I think It could be lower now.. Maybe the could do a price adjustment.
Where is the front desk and Bell Services right now?
Still at the Customs House. It hasn’t been demolished yet, and probably won’t be until the new one is set up at Port Royale.
I am going next Saturday (24th Feb) – booked it last Sept. What is this gift card people are mentioning? Who gets it?
People were given gift cards as compensation for the construction if they booked before a certain date. They’re not offering it anymore- the cutoff was sometime last summer.
*Sigh.* We’re staying here for the second time during construction at the end of February. Here’s the ONLY reason: it’s the cheapest Disney property where a family of 5 can stay in one room. We don’t care for the resort (even if it weren’t under construction, it’s just too spread out!), however, we only need a place to sleep & shower. When we go 3-4 times a year, we just want the cheapest room, and at this point, it’s CBR. During those years where we may only visit WDW once, we will absolutely choose better resorts, but for 2018, it’s our default resort.
I’m glad you said that. I just booked for May. Maybe (fingers crossed) it will be a little quieter. We’re also a family of 5 and this is one of those “let’s squeeze one more trip out of the budget before passes expire” trips. We like the pirate/ Caribbean theme, so we’re going to give it a try.
I believe the pirate themed rooms only accommodate 4 pet. So make sure you check into that. The construction is going to be major at CBR If you only have 4 people. Pop century is the way to go. All their rooms will be completely renovated by the summer
Right there with you–we are a family of 5 as well, trying to stay on property as cheaply as possible and *hoping* for free dining in November of 2018 (otherwise, we’d have done POR). We stayed here in 2015 and my 3 boys absolutely loved the pool. Thank goodness for the pool, which will hopefully outweigh the impact of the construction. Families of 5 have pretty lousy options!
We’re staying there for 2 weeks at the start of May, coming from the UK. We chose it because it and other moderates had free Quick Service dining, which none of the Value resorts had, but its nightly rate was very similar to Pop Century’s, meaning that it overall worked out as the cheapest resort option once food was included. We don’t intend to spend too much time at the hotel anyway, so hoping it won’t be a problem.
I thought the free summer meal was for value resorts. I have not heard anything about free quick service dining for moderates resorts. Would love to have that option. Thanks for any information
Let’s call this for what it is- pure greed on the part of Disney. Keeping this resort open is a purely disgusting act of profiteering. It’s a construction site, not a “Caribbean Beach” themed experience. Unbelievable.
I totally agree. I booked that resort expecting the construction to be completed by May. I had to move to the Port Orleans and the price difference is costing me just over $1000.
They wouldn’t even waver the difference cuz you wanted to be relocated that’s insane
Totally agree this is horrible. This is not Disney standards but you’re absolutely correct on them profiting out of all this. The crazy thing is that people continue booking. Not even with another incentive I would book there.
Any word on how the Trinidad areas are? Going Feb 16-23.
I just got back from a stay in Jamaica- Trinidad are probably the least affected areas, but you’ll still see a lot of construction as you enter and exit.
We are going in Feb. and picked this because it was the cheapest option. We started looking for rooms roughly 6 months ago and every value priced resort was booked for our dates which I was shocked at. We don’t plan to hang around the resort so I don’t think the construction will bother us and we rarely eat our resort.
We stayed in the Aruba building in January for Marathon weekend. We were super worried about the construction, but we booked when we got the $75 gift card per day, plus the room rate was so low, that we couldn’t justify staying somewhere else. Every time we ran the numbers to consider changing it just made no sense to pick a different moderate or a deluxe (we didn’t look at value).
We were really glad we stayed there. The room was great and the pool areas were nice and we didn’t end up being bothered by construction at all. The soundproofing in the rooms must be excellent because we couldn’t hear it at all in our room (but could when we left the room).
That said, we were in the parks from rope drop to closing most every day of the trip, so we weren’t spending a lot of time in the resort anyway.
The two annoyances we did have were (1) there was one night where we would have liked to eat on property because we were really tired, but ended up going to Disney Springs instead because we didn’t want the tent option, which was a big time suck; and (2) they randomly closed the pool much earlier than posted hours, so we weren’t able to use it at night.
I would stay there again if (1) prices remain significantly lower than other moderates, (2) there was some other sort of incentive (like the gift card or dining), and (3) I planned to spend most my time in the park.
We too stayed in aruba for marathon weekend, BUT we did not get the giftcard! We booked too late for that deal, but it was the cheapest option at that level so we went with it; though I sure wish we had planned a little bit better. We weren’t in the resort much except to get on and off the bus, but with the construction going on and staying at the last bus stop for the entire resort we ended up driving most days. The buses we’re sometimes full when they finally came around, and then it took forever to get back to the room at night. We were never bothered by construction noise as we were always at the parks, and never checked out the pool or any resort areas so I can’t say much else except the bus thing was a pain in the butt and quite frankly after the fact we both wished we had spent a little more and gone to another disney resort. So to anyone going soon, make sure you ask for NOT Aruba!
We stayed at CBR on our first trip to WDW in 1992. We have not been back, entirely because of the bus system. Too much time on buses, and too many filled buses. It sounds as though things have not changed much.
We found the buses to be relatively inefficient too being at the last stop. We used Lyft a ton — we figured we were saving enough on the room to justify spending money on transportation.
Thank you for this update. I was hoping to see one soon! I have a vacation booked here for Mid-October 2018, but I’m still on the fence. We stayed at Wilderness Lodge last trip so our resort expectations are set pretty high. I’m thinking of renting DVC points at Beach Club instead. I received a quote and the cost was almost the exact same as staying at Caribbean Beach. On the other hand, if everything is done we’ll get to stay at a newly renovated resort…. I think only free dining, room discount or the gift card incentive will keep us at Caribbean Beach.
How do you go about on renting DVC points, always was interested?
I’m definitely not an expert, this would be my first time. Tom has a great article on it though on this blog. Just search DVC and it should come up. 🙂
We are staying at CBR in October 2018, too. When will we know if those promotions specific to CBR are happening? The person I spoke to from Disney said the construction would be done Fall 2018. Looks like that’s a vague answer considering everything they are doing! This is the first I’m reading about transportation issues, too so now I am nervous
I’m not anticipating any great promotions like there’s been in the past for CBR (ie. gift cards). Probably just a normal room discount. I believe they are normally released around April or May. Who knows though, maybe we’ll get lucky! I’ve heard about the transportation issues at this resort but it wasn’t a big concern. I’m traveling with my father, who likes to arrive on time to everything (on time, meaning at least 20 minutes early), we rent a car and drive everywhere. 🙂 We’re going Oct. 11-20. Maybe we’ll cross paths!
Thank you for the update. Do you think they would through another incentive for those who want to go back? I dated there during the summer 2017, we had no water, no light. The food truck were no so good. I would call the front desk and they would say well we are under construction did you not know.
We stayed at cbr last May and are going back again to cbr this may. I suggest the Trinidad buildings also They are the furthest away from the construction but also furthest away from the main pool which was open last may. This review made the dining sound horrible which isn’t the case. The food trucks were good and the buffet breakfast or dinner was good (Mickey waffles so fluffy). Yes the buffet is in a big tent but you forget that it’s a big tent when you walk in. They also have a concession trailer for adult beverages I suggest the captain Mia tias. If your not above getting something off the clearance rack or saving a few bucks by buying the display model I highly suggest this resort. 2 more things to take into your stay here or any disney resort catch an uber hit the grocery store for snacks maybe some bread and lunch meat for sandwiches and defiantly a case of pepsi. (Everything including the speedway gas stations on disney property are Coca-Cola affiliated). Finally let your kids catch all the lizards they want. Do not handle the tree frogs their skin gives off an oil that if it gets in you or your kids eyes there is no amount of visine or eye wash stations that will remedy it. I hope this was helpful and hope to see ya at cbr the first week of may. Any questions I’ll be following this post.
Or, you can tell your kids to leave the wildlife alone. Really.
Hello. Heading to WDW in April 2018 and the main reason we are thinking about CBR is the POOL – my daughter’s #1 (and #2 and #3 …) biggest selling point. Also of note – we never dine at our resort. While I’m sad about the resort ambiance, we can’t afford more than a moderate and we stayed at Riverside last year. Looking for a different experience, with a nicer pool than the value resorts (water slide a must). Is the ambiance / scenery of the main pool area affected? If the answer is “not really” – then what buildings / area are best to request to be near the main pool? Thank you in advance for any guidance or information. Love your website / FB page.
The main pool was not open last August, or at least it looked like a construction zone to us so we didn’t venture any closer. We swam at the smaller pool near our room, which was fine for the amount of time we used it, but if you want a better pool, don’t choose CB.
I completely disagree with this statement. We visited at the end of August 2017 and loved the main pool. Our son, 2, had a blast and the construction impact was non existent. We are booked again for May. Excellent pool!
I disagree with your disagreement 😉 if someone wants to go for the pool, they may very well be disappointed, as Amy’s experience was mine as well.
We just returned from a stay at CBR last week and went mainly for the same reason you stated…the pool! The walk to the pool is full of construction eye sores but once in the gate you hardly notice, although I don’t think my kids would have noticed a crane directly over their heads since they were having so much fun on the water slides.
We have stayed at CBR twice now, once before construction started. Both times we had rooms in Aruba building 51. I personally thought it was a great location. The building is right near the walkway that takes you across the island to the pool. It was far enough away from Centertown to avoid the noise and chaos of the pool but an easy walk to get to it. We were pretty much in the middle of the Jamaica and Aruba bus stops and usually went to Jamaica. Never waited long and except for the one day we rope dropped a park we never had any issues with crowding either.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the buffet. We only ate there for breakfast but at $15 for an adult and it being all you can eat, I felt it was a great value by Disney standards. My kids are ridiculously picky and it allowed them to fill up on eggs and Mickey waffles while the rest of us enjoyed a bit more variety.
We did get the gift card incentive and I don’t know if I would choose to go back without some sort of deal but I wouldn’t hesitate to book it if it was all that was available. And had we not just stayed there and weren’t looking for some variety on our next stay I would book it. The rooms are nice, there is no construction noise (at least not in Aruba) and the pool is great.
Hi. What do you thank about the Jamaïca buildings? Transportation is number one for us…
Thanks!
We hate the transportation here, and for that reason alone, would not stay here until the Skyliner is in full operation. The resort is so sprawling that the multiple stops really extends travel time, and we always seemed to have to wait longer for buses here than at most other resorts.
Do you think visitors should steer clear of Coronado Springs this summer because of construction as well? Thanks for any insight!
I’m wondering that also?? We are booked for CB but CS is also under construction!! I don’t think it will be as big as CB though??
We stayed at the Coronado in November and barely noticed the construction since it’s far away from the existing rooms. The lawnmower was more disruptive.