Walt Disney World Dolphin

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

2009 reviews

• 

  Location and Food excellent. Hotel? Not so much.

  Stayed here for 3 nights in early/mid Dec 2025 on business. Marriott Bonvoy Platinum. Chose this hotel due to business meeting location. Reservation was for a ‘run of the house’ room because of meeting room block. Pros: -Excellent location. Approx 20 minute Uber/Lyft from MCO and located on WDW property. The hotel complex is within walking distance to several ‘official’ Disney properties (Yacht, Beach and Boardwalk resorts). Also a moderate walk to EPCOT and Hollywood Studios. -Hotel has many dining options from quick ‘grab go’ to a variety of sit-down restaurants. I ate at Bluezoo for dinner and Rosa Mexicano. Grab and go restaurant had a good variety of food/drink choices. Rosa Mexicano for lunch was very good. Sat at the bar and had excellent/quick service, and the food was good too. -Dinner at Bluezoo (Todd English) was excellent. Ambiance was a little lounge-ish vibe. Mainly seafood. I had a variety of apps and cocktails and everything was excellent. A highlight was the seared scallops w/ short rib. Even the ‘simple’ shrimp cocktail was delicious and offered a selection of sauces for the perfectly cooked shrimp. The apps and drinks were NOT cheap, but everything was delicious with great presentation. I’ve never been disappointed at a Todd English family restaurant. -Adequate fitness center with all the equipment you would need. Also plenty of (heated) pools that are good for a morning swim. Multiple pools between the Dolphin and Swan hotels, and they were usually empty. Except 1 morning (early) there was an adult couple doing laps and stopping every so often to fool around with each other (an awkward display of PDA in the pool). -Very good area around the resort for a morning run - around the neighboring Disney resorts and lake, over to EPCOT and Hollywood Studios then back around the entire resort was an approx 5.25 mile loop. Cons: -Check-in and messaging (via the Bonvoy app) with the hotel was not a pleasant experience. I let the hotel know my flights were significantly delayed, and they were ok with that. I also requested a 1 king (see above ‘run of the house’ reservation) and tried to leverage my Platinum Bonvoy status for an upgrade. I was quickly informed (via app chat) that there were no 1 King rooms available for my stay and also no upgrades. I can accept the no upgrade, but I then checked the available rooms (on the app), and I found numerous 1 King (standard and up) options available. I went back into the message chat and let them know that their online tool showed many 1 King rooms available. Magically, they responded with ‘yes, we can put you in 1 King’. Why then did they originally say NO to the 1 King request. Sounds to me like whomever was working the chat didn’t care to look. -Hotel room was adequate. Was ‘upgraded’ to a Resort view 1 King on the 4th floor. But, the 4th floor is basically the 2nd floor (1 up from the lobby), and there was no ‘Resort view’ due to a diamond shaped metallic design all along the 4th floor windows on the outside of the building. If you want a view, request floors 5 and above. -While the room itself was fine size wise, the furnishing and decor were not great. Sharp metallic edges on the nightstand lamps….whacked my hands several times in the night trying to turn the lamp on. Only 1 outlet on the lamp which is not adequate. The ‘desk’ in the room, while pretty to look at’ didn’t have any outlets or charging close enough to make for an adequate workstation. -The bathroom was actually 2 rooms which in theory is a positive. but size wise was barely 1 room. One with a vanity/sink and a separate room with toilet and shower. Both were incredibly small. You couldn’t be in the shower room and open the door without having to wedge yourself behind the toilet. The room was SO tight and I am a ‘normal’ sized person ( 5’10” 170 lbs). Can’t imagine how a larger person would be able to fit comfortably in there. Put someone 6’3” 225lbs in there, and they’ll be stuck. -The resort fee ($50.63 incl 2 different taxes???) gets you in room WiFi for 2 (enhanced WiFi if you’re a Bonvoy member), Paddleboat rentals (WTF?? I’m there on business, so nope), access to a relaxation area in the spa (I asked about this, and the people in the spa said it’s just an empty room for relaxing), certified instructor led fitness classes (never saw anything about these), nightly movies w/ s’mores on the beach (good for a family, but I was there on business so no thanks) and a ‘lagoon games, lanes and eats’ credit of $5 (again, good for a family with young kids, but I was there on business so no thanks). What, no free USA Today, free room-to-room calls or discounted boarding pass printing (all sarcastic comments because NO guest does any of these things). Only thing I used of these items was the WiFi, and it was brutally bad. 1st, the Enhanced WiFi was 11 mbps down and 6 mbps up. If this is Enhanced, I hate to see what ‘Regular’ WiFi speed is (insert dial-up modem sound). Worse, the connection was SO unreliable in my room. It would consistently freeze/drop. I was there on business and hosted (tried to) several meetings from my room. It was difficult to say the least and led to a poor customer experience. So $50/day in fees for crappy WiFi and a bunch of other ‘stuff’ I would never use being there on business. So, the location of this hotel along with the food offerings makes it an excellent choice. Added plus is that you can get/use Bonvoy points since it’s part of the Marriott family. The hotel itself, room amenities, bathroom size and what’s included in the Resort fee really take away from the experience. My conference rate ($209) plus additional fees bumped my nightly total to >$285. So basically $76 in taxes and fees.

  Dec 14, 2025
• 

  Stay Away

  Cattle call at Fuel for breakfast, lobby offers no coffee or water, 20 plus minute walk to parks, staff treats you like you are lucky to be there from front desk to the cattle call in the military commissary they call Fuel One positive the hotel is pretty, I have found rooms at other hotels for similar price where you at least feel like you got what you paid for. Stay at the Ritz or JW NEVER EVER COME HERE AGAIN

  Dec 14, 2025
• 

  Great experience

  Perfect location, lots of restaurant options at both the Dolphin and Swan, easy walk or boat ride to EPCOT and other attractions and hotels. Comfortable beds and nice staff throughout.

  Dec 03, 2025
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  Very disappointing hotel

  The carpet in the guest room hallways is so worn down and dirty. The hotel also has trouble regulating the temperature in the conference areas. This is based on several trip experiences. One morning their systems went down and a fire alarm was going off in the room next to me. The hotel desk sent security to try to turn it off, but it went on again. It was extremely disturbing having to walk down to the desk to inform them of the alarm while wondering if I should be evacuating the hotel, while also being told they'll look into it and then having to get ready while the alarm is blaring. What an awful experience. The only good things about the hotel are the restaurants and gym.

  Nov 20, 2025
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  An Amazing Wine and Food event

  We arrived at the Dolphin Hotel on Friday night shortly before the Food and Wine Classic. We had a ticket number, but had not set it up correctly. There was a long line waiting to check in. A young lady came up and asked us if we had Our QR codes. We didn’t and so she took us to one of the attendants to complete our registration. We were finished in about 5 minutes. The young lady’s name is Jennifer sharpe. She’s an employee at the Dolphin, I believe. She also gave me her pen to keep track of which foods and wines table we had been to. Another young lady, the pastry chef said they had run out of the chocolate pecan caramel tart out front, but would bring us some from the back. Her name was Emily Ruby. We thoroughly enjoyed the Food and Wine Classic. We went both Friday and Saturday nights. There were plenty of wines to choose from. The food was delicious! We were glad we stayed for both days. We had time to sample more of the possibilities. The staff were so friendly.

  Nov 18, 2025