Disney’s Beach Club Resort was at the top of my list of resorts to stay during our year as Disney World Annual Passholders. A lack of available discounts kept us away until our fourth and final family trip of the year, allowing us to end both that trip and the entire magical year with two nights at the Beach Club.

I had high hopes with its raving reviews as one of the best family-friendly deluxe Disney resorts am happy to report that the Beach Club matched or exceeded all of my expectations. We absolutely love the Beach Club for so many reasons, but if we had to narrow them down, here are our top five reasons we love Disney’s Beach Club Resort:

Like most families, the initial draw to Beach Club is use of the best resort pool on Disney property – Stormalong Bay. This mini waterpark is shared with the Beach Club’s resort, Disney’s Yacht Club Resort, and is well-known for its sand bottom.

Stormalong Bay features the longest slide on property – the Flying Jib – along with a lazy river, sand-bottomed pools, and a large shallow kiddie pool and sand beach for digging and building sandcastles. Mom loves the lazy river while the boys always stay busy in all the different swimming areas.

While visiting during a cold spell in early February when afternoon temperatures only reached the high 60’s, the water was refreshingly heated and warm. We ended every swim with a soak in one of the three relaxing spas.

All of the resorts surrounding Crescent Lake – Beach Club, Yacht Club, Boardwalk Inn, Swan, and Dolphin – are within easy walking distance to Epcot’s International Gateway entrance, but Beach Club is the closest. We timed the walk from our room door to the Epcot security checkpoint at exactly five minutes. We left one morning at 8:45 to rope drop the French Les Halles boulangerie (one of our favorite Disney traditions) and this was actually TOO MUCH time for the 9:00 parking opening! We still arrived plenty early with ten minutes to wait around and were still the first Les Halles customers of the day.

Our garden view room looked out to the woods that separate the resort from Epcot so we could easily hear British Revolution rocking at the United Kingdom pavilion all evening when we sat on our balcony. From inside the room, the Illuminations fireworks were the only outside sound to be heard.

The Beach Club room is the most calming and serene that we’ve stayed on Disney property. The beachy blue hues, subtly textured sandy walls, and cozy texture throughout invite relaxation after a long day in crowded parks. I returned home after the trip itching to redo the entire interior of my house to relive the relaxed feeling of the Beach Club room! If you are looking for a room where you will instantly unwind after park day chaos, look no further than the Beach Club!

Like the Contemporary and the Yacht Club, we love the larger deluxe room sizes and the fold down couch that provides an additional twin bed for our boys. While there is only one chair at the desk and we typically prefer two for our boys, the desktop provides ample surface area for our little one’s nightly Lego habit. The dresser provides lots of drawer space and there is more than enough room in the closet to hang our clothing for several days.

We love the value resorts, but a large deluxe room like the Beach Club gives us so much more space to move around and we never feel cramped when the four of us spend an evening in.

We’re very low-maintenance vacationers and don’t expect much from cast members at Disney resorts. Rarely do we have a particular need to interact with aside from check in, but we were very impressed by the customer service at the Beach Club. A maintenance call for a matter that was entirely our fault was nothing short of lovely and the cast member was way too happy for the task at hand!

We arrived for our stay very early in the day – shortly after 9:00 AM for a 3:00 PM check-in time. We were told at the desk our room wasn’t ready, which we were absolutely expecting, and decided to stay a bit and walk around the hotel before heading to Epcot for the rest of the morning. Just ten minutes later, I received a text that our room was ready! Everyone we encountered in the hallways were so friendly and made us feel so welcomed.

Have you stayed at Disney’s Beach Club Resort? What is your favorite part of the resort?