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Disney's Old Key West

Old Key West Slideshow
Click to go directly to the slideshow

Old Key West opened in 1991, and was Disney's first foray into the Disney Vacation Club, and indeed was named "Disney's Vacation Club Resort" until 1996. In many ways, it shows.

Because they wanted to make DVC Villas a "home-away-from-home" and not a motel room, they created creative, angular rooms rather than rectangular boxes. While creative, 20 years later, there isn't enough continuous wall space to put a widescreen TV in the studio villas. (I am told this problem has been solved.) The resort claims the largest square footage of any of the DVC resorts, but much of this space seems lost due to the design.

400px Map
Map of Disney's Old Key West Resort. Click on the map for a larger view. (1000 x 800px, 200KB.) Map ©Disney
Bus traffic and routing is also a nightmare. Because the resort is squeezed between golf course fairways, and is split by a waterway (a branch off the Sassagoula River), buses are forced to take a circuitous route through the resort. We found if we missed a bus, we could walk from our bus stop to the bus stop at the main building and catch the bus we missed after a 10 minute wait...

I doubt I would stay here again if I had to stay in a studio...

There's a more detailed description of my stay here in my December 2010 Trip Report.

(There is a discussion of resort types (and amenities to each) on the general Walt Disney World Resorts page. There is also a discussion on lodging which leads to room types on my Walt Disney World Overview page.)

Old Key West, Entrance and Registration
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I was in building 27 in room 2726. Second floor. My room was a studio, but part of a 2-bedroom lockoff. (A lockoff is where a 1-bedroom villa and a studio can be connected though a locking doors. It's the door next to the table in the pictures below.) So rooms 2725 and 2726 were the only doors on the second floor landing where I was, but both would go to the same 2-bedroom villa should Disney want to configure it that way.

Building 27 and Room 2726
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For some reason, the Old Key West lobby/pool area feels a little cramped (maybe small is a better word) compared to the other resorts I've been to. Again, maybe it's because of where it's situated, between a waterway and a fairway.

Around Old Key West
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The table service restaurant at Old Key West is Olivia's. It was very good, though we only ate there for breakfast.

There is an outside snack bar, but otherwise no counter service restaurant. This doesn't seem to be unusual at DVC resorts.

Olivia's
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Like all Sassagoula River resorts (Old Key West, Saratoga Springs and Port Orleans), there is boat service to Downtown Disney. It makes Downtown Disney more accessible, and you can have a couple of adult beverages and not have to drive a car or wait for a bus...

The boat to and from OKW and Downtown Disney
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