Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort – Gran Destino Tower

The Gran Destino tower is the newest addition to Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort. Is it worth a stay, or should you go elsewhere? Find out in this review.

Gran Destino Tower

Disney’s Coronado Springs Gran Destino Tower Review

I first visited Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort over twenty years ago.  It was love at first sight.  The newly opened resort charmed with its warm color palette, striking pool area, and thoughtful landscape design.  The Casitas, Cabanas, and Ranchos areas portrayed a whimsically idealized vision of a southwestern city, beach, and ranch, respectively.

The Casitas

When I heard that the new Gran Destino Tower building was about to open, I was eager to return to Coronado Springs Resort to see how it would fit in.  Memories of vacations past flitted through my mind accompanied by half-remembered snippets from the resort’s musical soundtrack.  We reserved a stay for one night.

Upon arrival, we approached the new tower via the new driveway.  The new tower design has a rectangular main section with a diagonal wing on both ends.  The front of the hotel has a curved porte cochere and four twisted flourishes rising upward to the top floor windows.  The old check-in building, with its beautiful interior murals and an elegant fountain, remains open for other purposes but is no longer used for check-in.  The new lobby does not have painted murals; instead, there are repeated geometric patterns that appear in prints, silhouettes, and tile.

Our room was tastefully if a bit generically appointed.  If you had brought me to the room blindfolded, I would have thought I was in a very nice Hyatt or Renaissance hotel.   The best part of the tower was the interior of Toledo, the hotel’s newest table service restaurant located on the top floor of the tower.  Its lit ceiling provided a magical background to the pretty olive trees set in the center of the room.

There was also a new restaurant in the center of the lake.  The Three Bridges Bar & Grill and the bridges that connect it to the shore of the lake divide up the lake into smaller pieces.  I prefer the old, uninterrupted view, but I can certainly see how this new spot could be an appealing watering hole on a breezy evening.  From this vantage point, the difference in scale between the tower and the original buildings is easy to see.

Disney’s Coronado Springs Beach Resort has become perhaps what it was intended to be all along.  With its generous supply of rooms, meeting spaces, and restaurant capacity, it’s well suited to large conventions.  Those who are visiting for pleasure can evade the bustle of the sleek new tower to find beauty and charm in the original buildings.  Whether you’re there for work or play, the Dig Site pool area, with its waterfall-embellished pyramid, will continue to be a beacon of relaxation to one and all.

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My favorite pool area at Disney – at Coronado Springs. #disney #disneygram #pyramid #waterfall #bluesky #florida #orlando #orlandolife #palmtrees #water #pool

A post shared by Katie Moseman (@recipeforperfection) on Mar 21, 2016 at 7:37pm PDT

Have you stayed here?   What did you think?