First villa stay - communal pool or not?

[AhoyShipmates]

Our August onsite holiday was cancelled, so we are planning to go in 2022 and stay in a villa within four or five miles of Disney. The one thing we’re unsure of is whether to book somewhere with a communal pool and would we use it.

Last time in 2018 we used to leave the parks around 1pm, stop for lunch offsite then spend the afternoon at CBR’s lovely pool. In a villa we’ll have our own pool and we’ll have 14 day Disney tickets so can access the water parks. Our youngest will be 11, so I’m wondering if he’d have a better time if we could access a communal pool and meet other kids (our older two are in their 20s), or will the private pool keep him happy.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

[Moorlandman]

Windsor Hills resort has a great communal pool and their villas are great. Probably the closest resort to Disney too

[hellin family]

We've been to a few villa communities, most with a communal pool. We only used it when we went in Jan/Feb time and found it warmer than our private pool (we had a 3 month old at the time). And I'm not sure the communal pool ever gets busy enough (in our experience) to have a lot of other children there to play with - I imagine the private pool will keep your youngest busy.

[cornishfrogboy]

This is a difficult one that we have agonised over on several occasions.

Most villas with private pools (certainly in the range that I want to pay), have little more than plunge pools. When the children were younger, this offered privacy and safety.. plus possibly pool heating costs.

Now, they are a pair of fish (as am I as a former Competitive standard swimmer waterpolo player). We would now prefer a much larger, communal pool if all things were even.

[JoJo88]

It’s a great question, but I don’t think you’ll know for sure until you try, to be honest

We stayed on a lovely villa resort last year with great communal facilities. We were doing no parks so we used the facilities a fair few times but my boys (16 & 13 at the time, plus sometimes their 11yr old cousin) were more interested in getting back to the villa pool after an hour or so! However, there were 2/3 of them, and they had a specific game they wanted to play in their own pool, so as you say, it could be different for your boy. I will say that the novelty of a private pool at that age is huge, but then what do the rest of you think? Us adults really enjoyed the resort facilities, it gave the feel of a nice hotel, and we quite like people watching

When we’ve had park tickets and a communal pool we’ve rarely used it as the draw of the private pool, being able to pop inside to the fridge etc has been enough.

The price difference might help you decide too. Happy villa hunting!

[bronny]

I’m a swimmer, swim laps every day even on holiday, so a decent size private pool is more important to me than a communal pool. We never bother with communities with a communal pool as we are happy to use our private pool.

[Floridarules]

Windsor Palms does too, must admit- we don’t use the community pool and prefer the private one but the one at WP is lovely and sooooo close to Disney via Sherberth Road👍

[steve@mac155.f]

I would hazard a guess that dependent were your villa would be in relation to the communal facilities might affect your use of them if it is a bit of a trek you might not bother and just use the villa pool, the only person who can make the decision for you is you after you have weighed up the importance of the communal facilities in the overall scheme of your holiday.

Steve

[AhoyShipmates]

Thank you all so much for your replies! I’ll check out Windsor Hills and Palms. I hadn’t thought of the pool being a trek... that would definitely affect our use of it. Onsite the fact that towels are provided makes it so easy to use the pool but I’d be less keen if it felt like a trip in itself. Decisions, decisions.

[NewtoOrlando]

We’ve always found that the kids never really talked to other kids around the pool, not because they had eachother, but because you never seemed to see the same kids twice! Ours are 14 & 12 and whilst they do have eachother half the time on holiday they stay out of each other’s way and are more than happy with the pool in the villa.