Disney's Beach Club Villas

Kitchens rather than just beds is what this wing gives you, because Disney Vacation Club owns it. Pale blue clapboard, white trim, wicker and seaside greens run through the whole building, and the styling is New England Cape Cod rather than anything tropical. Disney's Beach Club Villas share that building and a postcode with Disney's Beach Club Resort, on the northern shore of Crescent Lake.

Check-in happens at the Beach Club lobby. You eat at the Beach Club restaurants, you swim in the Beach Club pools, and the Villas guest is treated as a Beach Club guest in every practical sense. What changes is what waits behind your own front door, and for a British family staying 14 nights that difference is worth real money.

Position is the reason people pay for this address. EPCOT's International Gateway entrance is a walk of roughly five to ten minutes along the promenade, so you can watch the fireworks over World Showcase Lagoon and be back in the villa before a coach at a value resort has finished loading. Disney's Hollywood Studios is about 20 minutes on foot or a Friendship boat ride across the water.

Early Theme Park Entry applies here exactly as it applies at every Walt Disney World hotel, giving your party 30 minutes inside a park before the published opening time, every morning of the stay. Extended Evening Hours are the extra you are buying. Disney runs those late sessions at Magic Kingdom and EPCOT for Deluxe and Deluxe Villa guests only, and Beach Club Villas qualifies. Walking home from a late EPCOT night rather than queueing for a bus is the whole argument for this pocket of the resort.

Scale is modest by Disney standards. Villas occupy a single wing, corridors are short, and nothing is a trek. Set that against Old Key West or Saratoga Springs, where the site is measured in miles rather than minutes, and the appeal becomes obvious.

Start your sums with the Deluxe Studios, the entry point and the category most UK families price first. Sleeping arrangements are built around five guests using a queen bed, a sleeper sofa and a pull-down bed, though layouts vary by room, so check what is shown on the booking page for your own dates rather than assuming. Cooking is limited to a kitchenette: a small fridge, a microwave, a sink and a coffee maker. That is enough for cereal, milk, cold drinks, reheating leftovers and the paracetamol run at two in the morning.

One Bedroom Villas are where the category changes character completely. You get a proper separate bedroom with a door that closes, a full kitchen with a cooker, a full-size fridge and a dishwasher, and a washer and dryer inside the villa. Anyone who has spent a fortnight feeding coins into a resort laundry room with two tired children in tow will understand what that is worth. Pack for a week, wash twice, and the whole family travels with less luggage.

Two Bedroom Villas take the same one bedroom layout and add a Deluxe Studio alongside it, which is why they suit two couples travelling together or a family of six or seven with grandparents. You get two bathrooms, which matters far more on a park morning than any square footage figure. Beach Club Villas does not sell a three bedroom Grand Villa, so parties needing that much space under one roof should look at BoardWalk Villas, Old Key West or Saratoga Springs instead.

Views are sold as categories rather than promises. Some villas look over the Dunes Cove quiet pool and the woodland behind, some towards Stormalong Bay and Crescent Lake, and some over the courtyard or the car park. Ask for a higher floor if noise from the pool deck bothers you. Balconies and patios appear on many villas but not on every one, so confirm at the point of booking if sitting outside with a glass of wine is part of the plan.

Practical bits carry over from the deluxe side. Daily housekeeping does not work the same way in Disney Vacation Club villas as it does in a standard hotel room, and there is more on that further down the page. Cots and high chairs can be requested, and accessible villas exist in each category.

Stormalong Bay is the reason a lot of families book this side of Crescent Lake and come back for years. Three acres of water holding around 795,000 gallons run between the Beach Club and the Yacht Club, with sand-bottomed sections you can stand in, a lazy river with inner tubes, whirlpool spas and an elevated deck for sunbathing. A life-size shipwreck sits at one end and its mast holds the water slide. Access is limited to guests of the Yacht Club, Beach Club and the Villas, so it never gets the crush of a shared value resort pool.

Dunes Cove Pool is the villas' own quiet water, holding about 55,350 gallons and tucked away from the main complex with a whirlpool spa alongside. Every resort guest is welcome, but very few find it, and on a hot afternoon in August that is exactly the point. Two more leisure pools sit nearby: the Tidal pool in a garden at the far end of the Beach Club facing Crescent Lake, and the Admiral pool over in the Yacht Club's own quiet garden.

Activities on the daily schedule include themed pool games, relays and trivia at Stormalong Bay, plus movies outdoors on selected evenings. Lifeguards are on duty during posted hours, towels are provided, and the slide has a height requirement, so check it before promising anything to a five year old.

Beyond the water, there is a white sand beach on the lake with loungers, surrey bikes to hire along the BoardWalk promenade, boat hire on Crescent Lake and a games arcade. Community Hall on the villas side lends board games and DVDs and runs simple activities for children, which is a genuinely useful hour on a rain day. Nothing sprawls: the leisure offer here is compact and close together.

Evenings deserve a mention of their own. Stand on the beach or the bridge towards the BoardWalk and you can see EPCOT's night-time fireworks over the lagoon without paying to be in the park. Plenty of guests build one evening a week around exactly that.

EPCOT is effectively the resort's back garden, and staying here changes how you use it. Festivals run for most of the year, with the Flower and Garden Festival in spring and the Food and Wine Festival from late summer, and having a park entrance ten minutes from your kitchen makes short evening visits practical rather than a production.

Disney's BoardWalk curves around the lake and is a five to ten minute walk. Entertainers, a games arcade, an ice cream window and surrey bikes fill the promenade, and the evening crowd is a proper atmosphere rather than a shopping parade. Jellyrolls, the duelling pianos bar, is adults only and one of the better late nights on Disney property. AbracadaBar next door does magician-themed cocktails.

Swan, Dolphin and Swan Reserve sit between here and Hollywood Studios and add a further stack of restaurants that resort guests are welcome to book. Disney Springs is a bus ride away and has no admission charge, with a two-storey World of Disney store, cinemas and dozens of places to eat.

Off property, the shops and supermarkets around Lake Buena Vista and Palm Parkway are roughly 4 miles east and are where most British families do their grocery run. Universal Orlando is about 10 miles north east up Interstate 4, which is 20 to 25 minutes outside rush hour and a good deal longer inside it. Flamingo Crossings on the western edge of Disney property adds more shops and quick restaurants.

Anyone with a hire car and a spare day should know that Clearwater Beach on the Gulf coast is around 95 miles west, a comfortable morning's drive on Interstate 4 and a proper change of scene halfway through a fortnight.

Families who love EPCOT should stop reading and book. Being able to pop in for an hour before dinner, walk home for a swim in the afternoon and return for fireworks is a completely different holiday from bussing in once a day. Add the festivals and the case gets stronger still.

Multi-generational parties are the other natural fit. A Two Bedroom Villa gives two bathrooms, a proper kitchen and a door between the grandparents and the children, and the shorter walking distances suit anyone who tires easily. Swimmers of any age get Stormalong Bay, a 3 acre sand-bottomed pool with its own lazy river, and that alone keeps some families here for a fortnight without a hire car.

Parties of five in a single room are worth a mention, because a Deluxe Studio here is designed around five guests where most standard Disney rooms stop at four. It is one of the cheaper ways to keep a family of five together under one roof on property.

First-time visitors with very young children who plan to live at Magic Kingdom should think harder. Magic Kingdom is bus only from here, and toddlers who nap at lunchtime will spend more time on coaches than the location deserves. Wilderness Lodge or a monorail resort suits that trip better.

Couples and older teenagers do well here. The BoardWalk, Jellyrolls, the Swan and Dolphin restaurants and two park entrances within walking distance give the evenings somewhere to go, which is more than most Disney hotels manage. Anyone chasing value should be clear-eyed: this is a premium address and the price reflects it.