This place was BEAUTIFUL! And it was in such an awesome location!
For those who don't know, Shades of Green is a military owned hotel right on Disney property. In fact, the hotel was actually purchased FROM Disney. It is located a hop, skip and a jump away from Disney's Polynesian Resort, which is classified as a "Deluxe resort" that is on the monorail service line. Because Shades of Green is owned by the U.S. military, only service members (active or retired) OR Department of Defense staff is allowed to stay there and the rooms are MUCH, MUCH cheaper than the prices that Disney charges. Lucky for us, my sister in law was eligible to stay there and sponsor our family.
Our extended family all stayed together in the Palm Suite which is a three bedroom suite with kitchenette. This room was PERFECT for our family. It was so nice getting to all be in the same "room" without actually having to SHARE rooms and having the kitchenette (complete with full sized refrigerator and microwave) was so wonderful because we were able to grocery shop and prepare all our own breakfasts, lunches, and snacks in the room. I know the kitchenette saved us all a wad of money since we only had to purchase food in the parks for one meal a day (and boy is food EXPENSIVE in the parks!).
Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the rest of the resort grounds or pools. I only took pictures of the actual room we stayed in. However, if anyone else is curious about the resort, shadesofgreen.org is the web address and I know there are pictures on there.
So here are some pictures of the suite we stayed in:
Kitchen, computer, and dining area:
Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the living room area. There was a flat screen mounted on the wall above a fireplace (that I assumed worked, as there were controls for it on the wall), two 3-seater couches and two chairs/recliners.
There were two main bedroom set up like this but mirror image. The sliding doors went out to a little balcony.
There were two bathrooms, one on each side of the dining room. This was really nice since none of the bathrooms were inside any of the bedrooms, they were easily accessed by all.
Bathroom #1 had duel sinks and a tub:
Bathroom #2 had one sink and a shower:
This was the third bedroom, the kid's room. This was the room that my family stayed in and it was so cool! There were two bunk beds (so four twin beds total). I loved how there were stairs leading up to the top bunk (instead of a ladder) and there were drawer/storage space in the sides which I used to sort our clothing by day (I had a different themed outfit for each park day). Each bunk bed had it's own little tv/dvd player and a night light with it's own switch. There were also lockers and two video gaming rocker chairs. This set up turned out to work really well for our family. Adrianne, Riley and Matt each had their own bed. Emmaline and I shared a bed and there was plenty of room to set up the pack n'play for Max.
Shades of Green runs their own buses to the various Disney Parks but we were also able to use Disney transportation if we wanted to. Another benefit of staying here was we were eligible for "extra magic hours" which is extended hours for Disney resort guests. This was nice because one night Matt and I went on a date and while the grandparents put the kiddos to bed, we hit up a park with late night extra magic hours and got to spend some time in the parks without kids!
I am so grateful that we had the opportunity to stay at Shades of Green. I would recommend staying there in a heartbeat to anyone who can!
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