[DoraDoug]

We stayed in The Carousel building during our trip in December 2007. We were in a one bedroom villa, room 7214. It was on the second floor all the way at the end and the balcony had a perfect view of the bus stop. They called it a garden view. It was actually a very quiet location and we never once heard the buses when they stopped. It took about 10 minutes to walk from our room to the Carriage House which we did not find too difficult.
The staff was extremely friendly and definitely made us feel at home while we were there. We were able to get into our room as soon as we checked in at 9 a.m. and that even surprised the CM checking us in. The CM's at the Artist Pallette were extremely helpful and the food was very good. The shop was nice and they had DVC merchandise as well as SSR merchandise, plus limited groceries. It was perfect for one-stop shopping.
The themeing is very low key but if you look closely there are hidden mickey's all over the architecture. We visited the theme pool as well as the quiet pool by the Paddock building and we preferred the theme pool. We have two children, 5 yrs & 11 months, and the zero entry was perfect for both of them as well as the Donald fountain. The playground by the Paddock building was well suited to both ages as well. The resort themeing even extended to the play structure which I thought was very nice.
We did find it was much more convenient to drive ourselves to the parks and DTD instead of relying on Disney transportation, with the only exception being when going to MK. You are able to park right outside your building which was really nice since we had two strollers to haul around.
Overall, we really enjoyed this resort and we plan on staying there again in April.