Got home yesterday from Royal Pacific Resort

[Antonia]

This was our first time not at WDW. Have been to Universal in 1999 as a day guest, so this was our first time on-site. Stayed 5 nights in a pool view room. Had the entertainment rate and was informed the only benefit they could offer us as Loews First club members was the miles - no welcome gift, etc. We did however get a newspaper everyday. Room was nicer than it looks in the pictures I have seen. Here are my pros and cons:

Pros:

1) Very nice room for what we paid. Was at least as large as WL at WDW. Really did not miss a balcony all that much because our window was huge.

2) Front of the line access was GREAT! Wish WDW had this. We waited about 5-10 minutes - waited about 15-20 for Dudley Dooright falls.

3) Nice pool area. Great lounge chairs - big and comfortable - made out of some kind of fabric.

4) Fast elevators.

5) Beautiful foliage.

6) Great air-conditioning.

7) Did not get charged $6 self-parking fee, even though they said we would.

8) AAA discount in gift shop and at park restaurants.

9) Pool volleyball.

10) Lots of food for the money at the Enchanted Oak Tavern in IOA.

11) Great towels and great pool towels. Nice soaps, shampoos, etc.


Cons:

1) Food at hotel too expensive. Really missed a "Roaring Forks" kind of place.

2) Pool area nice, but pool water too warm - maybe because it was so hot and sunny and pool is shallow - average 4 feet deep.

3) Paths at resort not where they need to be. Whoever designed the paths semed to intend for all of us to walk farther than necessary - people were making their own paths through the foliage. No good way to get to the parking lot. People were jumping off a wall - me included.

4) Room keys had to be rekeyed 3 times - they just quit working.

5) Not enough self-parking. Husband hated to move the car - afraid he'd lose his place.

6) Boat transportation not as good as WDW - waited a LONG time for boats to come.

7) Even though we did not have charging privileges they wanted to scan the card I made reservation with (Visa check card) just to have "on record" and they ended up placing about a $400 hold on the card. Never had that happen at WDW even with charging privileges.

All in all we did enjoy our stay. My son - 17 years old - loved IOA. He could not get enough of Dueling Dragons or the Hulk. I thought the rooms were nice, the lobby was nice but not as cozy as the lobby at WL. The weather was sunny and the humidity was absolutely insane - we had not been to Florida in July in 10 years and I think from now on we will stick with the spring and fall. The heat was draining and every afternoon we swam and napped.

[Disneymomma]

Why would they not give you the welcome gift? In their membership guide, it states that they give the following with the "blue" card-
-Welcome Gift
-Newspaper
-Upgrade if available
-Access to fitness center
500 miles on AA
I think I wll take the membership guide when I go to show them if I need to.
I am so glad you had a good time-thanks for the report, I love to read abour RPH!

[Antonia]

They said because we had a discounted rate (entertainment) that the only benefit they could offer us was the miles. I was disappointed in that. We did get a paper every day and we did not try the health club. We were too tired from the heat to want to exercise. LOL

[Antonia]

They said because we had a discounted rate (entertainment) that the only benefit they could offer us was the miles. I was disappointed in that. We did get a paper every day and we did not try the health club. We were too tired from the heat to want to exercise. LOL This may be a recent thing with the welcome gift not being offered to discounted rates.

[Disneymomma]

I booked a Fan Club Rate, so I'll see what happens-I still think they should have honored their policy however. Thanks again.

[Tense]

They told me the same thing... no gifts or anything specail for the Loews First or any Loews member if you book a discounted room. To get the loews perks they want you to pay rack rates! The Loews first card never said anything about void if you get a discount. So I don't know... my experience with the front desk wasn't the best. They were like car salesmen(nothing personal) they kept disappearing into the back room to SEE what they could come up with room wise... perks wise... etc.!

[dcookies]

After seeing a lot of discussion about this on these boards, I took a look at the Loew's Web site (http://www.loewshotels.com/loewsfirst.asp). If you look at the fine print on the page describing the Loew's first card, it says (in very small print):

"Loews First benefits and mileage awards are based upon completion of a qualifying stay at any Loews Hotel. A qualifying stay is at any rate published by the hotel. Group, negotiated and third party rates do not apply. "

I'm guessing that the Entertainment rate is either a "negotiated" or "third party" rate, and the rates published by the hotel are those you can get on-line or by calling. Too bad ... I was looking forward to my bottle of wine. But, I can buy a lot of wine for the amount of $ I'm saving using the entertainment card!;)

[the Legend]

I can confirm this ... having booked RPR through Universal first then cancelling and rebooking through Loews.

You have to book through Loews to get the Loews First privilieges ... the sheer fact you got the paper and airpoints was a surprised as I was told bookings outside of Loews automatically voided your membership privilieges for that stay. Universal, Fan Club and Entertainment rates do not qualify for Loews First treatment according to Loews CRO.

We have also heard conflicting reports with First Members getting privilieges and some are not. Wether its teething problems with the resort, Members uncertainty about their entitlements remains to be seen.

We booked with Loews on the hope of getting a room upgrade but looks unlikely to happen because it is near capacity for September stay. We still have the option of moving to the HRH or PBH if we are not satisfied but I am waiting to see what develops between now and September when we visit.

[Debbie7452]

I don't get this Loews First stuff at all. When I made my reservation (for Entert. rate) at RPR they asked if I was Loews First and specifically what welcome gift I wanted. I spoke with Loews directly several times about my reservation and they never told me this policy. We DID get upgraded and got our welcome gift (cookies and milk, very nice!). We were very impressed with Loews. I hope they are not cutting back to save money. The cookies and milk didn't cost them much but helped create a lot of good will with us. It kind of eased the sting of $8.25 Pina Coladas at the pool.

[tarmand]

But weren't the pina coladas worth every penny? My bar bill was obscene! :D

[Winston112]

We just returned yesterday from RPH also. I booked a standard room at the Entertainment rate and I got the welcome gift (cookies and milk), necklace for my son, daily newspaper, and Grade A kid's free drinks and dessert. The front desk receptionist never asked to see my Ent. card or my son's report card. BTW, our room was ready at 10am.

[klfrech]

Winston: Please tell me you liked this hotel! Stayed at HRH last year and absolutely loved it, but can't beat RPH's rates. Tell me I won't be disappointed.

[the Legend]

Sure is a mixed bag of response re:Loews First.

If you visit the website, you see the official line which states third party rate and arrangements do not qualify. It even states that in the booklet I got with the card.

The repsonse of maybe you get/maybe you don't seems to be coming down to who you get at check-in which is 50-50 at best.

We have bases covered with our Loews reservation which is the same price as a Universal vacations booking but not as good as Fan Club, Entertainment or Universal AP but I digress. It is still better than the HRH rate we paid last year (pre 9/11) however it will never beat the $99/night we paid post 9/11.

[Antonia]

Debbie - interesting that you got the milk and cookies. After I was told that I didn't qualify, I didn't push it any further - sounds like it is just a matter of who checks you in. I had a guy - can't remember his name - but he had no personality and I had to deal with him several times as our room keys quit working 3 times and every time I got him.

[PartyofSix]

I just wanted to throw in my exp here. We stayed at PBH 3 rooms all under my name 1 ent. card and booked ent rate. We arrive I told the man at ck in i did'nt have my card yet and he said it would'nt be a prob. Got one room and when we settled in I called congierge request milk and cookies and he said he'd call lowes and have them tell him my number 15 minutes later milk and cookies arrived FOR ALL THREE OF MY ROOMS! There were papers for everyroom every morning. When I got home I called lowes and asked if I had been given credit for my stay and he could'nt find my number in the computer, issued me a new number and when I call PBH directly I gave the number to Billy (my new best friend) and he put the number in and fax it to lowes directly instead of waiting for them to download the info. I called Billy yesterday to check on my request for my upcoming stay and he said "Ms. Woodard" it's nice to hear from you I called just yesterday to make sure you were given credit for your stays and all is taken care of your account has the credits! WOW they are great .

[Disneymomma]

Billy sounds like the great one!

[PartyofSix]

If you have request and are staying at pbh he's your man!

[Antonia]

Maybe they should send Billy over to the RP to give my guy some lessons.

[the Legend]

Originally posted by PartyofSix
I called Billy yesterday to check on my request for my upcoming stay and he said "Ms. Woodard" it's nice to hear from you I called just yesterday to make sure you were given credit for your stays and all is taken care of your account has the credits! WOW they are great .

This is great news and reenforces my theory that Loews First is only as good as the person who checks you in. Thanks for the Story, PartyofSix!

[Tense]

I wonder if your guy at RP was my Front desk guy. Young kid with dirty blonde to light brown hair with a non existant personality... named BRIAN.... I have nothing nice to say. Made my check in and everything else I had to deal with him on terrible. He needs to take a refresher course in Costomer service.

[the Legend]

Note to self: Avoid Brian when checking in at the RPR this September.

Thanks for the heads up.

[Tense]

Aviod at all costs... He was sarcastic and unhelpful.. and almost mean. We had ants in one of our rooms on the last night of our stay. They needed to MOVE us because they had saturated the carpet with bug spray. Well when I came down to get the room key.. I figure they just moved us down 1 floor no biggie! Checked on the room.. A .. it was amess.. and B. it was like walking into an ashtray. Very smokey.. not just a little. So went down and got the unfortunate lovely Brian. Told him what happened.. and he said.. Hey sorry... there's no other rooms available tonight. WHAT!! He made it sound like we were inconviencing HIM.. I told he Look we had no plans of spending our last night playing room roulette. OK he ya go.. you'll be downgraded but hey with the entertaintment rate what do you expect.. you get what you originallly paid for. (we had gotten upgraded after we checked in because our rooms at 7:00pm we NOT ready, and my son was sick) sooooo I bit my tongue, thanked him and off I went to the 1st floor room in a totally different tower then my orhter room was(we had 2 rooms) SMOKE pit #2... oh God... back to the desk.. NOW it's 11:00pm and still no room. I got a bit upset.. I refused to go to BRIAN again and went to Emos? a girl. Who magically produced a suite.. non smoking in a different tower. NOW.. why couldn't that have been done 2 hours prior.. Instead of me Jack_ssing around on our last night. Stay away from Brian.. if he lasts until Sept. just a warning!

[Antonia]

I don''t know my guys name, but your physical description of him and of his personality sounds like him. And he definitely had something against the entertainment rate.

[Disneymomma]

I will aviod BRIAN at all costs!;)

[the Legend]

Tense and Antionia,

Have you laid a complaint with Loews or RPR about Brians performance? It seems the logical thing to do .... you can call Loews on 0800-Loews-12 and provide feedback that way or e-mail them via thier site www.loewshotels.com. The problem lies with them as hotel owners and Brians Employer.

Think of it as justice for the inconvenience caused and a service to your fellow DISers and RPR patrons (in the hope that they dont have to endure what you went through)

Just a thought.

[Winston112]

To klfrech- I didn't dislike the RPR, but I think I would like HRH more. We ate dinner at HRH and really enjoyed the experience. I didn't run into anyone rude at RPR. Everyone we dealt with was very pleasant, even after I broke the hairdryer in our room. Housekeeping even attended to my many requests.
RPR is a beautiful resort, with a nice pool area. The negatives were waiting longer than the other ressorts for a water taxi. The line was always long for the taxi and if you far back you'd have to catch the next one. It seemed that RPR had more guests than the other two resorts. Once we discovered this, we always walked back from the parks. It was a very pleasant walk.
The restaurants at RPR were overpriced and the food wasn't very good.

[Letsbgoofy]

When we stayed at the HRH last summer we thought that the food was WAY overpriced. It's good to hear now that RP is as bad. When we stay there this Sept. we'll be sure not to plan any of our meals there.

[the Legend]

Originally posted by Letsbgoofy
When we stayed at the HRH last summer we thought that the food was WAY overpriced. It's good to hear now that RP is as bad. When we stay there this Sept. we'll be sure not to plan any of our meals there.

We agree. Best to check the buffet prices as some vary and you can get some good breakfast deals esp for Kids. We usually eat off site when staying at the HRH opting to go places like Olive Garden, IHOP and Ponderosa (with all the Brits) etc which is cheaper but still convenient.

[cotye]

Thanks for the review! :)

[Antonia]

Speaking of overpriced food - we did find it inconvenient that the food at the resort was so overpriced. If parking had been better, it would not have been so bad to have to go out for food. We have a high school football player to feed and he is a big eater. We ate at Red Lobster for dinner one night, had Pizza Hut deliver one night and just ate in the room and relaxed, one night we did eat at The Enchanted Oak Tavern and found the food there to be good and worth the price. One night we ate at Margaritaville. Oh, and another night we had supper in Sarasota, Florida as we spent a day touring the gulf coast. That was a very enjoyable day.

[PartyofSix]

Just wanted to say, try Flippers Pizza! They are on Kirkman and will deliver right to your room. Excellent Penne' everything we ordered was wonderful and the cokes at .75 each. We order a case! I bet the driver hated us when he saw that on our order.LOL Bet's the heck outta 2.75 in that mini bar. I've only gotten drinks from a mini bar like that twice in my whole life and it was a late night and I required a PEPSI badly.LOL;) We usually have a 12 pk with us at all times on vacation. But since we were at a rental home prior to check in we only had a 2liter left between the 7 of us. I Pepsi to me is like Budwieser to others.

[Antonia]

We took 4 12-packs of Coke and 2 24-packs of Aquafina water. Needless to say we had some for the trip home, but it was so convenient and cheap. It was nice to head down to the pool with my cheap bottle of Aquafina. We kept a cooler in our room and just kept it filled with drinks.

[corvair]

Antonia.. How much was your room with ent. rate.. I am thinking of pool veiw.. Is this where you were and what floor?? How would be ground floor be near the pool?? Did they have a slide? We just stayed at WL. My DH liked it. I said I thought it was OK. My kids thought the pool was justOK. How does the pool compare at RP to WL? Thanks...corvair

[Antonia]

The rooms were relatively the same size as WL rooms. Rooms were nicely appointed. We were in tower one (Windward) with a pool view on the 5th floor. I thought this was a perfect floor because we were enough above the palm trees to have an unobstructed view of the pool area - some rooms on the lower floors (probably 2 & 3) seemed to maybe have the big head of a palm tree right outside their window blocking the view. I personally don't think there were pool view rooms on the ground floor - there were restaurants and shops. The pool had no slide - I know the one at WL is pretty fun. It was a zero entry pool meaning that a good part of it was rather shallow and at its deepest it was only 4'7" and this was only a small section. At the time of year that we were there the pool water was too warm to be enjoyable - I think this was due to the shallowness of the pool, the heat and the number of people in the pool. The pool did have the ship area for kids to play in, but this was mostly young kids. All in all I like WL better than RP - but that's just me. I would stay at RP if I were at Universal again. I liked the theme better than PB, which we visited, and did not care for. Also, they did have a volleyball net set up in the pool and a lot of people including my husband played. Back to the shallownesss of the pool, I saw two kids - roughly 10 year olds- on two diffferent days that seemed to have injured themselves in the pool somehow - both seemed to have hit their faces/heads on the pool bottom - I did not see what happened, only noticed them once they were standing in the water crying. Oh, and our room was $120 including tax per night on ent. rate.

[gschmerl]

corvair,
My nephew's room at the RP was in Tower 2 on the sixth floor with a "Hulk" view. They had a perfect view of all the fireworks each night.

[Winston112]

I had a standard view room in Tower 2, Ent. rate $99/night. We were on the 5th floor also and a great view of the fireworks. To me it was better than spending the extra money for a pool view.

[wheatenwalker]

Thanks for all the great information everyone!

[debden]

HI Tarmand,Are you saying the bar at the Royal Pacific Resort makes killer Pina Coladas? I'm taking your word for it and going to make ressies there to try them...Thanks for the heads up..

[tarmand]

debden,

I loved them. They were sweet and didn't have a strong alcohol taste. They were garnished with a pineapple and a cherry. I was having them delivered to the pool and including tip they were $9 each for about a 12 ounce cup. But, what the heck, I was on vacation! I don't know which bar they were coming from as I was lounging in a chair by the pool having them delivered!!!! I also enjoyed the ones at Margaritaville in Citiwalk. Okay, I know I'm sounding like a drunk here, but have you ever had the Sunset Passion Colada at Red Lobster? That is officially my favorite!

Oh yeah, have a great time at USF. You'll love the Royal Pacific. I'm sure they've worked out all of the kinks by now.

Now that I think of it, I think the guy that checked us in was Brian - a real butt, but not bad enough to mess up my wonderful vacation.

Tammie