We returned on Saturday from a fantastic 5 night stay at CSR. Thought I would give a quick review.
Check-in: We arrived on Monday around 10:15am and the lobby was overflowing with people trying to check in. Apparently, their computers had been down most the morning and it really slowed things down. It took us nearly 45 minutes to check-in. I didn't do on-line check-in, and I really don't think it would have made much of a difference for us. Fortunately, our room was ready. We requested 2 connecting rooms in casitas 4, but were placed in the farthest corner of casitas 5. It added a few minutes onto our walk to bus stop 2 and the main building. But it really wasn't a big deal.
Room: the rooms are starting to show some age, especially in the bathrooms. Our rooms had a musty smell to them and our one son had a very difficult time with his asthma in part because of this. (Mostly I think his asthma was from the change in temp/ humidity. We came from very cold, dry air, to very hot, humid weather. But every night, when we came back to our room, he would have another attack). The override for the AC worked great. Our one fridge was very, very, cold. The other one didn't work well at all. The beds are still comfy, IMHO. The room was quiet. Even though we were on the first floor off of the parking lot, we rarely heard other guests.
Mousekeeping: Excellent. Our Mousekeeper was wonderful. We had a new towel animal every day. And each one was different... A bunny, a dog, a turtle, a lobster, and an elephant. The kids thought it was great. We always had plenty of soap, shampoo, and coffee, and extra towels.
Food: We had lunch that first day at Pepper Market. It was an all you can eat buffet and everything was fresh and tasty. Because we are a party of 6 now, gratuity was added to our bill. We had breakfast here on our last day. Again, it was a buffet. The made to order egg station was very good, as was the breakfast ham. We ate twice at Maya Grill. Everything was delicious and both of our servers were very friendly. The steak tacos were excellent!
Buses: We never waited for a bus at bus stop 2. In fact, it seemed that every day as we were walking to the bus stop, the bus we wanted was just pulling up so we were making mad dashes to the bus. The driver was always friendly and didn't mind us running to catch the bus. There were few people at that stop. As we went to the next few stops the bus would always fill to standing room only. This was usually around 8:30am. The buses home, usually at park closing time, were also standing room only. We never waited more than 10 minutes for a bus.
We didn't swim or use any of the other services.
This was our second stay at CSR. We would certainly stay here again. For us, it's a good fit. We are able to get connecting rooms, the door to the bathroom sink area provides additional privacy, the bus service is good, and we like what the restaurants have to offer. We don't swim, we don't spend much time at the resorts, we drink coffee and eat breakfast in the room. We do enjoy taking an occasional walk around the resort at night, it is beautiful.
So much for a short review.
Merry Christmas,
Jen