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Royal Pacific Trip Report

KatyD

Earning My Ears
Joined
Mar 27, 2002
This is my first trip report and I know it will be too long but I wanted to share our experiences at Royal Pacific and Universal Orlando. I have learned much, much valuable information from these boards and I put it all to good use. Our Orlando trip was July 2nd - July 9th and we spent the entire time with lodging at the Royal Pacific Resort. This was a somewhat difficult decision since we are complete Disney addicts and would like to live at the Polynesian Resort forever!

Our vacation began with 1 1/2 hours of circling Orlando airport because a big thunderstorm was sitting right on top of it. Our pilot said we were in a holding pattern with many other planes and when the airport reopened we would get our turn. Once we were on the ground, we sat on the runway another 30 minutes. Because of lightning in the area, the people who direct the planes to the gates could not come out to assist. Finally we disembarked the plane, collected out bags and were off to Emerald Aisle to choose a car. We have used Emerald Aisle many times and it is such a treat to pass those rental car lines and choose your own car. There were lots of cars to choose from, I did not take time to check all the brands, no minivans or PT Cruisers. We chose a 2002 Camery and off we went.

Next stop, Royal Pacific Resort. The resort is very easy to get to, with plenty of street signs to point the way. There is a guard at the entry gate and plenty of people at the entrance to help with bags. We chose to use self parking. The lot is very close to the resort but it still bugs me to pay $6 a day to self park; I will get over it. The self parking lot was very crowded; cars everywhere along curbs and up on the grass. We felt lucky to find an actual parking space each time we returned to the resort.

The landscaping is just beautiful. It must have cost a fortune to truck in all those full size palm trees and they are everywhere along with massive amounts of tropical plants and flowers.

The lobby is huge and gratefully the check-in line was short when we arrived. We were able to get the $99 entertainment card rate, so we had reserved 2 connecting rooms; a king room for mom and dad with a 2 queen bed room for our two teen-agers.
Everything was in order with our reservations, I had read on the boards that some people had problems or their reservations had been cancelled without their knowledge. Thankgoodness all was well. They took down my Lowes Card number on a form and I told them I had requested the bottle of white wine and daily delivery of USA Today. Then we were off to our rooms. Well we hit another little bump in the road. The rooms were side by side but not connecting. I had asked the desk clerk at least 3 times if our assigned rooms were connecting and he assured me they were. Well, back to the front desk. The check-in line was longer now and I was getting VERY weary but that was ok. I spoke to a different front desk person and she gave us different rooms, collected our Loews First form from the first guy and changed our room numbers. By the way, we got our bottle of wine that evening and paper was waiting outside our room each morning. After the day I was having, I needed the wine and fast. Oh, I had also requested that a no charging feature be added to our room keys. I had read on the boards about mystery charges appearing on final bills and it is just as easy to use our own Amex. The girl gave me a rather strange look when I requested no charging, apparently they don't ask if you want it like they do at Disney, they just assume. Well, moving on to our next set of rooms. I said alittle prayer before opening the door and YEA the rooms connected, 1 king room and 1 two queen room. We were on the 6th floor with the standard view but it was very nice. We overlooked the putting green with hundreds of palm trees and tropical plants around. We were high enough to see I-4 in the distance and at night it was very pretty with the lights from the high-rise hotels in the distance.

The rooms are lovely, very nice furniture but seemed small after staying at the Poly and other Disney Delux resorts. Having the 2 connecting rooms was just wonderful. If you can get the $99 rate and have kids, it will make your trip sooooooooo much better than being crowded into one room. Our two teens having their own bathroom and tv was worth the price right there!!!!! After resting a few minutes, we headed to the pool to relax before dinner. A child had an accident in the hot tub so it was closed but the pool was refreshing and really hit the spot. There is not a slide much to my daughters dismay and it is very shallow. We ended up purchasing some diving sticks and a beach ball at the pool hut to create our own pool activities. You might want to bring some from home, it would be MUCH cheaper. After our pool dip, we were off to Jimmy B's for dinner. We had visited City Walk several times before on day trips from Disney so we knew Jimmy's was the place to relax and enjoy after a day of travel. It did not disappoint. Using the room card was great. The wait without the card was 75 minutes, we were at our table in less than 15 minutes. The cheeseburgers were great and the stilt guys were keeping it lively. We had sing-alongs, everyone got a custom made balloon hat to wear and the erupting volcano of margaritas is such a kick. By now it is after 9:00 p.m. so back to the resort pool for a dip. Surprise.....the pool closes at 10:00 p.m. This is a real bummer. Since we did not stop by the Publix on the way in, we stopped at the hotel store and puchased 4 soft drinks to get us through until the morning. Hello...the soft drinks were almost as much as dinner.

The next morning we made a quick trip to the Publix on Sand Land Road. I had learned about this nice, close location on this board and also about the soft-side coolers available at Wal-Mart which lay completely flat in your luggage and then expand to full size when needed. These work great! You can get to the Publix without going back out on I-4. When you leave the Royal Pacific turn left onto Hollywood. Go to the light at Hollywood and Turkey Lake and turn left. I believe the next light is Sand Lake. Turn right on Sand Lake and the Publix is in a very nice strip mall on the left just a few blocks down. It is about 2 miles from the Royal Pacific and they have a great deli and bakery also. There are alot of wonderful shops and stores in this area. It is much better than
trying to get around on International Drive. With a full load of nice cheap soft drinks and snacks, we are back to the hotel and on to our day at Universal Studios.

I had purchased the 7 day bonus passes for $85 from the Universal internet site several months ago. It was so nice to have the passes inhand and already paid for at such a great price. I learned about these passes from these boards and ordered them immediately. Good thing since about 2 days later the 7 days was cut to 5 but still a really good deal.

All I can say about "Front of the Line" is amazing!!!!!!! We did everything over and over.....it was just wonderful. We never waited more than 5 or 10 minutes at anything. I almost felt badly about shooting to the front at the Jaws ride when the line was out the door but I told myself that was the perk of staying onsite and it was ok. The only place that Universal needs to take another look at FOTL logistics is at Men in Black. It was a VERY popular attraction and the regular line and the express line merge after you get inside. There is a sign for express to the right side but without any railing or posts to divide the area it was a real mess on a few of our visits. The regular line people fill up the entire hall and the express people can't get through. Once it was so bad that we jumped up and down to get the cm's attention. She moved the regular line over so express could get through. We got some pretty mean stares from the other line but off we went and the lines are again divided after you get past this point. After about 10 rides I finally figured out when to push the red button to get the bonus points. My teenage son who always won the points contests would not tell me how it worked and then got mad when mom got the bonus and he didn't! The shows were wonderful. Sometimes we had to search for the express entrance but it was always there and it was very nice to be seated before the regular line folks. We always got very good seats which makes the shows much more enjoyable.

During our visits to Universal Studios we ate at Mel's, just ok, the International Food Bazaar which was great because the kids could have pizza and mom and dad could get Chinese. It was very tasty and a nice break from burgers. We ate at Richter's Burger Co twice, our teens love cheeseburgers and these seemed to pass their high standards. The chicken sandwiches were good and it was nice to have the fresh fixin's bar to choose the toppings you wanted.

Over the week we saw all the shows, some twice because they were so good and we rode the rides more times than I can count. My husband even said it was great with the FOTL and he did not go back to the hotel to rest as often as he does at Disney. Not standing in the long, hot lines makes a huge difference in the way you feel and how you survive the heat.

Islands of Adventures is a real kick. Again, FOTL is like gold in your pocket. When the Spider Man line was 90 minutes we waited less then 10. On our first day at Islands we rode all the dry rides we wanted to and then it was time to get wet. I wore a poncho and still got plenty wet. The rest of my family braved the water and they did not get just wet......they looked liked drowned rats after each ride. We decided that was "get wet" day and we rode each of the water rides over and over. It was great fun. Here again, the FOTL was priceless. These rides are VERY popular and we zipped to the front. The CM's at the express gates just waved us on with a "here they are again look". Our very last ride on Jurassic Park we were in the front row. Wow what a ride. My poncho hood flew back from the force of being in front and water went eveywhere, what a rush. Just as a side note; the Cat in the Hat ride is very cute and really fun. It has just enough spins and speed that the entire family will like it. The story will bring back childhood memories and the spins are pretty zippy. By 13 year old daughter rode it over and over.

The shows are good. The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad is amazing and the FOTL people have reserved seating on the first 6 or 7 rows right in front of the stage. While at Islands we ate at the Burger Digs, good burgers and they have a fresh fixin's bar. We also ate at Wimpy's . The burgers were good and the chicken tenders were VERY good. Cathy's Ice Cream has the creamiest (sp?) ice cream I believe I have ever eaten. What a nice treat on a hot day.

One hot and steamy afternoon we took a break at the Universal Cineplex to see MIBII. It was wonderfully cool inside and the seats were very confortable. The ticket price was $5.25 for the early shows. Not bad but the overpriced usual movie popcorn was waiting inside. The cineplex is huge; our movie was showing in theater #19 upstairs. It was a kick to ride the escalator to our showing.

We tried a few of the restaurants at CityWalk. I had mentioned Jimmy B's earlier, which we always enjoy. We had lunch one afternoon at the Hard Rock Cafe just as it started to rain. The regular line was very long but one show of the magic hotel card and we were sent to another line with only one family ahead of us. We were seated in about 1 minute. We tried to eat at the NASCAR Cafe one evening but even with our hotel card the wait was 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours. We were spoiled now and did not choose to wait. We used the Pastamore Marketplace Cafe several times for take-out. You a get a large pizza for around $13 and they will box it for you to take back to your hotel. This was nice after a long day in the parks and by now my feet are burning. They also have really good sandwiches, stacked high, and salads that they will sack for you to carry-out.

We did a bit of shopping all over the parks. The big Universal Studios store inside US has just about everything you might ever want to take home. The Universal Story in the CityWalk has the same t-shirts as inside but they are cheaper. They are nice quality and have Universal Studios embroidered instead of stamped on. The embroidered shirts I have purchased over the years at Disney still look new, while the stamped ones have cracked, faded and are now in a box somewhere. The Cat in the Hat store at Isands is a fun shopping stop. They have a Islands of Adventures pennant and pin set for just $5. It is located at the back of the store, hanging on the backside of a display table. We just happened to notice them as we exited the Cat in the Hat ride. A nice, cheap keepsake of the ride and the park.

I know this is too long but it was a neat trip. We drove over to ClearWater Beach one day. That is our favorite and we usually try to spend a couple of days at the Sheraton Sand Key Resort. It is a great place but with our Universal Adventure this year, we spent more time there. We also went to Disney one day. I cannot go to Orlando and not get my Disney fix. We had lunch at the Poly and all of us agreed we did not want to leave; we just love that place. We will be there next trip but staying at Universal for the FOTL met a need this trip. My kids love the arcade the the Contemporary. They spent a couple happy hours there during the heat of the day while mom and dad enjoyed a drink at the Outter Rim Bar. I just love that view of the lake.

We rose early on check-out day since our flight left at 10:30 a.m. and we wanted plenty of time to check in the rental car and get through security. The bill for each room was hanging on the doors. We had to make a seperate reservation for each room but with the $99 rate for each. If you recall I had our room keys made without charging privileges after the problems I read about on these boards. I bet you can guess what comes next. We had all kinds of restaurants charged back to our room and snack charges from our locked pantry. When we got the pantry keys I put them away so our kids would not be tempted. Also they had doubled charged us $6 per day for the self-parking ( charged on both rooms) even though at check in I told them we had only one car and they filled out only one parking permit for the lot. My husband went to the front desk with our room keys in hand which had the big N printed on them for 'NO CHARGING" and they just had to believe us on the pantry charges and that we only had one car but 2 rooms. I can only guess that the panty charges were a computer error or sticky fingered maids. He turned in the pantry keys, got a corrected bill with all the charges removed and we were off to the airport. On the way to the airport I noticed they had not given us the correct estimated charges for our Disney Club discounts. So when we arrived at rental car return I pointed this out to the nice man by showing him my copy of the rental confirmation. You know what came next.....a trip to the rental counter inside to get it fixed. Fortunately we were the only people at the counter and after about 10 minutes on the computer and a second time showing my confirmation, a copy of the DC coupon and a copy of the DC discount page from the DC site we got the correct price for the rental. We had given a copy of all this to the lady when we picked up the car from Emerald Aisle but we were so tired we didn't check it since we had never had a problem before. Through the airport was a breeze, no one in line ahead of us to go through security and then off through the friendly skys home.

We had a nice trip and Universal was fun. I REALLY, REALLY missed having a balcony at our hotel room. My husband and I always had coffee in the mornings and drinks in the evening outside. We will go back to Disney next time but staying onsite at Universal to get FOTL is sooooooooooooo worth it.
 
Very informative. I am looking forward to our trip and love to read anything about RPH. We are only staying for 2 nights, but I am sure we will have fun. Welcome home!:)
 
Thanks for the report. I love reading about the RPH and I cant wait until October.

Patty
 
Yes, thank you! Long is good, I'm so happy to find info on Royal Pacific :Pinkbounc
 


KatyD--Loved your report! Did you by any chance check out any of the restaurants at the RP?? Someone mentioned they serve breakfast somewhere in the Lobby area as well as The Islands Restaurant, do you know anything about that? Anyway, I've enjoyed reading all the RP trip reports, may even post my own when I return.
 
Excellent report, KatyD.
I think my boys will love the Pastamore takeout!;) The only thing that disturbs me is the erroneous charges. Certainly, no one questioned you when you brought this to their attention? I'm glad it went smoothly for you. I think we will be cancelling charging privileges on our cards too. Thanks again, for a good read.:D
 
Stayed at Royal Pacific June 26 - 29.

debbie655 - yes, breakfast is served in the lounge area of the lobby. Very nice and comfy, but like everything else, very pricey....pastries and juice/coffee for two adults and three children was $30.

Sherrilatte - definitely watch out for erroneous charges. I was prepaid (credit card) before arrival, and accidentally discovered that even though prepaid, they were still ringing up room charges while I was there. Something about the computer system having problems handling the code when prepaid. They removed the additional charges with no problem.

As a sidelight, the way I found out was that I tried to charge a meal at Finnegans in the park to the room key (my first attempt at charging to the room key), and the hotel refused it. Because I thought I could charge to the room key, I had not taken any credit cards to the park, and took only a little cash. Had to borrow five bucks from my daughter to pay for the meal. Aside from the embarrasment (and the fact that it really ticked me off), I was concerned that someone had stolen my credit card number and maxed out my card. Consequently, I immediately lit out for the hotel to get an explanation. Was told that the reason charging to the key privelege was denied was because at check-in, even if you are prepaid, they electronicaly contact the credit card company to verify your limit or whatever, which then enables you to charge to the room key. In my case, when I had checked in, the attempted contact with the credit card company had failed, and they didn't bother saying anything about it (I guess since they had already billed my credit card for the room before I arrived). Anyhoo, while I was standing there, they tried again, it went thru fine, and I was then able to charge to the room key. It was also then that I saw the additional room charges and had them removed.

Just be careful. You can check all of your charges on the room tv.
 


Originally posted by debbie655
KatyD--Loved your report! Did you by any chance check out any of the restaurants at the RP?? Someone mentioned they serve breakfast somewhere in the Lobby area as well as The Islands Restaurant, do you know anything about that? Anyway, I've enjoyed reading all the RP trip reports, may even post my own when I return.

debbie655 We did not use the restaurants at the RP. I had read so much on the boards about high prices what what you received, that we ate in the parks, CityWalk or brought food back to the room. We picked up breakfast food at Publix and the room does has a coffee pot. You might want to bring your own creamer for the coffee. I always pack extra because I use alot. The creamer that comes with the room pack is very strange.
 
FOTL is def. the main reason for staying at an onsite hotel. When I was at HRH last year I went on mib nearly 25 times, I belive my highest score was 700 tho. + but the ride froze so we had 5 extra minutes to get points. I compared that to the disney E ticket thing from 99 when I stayed at the boardwalk and FOTL is a lot better then e ticket. I mean, sure you get 2-3 hrs. of the parks best rides, yet universal you can spend the day going in/out of your favorite rides.
 
Great report (I do appreciate long and lots of details and I'll be traveling w/teens, too) and thanks for all the RPH "warnings" as we're staying there next month. Seems the third hotel isn't affecting quantity of people in the express lines; good to know. Thanks.
 
Thanks for the terrific report - I also like them long and full of details. We're planning our trip over Thanksgiving......Can't wait.....Thank you again......
 
What a great report. SO very detailed thanks! :)
 

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