Will the water slide at the HR be the deal breaker?

[Geooo]

Having to choose between Royal Pacific and the Hard Rock. Family of four. Me, hubby, teen, and soon to be 9 year old. RP is a little cheaper, but the HR has a fab water slide that we would looovvveee. RP seems for family friendly, but I am wrong on that one? We will probably not being doing any pool hopping, I don't think so anyways. Right now I am leaning to the HR, just for the pool and fab water slide. The RP do not even have one, right? Do they offer a free late checkout at one? First trip to Universal, by the way.

 

[macraven]

Having to choose between Royal Pacific and the Hard Rock. Family of four. Me, hubby, teen, and soon to be 9 year old. RP is a little cheaper, but the HR has a fab water slide that we would looovvveee. RP seems for family friendly, but I am wrong on that one? We will probably not being doing any pool hopping, I don't think so anyways. Right now I am leaning to the HR, just for the pool and fab water slide. The RP do not even have one, right? Do they offer a free late checkout at one? First trip to Universal, by the way.

i have stayed at both resorts.
rph is my home away from home.

don't throw out the pool hopping.
it is not a difficult set up to boat it over to hrh from rph.
you get towels at the pool by showing your room key no matter which of the hotels your stay is at.
you can charge back food, beverages, souvies at any of the hotels so you don't need to take a lot of $$ if you pool hop.


check out the rooms online for both hotels.
go with the one you like best.


if you are leaning towards HRH, go with it.
you can't go wrong with any of the 3 onsite hotels.
if the slide is the draw for your family, go with it.

check out is 11:00.
you can request late check out on the day you are departing by talking to the TM's at the front desk.
if the hotel is at a high occupancy for that day, you might or might not get an hour late check out.
the decision is up to the check out employee.

most peeps do check out and have their belongings held by valet. (free)
they use the gym or shower section by the pool to change, shower, freshen up, etc once they leave the pool.
(shampoo, towels, etc provided free.)

many guests do not leave the hotel once they check out.
they go to the park, go swim, etc and return to freshen up later before they start the trip back to their home.

 

[bumbershoot]

We've now stayed at all 3 onsite resorts, and HRH is not our favorite. DS loved the feel of the place, and when we pool-hopped from PBR before he LOVED that slide and liked the pool area. But this time we didn't even go in the pool. Only reason we went in the pool area was to get to the walkway to the parks.

For our family, we would stay at RPR and hop to the HRH pool.

But your teen might sway the vote. S/he would probably like the feeling of the HRH quite a bit.

 

[Kim1964]

We stayed at HRH last week, and at RP a year and a half ago. The pool slide at HRH was really good.....DD (10) and I had a great time on it. We all preferred HRH over RP for the theme, comfort of the rooms, and the pool.