Cabana pictures?

[bethzfl]

Does anyone have a picture of the Cabanas you can rent? And are they at all three hotels?

Thanks in advance.

 

[goofy!]

My pictures of the HRH cabanas are on our other laptop - so I will try to retrieve and post later. If you do a search on this board, there is a relatively recent thread where cabanas were discussed and I believe some links to pictures.

All three hotels have cabanas. PBH has them at the villa pool, RPR has one pool, so they are right there, and then the best ones (in my opinion) are the ones at the HRH. Few weeks ago, we stayed at PBH, but rented two cabanas (#7 & #8 - a regular one and the yellow submarine one) and they were fantastic. We have gone numerous times, but this was the first time renting a cabana. I have to say, we will never do a vacation again without a pool day at the Hard Rock in a cabana. It was fantastic!

 

[robvia]

I have a picture of them from far away.
http://www.nogodforme.com/images/DSC02264.JPG
Basically, it's a cloth covered tent. There is a table, a few chairs, a fridge, and TV inside.

 

[maggiew]

Here one of my pictures. This was at the Hard Rock.

Maggie

 

[bethzfl]

Thank you!

 

[robvia]

Here's one more from the HRH I just uploaded.
http://www.nogodforme.com/images2005/IOA072905012.jpg
I think the one to the left (center of picture) is the most popular. The hot tub is to the far left of the picture behind those trees.

 

[Mickey&Co]

This is something I would like to look into for our next trip on-site. How much do they run? How soon in advance can you make a reservation? Are they reserved for the entire day? Info...info...I would to hear about your experiences.

Thanks!

M&Co

 

[goofy!]

This is something I would like to look into for our next trip on-site. How much do they run? How soon in advance can you make a reservation? Are they reserved for the entire day? Info...info...I would to hear about your experiences.

Thanks!

M&Co

We had two reserved at the HRH on the 15th of July. We had cabana #7 (Themed - Yellow Submarine) and #8 - regular cabana reserved. If you look at Robvia's pictures - these are the two cabanas right behind the baby pool.

Yes, you do reserve them for the entire day. The regular cabana was $100.00 and the themed cabana was $125.00. There is a large discount if you are staying club at the Hard Rock. (Just FYI - club at either of the other hotels will not get you the discount.) However, we were only charged $100.00 for each of them. Didn't ask why, just paid my bill and said thanks.

The regular cabana comes with reserved chairs - 4 lounge chairs - the middle two chained together with a sign that says reserved, and then the two outer ones, a round table with several chairs, a tv, fridge, phone, ceiling fan, a fruit plate (consisted of a couple of apples, an orange, some grapes), 6 sodas and 2 waters.

The themed cabana comes with all above plus 1 refill on the sodas and water (so 12 sodas and 4 waters) and two large foam floats. I did notice on my walk around the cabanas that the other themed cabana (Stevie Wonder aquarium) also had some adirondak type chairs in it.

The experience was absolutely wonderful! We were staying at the PBH for 10 days, but decided to reserve the cabanas at HRH because they were the ones at a pool with the slide. We have been to many, many trips to Universal and had never reserved a cabana before. We will never go again without doing a pool day at HRH.

We got there about 10am. The sodas I had reserved were in the fridge, there were towels waiting, etc. We stayed until pool closing - 11pm. The HRH cabanas were nice in that we could swim, walk to the parks and ride a few rides (great with FOTL), come back for food and drinks, swim, ride, etc. A pattern we followed all day.

We had a personal waiter that knew our names that ran a tab for us at the Beach grill. This was great. Since he was only in charge of a few cabanas, we had pretty much undivided service. We felt so pampered.

I opted to stay in the cabana all day with a good book - my idea of heaven. So, I did see a few strange things. People can be funny folks. While I went for a swim (and the rest of the family was at the parks), I returned to an entire family sitting in our cabana watching the TV. They had pulled up the chairs from the table and were contently sitting around the TV. It was obvious that the cabana was being used, as there were backpacks, clothes, and towels strewn over the chairs and table. I had pulled one of the lounge chairs in under the tent, so I just plopped on it and continued to read my book. It took about 30 minutes for the family to decide to leave. I guess I could have asked them to leave, but they weren't bothering me. I was just waiting for them to be uncomfortable with me there. Guess it didn't phase them a bit

The other funny incident we ran into was a pushy mother. We were travelling with a group of 11 - 4 adults and 7 children. So, we had the unthemed cabana and the kids had the Submarine cabana. They were virtually right next to each other, so it was like having a huge private space for our large family. (BTW - this was a great location, because hardly anybody used the baby pool). Anyway, the kids had laid the floats across the lounge chairs in front of the cabana (the ones that had the sign "reserved for Cabana rentals") when they went to the parks with the dads. I was reading my book in the unthemed cabana next door. A boy of about 11 came over - while mom stood on the other side of the baby pool and watched. He started to take the floats. I sat up and politely said "excuse me, you can't take those floats, they belong to the cabana." Well, Mom then came over and threw a small hissy fit that nobody was there to use them, therefore we could not "reserve" floats and then not use them. I tried to explain that indeed I could because I was paying for the cabana and those floats were part of what I paid for. She read me the riot act for a few more minutes - saying that there was nowhere else to get the floats (I didn't know that - apparently the big, blue foam floats are only for cabana guests) and that since I wasn't using them, I had to give them up. Finally our server came over and shooed her away. We had a quick laugh at how people could become so upset over the littlest things.

The only really unfortunate incident was that in paying our final bill at 11pm, my husband's wallet must have dropped out of his pocket when he sat up from the chair. We found it within 5 minutes of leaving - halfway down our walk back to the PBH. My husband turned around and immediately went back to the Hard Rock, while I called the Beach House and asked for our server. Mind you - this is 5 minutes - the pool was closed and it was in a cabana that was pretty removed from any kind of traffic.

Server went and checked cabana - came back and said that it had already been cleaned and no sign of the wallet. So, we know that the cleaners were standing around waiting for us to leave - therefore negating the fact that any patron could have entered the cabana. And since we had paid our bill - we knew we had the wallet up until the very last second before we left. So, one of the Hard Rock employees who cleaned the cabana received a hefty tip (all the cash in the wallet - over $200.00) as we never recovered it. We then had to spend the rest of the vacation cancelling the one credit card, recovering our balance from the Amex Cheque card, and filing a police report. My husband had to go through a detailed search at the airport because he did not have a picture ID as his license was in the wallet.
And no apologies or anything from the Hard Rock. That was a big disappointment.

But we would do it again in a heartbeat. It was a great experience. The kids have chosen that day as the best of the entire trip!

 

[TigerLilly's Mom]

Goofy - I loved your cabana stories! I can't believe the family watching t.v.! I laughed out loud when I pictured you just sitting back down and reading your book, too funny!

 

[Mickey&Co]

Goofy - I was so sorry to read what happened with your DH wallet and about his experience at the airport. But thank you very much for the report. It was very informative and as a result I've decided to treat myself and reserve one during our next visit.

Thank you

M&Co