Hi Dis Friends, wanted to let you know about my experience with CBR this week-end.
First, it was a one night only affair for DD10 and myself. We are Florida Resident PAP's and usually just daytrip, but we were going to the P&P Party Friday night and decided to make it a week-end trip. We booked CBR 6 weeks in advance with a AP discount.
We were able to book a King room and did not ask for any preferences, did not pay to be near the food court/main pool (Old Port Royale) and did not ask for a view. After mixed reviews on the boards I wasn't sure what to expect and hoping for the best.
CHECK IN - We got to CBR at 4:45 Friday afternoon and was checked in immediately with no wait. Check-in was very friendly and they gave us each a free credit to use in the arcade. We were given all the resort info and assigned to the Aruba building #53.
ROOM ASSIGNMENT - drive over to the room from check-in was really fast and I felt it was easy to find the building. We were more than pleasantly surprised to have a beautiful corner room with several windows. The view wasn't too great, as with a corner room you overlook the stairway, but we paid for standard and because their is terrific landscaping EVERYWHERE at CBR, I did not feel slighted at all. I'm sure the lagoon rooms are fantastic but for one night (and not really in the room at all) it just wasn't worth the extra $.
ROOM - The room was extremely clean, well kept and honestly looked brand-new. We were greeted by an adorable towel duck and I was very, VERY pleased with the size of the room. The themeing was nice but not too garish (tropical) and our sheets, towels all smelled fresh. I have to say again that the room was spotless, not a hair to be found anywhere, and it smelled really good.
GROUNDS - The buildings are pretty spaced out, so there is a chance you will be doing some walking here, but we thought it was a TREAT. The landscaping is really beautiful, the beaches very clean, the pools (except the main one) very quiet and lovely. There are hammocks spread all over and they are irresistable. There are a multitude of water sports and boats to rent if you'd like and they looked like a lot of fun. I know people complain that CBR is too spread out, but from Aruba we were near the footbridge and didn't feel we walked any more here than we did at our all-stars room years ago. Not only that...who wouldn't want to walk when the scenery looks like this???
OLD PORT ROYALE - OK, so even though we were tight on time, we got up late Saturday to have a leisurely breakfast and go later to EPCOT thinking we'd miss the big breakfast crowd. WRONG! At 10:30, the place was packed. The only real big line was the one we were in for Mickey Waffles, but I swear they were the best ones I've had so far and I've had a few. There were several choices for picky eaters, plus a table service restaurant if that's your thing. The gifts in the shop are cute, carribean style stuff of course, but we found some pins there we hadn't located anywhere else. The arcade was cool, pretty big for a hotel arcade actually.
MAIN POOL - We did notice the main pool was extremely busy and really not that big if you consider the massive size of the resort, but we didn't swim so I can't tell you if finding a chair is hard or not, but the pool was definately cute. Well themed, nice slide and the pool bar makes a YUMMY Orange Creamsicle drink (adults only drink!).
SUMMARY - So although we didn't witness mousekeeping beyond the shape of our room on arrival, it was extremely clean. The resort is really beautiful and I didn't feel the walk to Old Port Royale was a big deal at all - I actually looked forward to it. Maybe I would have a different view if I was in Barbados or Trinidad South but the rest are all about the same distance. From our experience we would recommend CBR, especially considering it's the cheapest Mod we've found so far. Next time we'll stay somewhere else, only because we want to try each hotel once, but in our minds CBR has set the bar pretty high.
Thanks for reading and if you're in the market for a Mod, consider CBR. I think it's WAAAY underrated.
We booked our package and paid in full about a month ago, we were originally booked at AKL. DH just didn't want to fork out the extra $, so he suggested ASMu. DDs have always wanted to stay at Music they love the huge icons. Anyway we had a family mtg
and decided that we loved CSR in the past, we loved the busses and large pool w/ slide. DH said that he wanted something bright and perhaps tropical... TADA ... CBR! I'm so very excited. And we're getting a little refund from Disney to boot.
drive 3.5 hrs to CBR.
