Caribbean Beach Resort FAQ's Part II

[pamouselover]

I can not wait! Thank you for the post!

 

[KimRaye]

You can see Illuminations from several locations but our favorite spot is the beach at Martinique. You can sit in a chair or watch them from a hammock.

Just wanted to add some CONTINUED thanks to safetymom for all her work on this thread and keeping us informed about CBR! I haven't been to CBR since June '06 but, this thread and safetymom were a MAGICAL wealth of info!!!

P.S. Your GD is ADORABLE!!! How old is she?

 

[amy390]

I got the free updgrade to Martineque by simply asking at the front desk at check-in. I picked that tip up on these boards from other travelers and it worked for us. No harm done in asking in my opinion. Either way, Jamaica is a great location as well, as is Barbados. The whole place is beautiful. Have a great time !

 

[ShellyMouse]

i sooooo can not wait until my sept. trip at CBR!!!! i love reading all the posts about this resort!
the resort looks heavenly!!

 

[mom*to*2*princesses]

Just out of curiosity... what pros and cons did you hear about CBR beforehand that were on the money?

Keep in mind that we arrived at the CBR having read up a lot about it, having been to WDW several times in the past, and being pretty "go with the flow" people. We didn't make any requests and didn't pay for a preferred room. Our plan was to deal with what we were assigned and make the best of it. Not everyone feels this way, but that works for us.

We were assigned a first floor room in Trinidad South that was very close to the bus stop and to the quiet pool. The room's location within TS was wonderful.

PROS
The resort is well-landscaped. We love vacationing in the Caribbean and the theme appealed to us. The maintenance crews were busy every day and everything was nicely kept.

Since the resort is large, we didn't feel on top of anybody. According to the CM when we checked in, it was filled to capacity. We didn't get that sense at all.

We took breaks every afternoon and our room had already been straightened up.

Mousekeeping did a good job daily and our kids loved the little displays of their stuffed animals and souvenirs that the mousekeeper would make. And yes, we did get towel animals (although I personally don't get the greatness of that?!).

The quiet pool in our village was wonderful. Our 3 y.o. really liked the playground on the beach. Neither was ever crowded and we used them almost daily.

The laundry facilities were nice and not busy in the afternoon at all. The dryers worked well enough that I only had to use one cycle, so laundry only took about an hour each time. I did make sure my loads were on the smallish side, though, and we didn't have anything heavy like jeans. Those would've had to be tossed again.

We did get to see the Illuminations fireworks a bit at the resort on our first night. It was a nice little surprise for our kids.

The food court offers a decent amount of selections. The grab and go had good choices as well.

The room was a great size. We ended up pushing one of the beds against the bathroom wall so we wouldn't worry about our younger child falling out of the bed.

The storage in the room was very good. We had two big suitcases and one small one and unpacked everything into the room. The drawer space was adequate, especially with the bench. The beds were high enough that suitcases could be stored under them. We had plenty of storage space and the room never felt cluttered.

The hair dryer was fine! I'm always a little suspect of hotel hair dryers, especially in humid places, but this worked just fine.

The double sinks were great to have, as was the curtain between the vanity area and the room.

The bathroom was clean and not moldy/mildewy at all.

One day our remote just disappeared, but it was replaced promptly. I still don't know what that was about... lol

The buses were usually timely (but look below at the cons). Although they were almost always full, I don't believe I stood at all. I was almost always carrying my 3 y.o., though, and there were a few times that someone offered me their seat. That was greatly appreciated, although I wouldn't have expected it. Thank you, kind people!!

We did use the internal resort shuttle from time to time, mostly due to the layout of the resort. It was nice to have the option.


CONS

The resort is big. It takes time to get anywhere. More time than perhaps you want to spend. My DH and I are both athletic and not afraid of walking, but the distances did limit what we wanted to do at times, especially with a 6 y.o. and a 3 y.o.

Same goes for the buses. It just takes time. You can't stress out about the fact that the bus may make up to 6 stops (I think that's the right #) before it actually leaves the resort.

One day we waited for an EPCOT bus for almost an hour. Multiple AK, MGM, and DTD buses went by in that time (although only 1 MK bus). I'm certain that this was not usual, since the next two mornings there was a CM there timing the frequency of the buses. I know this can happen at any Disney resort, but that doesn't make it any less annoying.

The separate registration desk might not matter to most vacationers, but it is weird. It can make for extra effort/time. It was kind of a pain to have to wait there for the ME bus, when there's no food or shopping or anything else close by to speed up the wait.

The coffee in the rooms stinks and the coffee maker didn't work right. We had just been planning to use that in the mornings, but realized quickly that the only way to get decent coffee would be to go to the food court or get to the parks, so that's what we did. We hadn't planned to eat breakfast at the food court much, but we ended up going there several mornings. We had brought breakfast foods from home but we needed to get our java! This is when being so far from the food court was really a bummer.

The food court seating was very crowded unless we went at odd times. This, of course, was not surprising, but even the outside seating was packed. We had to do the hover thing to snag a table for supper around 5:00 p.m. one day. Same for breakfast when we made the mistake of going at 8:30 a.m. We ended up going to a park earlier than we had planned to get around this (i.e. on our slower-paced days we had planned to eat a breakfast at the resort and then head to the park but we ended up going to the park first just so we could eat breakfast without a mob of people).

The main pool was always very crowded (and this is my hang-up and not everyone else's, but you couldn't escape the smokers around the main pool--that kept us away too; perhaps that will change with the new no-smoking policy? I'm not sure). We stuck to the quiet pool, which was fine but didn't have the the fun slide or the hot tub.

The poor vacuuming was appalling! Lots of accumulated stuff left behind from previous occupants, and a lot of it not very hidden. I just went around and picked it up, rather than calling to complain. The light vacuuming (sand and glitter that we had brought in) was fine, but it was obvious that no one had looked carefully at the floor in quite some time. That's heinous to me!

The beds were on platforms and pretty high. The platforms stuck out from the mattresses pretty far and we all banged our legs/knees on them. It took a few days to get used to.

This is very minor, but the safes are small. Not big enough to put our portable DVD player in, only a wallet or two and cash/credit cards.


Of course, my pro might be somebody else's con. None of these were complete deal breakers. It is a pretty resort, our stay was generally nice, and I'm glad we stayed there, but I don't feel the need to return. Would my opinion be any different if we would've had a preferred room? I don't think so.

I hope that our experience can help someone else. I read this entire thread before our trip and it was very useful.

Kerri

 

[SkcMom]

I for one appreciate your honest report. Thanks for taking the time to post it, glad to hear you had a good time!!

 

[Nancyg56]

I for one appreciate your honest report. Thanks for taking the time to post it, glad to hear you had a good time!!

Me too! DD is planning on CBR for a surprise birthday trip for her DD, and it is better to hear the problems as well as the positive reviews so that expectations are realistic.

 

[nettii]

Forgive me if this has been asked for Im sure it has.
Burning question:
If your not near the main bldg. where do you refill your drink mugs?!
Thnks

 

[CleveRocks]

Forgive me if this has been asked for Im sure it has.
Burning question:
If your not near the main bldg. where do you refill your drink mugs?!
Thnks

Old Port Royale is the only place where fountain drinks are available. Before you spend the money on mugs, decide if they will be a good deal for you. Don't just blindly buy them without first considering the convenience of refilling them.

 

[safetymom]

The walk to OPR is not bad but as the previous poster mentioned decide if the mugs are right for you.

 

[Cindy's Mom]

Old Port Royale is the only place where fountain drinks are available. Before you spend the money on mugs, decide if they will be a good deal for you. Don't just blindly buy them without first considering the convenience of refilling them.

We only use our mugs when we are at the pool, now matter what resort we are staying at.

Since the pool is at OPR its totally convenient - its worth the cost and its worth just not having to stand in line to pay. win win

 

[kelleigh1]

I'm lucky...I have a hubby who usually gets out of bed about an hour or so before I do, so he always goes for a walk and refills our mugs in the morning. Works great for me.

Kerri: Thanks for the details regarding good and bad. Nothing in the bad would turn me off. We are looking forward to our trip. We are also renting a car because we want that freedom and don't have kids to worry about, so that makes it a little easier for us to deal with some of the cons.

 

[XxStaceFacexX]

I'm new to the thread, but I've stayed at CBR twice before, once in 2001 and then again last September when we had a major problem with a swarm of insects in our beds (I'm talking about the sheets being COVERED in bugs when we lifted the blankets) at the ASMo, so they moved us over to CBR and it was a godsend. Of course I inspected every inch of the room when we got there because I was completely skeeved out!!!

My question is this, we are doing a split stay this September between CBR and WL, does Disney transfer our bags? I've never done a split stay other than last year and the ASMo gave us cab fare and we transferred everything ourselves. I was wondering if anyone else had experience with this and could help me out.

TIA!

 

[snomofinn]

I'm new to the thread, but I've stayed at CBR twice before, once in 2001 and then again last September when we had a major problem with a swarm of insects in our beds (I'm talking about the sheets being COVERED in bugs when we lifted the blankets) at the ASMo, so they moved us over to CBR and it was a godsend. Of course I inspected every inch of the room when we got there because I was completely skeeved out!!!

My question is this, we are doing a split stay this September between CBR and WL, does Disney transfer our bags? I've never done a split stay other than last year and the ASMo gave us cab fare and we transferred everything ourselves. I was wondering if anyone else had experience with this and could help me out.

TIA!

This is my worse fear when traveling! I would of probably passed out if I've seen that. That's one of the first things I do before we put our luggage down. I check out the beds, under the beds and the bathroom! I don't care if it's the Grand Floridian, I still do it! Iam a wierdo I know....

 

[XxStaceFacexX]

This is my worse fear when traveling! I would of probably passed out if I've seen that. That's one of the first things I do before we put our luggage down. I check out the beds, under the beds and the bathroom! I don't care if it's the Grand Floridian, I still do it! Iam a wierdo I know....

now I do too, what scares me the most is that we had spent 4 nights in the room and thought the bites on us were mosquito bites. I never thought to look. I would like to think that the bugs were just there the night I checked but I get nauseas thinking they were my bed partners the entire time!!!!

 

[MNRMommy]

My question is this, we are doing a split stay this September between CBR and WL, does Disney transfer our bags? I've never done a split stay other than last year and the ASMo gave us cab fare and we transferred everything ourselves. I was wondering if anyone else had experience with this and could help me out.

TIA!

We have done the spilt stay a couple of times and we allways have Disney move our bags. On our last trip in October we spent one night at the POP then transferred to WL. We called bell svc's the am we wanted to move and they came and carried it all away. The bags were waiting on us when we got back from the park that day. We usually keep the computer and camera stuff with us and then go over to the new hotel and check in. Most of the time we have been lucky and our room has been ready so we could dump that stuff before heading out for the day. I would feel comfortable leaving the computer with the bell svc at the hotel though I just don't want them to transfer it for some reason.

I have heard that because the CBR is so big and they have to come with the golf carts to cart your stuff away that it is better to call them the night in advance and arange a time but someone else here would know better about that.

 

[brenda1966]

Can some tell me about the watercraft you can rent at CBR? I'll be staying there for the first time in November. There will be 3 adults and 1 child. I don't think we want to pedal as our legs will get tired enough with all the walking. What do they have that's motorized? Do you do all the driving yourself?

TIA!

 

[safetymom]

I have a list of the watercraft available in the first post of the FAQ here.

 

[GeminiAngel]

Subscribing

 

[pamouselover]

Counting down the days till I am at CBR!