Hello! Just back (well June 10th) from a fantastic but rainy 6 night stay at CSR. We booked using the military discount, and while I thought that the resort was pretty and my sons absolutely loved the dig site, I don't know about my thoughts on the resort as a whole. When we first arrived we checked in and were given the ranchos section (I believe building 7 as well). I had read reviews before that these were not the best buildings or sections and so I asked the person doing the check-in if they had anything closer (not asking for an upgrade but just something a little closer) I knew that my parents were coming into town a few days later and I knew that they would not be happy with such a long walk to everything (my dad loves POFQ just for the quaintness of the resort). He told me that they were completely sold out and so I took the room we were given and went to see what the ranchos were like. One thing I will say is that the rooms are really dark with just the smaller over head light on when you walk in. When we got in the room it smelled moldy or musty? I didn't say anything about it because I did not want to influence anyone else’s thoughts on the room. My husband and my son both pointed out how dark the room was and the smell. I told them that we could try to change resorts since they had not other rooms available. I know that this would be tricky though since we used the military discount. We went back down to El Centro and asked to see what resorts were available, there were no other moderates that we could go to and AKL had something but it was way more out of my price range (which is strange because we had originally booked AKL). I asked if the huge difference in price was with the discount and she told me, "yes". I asked her what kind of view it was and she stated, "standard". It just didn't seem right to me, but after almost 5 1/2 hours of driving I was too tired to argue the point about it. My husband on the other hand was not, and what he was told was, "prices change all the time". Of course I did not have my original "AKL" paperwork with me to compare the prices that she was giving me and so I told him just to not worry with it. The cast member that was helping us then asked if we did not like the resort or just did not like our room? I told her about the room's smell and that that was my main concern, but that I also did not care for the location. She asked me if we would be willing to stay if she found us a better room, and my husband then informed her that our original cast member stated that they were "sold out" for the night. She smiled and stated that she was sure that she could find us something. She asked me if the cabanas were good and I told her that I was fine with them and the location. We ended up in cabanas building, room 9221. The room was still dark, but I am guessing that they all are but smelled much better and was also in a location pretty much in between El Centro and the Dig Site. I do not believe we were "upgraded" and that was completely fine with me, I wasn't looking for any extras just a different location. So the good with the bad:
Ranchos: I would not recommend them, Cabanas were nice, they just had a nicer look to them too on the outside. The Ranchos remind me of LaQuintas (not that there is anything wrong with those hotels, I have stayed in some that were pretty nice, but for the price your paying for CSR..maybe not so much).
Mousekeeping was another issue, during our time our mouse keeper did not replenish our soap or shampoo and so we had to go ask for more about our third day in. She cleaned the room fine but did not pay attention to detail, left the dirty towels and w/c under the sink area one day and left the bag that I had been putting recyclable cans etc in the room for several days, I was fine with this but when it began to fill up I ended up using the regular trash can liners for the recycles and I ended up tying up the bag and putting it out by the door. If towel animals are a big deal to you (not really to me but I do know that some people love getting them) we got: 0 that’s okay I know that, that is something that is a little added extra when time permits.
I am not sure if there is a specific place that you are supposed to wait for the golf carts to take you around the resort or you are just supposed to flag one down when you can. We rode on one day going back from El Centro to our room but a conventioneer is the one that actually got the drivers attention. I didn't see anyone else riding on them for the most part but I did see them driving around a lot.
We used bus stop number 4 it was pretty close to the room and while there were days that we ended up waiting close to 20 minutes for a bus they didn't seem too bad. On one of the days that we were going to try to get a few hours in at BB the bus showed up after about 15 mins of waiting, no big deal, the bus to BB also picks up for those going to AK. The bus had BB and AK on the outside but when we got picked up the bus began going to HS. There were two families on the bus and when the doors opened one of the females asked if this stop was AK? The bus driver said, "yes" and then the two families got off. I could hear the female saying as she got off that it did not look like AK. Well sure enough he had dropped off at HS. The families got back on the bus and the driver seemed to be pretty confused. He got on the radio and spoke to someone and then said that he had had a "senior moment" and that he would get us to BB/AK a.s.a.p.
it wasn’t a big deal and the other two families seemed like they were okay with it. I was laughing because the mother in one family said she was not going to HS that day because she had an itinerary to stick to
ahhh Disney planning! There were a couple of other times where it seemed like we were the last resort to get picked up when we were actually at the parks and of course people would complain when they would see 2 P.O. or AKL busses come when no one was at their stops.
I found that the over all friendliness was lacking at CSR. It just seemed like the cast members weren't happy to be there. The CM in the gift shop were really nice but the CM that worked at Cafe Rix or even at the pool side bar just seemed like they were going out of their way to help you, and we weren't asking for anything out of the way; we had no special dietary restrictions or anything like that. We were on the dining plan but had been in the past and knew to tell the CM when we were checking out that we were using it. It's funny because I struck up a conversation on the bus with a woman from Idaho and she said that she did not like going down to Cafe Rix because the people there were so unfriendly. I wish that that there were better drink choices to fill up your refill cups. There are a lot of soft drink/soda selections as well as coffee and hot chocolate. I think that a juice choice (even if it was just one kind of juice like orange or apple) would work really well, like a lot of people I do not like the Nescafe coffee and I hated drinking soda in the morning, so most of the time I either got lemonade or water that I would bring from the room. The food at Café Rix was good though my son got the bacon and egg breakfast pizza that was so large he and my other son could have shared it. I got the bacon and egg crossiant one morning and it was pretty tasty. One the day we left I went into the bakery section and got a few cinnamon rolls (trying to use up our snack credits) and they were really good as well.
All in all that was our CSR experience. It was okay, the resort itself is quiet and relaxing, save for the extra walking you will have to do. The food from the Pepper Market always smelled really good but we never ate there. In the past we have stayed at POFQ twice and Wilderness Lodge one time. I think that our Wilderness Lodge stay was filled with a little luck, even though we had a standard room it wasn’t far from the main lobby/ Roaring Forks.
All in all CSR was not terrible but it wasn’t my favorite resort either, it may be because it is a convention center type resort that the “feel” is different. I know that there were conventions going on while we were there but we rarely saw any convention type traffic. Sorry this was so long by the way!
edited to say that on our last day we discussed staying for one more day, I called down to the front desk to ask about room rates/reservations and the lady that I spoke to told me I would have to go to the front desk, they would have to call over to reservations and see if anything was available and then go from there. I told her that I thought that I was speaking to the front desk and she informed me that she was sitting in a small office with no access to anything that could help me, I then asked her if I would be able to add a day to my existing reservation since we had not checked out yet and she stated that she could not answer that for me either. In the end we ended up just checking out and coming back home, it just seemed like it was too much trouble to go through to get another nights reservation.
