LoriZH
<font color=CC66CC>The GooGoo Dolls rock!!!!<br><f
- Joined
- Oct 31, 1999
- Messages
- 1,519
We checked in here on Friday afternoon around 2:30 PM (10/24/03) for 7 nights (checked out 10/31/03). Once again, we checked in immediately, no wait, and our rooms were ready. We were in the Cabanas section facing the lake/pond and it was absolutely beautiful (we even saw fireworks from our room one night, no idea where they were coming from but they were cool), we were close to both the Pepper Market (food court) and the Big Dig (lol, Im from Boston area!) okay the Dig Site (pool). The resort was clean, bright and the rooms were comfy and good sized! They had privacy curtains and enough room to be comfortable and not on top of one another. The beds were only doubles but very nice and comfy. I wasnt sure by the pictures of the rooms in Cabanas that I was going to like the theme here, but I was wrong, it was beautiful. The furniture is really very nice an not as loud as it appears in the pictures. The table and chairs in the room are nice and heavy and the chairs are cushioned and a little wider than the usual, so is the table. Housekeeping was great, kept us supplied to the max with towels, shampoos and soaps (thank goodness because my husband suddenly decided to become a collector of some sorts of these trinkets (not the towels!). The Pepper Market was nice (see my restaurant reviews) although the 10% service fee they tack on whether you eat in or out is a little too much in my opinion. The pool was great, it has an awesome slide that the kids loved and the pyramid was fun in the morning when they have the kids sit on it and chant water water until it starts flowing down on top of them. The only problem I had with the pool situation was that the slide did not have a lifeguard at the top to control the kids from coming down two at a time right on top of the kids in front of them. My son came down and literally two seconds later these two little kids (who did not know any better and they were not being supervised by their parents) came down and before I could grab my son out of the way they kicked him in the head. The life guard did scold them (about 10 times for running and doubling up and so on) but it could have been avoided if they had someone at the top telling the kids when it was okay to go. Anyway, the spa/hot tub was nice and big and the arcade, ball court and playground at the site were added bonuses. I did not eat at the pool bar, but my dh did get a drink there that was quite weak in his opinion (and hes not a huge drinker). They have a marina here (although the lake is not very big) dh and the kids rented water mice and a canopy boat, they had fun. They also rent Surrey (sp?) Bikes and regular bikes too for those of you that are more ambitious than us, lol. In my opinion, they also had one of the best gift shops, I really liked this shop it had a little bit of everything here. Okay now for the bad part (this is just our opinion) the dreaded buses. Although this did not put a damper on our vacation, it sure did add a bit of stress now and again about these buses. Not so much on the way out, but on the way back, they were awful. Leaving the Magic Kingdom on a Saturday Night and I am not exaggerating here, a bus came every 25 minutes and the queue was packed! All the other resorts (including All Stars) had buses every 5 to 10 minutes and the lines were practically empty. I noticed the Boardwalk because it was right next to ours, had about 10 people at most in line and the buses were definitely about every 5 minutes. People were outraged, literally. They were yelling, and complaining and threatening to fire off some letters to Disney. Now, I must say this, I think that Disney did not anticipate the amount of guests that were going to be there and probably just didnt staff properly, however, by the end of our stay at the CSR, they did get better and they had a woman out at the bus stop at the resort with pen, clipboard and watch in hand clocking and timing the buses. So, my guess is that those people who were threatening to fire off the letters, did so and Disney hopped right on it. The other thing was they were not consistent with the way they dropped off and picked up, no big deal, but I think there should have been more consistent. Oh and one other rather uncomfortable situation here in this resort is the golf cart drivers (or people drivers whatever you call them, lol) they drove SO FAST! I came walking out of my building one morning and I could hear this guy at the end of the bridge yelling. Apparently one of the drivers almost hit him and he was ticked to say the least. I felt his pain, because we almost got it one night on the bridge. We were just kind of laughing about the way they drove but when you think about it, it really was dangerous and if you go over to the GF and see how they drive around you really notice the difference. They stop you and say good morning and ask if you need a ride, and so on. At the CSR, they beep and yell for you to get out of the way, lol. In summary, the resort was beautiful, the rooms were nice and comfortable, the service was great, the staff was absolutely wonderful (the food court manager kept teasing my niece about filling her mug with beer, shes 16, lol), the pool and spa were nice (they have spa services and a health club that I did not check out), the Pepper Market was pretty good and they had a nice gift shop and two arcades. All in all, we enjoyed our stay at this resort.
With all the info on this site, I sometimes double guess myself, but then posts like yours settle me back down. (Not to mention Buzz's site)
The freakiest thing about the busses for us was that on three of our trips we were the only two people on there....weird. But then again we stayed in the Ranchos and we rarely ever saw anybody anywhere. Thanks again for sharing your trip. We will now have to try out the Cabana's section! 
