Dining at Universal Clear Channel GC style! Intro.

[tarheelmjfan]

Who: Kenneth (DH), Buddy (17 yo. neph.), Kenny (12 yo. son),
Molly(4-legged baby girl), and me (Tammy)
When: Sat. July, 10th to Wed. July, 14th
Where: Royal Pacific Resort

Pros: We were a little concerned with taking Molly, because this was her 1st hotel stay. Our concerns were unwarranted. RPR made us feel more than welcome with her. Noone gave us a 2nd look when we had her in public areas. Also, unlike last summer at HRH, RPR had no shortage of ice, and Star Services responded promptly, on the most part. We couldn't seem to get Star Serv. at HRH to respond at all. Also, the walk to the elevator was shorter, and the elevators were faster than at HRH.

Cons: My biggest complaint with RPR would have to be the pillows. They were horrible! My suggestion would be to take your own from home. Also, the walk to Citywalk & IOA was longer than I had expected. The walkway definitely wasn't designed to show mercy on tired, achy feet. It was more like taking the scenic route. Then there was the boats, oh the boats, we never did quite figure them out. They always ran back to back. If you missed the 1st one, no problem, there was another pushing it out of the dock anyway. If you missed the 2nd, big problem, you would have a 20 min. wait. There were 2 boats running, at all times, Sat. thru Tue. For some reason, there were 3 on Wed. The same convention was going on all wk., so I don't know what made Wed. different. The additional boat was great, but then there was 3 back to back. We never figured out why they didn't stagger them, & run them every 10 min. There was plenty of places to pass. To be fair to RPR, when we stayed at PBH it was the only resort on property, therefore the boat service was fast. We only took the boat from HRH once, then quickly abandoned that idea, and walked. IMO, you can walk so easily, there's no reason to ride.

General Observations:
While we were more than pleased with RPR, we probably won't return there any time soon. My DH and I prefer PBH, and our son prefers HRH. Although I felt the staff was much better at RPR than at HRH, the short walk to the parks and the pool will probably be our deciding factor from now on. As I mentioned earlier, the staff at RPR made our 1st stay with Molly a great experience. One housekeeper told my DH that she had no idea that there was a pet in the room, because she hadn't heard a peep out of her. She stopped by one day just to see her and ask what breed of dog she was. Needless to say, this made use very proud of our baby girl. However, we did make a few concessions, due to her being in the room. This was totally our decision. Since we didn't want to have to be in the room at a certain time, my DH traded dirty towels for clean ones, and had the trash emptied whenever it was convenient for us. He picked up extra coffee when he passed a housekeeper in the hall. I made the beds, but I always do that anyway. We were also conscience of waiting for an empty elevator, in case there was anyone with allergies.

The best part of our trip by far, was the great deals we got. I purchased weekday movie tickets from the Loews theater website, which included a movie & sm. popcorn @ 6 for $30 inc. shipping. My son & neph. saw 2 movies Mon. & 1 Tue. The prepurchased tickets saved us more than 1/2. They always got 2 sodas w/ free refills @ $7.22 for both. I was able to preorder everyone's park tickets for $89.95 + S&H/ 5 day pass. We had an Ent. rate on our room, which could have been better, but was still a discount. By far, our best deal was on food! We took a cooler w/bottled water, sodas, lunch meat (for Molly), milk, & cereal. We had 4 lunches, 4 dinners, food (to-go) from Pastamore to eat for breakfast ea. morning, & food from Pastamore to take to Ormond Beach. My DH went to Orchid Court Lounge and got me a croissant for breakfast one morning, because I was nauseated & we only had sweets & break. pizza. It was a little over $2. Everything else we ate or drank was paid for, in part, with a Clr. Chnl. GC. I purchased 3 GC's for $25, and 9 for $15. We used all but 1 (BM) and 1/2 (Pat O's). Will use them and HRC coupon for Sea World day trips. Our grand total for all our meals & snacks for 2 adults, & 2 teenage boys, after using the GC's, was "drum roll please" $138.57. Thanks Clear Channel & all participating restaurants! More on dining in daily trip reports. Sorry so long!

 

[FeeFeeWhite]

I am glad you had a great trip and took the extra effort for your 4 legged baby. FYI - RP has a pillow menu - we always request more pillows for the room. Our allergies can not handle any feather ones. The menu has many to pick from.

 

[SpideyHulk24]

Great report. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Prince Eric1]

Sounds like a great trip. I'd love to take my dog but he'd get mad and probably shred the curtains or something.

 

[Motherfletcher]

Sounds like you had fun. My kids would love to take our Lab but we haven't yet. The dog always gives my wife a last minute reason to stay home.
I agree that the walk is a b*tch at the end of the day. Its a half mile from IOA which on top of the 5 miles of walking in the parks and more than an hour of standing in line even with FOTL is killer. Our last stay at RPR the park closed at 7 and we were in our 7th floor Tower 1 room at 6:30 wondering if we could make it to MIB before closing. It took 25 minutes and we were sprinting every chance we had. It is farther than you think to the parks. We have stayed at RPR when the boats had vapor lock? and the waits were nuts. I finally figured out that the bus was the best way to get to and from US in A/C no less.
What Tower were you in? Did you have a view? How was FOTL?
We always take our own pillows even to PBH. We live in Fl. so its not like lugging them on a plane.
My kids like HRH the best too. Its the "cool" thing and they are at that age. HRH has the best pool for them even though they love RPR volleyball. Did ya'll get to swim? Did you get any RPR perks?
Good job on the movie bargains and the half price meals!

 

[tarheelmjfan]

Hopefully I'll answer your questions in upcoming posts. I'm going to post a thread for each day. The post would be waaay to long otherwise. You can look for Day 1 now. Thanks for reading!

 

[robvia]

We took our Lab in July.
A lot of walking going back and forth to the kennel.
We'd put her in there for the morning, walk her at noon, and then get her out in the early afternoon after eating lunch. Oh, she barked non stop as we left the kennel. All the dogs bark, even though the cage is huge. Somehow, the dogs know you are on vacation, and they want to stay with you.
At night, one of us would end up staying in the room with the dog. And on the last morning, she stayed with me as I loaded the luggage into our truck.

The only thing about bringing a dog, is make sure they don't bark when you first get into the room. The HRH is a party hotel, but we had people complain about her barking because the kids were excited, played with the dog, she barked, and some complained. After a friendly visit from hotel staff, we didn't let her bark anymore.

The HRH is much closer than the other hotels. You'll do less walking to the parks. But you'll still have a long walk from the park to the kennel at noon if your pet is there.

If you didn't see my TR with pics, it's here. If the site doesn't come up, try back later, they've been going down lately.
http://nogodforme.web1000.com/ioa.htm

 

[Minniespal]

Great report ~ Thanx for sharing.