tarheelmjfan
Proud Redhead
- Joined
- May 10, 2001
- Messages
- 13,827
My first thought about the HRH and Universal Orlando, is after staying on-site at Universal, my entire family agrees that it will be quite awhile before we can convince ourselves to return to WDW. This is coming from a family who has had an AP for WDW for the past 4 years. I am a WDW fanatic, and have been dragging my DH and DS along for numerous trips each year. For Universal, my DH and DS were an easy sell. I was expecting to be the lone hold-out. Keeping in mind, that we had been to Universal when IOA and PB previewed, I was still skeptical. We stayed at PB and loved it, but obviously I wasn't impressed enough to return until now. Aftering visiting last week and experiencing the on-site perks, even I am sold. We have decided that our AP's will now be purchased at Universal. The one thing that we have decided to do differently, is stay longer. We didn't feel like 4 nights were enough for us to relax and enjoy all that was offered. When we return, we will stay 7 nights and dedicate 2 or 3 of those days to the pool w/ a cabana.
It is only fair that I be objective and list what we feel could either be improved upon or what we didn't get our money's worth for:
-In our experience the cabana wasn't worth the $75 we paid for it. We had planned to start our day at the park, then return when it got too hot and take advantage of the cabana. When we returned, we passed by our cabana and it was already occupied by a gentleman. Fortunately, we had not officially paid for it yet so none of our stuff was in it. We went to check-in with rockreation and they had removed him by the time we got out there. A few negatives in the cabanas... our drinks never got cold, and it took them a couple hours to deliver our fruit tray. The worst thing by far was the ants. They were EVERYWHERE! We had to put everything in the frig. to keep the ants off it. Also, we reserved the cabana on Fri. in order to take advantage of the Dive-in movie. It rained and the movie was held indoors. Certainly not HRH's fault, but still a disappointment for us. To be honest, I'm not sure how good we could have seen the movie from there anyway. We cancelled the cabana we had reserved for Sun. As I mentioned earlier, we will reserve a cabana again, but only if we have the entire day to lounge by the pool.
-IMO, the place that Universal is woefully lacking is in their dining options. At WDW we plan our trip around dining. We won't be doing this at Universal.
We will be having breakfast and lunch in our room, and will be eating at Emeril's alot for dinner. I will be reviewing the places we ate seperately, but I will forewarn you that we were not impressed at all. Mythos was the exception, as we enjoyed it very much. 
-We also felt like they needed a store somewhere on property where you could get things for a quick break. or lunch in your room, since the options at the hotel were so limited. The store also needs more over-the-counter meds. We would have been happy with this type of store at any of the Resorts or Citywalk. We just didn't want to have to drive off property.
As a whole, we felt that the positives far out-weighed the negatives, and we can't wait to return. However, next time we will be better prepared.
It is only fair that I be objective and list what we feel could either be improved upon or what we didn't get our money's worth for:
-In our experience the cabana wasn't worth the $75 we paid for it. We had planned to start our day at the park, then return when it got too hot and take advantage of the cabana. When we returned, we passed by our cabana and it was already occupied by a gentleman. Fortunately, we had not officially paid for it yet so none of our stuff was in it. We went to check-in with rockreation and they had removed him by the time we got out there. A few negatives in the cabanas... our drinks never got cold, and it took them a couple hours to deliver our fruit tray. The worst thing by far was the ants. They were EVERYWHERE! We had to put everything in the frig. to keep the ants off it. Also, we reserved the cabana on Fri. in order to take advantage of the Dive-in movie. It rained and the movie was held indoors. Certainly not HRH's fault, but still a disappointment for us. To be honest, I'm not sure how good we could have seen the movie from there anyway. We cancelled the cabana we had reserved for Sun. As I mentioned earlier, we will reserve a cabana again, but only if we have the entire day to lounge by the pool.
-IMO, the place that Universal is woefully lacking is in their dining options. At WDW we plan our trip around dining. We won't be doing this at Universal.
We will be having breakfast and lunch in our room, and will be eating at Emeril's alot for dinner. I will be reviewing the places we ate seperately, but I will forewarn you that we were not impressed at all. Mythos was the exception, as we enjoyed it very much. -We also felt like they needed a store somewhere on property where you could get things for a quick break. or lunch in your room, since the options at the hotel were so limited. The store also needs more over-the-counter meds. We would have been happy with this type of store at any of the Resorts or Citywalk. We just didn't want to have to drive off property.
As a whole, we felt that the positives far out-weighed the negatives, and we can't wait to return. However, next time we will be better prepared.
