MichiganMom
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2006
- Messages
- 19
We just got home last night and since this board was so helpful to us, I wanted to post a trip report and hopefully help someone else, even if it's just to put your mind at ease a little about staying at RPR. After some of the negative reviews on here, we were a little worried. We did a lot of debating about paying to stay at the RPR vs. the $79 a night off-site hotel. We are so glad we paid to stay on-site. We had a wonderful stay. I would go back in a heartbeat.
Check-in:
We stood in line for less than a 5 minutes. The only dissapointment of our trip happened at this point. We booked our vacation through Funjet via AAA and even though we ended paying a higher rate than the $129 AP rate (that came out after we booked through Funjet) we weren't able to get any of the Loews First perks, like room upgrade, welcome gift, points, late check-out. We added the charge option to my room key and my husband's room key. This is a great option if you don't want to carry around a lot of cash at the parks. You can charge food, drinks and souvenirs to the room at the parks and the City Walk restaurants.. but BEWARE, check your charges often (you can do this on your tv in the room). 3 times we had charges hit that weren't ours. One was a $19 mini bar charge and 2 separate charges for $183 showed up. We called immediately and they said it was a computer error and the charges were removed.
Rooms:
Once we were told that my Loews First number was useless, I figured that we would end up getting one of the worst rooms in the whole hotel, probably with a view of the garbage dumpsters or something similar. But our room was on the 2nd floor with a nice view of the gardens. Our room was very clean and we had no complaints. There were 5 of us and we brought along an air mattress for one of the kids. I called the "Star Service" button on the phone and requested extra bedding and they brought it up within 15 minutes. We got to the parks early each morning and came back to the hotel every day around 1:30 to cool off at the pool before heading back to the parks. Our room was already cleaned by this time every day except one.
Pool:
The pool at RPR was wonderful. It has a very tropical feel, with lots of palm trees and reggae music playing. The pool does not have a waterslide but it's deeper than the HRH pool and has a kids play area that our kids enjoyed (11 and 12 year olds, so not just for little kids). The cabanas at RPR are small but not as small and out of the way as I thought they were going to be after hearing them described by others. For the price, I think they are worth renting. We did rent a cabana at HRH and spent an entire day there. The resort was nice but we weren't as impressed by it as we thought we were going to be. The pool is smaller than RPR and the music is loud. We found the RPR pool to be much more relaxing.
Restaurants at RPR:
We ate at Islands and Jake's. The menus are very similar with a few more upscale choices at Islands. Islands has a kid's buffett for dinner (not sure about breakfast or lunch) with chicken strips, mac & cheese (homemade, not Kraft), pizza, salad and brownies for $3.99 including a drink!! They even let my 14 year eat for $3.99!! And the kids have their own dining room!!
This was a pleasant surprise, not that we didn't want to eat dinner with our kids, but after a long day at the parks, it was nice to have a quiet dinner with my husband and the kids enjoyed their time alone too. My husband and 14 year old also tried the sushi bar and said it was very good. We did not make it to Emeril's.
I definitely recommend going to the grocery store and getting a few supplies. We saved a lot of money and time by eating breakfast in the room before leaving for the park. There is an Albertson's a few miles from the hotel. The front desk will write out directions. We bought a couple of foam coolers to keep things cold.
Express pass:
PRICELESS!! My husband and kids walked up to the Hulk ride and the sign said there was an 80 minute wait but they were on it in less than 10 minutes! I think that is the longest we waited for any of the rides. Most of the time you just walk right on. Ask at the front desk and they will punch a hole in your room key and you can wear it around your neck on a lanyard.
Check-in:
We stood in line for less than a 5 minutes. The only dissapointment of our trip happened at this point. We booked our vacation through Funjet via AAA and even though we ended paying a higher rate than the $129 AP rate (that came out after we booked through Funjet) we weren't able to get any of the Loews First perks, like room upgrade, welcome gift, points, late check-out. We added the charge option to my room key and my husband's room key. This is a great option if you don't want to carry around a lot of cash at the parks. You can charge food, drinks and souvenirs to the room at the parks and the City Walk restaurants.. but BEWARE, check your charges often (you can do this on your tv in the room). 3 times we had charges hit that weren't ours. One was a $19 mini bar charge and 2 separate charges for $183 showed up. We called immediately and they said it was a computer error and the charges were removed.
Rooms:
Once we were told that my Loews First number was useless, I figured that we would end up getting one of the worst rooms in the whole hotel, probably with a view of the garbage dumpsters or something similar. But our room was on the 2nd floor with a nice view of the gardens. Our room was very clean and we had no complaints. There were 5 of us and we brought along an air mattress for one of the kids. I called the "Star Service" button on the phone and requested extra bedding and they brought it up within 15 minutes. We got to the parks early each morning and came back to the hotel every day around 1:30 to cool off at the pool before heading back to the parks. Our room was already cleaned by this time every day except one.
Pool:
The pool at RPR was wonderful. It has a very tropical feel, with lots of palm trees and reggae music playing. The pool does not have a waterslide but it's deeper than the HRH pool and has a kids play area that our kids enjoyed (11 and 12 year olds, so not just for little kids). The cabanas at RPR are small but not as small and out of the way as I thought they were going to be after hearing them described by others. For the price, I think they are worth renting. We did rent a cabana at HRH and spent an entire day there. The resort was nice but we weren't as impressed by it as we thought we were going to be. The pool is smaller than RPR and the music is loud. We found the RPR pool to be much more relaxing.
Restaurants at RPR:
We ate at Islands and Jake's. The menus are very similar with a few more upscale choices at Islands. Islands has a kid's buffett for dinner (not sure about breakfast or lunch) with chicken strips, mac & cheese (homemade, not Kraft), pizza, salad and brownies for $3.99 including a drink!! They even let my 14 year eat for $3.99!! And the kids have their own dining room!!
This was a pleasant surprise, not that we didn't want to eat dinner with our kids, but after a long day at the parks, it was nice to have a quiet dinner with my husband and the kids enjoyed their time alone too. My husband and 14 year old also tried the sushi bar and said it was very good. We did not make it to Emeril's. I definitely recommend going to the grocery store and getting a few supplies. We saved a lot of money and time by eating breakfast in the room before leaving for the park. There is an Albertson's a few miles from the hotel. The front desk will write out directions. We bought a couple of foam coolers to keep things cold.
Express pass:
PRICELESS!! My husband and kids walked up to the Hulk ride and the sign said there was an 80 minute wait but they were on it in less than 10 minutes! I think that is the longest we waited for any of the rides. Most of the time you just walk right on. Ask at the front desk and they will punch a hole in your room key and you can wear it around your neck on a lanyard.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write a trip report. I love RPR! 
