My dh, and two ds (8 & 9) and I just returned from a week at the PBH. The hotel is lovely and the room was very comfortable (we had a bayview room) with a very large bathroom but I wish we had tried one of the other two hotels. We had the entertainment rate of $170/nt. and did receive our milk and cookies as a Loews first member. We arrived at about 2 pm on Saturday and had to wait about 20-25 minutes to check in (no separate Loews first check in line). We asked if we could get an upgrade but they had no rooms available as they were booked solid that night. I could not even get a West Wing room which I had requested when I had made the reservations two months before. They had assured me at that time there would be no problem and even confirmed there would be no problem when I called a week ahead to confirm the ressie but when I got there they said the West wing was booked solid. Then they forgot to give me my park tickets which had been delivered to the hotel that morning from the ticket agent and they forgot to give me a room key for one of my sons. They also did not give my sons the "Loews loves kids" gift (the pail and shovel they didn't care about but they do like shell necklaces-turns out they were out of the necklaces so they sent up a pail and shovel filled with candy). On top of that we had been told there were dataports in every room which we took to mean high speed access but it turns out the dataports are only dial up (we have no dial up provider as we have high speed access so my husband had to bring his laptop to the business center every day to check email and do a little work-all for an extra hourly fee of course.) So we had a number of small but annoying disappointments. As problems grew our front desk person started to feel bad I guess and came up with a West Wing room that would be available the next morning but it was on the first floor which we didn't want- no sense paying for the bay view if you're not getting a view. She said we could check back every day to see what was available but we did not want to have to move once we were unpacked so we just stayed with the room which was nice just very far away from everything. All of the staff was friendly and helpful but many other guests tended to be reserved and stayed to themselves. I would consider not the hotel but its guests as somewhat stuffy. Not a day went by that I didn't overhear someone (without children of course) saying they preferred the villa pool as there weren't so many children running around. And mind you I did not see or hear one loud or obnoxious child the whole time I was there. Everyone I encountered was well behaved so the problem wasn't that the children were loud or anything it just seemed some people thought that there ought not to be children there at all. (There are some places that do not allow children under a certain age but not here of course).
We checked out all three pools and really liked the beach pool and the villa pool. Both are large pools and have hot tubs next to them (the one for the beach pool is all the way in the back-took us 4 days to find it.) The hillside pool is a small oval pool with a few lounge chairs around it at the end of the East wing. Nothing much to it but quiet and secluded if you just want to relax.
Went over to the HRH one day to use their pool and enjoyed it very much. It is larger and a little deeper (and cooler which felt good in the heat) than the PBH pools and had nice lounge chairs (the ones at the beach pool were very uncomfortable-the ones at the villa pool were much better as they had nice cushions on them). At the HRH they had a basketball net on the side of the pool which my boys played with the whole time and ping pong and pool tables in the area around the pool. They also had a nicer bar right there next to the pool where you can sit in the shade and have a sandwich or something-the one at PBH is a stand up bar where you order drinks to drink in or by the pool or under a little awning where they had six or seven small tables. If you want to sit in the shade you have to go across the way to the cafe that provides the food to the pool area. There are a few umbrellas scattered around the pool area but they are taken fast on hot days.
We also tried all the modes of transportation. The boats are nice and come every 15-20 minutes. They also have shuttle buses that run between the hotels that come every 30 minutes. We took that to the HRH pool that one day-also very comfortable and we had it all to ourselves. And one day we just walked to the parks (early in the day before it got too hot) and it wasn't bad-maybe 15 minutes at the most.
The FOTL access definitely made it worth it to stay on site (that and the convenient transportation) but next time I would spend less and try one of the other hotels.
We checked out all three pools and really liked the beach pool and the villa pool. Both are large pools and have hot tubs next to them (the one for the beach pool is all the way in the back-took us 4 days to find it.) The hillside pool is a small oval pool with a few lounge chairs around it at the end of the East wing. Nothing much to it but quiet and secluded if you just want to relax.
Went over to the HRH one day to use their pool and enjoyed it very much. It is larger and a little deeper (and cooler which felt good in the heat) than the PBH pools and had nice lounge chairs (the ones at the beach pool were very uncomfortable-the ones at the villa pool were much better as they had nice cushions on them). At the HRH they had a basketball net on the side of the pool which my boys played with the whole time and ping pong and pool tables in the area around the pool. They also had a nicer bar right there next to the pool where you can sit in the shade and have a sandwich or something-the one at PBH is a stand up bar where you order drinks to drink in or by the pool or under a little awning where they had six or seven small tables. If you want to sit in the shade you have to go across the way to the cafe that provides the food to the pool area. There are a few umbrellas scattered around the pool area but they are taken fast on hot days.
We also tried all the modes of transportation. The boats are nice and come every 15-20 minutes. They also have shuttle buses that run between the hotels that come every 30 minutes. We took that to the HRH pool that one day-also very comfortable and we had it all to ourselves. And one day we just walked to the parks (early in the day before it got too hot) and it wasn't bad-maybe 15 minutes at the most.
The FOTL access definitely made it worth it to stay on site (that and the convenient transportation) but next time I would spend less and try one of the other hotels.
