Just returned from a week at HRH (club) and US/IOA and Sea World. Again, thanks to all who provided such great insight and tips. We (me, DH and DD6) truly had a great vacation. 
* Arrived Orlando at 10 AM and we had reserved at town car w/FL Tours for transport to HRH. They were right on time and everything went smoothing both at arrival and departure. Checked in to HRH on Friday 8/21 around 11:30and got the call that our room (7073) was ready around 1:30. We shopped Citywalk and ate at Margaritaville in the meantime. Housekeeping was on par everyday but one. We usually left the room around 9 each morning and never returned until between 4 and 5 so I honestly have no idea what time they came, but it was always clean.
Only day we didn't get our room made up was Tuesday but we came back early to get ready for the Luau that night and when she knocked around 4:30 we were all in the middle of showers, so I just swapped out my towels for clean ones and went about my business. Our view was of the drive around at the front of the hotel, but no worries, we weren't in our room enough to enjoy a view much.
* LOVED HRH, staff was wonderful, courteous and helpful. I liked the smallness of the hotel. Seems RPR and PBH are much more spread out. Club staff was great. They were able to answer all of our questions and were super friendly. Could not have asked for more in that regard. DD loved the pool.
She literally would be up and down the slide the entire time we were there. She played some games, we enjoyed movie nite once (Ghostbusters) and DJ nite once. Very relaxing atmosphere at the pool. We spent our last day poolside (late flight) and it was a great way to end the trip. We decided to cancel our cabana ressie because we knew we would only be poolside for 4 or 5 hours and it didn't seem worth it to spend that kind of money. And, it wasn't so crowded that you couldn't get a chair poolside. We had no problems sitting poolside all week. Using the fitness center to shower and change before we left HRH around 4:30 was super easy to do!
* Club amenities. I don't know which way I fall here and that's probably because we didn't take advantage of the offerings like we could have
, but, we enjoyed the continental breakfast, although I wish they changed things up a bit after a few days. I got bored with the same offerings each morning (so we did eat the buffet at the Kitchen twice and I must say...YUMMY!!!). We did pop in a few evenings and grabbed some spirits and a bite to eat to hold us over for dinner. I know 2 of the nights they had the pot stickers, egg rolls (and the standard cheese and veggie trays), two nights were the chicken wings and one night was meatballs and parmesean chicken nuggets I believe. We only managed to catch dessert once, but it was a hit. Angel food cake with fresh fruit and whipped cream (and cookies too). It was really good. We did like the access to the snacks and sodas, so I guess all in all we got our $$ worth.
* The Kitchen. We ate dinner here 3 times and everything we had was wonderful. DH had the steak twice and the chicken and sausage pasta. Enjoyed both. I had the asian chicken salad (good, but would not order again), the rotisserie chicken which was very good and night three I had the wedge salad and the soup of day which hit the spot. DD got to eat free which was nice because I could not get her to sit long enough to eat. She would much rather be in the Kid's Krib, which by the way is GENIOUS.
DH and I loved having her close, but yet we were able to have some alone, adult conversation and linger over dinner a little without entertaining her. In fact Thursday nite we ate dinner around 8 and she was alone in the kids krib and I popped in and she was asleep in a bean bag chair. So sweet 
*The Luau. WONDERFUL. We checked in around 5:15, got assigned table #1 and to our surprise, they did not charge us for DD's dinner. Nice treat there. Food was yummy, drinks were flowing and the entertainment was really good. I am glad we did this as we almost cancelled that morning, but for us, it was worth the $$ spent.
*FOTL - absolutely worth staying on property just for this perk. I'm completely spoiled now. We walked on most rides and attractions, although most wait times for the regular lines didn't look that bad. It was also nice because we separated some so that DH and I could go ride the coasters that DD is not tall enough for yet and we were able to do that quickley.
*Weather - to qualify, we just moved to VA from New Orleans 6 months ago, so we are used to heat and honestly, I didn't think that it was all that hot last week. Sunday and Thursday were both very humid, but other than that, we weren't miserable. We never got caught in any rain storms either. It did sprinkle off and on most evenings, but usually after 5 and most times just enough to be annoying, but not enough to break out the poncho or stop us from doing anything. I consider ourselves lucky in the weather department.
*Universal Studios - DD could not get enough of Jimmy Neutron, Shrek, Jaws and the Simpsons (when she discovered ET, that got added to the list too). We must have ridden all of these 10 times. DH and I both enjoyed the Mummy and neither of us was going to stand in line for RRR. I was hearing upwards of 3 hours.
DD did not like MIB at all (I think it was too noisy for her) and of course the Kid Zone was a hit. We also did Twister and Disaster, but we really didn't care for those too much. Twister seems really outdated to me and Disaster was just WAY too long (and I got bored to tell ya the truth ). We all enjoyed the Graveyard Rock Show. DD loves music so she thoroughly enjoyed this show.
*Universal eats - We ate at Mel's Diner for lunch. Typical diner food, nothing to write home about but it was good. We also ate lunch one day at Finnegan's and loved the onion/pototoe appetizer. Malt vinegar and salt = YUM YUM YUM!!! I also like that they offered DD something other than french fries as a side. I've never seen a kid down applesauce so fast in my life. We did purchase a refillable souvenier cup and most times refilled it with ice water and I brought my lemonade packets. Was very nice to have in the heat. Did use it for soda's at lunch and an icee or too (which BTW are only discounted by about 50 cents). All week long the pretzels and churros were buy one get one 1/2 off. Nice little snack treat
*Universal characters - we met Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, Sponge Bob, Woody Woodpecker, Curious George, Scooby Doo, Marilyn Monroe and Lucy & Dezi
*Islands of Adventure - GREAT park. Cannot say enough about Spiderman (DD's fav I think. Might be a slight crush there too
), nor about Dr. Seauss land. I think we all really enjoyed that area. One fish Two fish was great, as was the Cat and Hat ride and the train. We spent a lot of time in this area on several days. Also enjoyed the dinosaur flyer ride and DH and I both enjoyed Hulk (never made it to dueling dragons). We both thought Dr. Doom's was a little bit of let down, but fun nonetheless. We didn't do too much over in Jurassic Park either because DD still remembers how scary Dinosaur over at AK was for her and that's done her in with dinos 
. I think DDs favorite attaction of the whole trip was the Bilge Barge Rat raft ride. UGH!! She hated the log flume ride (althought I don't know why because she loves the same kind of ride here at BG W'burg), but that raft ride, day 1 we rode 4 times, day 2, just myself and DD, again 4 or 5 times, and day 3, just DH and DD, another 4. WHY must kids like those rides? And let me tell ya, SOAKED, SOAKED, SOAKED!!!!!!!!!!!!! And that was for everyone on the ride. I don't think I ever sat in a raft with one lucky rider. Everyone was drenched by the end.
*Island eats. We ate both lunchs in Dr. Seauss land. Burgers and chicken sandwiches on day 1 and day 2 DD and I shared a pizza (DH hung and relaxed at the hotel for part of this day). Good food, can't complain.
*Island characters. We met Spidy, X-men gals (I think??), Cat in the Hat, Grinch, Sam I Am and Thing 1 and Thing 2.
*Universal & Island gripes - my only real gripe with US, other than some outdated attractions (IMO) is the stagged openings of some of the areas of the parks. Our first day there we got there around 8:45 and they were already letting people in the parks, but other than Shrek & Jimmy Neutron there wasn't else much to do with a 6 year old. RRR didn't open 'til 10, same for Twister and then Jaws and the Kid Zone not 'til 11. I personally think that is REALLY late for a Kid Area to open, including ET. I can't remember if the Simpsons was open a 9 or not, but trying to "do" the park in a circle type way was hard with that kind of staggering. Just my opinion though
. Now, my BIG gripe with both parks, the photographers are OBNOXIOUS!!!!! They were everywhere and a little too "in your face" for my liking. They seemed to be stationed about 5 feet apart at the entrances to both parks (so you encountered 4 or 5 of them within 30 seconds) and I literrally felt attacked trying to just get in to the park. We did a family photo on day 1 and I don't need one everyday. I hated to be rude, but I eventually just completely ignored them with no acknowledgment whatsoever
*Sea World. Spent 1 whole day at Sea World and enjoyed getting to feed and pet the dolphins and stingrays. Feeding the sea lions was fun too. We did all of the attractions. Wanted to ride Manta, but having to swap a kid, just didn't want to wait the time we would have to have waited, so maybe next time. As for the shows. I was a little disappointed. IMO, WAY too much storytelling and not enough action. The dolphin show had more "flying human birds" than actual dolphin "stunts". What happened to the dolphins jumping through hoops, and jumping up to touch the ball? Same for the Believe show. Too much sappy storytelling for me. Give me some whale action. We had the option for a free day 2 at SW, but DD never asked to go back, so why spend the cab money to go. We cabbed it from HRH to SW and back and it was about $18 each was, so with a tip about $23 one way.
Overall, we had a wonderful trip. While I LOVE Disney, this was a much more laid back, relaxed vacation and DH loved not being tied to dining reservations for a whole week. However, we did do Disney a whole lot cheaper (and I think that's because the eating gets pricey). You can't beat a package deal from Disney if you can hit a special. But, on the other hand, we were able to sleep in and do what we wanted, when we wanted and bounce from park to park all week with such ease (love those water taxis). I can't remember the last vacation we took where we actually relaxed quite a bit. DH and I are keeping an eye on the Velvet Sessions event calendar as we would love to do a short weekend at HRH when we can catch a concert we like and hit the parks for a day and relax poolside some ALONE
Any questions, feel free to ask. I'm no expert by any means, but it's fresh in my mind!!!!
* Arrived Orlando at 10 AM and we had reserved at town car w/FL Tours for transport to HRH. They were right on time and everything went smoothing both at arrival and departure. Checked in to HRH on Friday 8/21 around 11:30and got the call that our room (7073) was ready around 1:30. We shopped Citywalk and ate at Margaritaville in the meantime. Housekeeping was on par everyday but one. We usually left the room around 9 each morning and never returned until between 4 and 5 so I honestly have no idea what time they came, but it was always clean.
Only day we didn't get our room made up was Tuesday but we came back early to get ready for the Luau that night and when she knocked around 4:30 we were all in the middle of showers, so I just swapped out my towels for clean ones and went about my business. Our view was of the drive around at the front of the hotel, but no worries, we weren't in our room enough to enjoy a view much. * LOVED HRH, staff was wonderful, courteous and helpful. I liked the smallness of the hotel. Seems RPR and PBH are much more spread out. Club staff was great. They were able to answer all of our questions and were super friendly. Could not have asked for more in that regard. DD loved the pool.
She literally would be up and down the slide the entire time we were there. She played some games, we enjoyed movie nite once (Ghostbusters) and DJ nite once. Very relaxing atmosphere at the pool. We spent our last day poolside (late flight) and it was a great way to end the trip. We decided to cancel our cabana ressie because we knew we would only be poolside for 4 or 5 hours and it didn't seem worth it to spend that kind of money. And, it wasn't so crowded that you couldn't get a chair poolside. We had no problems sitting poolside all week. Using the fitness center to shower and change before we left HRH around 4:30 was super easy to do!* Club amenities. I don't know which way I fall here and that's probably because we didn't take advantage of the offerings like we could have
, but, we enjoyed the continental breakfast, although I wish they changed things up a bit after a few days. I got bored with the same offerings each morning (so we did eat the buffet at the Kitchen twice and I must say...YUMMY!!!). We did pop in a few evenings and grabbed some spirits and a bite to eat to hold us over for dinner. I know 2 of the nights they had the pot stickers, egg rolls (and the standard cheese and veggie trays), two nights were the chicken wings and one night was meatballs and parmesean chicken nuggets I believe. We only managed to catch dessert once, but it was a hit. Angel food cake with fresh fruit and whipped cream (and cookies too). It was really good. We did like the access to the snacks and sodas, so I guess all in all we got our $$ worth.* The Kitchen.
We ate dinner here 3 times and everything we had was wonderful. DH had the steak twice and the chicken and sausage pasta. Enjoyed both. I had the asian chicken salad (good, but would not order again), the rotisserie chicken which was very good and night three I had the wedge salad and the soup of day which hit the spot. DD got to eat free which was nice because I could not get her to sit long enough to eat. She would much rather be in the Kid's Krib, which by the way is GENIOUS. DH and I loved having her close, but yet we were able to have some alone, adult conversation and linger over dinner a little without entertaining her. In fact Thursday nite we ate dinner around 8 and she was alone in the kids krib and I popped in and she was asleep in a bean bag chair. So sweet *The Luau. WONDERFUL. We checked in around 5:15, got assigned table #1 and to our surprise, they did not charge us for DD's dinner. Nice treat there. Food was yummy, drinks were flowing and the entertainment was really good. I am glad we did this as we almost cancelled that morning, but for us, it was worth the $$ spent.
*FOTL - absolutely worth staying on property just for this perk
. I'm completely spoiled now. We walked on most rides and attractions, although most wait times for the regular lines didn't look that bad. It was also nice because we separated some so that DH and I could go ride the coasters that DD is not tall enough for yet and we were able to do that quickley. *Weather - to qualify, we just moved to VA from New Orleans 6 months ago, so we are used to heat and honestly, I didn't think that it was all that hot last week. Sunday and Thursday were both very humid, but other than that, we weren't miserable. We never got caught in any rain storms either. It did sprinkle off and on most evenings, but usually after 5 and most times just enough to be annoying, but not enough to break out the poncho or stop us from doing anything. I consider ourselves lucky in the weather department.
*Universal Studios - DD could not get enough of Jimmy Neutron, Shrek, Jaws and the Simpsons (when she discovered ET, that got added to the list too). We must have ridden all of these 10 times. DH and I both enjoyed the Mummy and neither of us was going to stand in line for RRR. I was hearing upwards of 3 hours.
DD did not like MIB at all (I think it was too noisy for her) and of course the Kid Zone was a hit. We also did Twister and Disaster, but we really didn't care for those too much. Twister seems really outdated to me and Disaster was just WAY too long (and I got bored to tell ya the truth ). We all enjoyed the Graveyard Rock Show. DD loves music so she thoroughly enjoyed this show. *Universal eats - We ate at Mel's Diner for lunch. Typical diner food, nothing to write home about but it was good. We also ate lunch one day at Finnegan's and loved the onion/pototoe appetizer. Malt vinegar and salt = YUM YUM YUM!!! I also like that they offered DD something other than french fries as a side. I've never seen a kid down applesauce so fast in my life. We did purchase a refillable souvenier cup and most times refilled it with ice water and I brought my lemonade packets. Was very nice to have in the heat. Did use it for soda's at lunch and an icee or too (which BTW are only discounted by about 50 cents). All week long the pretzels and churros were buy one get one 1/2 off. Nice little snack treat
*Universal characters - we met Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, Sponge Bob, Woody Woodpecker, Curious George, Scooby Doo, Marilyn Monroe and Lucy & Dezi
*Islands of Adventure - GREAT park. Cannot say enough about Spiderman (DD's fav I think. Might be a slight crush there too
), nor about Dr. Seauss land. I think we all really enjoyed that area. One fish Two fish was great, as was the Cat and Hat ride and the train. We spent a lot of time in this area on several days. Also enjoyed the dinosaur flyer ride and DH and I both enjoyed Hulk (never made it to dueling dragons). We both thought Dr. Doom's was a little bit of let down, but fun nonetheless. We didn't do too much over in Jurassic Park either because DD still remembers how scary Dinosaur over at AK was for her and that's done her in with dinos . I think DDs favorite attaction of the whole trip was the Bilge Barge Rat raft ride. UGH!! She hated the log flume ride (althought I don't know why because she loves the same kind of ride here at BG W'burg), but that raft ride, day 1 we rode 4 times, day 2, just myself and DD, again 4 or 5 times, and day 3, just DH and DD, another 4. WHY must kids like those rides? And let me tell ya, SOAKED, SOAKED, SOAKED!!!!!!!!!!!!! And that was for everyone on the ride. I don't think I ever sat in a raft with one lucky rider. Everyone was drenched by the end.*Island eats. We ate both lunchs in Dr. Seauss land. Burgers and chicken sandwiches on day 1 and day 2 DD and I shared a pizza (DH hung and relaxed at the hotel for part of this day). Good food, can't complain.
*Island characters. We met Spidy, X-men gals (I think??), Cat in the Hat, Grinch, Sam I Am and Thing 1 and Thing 2.
*Universal & Island gripes - my only real gripe with US, other than some outdated attractions (IMO) is the stagged openings of some of the areas of the parks. Our first day there we got there around 8:45 and they were already letting people in the parks, but other than Shrek & Jimmy Neutron there wasn't else much to do with a 6 year old. RRR didn't open 'til 10, same for Twister and then Jaws and the Kid Zone not 'til 11. I personally think that is REALLY late for a Kid Area to open, including ET. I can't remember if the Simpsons was open a 9 or not, but trying to "do" the park in a circle type way was hard with that kind of staggering. Just my opinion though
. Now, my BIG gripe with both parks, the photographers are OBNOXIOUS!!!!! They were everywhere and a little too "in your face" for my liking. They seemed to be stationed about 5 feet apart at the entrances to both parks (so you encountered 4 or 5 of them within 30 seconds) and I literrally felt attacked trying to just get in to the park. We did a family photo on day 1 and I don't need one everyday. I hated to be rude, but I eventually just completely ignored them with no acknowledgment whatsoever *Sea World. Spent 1 whole day at Sea World and enjoyed getting to feed and pet the dolphins and stingrays. Feeding the sea lions was fun too. We did all of the attractions. Wanted to ride Manta, but having to swap a kid, just didn't want to wait the time we would have to have waited, so maybe next time. As for the shows. I was a little disappointed. IMO, WAY too much storytelling and not enough action. The dolphin show had more "flying human birds" than actual dolphin "stunts". What happened to the dolphins jumping through hoops, and jumping up to touch the ball? Same for the Believe show. Too much sappy storytelling for me. Give me some whale action
. We had the option for a free day 2 at SW, but DD never asked to go back, so why spend the cab money to go. We cabbed it from HRH to SW and back and it was about $18 each was, so with a tip about $23 one way.Overall, we had a wonderful trip. While I LOVE Disney, this was a much more laid back, relaxed vacation and DH loved not being tied to dining reservations for a whole week. However, we did do Disney a whole lot cheaper (and I think that's because the eating gets pricey). You can't beat a package deal from Disney if you can hit a special. But, on the other hand, we were able to sleep in and do what we wanted, when we wanted and bounce from park to park all week with such ease (love those water taxis). I can't remember the last vacation we took where we actually relaxed quite a bit. DH and I are keeping an eye on the Velvet Sessions event calendar as we would love to do a short weekend at HRH when we can catch a concert we like and hit the parks for a day and relax poolside some ALONE
Any questions, feel free to ask. I'm no expert by any means, but it's fresh in my mind!!!!
We will be there next weekend! 
