I didn't book Sabal or Royal Palms because I was told that it was a hassle to walk to the main pool each day.
That's certainly true for Royal Palms (and the adjacent Imperial Palm Villas). It's walkable but you have to walk past the convention center to the hotel's front entrance. It may be a mile or so from Royal Palms to the hotel's doors, depending on where you're staying within the resort. But, then, that's what they have the resort shuttle for - it runs from the timeshare resorts to the hotel's entrance for timeshare resort guests who wish to use the hotel's amenities.
Not really true for Sabal Palms. Sabal Palms is located right behind the hotel just beyond the Spa building and, IMO, an easy walk to the hotel's pool complex - a 1/4 mile?, a 1/3 of a mile?
There are a lot of business people staying there and I have heard that gave the resort a strange feel.
That's true when there's a convention going on at the hotel's convention center but the hotel is so big that there's always a pretty good mix of business and leisure guests staying there. And there's little reason for business people to be there when there's no convention going on.
From what I could see, there are always people wearing business suits in the lobby area but many of them are hotel staff.
I agree that it's fairly odd to see people in swim wear walking into the hotel on their way to the pool when there are a bunch of suits walking around but who cares? They all have a legitimate reason to be there.
Again, this doesn't really affect people staying at Sabal Palms as they can just take the short walk from the back of the hotel and walk directly to the pool area never seeing the hotel's lobby area.
Dick Taylor