Marriott's Cypress Harbour Has anyone stayed recently, give your review.

[darrius1st]

My family is looking to stay at Marriott's Cypress Harbour in late Sept. Is it a good resort for families? Do they have daily activities and how are the rooms and the pools?

 

[Detailor]

The short answer is that this is a great resort.

We've stayed at Cypress Harbour several times and it's our obvious choice when available. It's a very nice family-oriented resort with a great, laid-back feel and terrific staff. Marriott does a very nice job in upkeep and the villas seem to be constantly upgraded.

The resort has three pool areas - large Clubhouse pool area (just down the stairs from the Pavilion Bar, the Galley Grill, the Marketplace store and the main Clubhouse; one or two hot tubs, a kids' water feature, a large irregularly shaped pool usually with a volleyball net set up in one section, tables and chairs and lounges all through the very large poolside/lakeside decking area) that's connected by the bridge over the lake to the so-called Island pool area (lap pool connected to a general pool with a waterfall that runs off the back of the sauna building, one or two hot tubs, a little beach area and lots of chairs and lounges), and the small Bayside pool area located at the end of the lake and fairly close to the activities center with a hot tub, a pool and some chairs and lounges. There's a putting green, a couple of tennis courts, a fairly new (two or three years old?) Spa/Fitness Center, a little mini-golf course, an odd little assortment of rental water craft, rental bikes/surrey bikes, a lakeside sand volleyball court, basketball, shuffleboard, bocce, an open, grassy area that's dubbed The Soccer Field, a video game room. And there's a full-fledged childrens' activities program and I think that I read that they had added some adult activities as well.

The villas are, in my opinion, among the nicest of timeshare lodging in the Orlando area - probably not the nicest (pictures of Marriott's Lakeshore Reserve and Hilton Grand Vacation Club's Parc Soleil look really outstanding) but very near the top of category. The twenty-two buildings are either located around the lake (12 of these) or have a golf course view (the other 10 buildings). We've always asked for and been placed in a lake view building, usually on the top floor as we've asked for that. The one drawback, depending on the size of your party, is the layout in the second bedroom - there's a queen bed and a queen sofa bed in there and, when the sofa bed is pulled out, there tends not to be a lot of walk-through space in that room. I've always found that to be an odd layout in an otherwise spacious villa but it does accommodate four people. Other than the second bedroom, there's a king bed in the master bedroom and a queen sofa bed in the living room.

This is a really nice resort with a good central location with easy access to the major attractions (roughly mid-way between Disney and Universal and just around the corner from SeaWorld, my wife and I have walked from the resort to SeaWorld). While there are no restaurants in the immediate area, it's a short drive to several.

Dick Taylor

 

[MikeP22]

Seems like Detailor gave a really decent and spot-on analysis of the resort. I think the only thing he may have missed was the nature trail, which we thought was fun.

The only thing I have to add is that we went there in 2011 and loved it and are staying there again at the end of this month. We did consider trying the Grande Vista this time around since we're going to have two other adults with us this time around, but we figured we had such a good time it was worth going there again.

I doubt you'll be disappointed.

 

[MikeP22]

Do note though, I think that the Island Pool is being closed for renovation in September. We liked that pool a lot. Contact the resort to make sure.

 

[darrius1st]

Thanks for the reviews and information and I will call to check on the Island pool.