Please help me - as well as others.. Where have you stayed off-site in the PAST 12 MO

[Reflection]

August 2002

Two nights club level room at Loews Royal Pacific Resort; rate: $149 (tax not included). Excellent accomodations and wonderful service. We will be back in just 11 days.

10 nights at HIFS. Rate $109/ night (tax not included). Good value for the price. My daughter (age 9 at the time) loved this resort. I found it comfortable and liked the various evening activities. One drawback: food here is pretty bad. We also had a rental car and came and went as we pleased. Bottom line: I would stay here again.

January 2003
3 nights Hampton Inn Lake Buena Vista; rate: $79 (tax not included). I was on a business trip in Florida, traveling solo, and tacked a long weekend at WDW. Hotel was very clean, and the continental breakfast was quite good. When traveling with my daughter, I like to have suite-style accomodation, so I would not stay here when traveling with my family. But if traveling solo, I would stay here again.

 

[JessicaR]

March 2003 we stayed at Portofino bay resort with a fan club rate, Deluxe room $160 a night. Beautiful hotel with large rooms. Service and restaurants were excellent! We have stayed here many times before and will keep going back.

June 2003 stayed at Universal Crowne Plaza. Hotwire rate $58 a night with a free upgrade. Loved this property. Clean spacious rooms and staff was wonderful. Free shuttle transportation to all the parks. Pool was small compared to others but was fine and did have a hot tub.

June 2003, Royal Pacific Resort. Beautiful resort! Fan Club rate $109 a night. Pool is great for adults and kids. The staff and restaurants were outstanding.

 

[gdljj]

We stayed at Vistana Villages in March 2003. We loved the property! We have three children (3,5, and 7) and this property is perfectly set up for families like ours.

The two bedroom units are spacious and nicely decorated. The porch was screened and had a ceiling fan. The kids loved eating popsicles out on the porch and going to the pool. The pool has a great zero-entry area with a splashing fountain in the center for little ones. The unit had a full kitchen, bar area with stools, dining room table with six chairs plus the porch had a table with four chairs. It was very easy and convenient to put meals together for our family for breakfast or after parks dinners.

This was our second stay in two years and we loved it just as much, so much so that we are going again in 2004!

 

[Mjasp]

AZKathy...When you told them about the ants and roaches, did they give you a problem changing rooms?

 

[momm2four]

October 2002

We stayed at Holiday Inn Family Suites for 6 nights and were very pleased. Would definitely go back. We got a rate of $99 per night b/c my mom was over 60. Free breakfast was a big money saver. Nothing outstanding, but sufficient. The kids' pool was AWESOME!. I also liked the baby pool. Fenced in and there was huge playground thing in the area. Kids enjoyed "trying to" play ping pong and miniature golf.

Location was perfect. Less than a mile to the gate of WDW. Getting back to the hotel was a little tricky, but I just followed the advice of someone on here and looked for the airplane signs.

Lots of activities for kids there (magic show, bingo, etc), but we didn't do any of those b/c we went to the parks or the pool most of the time.

They have deals in which you get your meals at the rest. included in the price. I wouldn't do that b/c we ate there one afternoon and the food was definitely not something I would want to eat every day.

Lastly, I, personally, wouldn't want to be there without a car. Their shuttles are very limited, not to mention crowded (HIFS isn't the only hotel using this shuttle if I'm remembering correctly) My husband and two sons took the shuttle back to the hotel from MK one night (MY mom took the van w/ our other sons back early). We waited quite a while for the bus and then we held our sons in our laps b/c there were SOOOO many people on the bus after we picked up from the other parks.

HTH,
Lori P.

 

[i12go2wdw]

We stayed at Tropical Palms Resort May 2003. It is located behind Old Town (never heard a sound or had any problems from Old town). We had a 2 bedroom and loft with pull out bed in livingroom, it could sleep 8 in total. Full kitchen ,very clean, not terribly new or fancy but lots of room and very comfortable. Large pool with a kiddie pool and little restraunt, with a good menu, by the pool. There is a playground, store and paths to walk on. The grounds are beautiful and very well kept. We paid $79 a night and this will be where we stay from now on, our fist trip we stayed at Fort Wilderness, Tropical Palms was better suited for us.

Christine

 

[AZKathy]

Originally posted by Mjasp
AZKathy...When you told them about the ants and roaches, did they give you a problem changing rooms?

It took numerous days of coming out and spraying the condo. I believe, a person came out the first night we found them and hand sprayed. The second day, a professional came out. The third day, another professional came out.

We had a group of 12 in two condos. On the fourth day in our stay, they offered for us to move (friend who traded RCI on her timeshare spent a lot of time on the phone with the powers that be), but we said that was probably not the best thing so far into the time we were staying there, so they gave each condo $100 in "Vistana Bucks" which we could spend at the resort. So, we got $200 of groceries there for our next part of our trip which was on property at OKW.

Honestly, I know there bugs are hard to control in Florida. I even read about ants at BCV in WDW. I did not like the odor of the villas and also, the master bathroom's shower was this terribly deep bathtub (jacuzzi) which was very very hard to get into for showering; I was afraid I would slip and fall with the depth of the tub. The villa looked like it was a 1960's-70's apartment renovated as much as it could be to be updated, but still has a lot of the 1960s/70's hanging around.

Just make sure you get the new villas and you should be very satisfied.

 

[Robinrs]

Are ya READY???

Here goes:

May 2002 (okay a little more than 12 months!)
A private home in Rolling Hills via Elite Homes. AWESOME!! Four bedrooms, 3 baths, private pool... $600 a week!! WooHOOO!

June 2002 -- Last minute trip -- Hampton Inn Universal. Cute and comfy, Queen suite had a microwave and refrigerator. Continental breakfast was great and the service was very nice. Great for $44.90 a night via Hotel Kingdom.

December/Jan 2003 -- Wellesley Inns and Suites Southpark via Priceline for $30 a night, December 30 and 31st. Great continental breakfast, LOVED the area which had a Wal Mart and lots of shopping and dining choices right across the street and about 5 minutes from USF. The little one bedroom suite was small but great. It had a full size refrigerator and a great kitchen set up.

Jan 2003 -- Summerfield Suites I-Drive -- A Wyndham property so I got the Wyndham by Request rate for $59 a night. Awesome one bedroom suite! Really nice property, room looked like a condo. Adequate continental breakfast, but not as good as the Wellesley.

April 2003 -- Wyndham Orlando Resort I-Drive/ Royal Pacific Resort.

Wyndham as for one night, won on Priceline for $38 a night. Loved the location and the room was very nice.

Royal Pacific, my HANDS DOWN favorite!! The world could learn how to treat a guest from the good folks at the RPR! I hurt myself during that trip and they treated me like a queen. The room was cozy and felt like a big HUG. I cannot tell you how much I LOVED that hotel.

June 2003 -- Vistana Resort and Portofino Bay Hotel.

Vistana was AWESOME. We stayed at the Lakes section and it just felt like HOME. I will have a hard time comparing anyplace to this place ever again. The jacuzzi in the room the view of the pool, the cool screened patio, all equaled heaven to me!

Portofino was Luxury personified. It was like living in an Italian villa. Yup, I felt like DaisyMae Clampett jumping in the CEment pond!

July 2003 -- Embassy Grand Beach/Wyndham Orlando Resort

At Embassy we had a 1 bedroom and it is quite claustrophobic. I went on the tour and saw the 2 and 3 and boy, did I wish I had that instead!! They were awesome! The staff was quite rude and I had to report them twice. Not fun. The Embassy only made me wish I were across the street at Vistana! I got them on a deal with discounthotels.cc for $39 a night.

Wyndham did not disappoint again. The service was great and the room was very nice. I asked to be put right in front of the washer and dryer (the front desk guy was ) because we didn't have one at the Embassy... after I was told I WOULD have one... so I had a bunch of dirty clothing to wash before going home. They put me there reluctantly (it can be quite noisy) but I was fine with it. We were able to have clean clothes for the ride home!

Is that enough????

 

[C.Ann]

Great info so far!!

robinrs - just where is the South Park area? I've seen a few places advertised there but got the feeling it was like in the heart of the Orland "city" district? Could you tell me what the main road is out in front of the Wellesley Inn? Thanks!

 

[AZKathy]

Robin, I am so jealous! Wish we lived closer so we could visit more often.

 

[ScottOKW2K]

March and May this year - Summerfield Suites LBV 2 bedroom. Wyndham had a special %50 off sale one weekend - booked spring break at $89/night and Memorial Day week for $79/night. Thought the rooms were decent sized - breakfast was just ok but we preferred to eat in the room most mornings. Would definitely stay there again if that rate comes around.

June - 4 nights at Marriott Cypress Harbour. Very nice resort - compares favorably to Old Key West where we own. We took advantage of a promo I saw on Marriots web site in september of last year - $599 for 4 nights (studio) but this included 2 full Discovery Cove tickets. We paid an additional $199 to upgrade to a 2 bedroom. Since Marriott's per night rate for that time was about $250/night, I think we did pretty well. We had to attend a sales presentation, but found them to be quite professional about it - no pressure at all.

hope this helps !