KatieCharlotte
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2010
- Messages
- 1,147
We stayed recently at the Royal Pacific -- excellent in every way -- and decided to try out Cabana Bay's pools and food court. Our experience might be helpful for others considering a trip to Cabana Bay either for pool-hopping or to stay.
(1) It's a completely walkable trip from Royal Pacific to Cabana Bay. (And between those resorts and Sapphire Falls, which is between RPR and CB.) There's a walkway over the road. BUT, you need to know where you're going. We followed the walkway marked on the posted maps at RPR and ended up going the long way through Sapphire Falls. As we learned on the way back, it's better to go out the front entrance and go down the sidewalk to your left, which connects to the Garden walkway, and then follow the signs for the resorts instead of branching off toward the parks/Citywalk. That will lead you directly to the crosswalk over the road to Cabana Bay. On the other side of the road, there are blue circles on the sidewalk leading to the pools.
(2) The gates to the pool area did require a room card from Cabana Bay. I went to guest services in the lobby. This was a bit odd -- the woman who helped me said that the standard practice was to give me a room card after I showed her my RPR card, but she wasn't sure how to do that. Another employee told her to give me a duplicate for a random room. She didn't tell me the room number, so there was no real security problem, but still a bit unusual. Meanwhile, my kids had gotten into the pool area by waiting for someone to hold the gate open for them.
(3) The best way to walk between the pool with the slide and the pool with the lazy river is to follow the blue circles, which lead you up a ramp and through the building on the second story, passed the bowling alley. The food court is just below.
(4) The food court was a highlight for my kids. Lots of kid-friendly choices, with retro ads playing on big screens.
(5) If you want to purchase a tube for the lazy river and pool, be prepared for a ridiculously slow line, at least in the late afternoon. At one point, there was only one employee working, and the process was still slow with two employees. The employee/s had to unwrap each tube from its packaging after it was purchased and then blow it up. You could only pay with credit card or room charge, and most people charged to their room. That required the employee to call the desk and get authorization for EACH TUBE. Sometimes, people reached a per-card charging limit that they didn't know about and had to get a different card from the same room to use. If you used a credit card, they didn't have a pen and handed you the sharpie that was used to write names on the tubes. When I said that my kids would be wondering why I was gone for 45 minutes, the employee laughed.
(6) Yes, we were spoiled by the service, attention to detail, and cozy atmosphere at the RPR. I heard that the lazy river and slide at CB were fun -- I spent too much time in line to enjoy them. I recommend bringing your own tube or trying a different time of the day. The line wasn't even long, just painfully slow.
(1) It's a completely walkable trip from Royal Pacific to Cabana Bay. (And between those resorts and Sapphire Falls, which is between RPR and CB.) There's a walkway over the road. BUT, you need to know where you're going. We followed the walkway marked on the posted maps at RPR and ended up going the long way through Sapphire Falls. As we learned on the way back, it's better to go out the front entrance and go down the sidewalk to your left, which connects to the Garden walkway, and then follow the signs for the resorts instead of branching off toward the parks/Citywalk. That will lead you directly to the crosswalk over the road to Cabana Bay. On the other side of the road, there are blue circles on the sidewalk leading to the pools.
(2) The gates to the pool area did require a room card from Cabana Bay. I went to guest services in the lobby. This was a bit odd -- the woman who helped me said that the standard practice was to give me a room card after I showed her my RPR card, but she wasn't sure how to do that. Another employee told her to give me a duplicate for a random room. She didn't tell me the room number, so there was no real security problem, but still a bit unusual. Meanwhile, my kids had gotten into the pool area by waiting for someone to hold the gate open for them.
(3) The best way to walk between the pool with the slide and the pool with the lazy river is to follow the blue circles, which lead you up a ramp and through the building on the second story, passed the bowling alley. The food court is just below.
(4) The food court was a highlight for my kids. Lots of kid-friendly choices, with retro ads playing on big screens.
(5) If you want to purchase a tube for the lazy river and pool, be prepared for a ridiculously slow line, at least in the late afternoon. At one point, there was only one employee working, and the process was still slow with two employees. The employee/s had to unwrap each tube from its packaging after it was purchased and then blow it up. You could only pay with credit card or room charge, and most people charged to their room. That required the employee to call the desk and get authorization for EACH TUBE. Sometimes, people reached a per-card charging limit that they didn't know about and had to get a different card from the same room to use. If you used a credit card, they didn't have a pen and handed you the sharpie that was used to write names on the tubes. When I said that my kids would be wondering why I was gone for 45 minutes, the employee laughed.
(6) Yes, we were spoiled by the service, attention to detail, and cozy atmosphere at the RPR. I heard that the lazy river and slide at CB were fun -- I spent too much time in line to enjoy them. I recommend bringing your own tube or trying a different time of the day. The line wasn't even long, just painfully slow.