Portofino Advice with Teens

[dimimi]

Hi everyone. I am trying to get advice from the experts. When I do a search I can only find information from years ago. We are planning a trip to Universal in August with our 13 and 17 year old boys. Will they enjoy Portofino? I realize HRH may be a bit better for them, but we have booked Portofino and just want to make sure they will still enjoy it. I also realize we can "pool hop" to the HRH if we want to.

Does anyone have any recent advice? So far I know the west wing is closer to things. Do all of the rooms have balconies?

Thanks for any advice you can give me. We liked the size of the rooms here and we were looking for something different. We will be there 4 nights.

Thanks

 

[damo]

There is a thread on the Portofino with photos, etc.

There are very few balconies. You can request one but it isn't guaranteed. The teens will have lots to do with the pool, bocce ball, Sal's Deli, and the fact that they can walk to Citywalk, the parks and the other hotels.

 

[dimimi]

Thanks! I saw the thread but didn't see information on teens specifically. Everything about teens seems to be at HRH. I might just go to their pool one day.

Thanks again.

 

[mlaw]

We stayed at the Portofino a couple years ago with our teenage daughters and they loved it! We pool hopped to Hard Rock one afternoon but all of us preferred the pool at Portofino. They also really liked the pizza, the gelato, and whatever the free drink was by the lobby. The nice size of the rooms is also a great plus when traveling with teenagers. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. We were suppose to stay at the Portofino again in July but ended up switching to club level at Royal Pacific, which will also be great! Have a good trip.

 

[rpbert1]

We have stayed twice, last time about 2 years ago, dd was 13, this was July, and it was really very quiet around the resort , DD actually got bored, as there was not a lot happening even at the beach pool, and very little games being played which she enjoyed, they only had 1 every couple of hours. The resort is beautiful, and like others said you can pool hop, which we did back to RPR where we had stayed the first 2 weeks

 

[IGetAKickOutOfFlik]

I am currently trying to decide between Portofino and HRH for an upcoming trip this summer. I like the idea of the more spacious rooms at the Portofino, and they are actually the same price for the week that I am going. Potential drawbacks that I am worried about are:
1 - as alluded to in this thread, I have a concern as to whether or not the kids will enjoy the pool as much as they did the one at HRH last year. We are two families with kids aged 15, 15, 14, 12 and 10. Ultimately, if this proves to be an issue I guess it's cureable through pool-hopping.
2 - I loved the fact that the HRH was a 5-7 minute walk from the parks, so I didn't have to wait around for the boat taxi. How far is the walk from the Portofino to the amusement parks? Definitely interested to know that - I know it's longer than HRH, how does the walk compare to the RPR? I found the walk from RPR to the parks to be very doable. Unlike #1, there's no way around this one.

Am leaning toward the Portofino due to the larger rooms and because we never stayed there before, but am a little hesitant, in part because we liked the HRH so much last year. Thoughts, advice?

 

[rpbert1]

Walking along the waterway path its at least 15 mns, not good when its hot, there is also a shortcut through HRH, means crossing at the entrance to PBH across to entrance to HRH, but shortens it down to about 10 mins, Bubbas Mum had a map of it some where.
RPR to Margaritaville is 7 mins to IOA is max 9 mins, bit less if you walk faster

 

[dimimi]

Thanks everyone. We did book the Portofino because I ended up buying an annual pass and saving a lot of money at the Portofino. (over $500) So to try to keep everyone happy we rented a cabana at Hard Rock's pool.

I realize that is minimizing my savings, but the Hard Rock folks said that the Hard Rock pool is very crowded on a Saturday so we thought the cabana would be helpful.

I also thought the parks would be crowded in August on a Saturday.

If anyone has other ideas, I'd love them. How far is the walk to the Royal Pacific hotel?

 

[rpbert1]

To RPR from PBH you would prob be looking 25 to 30 mins, take the water taxi to Citywalk and transfer to RPR water taxi,

 

[natebenma]

We will be staying at PBH in about 3 weeks for 4 nights, with boys ages 13 and 10. We too are having some Hard Rock remorse, but I will definitely post when we return if I have any helpful "teen vacation" types of comments.