Questions about Portofino

[LOLA2]

I just booked Portofino for October 22-24 because Royal was booked.
I asked for a 2 queen garden view. I have now been reading up on trip Advisor many poor reviews. I would love to hear any opinions about your stay. Also I want to be close to beach pool and boat launch. Which part of hotel should I request if I call them back? And do they take requests?

 

[IMGONNABE40!]

I stayed at the PBH for three nights in July. I do not have a bad thing to say about the place. We are returning for six nights this July. Ask to be in the West Wing if you want to be near the boat dock. I believe the pool behind on that side is called the Beach Pool.

Have fun!

 

[madthemouse]

I have stayed at the PBH in 04 and 05 and will be staying their again this June. I can't say enough about this resort. Absolutely beautiful and for us very relaxing. I have a fifteen year old daughter who loves this resort. And not just her but my niece and my daughter's friend. I still find it hard to believe, because we have stayed at the HRH and with that being the self proclaim cool/hip resort I would have thought the girls would want to go back their. But, PBH wins out all the time. Now, that could be, because my daughter loves Italy. If you do stay, try the health club or better yet the Spa. One last thing, some people say, "it's to far from the parks", well... this is true. But the boats run often, the views are nice and it is very relaxing.

Note: The theme to this review and the PBH....Relaxing

That's My2cnt's

 

[macraven]

I just booked Portofino for October 22-24 because Royal was booked.

are you kidding me...........already??

glad i booked 2 weeks ago now. first intelligent thing i have done all year.

guessing hhn will be packing everyone in this year.

 

[antmaril]

We were at Portofino Bay two weeks ago. We've stayed there twice before. I can't say one bad thing about it. Our room was lovely and the hotel is beautiful. I consider myself a "hotel snob", and I was very happy at PBH.

I wouldn't worry one bit.

 

[webray]

Portofino is fantastic..you will love it. We have stayed many times at both Portofino and RPR...while we love both...we prefer Portofino because of all the wonderful ammenities.

 

[Motherfletcher]

I went to TripAdvisor to see what they had to say. I think the positives far outweigh the negatives. The really bad ones are probably mad at paying rack rate more than what was wrong with PBH. TA has the average cost at $318! I've stayed there several times and never came close to paying that. If I had paid that I might be concerned about the value. This board will help find ways to get a good value and possible upgrades at PBH.

 

[patster734]

We stayed there for 3 nights this past December and loved it. We even received an upgrade from a standard room to a deluxe room that had a small balconey overlooking one of the pools. The only negative was that the breakfast buffet wasn't as good as RPR's breakfast buffet.

 

[RyGuy]

The west wing will put you very close to the boat dock and the beach pool. The garden view rooms in the west wing also have views of the beach pool and not the gardens which is a plus.

 

[TENIA66]

We had a negative at Portofino last year, and quite frankly no one seemed to even care there. I booked for easter season, rack rate, purchased the annual pass then rebooked at a discount rate. The rate was wrong when I got there (rack rate) and I could not get it corrected. I had a copy of both emails, the original booking and the updated one but the higher rate apparently trounced the lower, obliterated it or whatever.

Additionally, there was a leak in the hallway outside our room which had been there for some time because the mold caused me and my son to both have horrible allergy attacks and ruined our stay. When we complained, they basically ignored us or it was a problem they couldn't fix and they didn't get back to us.

In any even, we HATED HATED HATED it.

On the positive side, the annual pass benefits were great as was the the front of the line pass.

 

[Flyin2MCO]

PBH is one of the nicer hotels/resorts you will find anywhere. sure, you will see bad reviews and hear of negative experiences, but i would venture that the majority of visitors have a great stay and count this spot among their all time favorite places in the world.

 

[goofy!]

We were there for 10 nights in July 2005. We have stayed at both the RPR and PBH many, many times. Both resorts are fantastic.

In July 2005, we had the Villa suite (PBH) with both bedrooms attached. This was our Platinum Loews upgrade suite.

We also had a rate discrepancy when we checked in. The one bedroom was our deluxe room, booked at the internet special price (which was a Loews benefit rate.) The parlor was booked at $0.00 as our Loews upgrade benefit. But the second bedroom, which was supposed to also be booked at the Internet Special rate was listed at rack rate.

I also had all my confirmation e-mails and the names of the people I spoke to when I checked my reservation before we flew down and found the problem. They said just to go to check-in and it would be fixed.

The management jumped over hoops to get it fixed. Had to wait for the manager to get off the phone (about 10 minutes) to authorize the change, but that is all it took. In fact, since I had an AP, they dropped the rate even further from the Internet special rate- charging the second bedroom at the AP rate, even though I was getting the Platinum Loews upgrade and the AP rate is NOT a Loews benefit rate. So even though I was booking one of their choice suites (since only 2 of the villas have balconies) at cheap rates, they still even actually lowered my price for me.

Guess it just matters what day and what manager is there, but we have never had a problem in all our stays there.

The place is beautiful and the stroll to HRH is about 10 minutes if you want to use their pool too. We liked their cabanas better, so we rented a couple of cabanas for the day and spent the entire day and evening there. I walked back to the PBH a couple of times to get something and it was not a hassle.

Everybody's criteria is different, but we too are hotel snobs and love the place.