Royal Mansions, Cocoa Beach

[AliPom]

I previously responded to a post and said that I would report on the Royal Mansions on Cocoa Beach following my stay in a 2bed/2bath w/kitchen & living room. For those interested read on:
We stayed for 3 nights last week. Believe it or not, we were assigned room #1313. Yes, you read that correctly, "1313"! Had a "penthouse" condo. The Pros: 2bed/2bath w/pull out sofa which accommodated all of us. Building exterior was pretty, there was a pool, hot tub, laundry facility, very tropical atmosphere and it was on the beachfront in a quiet area. Some of the families had gathered wood and had fires on the beach in the evening. Best Pro: We could see the Disney Wonder sail by from our patio. The many Cons: The condo that we were in was NOT CLEAN! Debris on the floors (including dead palmetto bugs, candy, candy wrappers, general dirt, etc.), frankly, it did not appear that the room had been cleaned or vacuumed at all. The bed pillows stunk of "bed head"; it is time to change the pillows in that unit! So we slept without pillows. We also went to the market to purchase bleach for the shower floors as well as cleaning products and paper towels (we took showers with our flip-flops on the length of our stay). The toilet in one bathroom barely flushed and the sink was difficult to shut off due to a constant drip. The kitchen was supplied with someone else's leftover box of cascade, a towel, wash cloth and a potholder. NO dishsoap for the sink & no paper towels. The toaster did not work at all. The dishwasher contained dirty dishes. The microwave contained a prior guest's lunch -- you can just imagine what that plate looked like! We spent 2 hours cleaning the kitchen, "scrubbing" the bathrooms/showers, trying to vacuum, running the dishwasher and washing the dishes/glasses in the closets as well as wiping the food particles off the refrigerator exterior as it grossed us out every time we had to look at it. The vacuum was worthless, which explained why the floors were so dirty (why hasn't the housekeeping dept. figure that out; either they simply don't vacuum at all, or they just don't care!). We could not wait to leave there and take a shower in a clean bathroom. More Cons: NO elevators. Luggage had to be carried up two flights of stairs to get to the first level of the penthouse unit and up a third staircase for the upper level bedroom. -- That was not a pleasant experience. I will not be staying there again or recommending it to any of my friends or family, as it was a Royal Dirty Mansion and my sister and I were not the Royal Residents, but rather, the Royal Chamber Maids who got the Royal Shaft.

We left Cocoa Beach and headed for the Disney World Area where we stayed 5 nights at the "Westgate Resorts Town Center" on Rt. 192, which was VERY CLEAN and wonderful. The accommodations were AWESOME. The first thing we did was jump in the shower (without flip-flops) and for the first time in 3 days, we felt clean. After a ride on "Tower of Terror", my niece came across a key chain in the gift shop that read..."I Survived Room 1313" -- How appropriate that key chain was; it totally summed up our Royal Mansion Tower of Terror Experience!

 

[Dave_from_Marietta]

Sorry you had a bad experience. Thank you for reporting back.

 

[4crusinransiers]

I have not posted on our Royal Manson stay in Aug. I did not post because after we left and I got home and emailed the manager she called me immediattly and reasured me it was an isolated incident and that EVERYONE loves the resort. But I can see from this thread that almost all of the complaints I had are still a problem at this property!
So here goes...I booked through lodging.com, got a great rate of 82.00 a night. We did WDW for 7 days and then headed to the Royal Mansons to stay for our 4 day pre-cruise beach break and Nasa part of our vacation. At check in my husband tryed to make small talk with the front desk clerk...busy he asked? NO she rudely
replyed. I explained that I had made my husband ride the Rockin Roller coaster at MGM one too many times and he had thrown his back out. I asked since we were on a Upper floor and there are NO elevaters if we could upgrade to a ground floor unit? NO she rudely replyed you booked through a wholeseller, you get what you get.....no you do'nt understand I said I will PAY for an upgrade. NO you booked through a wholseller, it can't be changed.
Ok so we all hauled all of our luggage up to a dirty room. Carpet looked unvacummed, The fridge was dirty as was the kitchen. The front of the refrigerater was badly rusted. There was a DIRTY Q_TIP under the coach cusion, YUCK! Hairs on the bathroom counter, hairpins on the floor and a pair of briken reading glasses on the bed! I gathered everthing up in a bag and when we checked out 4 days later I gave the bag of goodies along with a comment card to the front desk person.
When I got home I emailed the manager and she said it was not the norm and that the reading glasses were the maids( i beleive it from the looks of the room she took off her glasses to take a NAP) She sent me a non transferable expires in one year free stay for 4 nights. I see from this post that it IS the NORM!

 

[AliPom]

My sister, who booked via Expedia will be notifying Expedia and writing a review on our Royal experience. Since the rese was in my sister's name and she had paid the bill on her card, I prompted her to go to the office and lodge her complaintS. But she did not bother because, frankly, the filthyness of the rooms spoke for the management. Although the women at the desk were polite when we checked in, we both concluded that there was NO WAY that the management had not been told by other guests prior to our experience of the filthy conditions of the unit. You are correct, yours was NOT an isolated Royal experience; seems more like you had a NORMAL ROYAL EXPERIENCE OF UNCLEANLINESS. Even though they may not have seen the interior of our dirty unit, their eyes could not have missed the cigarette filters decaying on the blue carpet by the pool. Since we had booked via Expedia we knew that we would get a lame response from management that we had booked via another party, etc. (We operate a campground and take great strides to keep it clean. If we see trash on the ground we pick it up. If we are aware of a problem in the restroom, we seek resolution immediately. We know the value of keeping the property up, and its condition is a reflection of us.) Seeing the same decaying cigarette filters on the Royal Pool Carpet for 3 consecutive days said it all. I overhead a couple sitting by the Royal Dirty Pool Carpet complaining Royally about their Royal Rooms of uncleanliness. My hospitality experience left me to believe that the Royal Mansions Management simply does not provide adequate cleaning of the units, and must not care about cleanliness. I would like to be rude and say that the vacuum sucked, but that was the problem, no suction, no cleaning ability and no, I doubt very much that you will see a new vacuum in #1313, since they obviously don't vacuum or clean, they must not be aware that the vacuum is broken, or the toaster, or the toilet, or the faucet, or of the two missing plates that I had to toss into the trash can because they were so filthy we could not clean them, or the dinner plate that was thrown into the trash can with a prior guest's leftover lunch embedded into it. We decided to head back to the store for paper and plastic and we NEVER used our Italian abilities to prepare a single dish in the Royal Dirty Kitchen, rather I used my Italian to curse at the Royal Dirty Kitchen, carpets, shower floors, bathroom floor, dead palmettos, dripping faucet and stinky pillows that sat for 3 days on the Royal Dirty Floor. So we decided that "word of mouth" is the way to go on this one. The Royal UNKEPT Mansions will continue to be unkept and will continue to take people's hard-earned vacation dollars.

So TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW to *AVOID the ROYAL "UNKEPT" MANSIONS*.

 

[outahere]

Perhaps a letter to the local Cocoa Beach Board of Health would get them to "clean up" their act?

I know that doesn't help your past experience, but maybe that would let the management know that you found the conditions deplorable.

 

[4crusinransiers]

I definatly would write a letter and email the manager directly.
I would be intrested in the managers reply. Perhaps she would tell you as she told me , that its not the norm. LOL!
Her name is Dianna Kelly and her email addy is dkellymr@aol.com
In our case I waited till check out to complain and she did ask why I waited......I told her the last thing I wanted to do is HAUL all of our luggage back down and change rooms once we hauled it all up. Not only did we have alot of luggage (7 days WDW ,4 days space coast, 7 day cruise. We had dive gear and grocerys for 4 days. After I looked at the kitchen we went back to the store to buy lysol and bleach!