Royal Palms vs Sabal Palms

[Dano1182]

IS there any major differnces betewwe these two?
Is one nicer than the other?
Which has best pool?
Are both walking distance to World center?

 

[Detailor]

I haven't stayed at Royal Palms, only Sabal Palms, but have walked the properties and can make some general observations.

It looked to me as if both resorts were of roughly the same original age due to the style of the buildings, landscaping, etc., but I assume that one was built before the other - I just don't know which came first. When we were at Sabal Palms during the summer of '09, the villas had been updated recently and were in great condition. I understand that the Royal Palms villas have undergone a similar refurbishment process.

The Sabal Palms buildings are all two story buildings with dedicated stairs leading from the ground level up to each upstairs villa (there are no elevators at this resort). I think that the Royal Palms buildings were all three story buildings (perhaps some at four stories but I don't really recall that for sure) with a more typical timeshare design to include an elevator plus stairs at each building.

The Royal Palms pool is bigger than the one at Sabal Palms. The Royal Palms clubhouse building has a small Marriott Marketplace Express 'store' that I believe is a small (tiny, from what I remember) version of the Marketplace stores at other Marriott timeshare resorts.

It's about a half mile from the entrance to the hotel to the closest Royal Palms building and probably about 3/4 of a mile from hotel to the furthest building. To get from resort to hotel you cross a slightly busy road that leads to the hotel's parking garage (and also goes to Sabal Palms). It's about 0.2 of a mile walking from Sabal Palms to the hotel's main pool area and probably about a quarter mile through to the main entrance if you walk through the pool area then up to the lobby. There is a shuttle that runs between the three timeshare resorts and to the hotel.

We liked the location of Sabal Palms and the two-bedroom villa was among the largest two-bedroom timeshare villas we've seen in Orlando. I thought that the road going back to the resort was a little odd in that it's also the primary service road behind the hotel and convention center and it's a little further back from the main road (SR 536, I think) to Disney than it would be from Royal Palms.

While neither of these resorts would be among our first Marriott timeshare choices in Orlando (we prefer Cypress Harbour, like Grande Vista almost as much and are looking forward to staying at Lakeshore Reserve at some point) but we'd go back. And we'd go back to Sabal as our preference between the two. It's sort of quiet back there, the staff was very friendly and helpful, and we liked the way the villas were set up.

Even with that I don't think that you'd make a bad decision with either of these.

Dick Taylor