ajksmom
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2004
- Messages
- 727
Our very first trip to UO/IOA
My family of 5(2A,3K-17,17,3) just stayed at the RPR June 25-29. Our rate was 255. (AAA) for club level. We requested a pool view when making the reservation.
The resort is beautiful, peaceful and tranquil but very kid friendly. All the staff were very friendly and helpful.
Check-in was quick and easy although our room wasn't ready(at 10:30am) I didn't really expect it to be. We did have to ask for the pail and shovel for DS3. Room (#3704) was halfway between the elevators and the club lounge. View was great, could see entire pool area, boat landing, and had a partial view of IOA. I personally felt the room size was fine for our family of 5. There is large closet and room under both queen beds for luggage and stuff. There is also an alcove near the door where we parked our stroller the entire time out of the way. The sink area is separate from the toilet/shower and partially blocked from the room also. There is also a small table and 3 chairs in the room.Not as dark as I thought after seeing the pix.
After checking out the room and "wowing" ourselves silly we went to check out the lounge. Very large room with lots of tables, and seating areas near the 2 TV's. Staff extremely friendly and helpful. Offerings available:
Always 6:30am-10:00pm-coffee, tea,water,coke,diet coke,sprite. Potato chips and fruit.
Breakfast 7:00am-10:30am-juice,cereal, fruits, bread (reg., wheat, pumpernickel, etc.), bagels(asst) jelly, cream cheese(reg. and mango), muffins, danish, and some very yummy cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting that are kept warm. Yougurt and granola. Quite a variety, enough so breakfast wasn't boring for any of us the 4 mornings we were there.
Evenings 5pm-7pm-Complimentary beer and wine, $5.00 mixed drinks,vegetable platter and dips, cheeses and crackers(many to choose from), antipasto salad or cold pasta salads, chips and salsa, fruit.
Desserts 8pm-9:30pm-cookies(homemade type definately not from any bag I've bought at a grocery) cheesecakes, chocolate cakes, etc. Every evening the main "desserts" were different but there were always 2-3 to choose from.
Other important info- Laundry on the 2nd floor right off the elevator, ice machine right near the lounge.DVD players available in the lounge to pop in one you "borrow" from them or bring from home. Tower 3 seems to be the most convenient to boat taxis, game room, and fitness center. When it storms and they have stopped the boats there are a bazillion busses all of a sudden going to the other resorts with a stop at Citywalk.
We travel to Orlando every 3yrs or so and have always done Disney. We now will make UO/IOA a must see. The FOTL access and convenience of staying onsite did it for us. We have never paid this much for a room before but I would do it again in a heartbeat!!! And yes I would choose to stay on club level again. The convenience of having breakfast down the hall not to mention the drinks always available were worth the $60 extra we paid. When we were leaving the lounge we always were encouraged to grab extra drinks. The drinks alone "saved" us at least $30 per day! We ate lunch around 1 or 2ish and snacked in the evenings at the lounge 2 of the days we were there.We did order pizza by delivery from Flippers Pizzaria around 8pm one night and on the other day we ate lunch around noon at Nascar and did decide to head over to NBA City at 7pm where we showed our roomkey and were seated within 15 minutes. I had purchased 3 1/2 price GC (pastamore, nascar, and the kitchen) that we used for our meals. For just less than $250.00 for food,we walked around stuffed all the time.
I "risked" quite a bit of our budget staying on club level without knowing if it would pay off. For our family it worked like a charm!
Kristy
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