Antonia
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 25, 2000
- Messages
- 2,205
Cast of Characters: Me (43) DH (42) and Two 19yo's
We stayed at RPR for the AP rate of $139. Stayed 5 nights. We arrived at about 2:00 p.m. and our room was not ready. DH's sister's family was also staying there by coincidence and were checking in at the same time. They tried to get a room right across the hall from us and we did NOT want that, so they put us in tower one and them in tower three. While we were out, DH's sister had her room assignment CHANGED to tower three!!! So once again, they moved our room assignment back to tower one. Hers was still in tower three. This was good because 12 yo nephew would have knocked on our door 24/7. Anyway, once we were finished being stalked by our relatives, we ended up in tower one on the 2nd floor facing the pool. There were several palm trees outside the window, but we could still see the pool. We loved the view! It looked so tropical. Also, we were only steps from the end of the hall and could go right down the steps and be on the path to walk to IOA. This was very convenient when going to the parks. Each night we received turn down service and they put a small gift on one of our beds. One nght a flowered lei, another night a shell filled with potpourri, another night RPR stickers and a sweet dreams card,etc.
For breakfast, I sometimes took the newspaper up to the Orchid Court and bought a muffin/pastry and coffee and sat on the comfy sofas. DH would join me and we just left the teens in the room. On days we went to IOA early, we had breakfast croissssants from the bakery that were delicious.
Two days we had a cabana. The first day our cabana faced the pool and around 9:00 a.m. someone from the recreation dept. came to our cabana and said that someone else wanted our particular cabana and that they were moving us to another one. They could see that we were disappointed, so they did not charge us for the cabana for that day!! How nice! So we moved and our new cabana was by the hot tub and very secluded and we loved this one all the more. Then the guy over the recreation came to our new cabana and told us our lunch would be free for that day - anything we wanted except alcohol for the inconvenience of switching cabanas. Hooray again!! So we had lunch from the Bula Bar and Grille for 4 people - over $100 with appetizers and he returned to make sure we enjoyed it! We had the same cabana later in the week. We loved having the cabana and found it to be very relaxing. I did see the cabanas at PB, but liked ours at RPR better.
Pools: We loved the RPR pool. Everyone in my family played volleyball in the pool in the evenings. Never found the pool to be too crowded. We also swam at PB's beach pool. The slide was fun - even for adults, but overall I liked the tropical theming at RPR better. The beach pool area at PB seemed small after being at RPR. However, we also swam at the PB villa pool. It was very elegant and relaxing. We loved this pool. Did not have time to try out HRH's pool.
Transportation: We rarely took the boat, but could have gotten one without a wait. We preferred walking and the foliage along the walkways was beautiful. We did take the boat to PB to swim.
Fireworks at US were nothing to brag about after having seen Wishes at MK back in June, but the rest of my family had not seen Wishes, so I didn't say anything. They were still enjoyable, but not great.
Our favorite park: IOA!!!!! Great theming and the rides are absolutely fun.
We saved money using our AP for discounts on food and merchandise.
Hoping to use our AP's to go back again. It was a lot of fun and more relaxing than WDW since you could get things done faster with FOTL and still have time to enjoy the resort/pools, etc.
We stayed at RPR for the AP rate of $139. Stayed 5 nights. We arrived at about 2:00 p.m. and our room was not ready. DH's sister's family was also staying there by coincidence and were checking in at the same time. They tried to get a room right across the hall from us and we did NOT want that, so they put us in tower one and them in tower three. While we were out, DH's sister had her room assignment CHANGED to tower three!!! So once again, they moved our room assignment back to tower one. Hers was still in tower three. This was good because 12 yo nephew would have knocked on our door 24/7. Anyway, once we were finished being stalked by our relatives, we ended up in tower one on the 2nd floor facing the pool. There were several palm trees outside the window, but we could still see the pool. We loved the view! It looked so tropical. Also, we were only steps from the end of the hall and could go right down the steps and be on the path to walk to IOA. This was very convenient when going to the parks. Each night we received turn down service and they put a small gift on one of our beds. One nght a flowered lei, another night a shell filled with potpourri, another night RPR stickers and a sweet dreams card,etc.
For breakfast, I sometimes took the newspaper up to the Orchid Court and bought a muffin/pastry and coffee and sat on the comfy sofas. DH would join me and we just left the teens in the room. On days we went to IOA early, we had breakfast croissssants from the bakery that were delicious.
Two days we had a cabana. The first day our cabana faced the pool and around 9:00 a.m. someone from the recreation dept. came to our cabana and said that someone else wanted our particular cabana and that they were moving us to another one. They could see that we were disappointed, so they did not charge us for the cabana for that day!! How nice! So we moved and our new cabana was by the hot tub and very secluded and we loved this one all the more. Then the guy over the recreation came to our new cabana and told us our lunch would be free for that day - anything we wanted except alcohol for the inconvenience of switching cabanas. Hooray again!! So we had lunch from the Bula Bar and Grille for 4 people - over $100 with appetizers and he returned to make sure we enjoyed it! We had the same cabana later in the week. We loved having the cabana and found it to be very relaxing. I did see the cabanas at PB, but liked ours at RPR better.
Pools: We loved the RPR pool. Everyone in my family played volleyball in the pool in the evenings. Never found the pool to be too crowded. We also swam at PB's beach pool. The slide was fun - even for adults, but overall I liked the tropical theming at RPR better. The beach pool area at PB seemed small after being at RPR. However, we also swam at the PB villa pool. It was very elegant and relaxing. We loved this pool. Did not have time to try out HRH's pool.
Transportation: We rarely took the boat, but could have gotten one without a wait. We preferred walking and the foliage along the walkways was beautiful. We did take the boat to PB to swim.
Fireworks at US were nothing to brag about after having seen Wishes at MK back in June, but the rest of my family had not seen Wishes, so I didn't say anything. They were still enjoyable, but not great.
Our favorite park: IOA!!!!! Great theming and the rides are absolutely fun.
We saved money using our AP for discounts on food and merchandise.
Hoping to use our AP's to go back again. It was a lot of fun and more relaxing than WDW since you could get things done faster with FOTL and still have time to enjoy the resort/pools, etc.
