SAPPHIRE FALLS thread........

[Luisfba]

Have something put on your reservation to say you want to be away from pets. However, you may see some around the resort on occasion.

Pool view or lagoon views are both lovely. And the Sapphire Suite is very pretty........

Update - we are now most likely staying at a Kids Suite. We lose a bathroom and some space when compared to Sapphire Suite, but have beds for 4 and save some $. Any recommendations on requests?

(and any feedback on Kids Suites? Nice?.. haven't cancelled the Sapphire Suite yet and want to make sure I'm not making a big mistake)

 

[schumigirl]

Update - we are now most likely staying at a Kids Suite. We lose a bathroom and some space when compared to Sapphire Suite, but have beds for 4 and save some $. Any recommendations on requests?

(and any feedback on Kids Suites? Nice?.. haven't cancelled the Sapphire Suite yet and want to make sure I'm not making a big mistake)

Kids suites are nice........there are a couple of pictures of it in the first couple of posts in this thread........I took them when we got the tour of the hotel.......they are nice........the kids room is a very decent size....

The one we saw I believe had a pool view, not sure where they are around the hotel but I’d still put in a request for pool or lagoon view unless you have a particular preference for one or the other and still ask for a high floor and away from pets.

I’ve yet to see an animal at Sapphire Falls when we have gone over, of course I’m sure they are there, but in all the times we’ve gone and it is a lot, we just haven’t. Actually never saw a dog at RP either last couple of trips.

 

[wellesleyprincess]

Are there any scheduled activities at Sapphire Falls? If so does anyone have a sample calendar? I know that sadly the movies are gone.

 

[Luisfba]

Reporting back - we were at Sapphire Falls April 17-21.

I absolutely loved the kids suite and everything about the resort.. except for 1 major thing. We had a pool view room and the music from the pool.. which pretty much goes all day straight through 11pm.. was absolutely annoying. So much we may not stay there again next time around, unless there's a way to guarantee avoiding pool view (that's all they had available so we weren't able to change rooms).

 

[millys]

We’ve just stayed 5 x nights in two standard rooms at Sapphire Falls. We booked through a 3rd party site and requested adjoining rooms which was honoured on check-in. Beautiful hotel and really easy to get to the parks. The boats were every 15 mins or less and the walk was just over 10 minutes. Onsite staff were all really friendly.
Rooms were excellent - comfortable beds and great pillows. USB sockets next to beds for charging iPhone/iPad etc. Decent size fridge. One room had a shower/tub and the other had walk in shower. Coffee pods and shampoo/shower/soaps topped up daily.
Can’t fault the hotel at all.


Milly

 

[wellesleyprincess]

So stupid question but as we're getting very close to our trip it keeps bugging me. How does one get from Sapphire Falls to Volcano Bay in the morning for Early Entry? Do we have to go all the way to the parks and then go over?

 

[millys]

Nope - dedicated Volcano Bay bus pulls up directly outside the front of the hotel every 20 mins. Or you can walk over to Cabana Bay and go through the hotel entrance.

 

[patster734]

We’ve just stayed 5 x nights in two standard rooms at Sapphire Falls. We booked through a 3rd party site and requested adjoining rooms which was honoured on check-in. Beautiful hotel and really easy to get to the parks. The boats were every 15 mins or less and the walk was just over 10 minutes. Onsite staff were all really friendly.
Rooms were excellent - comfortable beds and great pillows. USB sockets next to beds for charging iPhone/iPad etc. Decent size fridge. One room had a shower/tub and the other had walk in shower. Coffee pods and shampoo/shower/soaps topped up daily.
Can’t fault the hotel at all.


Milly

Sapphire Falls is a very beautiful resort. The staff was exceptional during our February stay. And spending every evening at the Strong Water Tavern Bar porch, while sipping on a beer or cocktail, was the perfect ending of each day. If Sapphire Falls rates included Express Pass, hands down, it would be our favorite resort.

 

[pattyw]

We have a short trip planned for next week- originally were staying at HRH. We needed to save some $$ so we switched over to SF with a great AP rate. I've read a lot of good things about this resort- we're very excited to stay here!
We have a lagoon view room booked- are there any preferred areas to request?

 

[LainieG]

We are staying at Sapphire Falls for the first time this December and are really looking forward to it. We normally stay at RPR, but thought we'd give SF a try as we popped over quite a lot during our last stay and it seems like a lovely hotel.
We have always had fabulous park views at RPR and Im wondering what the views will be like at SF. We are staying in a King Suite (I think I read somewhere that they are in Guest House 2, but I cannot find any pictures of the views). Do all the suites have more or less the same view, or are some better than others and it is worth doing a room request. Thanks.

 

[schumigirl]

We are staying at Sapphire Falls for the first time this December and are really looking forward to it. We normally stay at RPR, but thought we'd give SF a try as we popped over quite a lot during our last stay and it seems like a lovely hotel.
We have always had fabulous park views at RPR and Im wondering what the views will be like at SF. We are staying in a King Suite (I think I read somewhere that they are in Guest House 2, but I cannot find any pictures of the views). Do all the suites have more or less the same view, or are some better than others and it is worth doing a room request. Thanks.

We have just stayed in the Sapphire Suite Guest House 2 for 10 nights and it overlooked the lagoon facing RPR.

Some rooms will face the pool too. I would do a room request to them anyway, wouldn’t hurt.

I haven’t uploaded my pictures yet as we just got back, but will post some of the views.......they were nice.

We usually stay RP too and now plan to stay at both hotels at different times of the year, it really is beautiful......

I’ll get pics up as soon as I can in the first posts........

 

[LainieG]

We have just stayed in the Sapphire Suite Guest House 2 for 10 nights and it overlooked the lagoon facing RPR.

Some rooms will face the pool too. I would do a room request to them anyway, wouldn’t hurt.

I haven’t uploaded my pictures yet as we just got back, but will post some of the views.......they were nice.

We usually stay RP too and now plan to stay at both hotels at different times of the year, it really is beautiful......

I’ll get pics up as soon as I can in the first posts........

Thanks so much for that. I've struggled to find out anything about the views, so thats a help! I'll definitely pop them an email asking for a lagoon view (I might just happen to mention its my birthday when we are there!! )

 

[schumigirl]

Thanks so much for that. I've struggled to find out anything about the views, so thats a help! I'll definitely pop them an email asking for a lagoon view (I might just happen to mention its my birthday when we are there!! )

Have added a couple of pictures to the 2nd post on this thread.........

 

[mdtravel]

This thread hasn't seen much action for a while; I'm hoping folks still watch it as I have some questions.

1. I'm not finding specific information on how to get from the SF to the parks in terms of travel times for water taxis, buses, and walking. If I have early admission, a. how should i get to the parks and b. how long before early admission should I leave?
2. Are the mini fridges able to hold a full sized bottle of wine?
3. Are there bottle openers in the room?
4. At checkin, if I were to ask if an 'upgrade is available', what should I expect in terms of a. response and b. room type and c. cost?

 

[macraven]

The sticky has info about transportation.

You can take the shuttle bus, walk or use the water taxi to city walk.
From there, walk to the park of your choice.

You can upgrade your room in advance.
Not sure what the charge will be as I would have to put in dates on the booking site for the upper room category.

You can see the dates when a post has been made in this thread.
There are recent postings.

 

[mdtravel]

Thanks. Fairly new here so I'm not sure how the stickies work here. What I see on the first page with respect to transportation to the parks is:
"On-Site Transportation Complimentary resort wide transportation includes Water Taxis at our Premier or Preferred hotels, and Shuttle Buses at all Universal Orlando Resort on-site hotels. Waterways connect the Universal Orlando resort hotels to Universal Studios®, Universal CityWalk® and Islands of Adventure from our Premier or Preferred hotels. Each hotel is also within walking distance to Universal Studios, Universal's Islands of Adventure and CityWalk. "

Not a ton of detail there in terms of how long each option takes, when to leave before early admission, etc. That's more what I was looking for. If it is buried in the details of the thread, I'll find it; i'd thought the purpose of stickies was to summarize information from the individual posts into a centralized main area for easy review. I do understand the options are walk, bus or water taxi...just looking for more detail than the 30,000 foot view.

You're not sure as to upgrade costs; ok. Was wondering if anyone who had asked the question had any experience. Perhaps not or perhaps not the type of information that is shared here.

My bad on the recent posts; i was looking at the date the member joined vs. the date of the post. I see there are recent posts.

Thanks for the post in response to my question; am hoping others with information will chime in as well as I'm interested in more details than what I find on the main page of the sticky.

 

[pattyw]

This thread hasn't seen much action for a while; I'm hoping folks still watch it as I have some questions.

1. I'm not finding specific information on how to get from the SF to the parks in terms of travel times for water taxis, buses, and walking. If I have early admission, a. how should i get to the parks and b. how long before early admission should I leave?
2. Are the mini fridges able to hold a full sized bottle of wine?
3. Are there bottle openers in the room?
4. At checkin, if I were to ask if an 'upgrade is available', what should I expect in terms of a. response and b. room type and c. cost?

We just returned from SF. Our room overlooked the water taxis- they arrive about every 15-20 minutes. For early entry, I would arrive at the boat dock 45 minutes prior to park opening in order to get to the turnstiles before opening. There is a walking path as well. I would estimate it would take about 15 minutes to walk to the park from there.

We've had a bottle of wine chilling in the mini fridge. It should be ok either on its side a an angle or it may fit standing up in the door- depending on the size of the bottle.

No bottle openers in the room- I would request one. They sell wine bottles at Dutch Trading so they must be able to loan you one.

Never asked about upgrades but I would plan to pay the difference in cost that you would see online. The suites here book up- we booked our room for last week a few weeks ago and no suites were available- only standard, pool view, and lagoon view rooms. I'm sure they would happily upgrade your room if they have availability.

 

[schumigirl]

Thanks. Fairly new here so I'm not sure how the stickies work here. What I see on the first page with respect to transportation to the parks is:
"On-Site Transportation Complimentary resort wide transportation includes Water Taxis at our Premier or Preferred hotels, and Shuttle Buses at all Universal Orlando Resort on-site hotels. Waterways connect the Universal Orlando resort hotels to Universal Studios®, Universal CityWalk® and Islands of Adventure from our Premier or Preferred hotels. Each hotel is also within walking distance to Universal Studios, Universal's Islands of Adventure and CityWalk. "

Not a ton of detail there in terms of how long each option takes, when to leave before early admission, etc. That's more what I was looking for. If it is buried in the details of the thread, I'll find it; i'd thought the purpose of stickies was to summarize information from the individual posts into a centralized main area for easy review. I do understand the options are walk, bus or water taxi...just looking for more detail than the 30,000 foot view.

You're not sure as to upgrade costs; ok. Was wondering if anyone who had asked the question had any experience. Perhaps not or perhaps not the type of information that is shared here.

My bad on the recent posts; i was looking at the date the member joined vs. the date of the post. I see there are recent posts.

Thanks for the post in response to my question; am hoping others with information will chime in as well as I'm interested in more details than what I find on the main page of the sticky.

You could bring up the map of the map yourself on Google Earth and check the distance to the parks. Walking distance will vary from one person to another. You can then work out how long it’ll take you to get to the park at a certain time.

We put the basics in the stickies, And update where necessary, most folks do find other info themselves.

If you read other posts around the boards you’ll find people’s opinions on times to get to the park from various hotels.

As for the cost of upgrades, no one can answer that except the hotel. It will vary on the time of year, cost of rooms and availability. That’s not something we can put in a sticky.

Use the search function for some of your questions too, that will bring up posts that may be more use to you or maybe someone will post what they paid for an upgrade.

 

[schumigirl]

Sapphire Falls is a very beautiful resort. The staff was exceptional during our February stay. And spending every evening at the Strong Water Tavern Bar porch, while sipping on a beer or cocktail, was the perfect ending of each day. If Sapphire Falls rates included Express Pass, hands down, it would be our favorite resort.

I missed your post when I updated the thread the other day........

Glad you had such a fabulous trip! It is a beautiful resort and StrongWater Bar is the best bar of all the onsite hotels I believe.........fabulous drinks..........

I may or may not have worked my way through all the cocktails in the last 2 years of visiting it.........

We loved our recent stay there too........

 

[millys]

Some pictures of Sapphire Falls Resort from our May 2018 vacation.

Milly