SAPPHIRE FALLS thread........

[schumigirl]

We recently got back from an unexpected stay at Sapphire falls due to Hurricane Helene. We brought our pets with us and stayed in two rooms. The Mobility room was actually nice with low beds (easy to get into) and a very nice shower area. My elderly parents were pleased. My Dad loved the view of the theme parks. The dog enjoyed the pet area. The cats not so much. One of my cats found an excellent place to hide in the room for several days. We managed to get her out eventually. They don't usually travel and I was not going to leave them at the house.

The staff was great and thanks to the manager for working with us. There was issues with the distance of the room from the lobby but the elevator was close. My only complaint is food options. Thank god for Aventura and Cabana Bay.

This was a not a vacation. Just an attempt to move out of the path of a Hurricane that was going to have severe impact and get two elderly people in an area where we could get them care if needed.

Glad you had a good stay with Sapphire.

We did see a lot of folks check in with pets last week, including one woman who had a cat that was screaming the place down as she went to her room!! Scary to listen to.

We’re the opposite, we love the food options at Sapphire and don’t like Aventura or CB…..good job we’re all different.

Hope you didn’t have any damage to your home while you were away.

 

[kbelle8995]

Glad you had a good stay with Sapphire.

We did see a lot of folks check in with pets last week, including one woman who had a cat that was screaming the place down as she went to her room!! Scary to listen to.

We’re the opposite, we love the food options at Sapphire and don’t like Aventura or CB…..good job we’re all different.

Hope you didn’t have any damage to your home while you were away.

Sad to say if it was Wednesday that might have been me with the cat. Izzie was telling us her displeasure but she calmed down out of her travel box.

My chief problem with Sapphire is the New Dutch company. Not enough variety of hot food and they don't discount my annual pass. I have to say their Gelato is very good. We had some every night. I have grown fond of Amatista especially for breakfast. And Strong Water has a good bar. It is just hard if someone wants comfort food and they can't have spicy food.

Also really loved the Halloween decorations at Sapphire Falls and Aventura. Love that they are spreading this to all the resorts.

We were extremely fortunate with the storm. So many were not. There were many towns like Cedar Key and Asheville that are extremely damaged with loss of life.

 

[zillayen]

We are just back from a Spring Break stay at Sapphire Falls. We usually stay at Portofino or RP but this time we didn't need express so we decided to try something new. Overall the hotel and facilities are nice and very comparable to RP but they seem to be having some pretty bad staffing / computer system issues that made us not want to stay again and we ended up checking out a day early.

Good:
The rooms are just as nice as RP. W(e were in a standard ground floor room which meant we were kind of "underground" and looking at a wall but it was quiet and the room was fine. Beds are a little hard.
The hotel pool is very nice, my kids liked the slide. The fire pit is great in the evening when it's cool.
Strong Water was a fun bar to hang out in.
Room service was good.

Bad:
Amatista -- we had breakfast there and it was great. We had dinner and it was not. Food was very slow, the kitchen seemed to be having issues based on all the activity we saw, when our food did come it was either wrong or so undercooked that we didn't eat it.

Pool Bar -- table service was soooooo slow. We went to the bar to order drinks because our server was so hard to track down. She made multiple mistakes with our order, which we were nice about but needed fixed, then she gave us a comp dessert, then charged us for it, then we had to get her to take it off ... this was kind of the pattern with our trip.

Front Desk -- I posted about this in another thread, but we had a number of issues with billing that took a long time to resolve and really took away from our experience. After we checked in I got an email that our reservations had been updated and the rate for the rooms had increased for a total of several hundred dollars over the length of our stay. I called the front desk and was told to send an email to customer service, but never got a response. We went to the front desk every night for the next 3 nights and every time were told that it was fixed only to find the next day that there were even more mistakes. Finally my husband was able to get the manager to come out and he sat there with him for 45 minutes while they manually fixed the charges and printed us a final folio. And even then, when we left the next morning they had double charged us for valet AGAIN and I had to text them from the road to get them to fix it.

One or two of these mistakes I totally understand, stuff happens, we're pretty chill people but we travel a lot and I have never had so many issues with one stay, so we won't be back.

 

[schumigirl]

Washers and dryers in Sapphire are now $4.60 each.

Powder is the same at a $1 each.

 

[vinotinto]

We are just back from a Spring Break stay at Sapphire Falls. We usually stay at Portofino or RP but this time we didn't need express so we decided to try something new. Overall the hotel and facilities are nice and very comparable to RP but they seem to be having some pretty bad staffing / computer system issues that made us not want to stay again and we ended up checking out a day early.

Good:
The rooms are just as nice as RP. W(e were in a standard ground floor room which meant we were kind of "underground" and looking at a wall but it was quiet and the room was fine. Beds are a little hard.
The hotel pool is very nice, my kids liked the slide. The fire pit is great in the evening when it's cool.
Strong Water was a fun bar to hang out in.
Room service was good.

Bad:
Amatista -- we had breakfast there and it was great. We had dinner and it was not. Food was very slow, the kitchen seemed to be having issues based on all the activity we saw, when our food did come it was either wrong or so undercooked that we didn't eat it.

Pool Bar -- table service was soooooo slow. We went to the bar to order drinks because our server was so hard to track down. She made multiple mistakes with our order, which we were nice about but needed fixed, then she gave us a comp dessert, then charged us for it, then we had to get her to take it off ... this was kind of the pattern with our trip.

Front Desk -- I posted about this in another thread, but we had a number of issues with billing that took a long time to resolve and really took away from our experience. After we checked in I got an email that our reservations had been updated and the rate for the rooms had increased for a total of several hundred dollars over the length of our stay. I called the front desk and was told to send an email to customer service, but never got a response. We went to the front desk every night for the next 3 nights and every time were told that it was fixed only to find the next day that there were even more mistakes. Finally my husband was able to get the manager to come out and he sat there with him for 45 minutes while they manually fixed the charges and printed us a final folio. And even then, when we left the next morning they had double charged us for valet AGAIN and I had to text them from the road to get them to fix it.

One or two of these mistakes I totally understand, stuff happens, we're pretty chill people but we travel a lot and I have never had so many issues with one stay, so we won't be back.

Question, @zillayen, did you do online check in, or was your first check-in at the resort? I’ve been reading this is more of an issue with online check in.

 

[DisneyFan1985!]

im thinking about a stay here in early march 2026. is it too soon to start looking at prices/reservations? thank you

 

[TrueEeyore]

Hey! We have our first stay booked here for August and I have a couple questions if anyone may know the answers.
We have a 2 queen standard room, are those pretty much scattered all over the resort? We'd like to be near the garden walkway to CityWalk.
And bathtubs, are there any specific areas of the resort where the rooms have tubs or is it random?
Also, we are a family of 5. Is it required to purchase the rollaway bed or can we bring our own blow up mattress to avoid the fee?
Lastly, is there an email address for the resort where you can send in room requests ahead of time? I've done it a few times for Cabana Bay and was hoping for the same for SF.
Love all the info in this thread, thanks everyone who has shared!