We Fell In Love....

[Disneyhappy]

with PBH this weekend!!!! DH and I had our 20th anniversary trip to PBH this weekend for three nights and fell in love with the resort. We stayed at PBH one night the year it opened (2000?) before a week stay at WDW. It was a whirlwind stay that time with limited time at the resort. We did not even realize that we had been upgraded to a deluxe club room until the morning we checked out. Our impressions on that first stay were that it was not a family resort but we always wanted to return by ourselves because we found it to be extremely romantic. We also opted not to stay at PBH again because we usually get club level and did not like that it was not on the same floor as club rooms and further, we didn't like that it was further away from the parks than HRH and RPR. Well, we now find out that the resort is both great for families and adults only. DH and I kept asking each other how we could have missed such a gem all these years. We have consistently been staying at RPR and HRH, sometimes at a cost higher than PBH rates!

We were assigned a 2nd floor bay view room in the West Wing. Perfect! We paid $75 to upgrade to club amenities. It worked out perfectly! Short walk in the AM for continental breakfast and bottled water. Close to Beach and Villa pool. Pool was refreshing with just enough activities. Staff walked around with grape kabobs to eat and cucumber slices to cool doewn the eyes. Yes, very cool! The grounds are beautiful. The boats were fantastic! We never waited more than 5 minutes for a boat. (A huge cut above from WDW transportation, but we already knew that. To be fair, WDW has a much, much larger property to manage transportation). The compactness of the whole Universal Resort area has always been attractive to us. There is so much available only 10-15 minutes away from any area of the whole Universal resort. The staff at PBH were fantastic as were the staff in the parks and other common areas.
I know I am all other the place in this post so please bear with me. OK- the club lounge. We did not mind the location in the least. I would not have like the club lounge if our room was on the far end of the East Wing, however. The club lounge amenities were comparable to RPR and HRH. Differences - PBH has Fuji bottled water and they have beer and wine available during the later afternoon offerings. I believe we have to ask for alcohol at RPR and HRH. The only difference I did not like is that HRH and RPR have sliced fresh fruit available every morning. PBH only had cut up cantaloupe. I missed the honeydew, watermelon and pineapple. Two PCs in club lounge that was perfect so I did not have to have my laptop for such a short visit. I was able to get access for the 5-10 minutes at a time to check my work emails. Then it was off to enjoy time with my hunky DH of 20 years!

Music of the Night - OMG! It was very moving. DH and I enjoyed drinks at the Thirsty Fish on the piazza and listened to the singing coming from the balcony across the piazza. Can you say romantic? And here comes that word again - perfect! (Well, until our bar bill came for $37 for a total of four drinks. As with any bar throughout Universal and WDW, alcohol is expensive. We go to restaurants locally that charge more as well. It was a bit of a romantic buzz bill when DH's eyes popped out of his head and told me the amount. It was so unlike him and I really didn't understand the surprise but I decided that it was not a good time to tell him about the 2 fruity drinks I charged at the Beach pool that afternoon while he was working out for $9 a pop as well! LOL!) Anyway, the Piazza area is great. I love that there are so many more eating options at PBH than at HRH and RPR. There are more quick eating options at PBH like the pizza place next to the pool and the deli. Did I mention delicious gelato??? I could go on and on and on and on!!! OMG! The beds! Very similar to Marriott Renaissance and Ritz beds. I did not want to leave that bed at all!!! Our first night, Kathryn (who checked us in) sent a bottle of nice champagne and fresh strawberries to our room for our anniversary. A total surprise and…. Perfect! The atmosphere was so relaxed and laid back. Perhaps it was a slower time of year but we felt that PBH did not seem as crowded as RPR and HRH. Is it because it is more spread out? I don't know if it was an illusion or not. RPR and HRH always seem to have a large traffic of people around the resort. (Not a complaint, just an observation now that we had a different experience at PBH.) It was refreshing coming back from the parks to a more relaxed atmosphere which was not something we ever new we would enjoy so much. We are huge WDW fans as well and have stayed in all of the deluxe resorts. PBH is the more laid back and relaxing than any WDW resort we've stayed in. (We never liked the GF at WDW.)

Have I rambled on enough. Let me close by saying that we loved PBH so much that we cancelled the two club rooms we had booked at RPR and booked two rooms at PBH for our stay around July 4th.We booked with AAA rate which landed us an upgrade to deluxe for the one room. I think I now qualify for Lowes platinum so we may get upgraded to a suite! Wouldn't that be sweet? (Pun intended!) We are going to upgrade to club for $75 per night and it looks like it will still be less expensive than the 2 club rooms at RPR. I can’t wait to try out everything we missed at PBH during our upcoming trip! Thanks to all the PBH experts on this board who help me to plan this trip. Thanks for letting me ramble! Any questions??? Oh, and who can I contact at PBH to tell them how much we enjoyed our recent stay?

 

[minniejack]

Makes me want to be there

Happy Anniversary!

 

[Grace&Carolinesmom]

Glad to hear you loved your stay

How was the pool compared to RPR?..On both an adult level as well as "fun for kids" level. TIA

 

[Disneyhappy]

Glad to hear you loved your stay

How was the pool compared to RPR?..On both an adult level as well as "fun for kids" level. TIA

Hmm? Good question. All the times I go to RPR and I can't recall if there is a zero entry there. PBH has zero entry with a large are of a depth less than10 inches. It was great to sit or lay in that area to stay cooled and tan at the same time. It wa a really large section of low depth. The slide looked very cool it also kept the water refreshing. I hate when pool water is like bath water! Towards the back there is a deep section - I will say almost 5 feet deep. So it seems to have a depth for all ages, shapes and sizes! I remember thinking I would have really liked the large low depth area (<10 inches) if I still had very young children. It was eary to keep watch and it was not crowded. On the other had, RPR is a huge pool and not always easy to locate the younger kids who are old enough to go on their own but you still want to try to keep a close watch. RPR has a great water play area shaped like a boats where water can be squirted from cannons. All in all, I think both are kid and grown up friendly. As a grown up, though, I prefer PBH.

 

[kirbsam]

our family loves pbh, and i think it is very kid and family friendly.

 

[Grace&Carolinesmom]

Does the PBH have a nice sand play area near the beach pool? And...is the beach pool a concrete bottom or sandy bottom? Can you see the theme here? My kids LOVE to play in the sand.

 

[Disneyhappy]

Does the PBH have a nice sand play area near the beach pool? And...is the beach pool a concrete bottom or sandy bottom? Can you see the theme here? My kids LOVE to play in the sand.

The pool does not have a sane bottom. I can't remember if they had a large sand play area for the kids. I recall seeing a bunch of orange/red sand buckets. The pool are ais very large and I did not walk around the complete area. I know there is a separate gated "baby" pool in the Beach Pool complex. I also recall a huge whole that the kids dug in the sand because a man tripped in it as he was walking by my lounge chair and practically landed on top of me!

We can't wait to return to this lovely resort July 3rd!