Hello all!! It has been too long since I've posted but you know how that goes. I stayed at the Polynesian May 25 - 29 in a brand new Tokelau room. We were originally put in Samoa 2nd floor and while the room was lovely, we really wanted a balcony or patio. When I checked in, they said Tokelau was still closed but when we called from the Samoa room to ask for a room with a balcony or patio, the cast member said that 6 rooms had JUST opened up in Tokelau!! It was room 2903 - 2nd floor, pool side. Not only were we happy to get the refurbished room and be the first to use it, we used the balcony a lot and we did notice a difference with the extra few feet of space in the larger Tokelau rooms. It was my 6th stay at the Polynesian since 2007 and in Tokelau but the first time I stayed on the 2nd floor or the pool side. So here's some feedback:
Room:
The room itself had new carpet, bedding, and a fresh coat of paint but everything else was the same including the chair rail, paintings, tv, dressers, chairs, etc. While the photos show all that mint green, it really was soothing and nice with very little difference from what the rooms looked like before - just fresher and updated. I enjoyed the changes and they still reminded me of the Poly I love!! I did not take any photos of the room (other than with us and lots of mess and stuff in it which I am not going to post) but Tikiman has good photos on his site that are accurate.
Bathroom:
This is where I noticed the changes the most. My overall impression was that I LOVED it!!!! But there are definite issues that should be resolved. Why did I love it? NO peeling paint or mold or squeaky doors along with an increase in lighting due to lighter colors and more lighting around the mirrors. But as many of you know, they went from one sink to two sinks in Tokelau. I preferred the one sink but this trip, I found the two sinks to be needed since we were there on a girls trip with two of us adults along with our two daughters. But that additional sink takes up counterspace. Amazingly, we had plenty of room for all our toiletries. I did bring a hanging bag as I do anywhere I travel that holds my smaller toiletries and that helped a lot. I wish I could have hung it closer to the sinks but I was stuck hanging it near the toilet rack. If you look at the photo of the sinks below, they could easily put a towel rack or some hooks on the wall that separates the toilet from the sinks so you could hang a bag like mine. There are towel racks just under the sinks and I found those to be a great addition. The biggest drawback was that they took the clothesline out of the shower
I hope they put these back in but they didn't have one for us. But I used the closet door handles to hang some swimsuits to free up the minimal towel rack space in the bathroom (and I actually did that on past trips too since many times the clothesline in the shower doesn't help if people are taking showers
) I did send these photos to Tikiman who mentioned that there appears to be less counter space in the Tokelau bathrooms than other bathrooms. But to put anyone's worries at ease - I use a lot of toiletries and I like a lot of counter space and even for me and 3 other girls, it was just fine.
Looking directly straight from the bathroom door:
Looking from the back wall toward the bathroom door (I liked the frosted glass but now there isn't a full length mirror anywhere in the room - although the mirror on the dresser is fairly large):
Looking from the back wall toward the sinks. You can see the split mirrors here. It was fine for most things to have a split mirror but when I dried my hair I used up more mirror room so I had to sort of bounce between the two to see what I was doing. Note the 'evil' close up mirror
:
Closer picture of the toilet area - you can just see the towel rack above the toilets where there is just one shelf with one towel rod and the additional towel rod with the hand towels on the wall (there is also a hook right next to the shower that I did not get a photo of....ONE hook
):
Looking from the bathroom door toward the sinks:
Room location/View:
I LOVE Tokelau's location and the rooms. The rooms are part of the slightly larger category of rooms and every room in Tokelau has a balcony or patio which adds to our enjoyment of the vacation. All the views are lovely from Tokelau and the location is very central to the GCH, TTC, beach, and the pools. As for our first time on the pool side - it was great! I did not notice any additional noise from the East pool but it is a relatively calm and quiet pool and even when people are in it, the shrubbery and landscaping really keep the noise down. So we were spoiled and had barely anyone in the longhouse this trip although it did increase as the days went on. We noticed a little hall noise but barely any overhead noise. I will say, get RID OF THE JET TOILETS!!!! They kept us up. You could hear people flushing from all over the building - it is positively ridiculous. There is nothing you can do to keep from hearing it unless you want to keep your TV on (which I would have but I was with others who didn't like that idea). But I'm not sure the TV would even drown out the noise.
View looking right on the balcony:
View looking left on the balcony:
View looking straight on when on the balcony:
And with the girls...and their American Girls:
Other Construction:
Even though construction was happening in certain buildings and areas, we never heard a thing nor did it interfere with the enjoyment of the resort.
Parking:
We had no issues finding parking spots at the Poly and even the 'far' spot was not far at all.
Transportation:
Monorail was fabulous and quick as always. We drove to DTD and Typhoon Lagoon (and I will always drive to DTD or the water parks if I can). The bus to HS and back was so quick - we hardly waiting two minutes there and none coming back. We went directly to HS and we stopped at the Contemporary on the way back.
Dining:
I love the grown up grilled cheese, dole whips, cheese danishes and waffles at Captain Cooks - it is one of my favorite quick service resort restaurants! I do wish they would replace the paper bacon but it is a Disney standard. Ohanas for breakfast was fun as usual. We went so the girls could interact with the characters and the food was very good and they brought me LOTS of waffles - yum...
Pools:
The Volcano pool was soooo busy on the weekend (it was Memorial weekend) but we managed to find some chairs and enjoy the pool. After the weekend, it was much better and you could even find some tables near the bar. The east pool was a favorite for the girls so they could have more room to play. We enjoyed both pools very much!
Cabana:
I reserved a half day standard cabana a long time ago and as you know, Mauna Kea was damaged and taken down. The other cabana was rented for a full day and I found that out when I wanted to see if I could come earlier than 2. The attendant said we were upgraded to the premium cabana which was a little nice but I was also worried because you can't see the majority of the pool from there. We didn't have a choice in the matter but the attendant was great. She found out this was a surprise for my daughter for her birthday and she decorated it with balloons and got her a cake - on the house - so nice!! We found that since our children are strong swimmers and with the lifeguards, we were ok with our location. The bonus was having the beach right next to your area as well. Our cushy lounge chairs were in the shade and unlike the standard cabanas, there really isn't a lot of places to move them so we were able to lounge in the chairs on the beach. We did have one child come into the cabana area and another family start to move and sit at our table even though it is roped off but for the most part, we didn't have the trespassers that I think they had in the beginning when they didn't rope it off. While we really enjoyed this premium cabana, I think it would be more beneficial if you had more than 4 people. For 4 people or for a single family unit, the standard cabana is perfect and you don't need to upgrade for the larger space. I don't have a ton of photos of the full cabana but Tikiman has them on his site and there are some on the first page too!
It rained for 20 minutes and we had shelter which was great:
View from the cabana out toward the beach - during the rain but it all dried up really quick:
Birthday cake:
Issues:
We did have an issue with our keys while we were at the Poly and it did affect our time getting into the parks too. I am not going to get into a lot of detail but overall, I would say it impacted our total time with this issue by an hour (TOTAL) but Poly immediately apologized when the keys stopped working, set it right, and compensated us above and beyond what I expected. In fact, I did not expect a thing other than new keys!!! It was a vastly different experience from the Beach Club from a couple weeks prior where I lost a total of 6 HOURS of time on my key issue and they didn't do a thing nor communicate with us at all. So KUDOS to the Poly for treating us right!!!! I'll be coming back
Oh wow, long review but hopefully that helps some of you!
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