druidia
I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2004
We just returned from a 3 night stay at the Hotel Royal Plaza over Labor Day weekend. I will preface this by saying that we always stay somewhere on Disney property on an AP or FL Resident rate. We usually stay moderate, deluxe or camp at FtW, but since the AP rates were not available for Labor Day weekend, we used the Travelzoo rate of $79 per night at HRP to try it out since the remodel. As my husband is fond of saying, you get what you pay for.
We arrived at 3:30 to check in on Friday Sep 1st. The lobby looks like any other photo you've seen on this board. There were only 2 desk attendants working, and over 10 people waiting in the lobby to check in. I'm spoiled by always checking in early at a Disney resort, but they did not have any tower rooms available, so they would not check me in. We sat in the lobby for 30 minutes, until the check in time of 4:00 PM. We got back in line and checked in. They did not have the Tower King Bed room ready that we booked online, so we took a Tower room with 2 full beds.
We received no resort info at all. No resort maps, no restaurant info, nothing. Great.
We took the elevator to the 15th floor and got into our room. The AC was on and it was cold, so I turned it to be a little warmer (we normally keep our home at 78). We checked out the room and unpacked. Our view was out the left side of the resort, towards I-4 and the Lake Buena Vista exit, with the pool visible below us.
We left the hotel and walked to DTD, shopped, and ate dinner at RFC. We walked back to the resort, and the lobby was still very busy with check ins. Our room AC was still on, but it was a little warmer. We got to bed around 11:30 PM.
I'm trying to go to sleep, but keep hearing a noise like dripping. We turn on the light and notice that the ceiling is dripping from in front of the AC vent in the ceiling. DH looks at it, thinks it's the AC or maybe an AC pipe, so we turn off the AC and call maintenance. 10 minutes later, they arrive and bring the ladder in the room to look at it. They towel off the ceiling and go up to the room above, thinking that the upstairs guests left their water on. It's dripping that much, and there is a ~24 inch spot on the ceiling.
They come back after determining its not the room upstairs. They take off the AC cover , take a look around, note that it all looks good. They leave it open to go get us a new filter because the current one is FILTHY.
My husband is looking at the AC and points out a couple of capped wires, noting that the way they are wired and left open is against code (electrician), and makes me feel so much better. What can you do?
The maintenance guy returns and tells us that he thinks it is the AC dripping condensation and opens the AC vent wider. He turns the AC back on and it continues to drip frequently. He decides to bring us an ice bucket filled with towels to catch the drips. I ask about another room, but he says they only have smoking rooms available. Ewww...no thanks very much.
He leaves and we try to go back to sleep. The dripping is driving me crazy.
I get up, move the ice bucket (its only catching one drip, there are 2 or 3 still hitting the carpet) and put down a towel. The dripping sound is minimized a little. I turn the AC from Medium to Low, but it begins making a hellish rattling noise so we decide to just turn off the AC to try and sleep.
Trouble is, with the AC off, all you can hear is I-4, and it was loud all night. Neither of us slept very well.
Saturday morning I get up to take a shower. While in the shower, within 5 minutes, the tub is full of water to my ankles. The drain isn't working very well. Great. Now I get to stand here with my feet in soapy icky water. I pull the shower curtain out to keep it from getting soaked and note the nice tub ring surrounding the tub about 10 inches up. So clearly they bother to clean the tubs thoroughly. Gross!
We get ready and get out of the room to head to the parks. We turn the AC on, because the maintenance guy said that the sensor in our room knows when you are out, and turns the AC off to conserve energy. This turned out not to be true, because it was going full blast everytime we came into the room all weekend.
We parked on the left side of the resort each night, and came in through the side door which takes you through the smoking room gauntlet, which was quite disgusting.
Otherwise, the rooms do look like the photos. Our beds were nice and the room was otherwise clean. The hotel was quiet, the elevators worked fine, and we had no problems with parking.
We did not get an express check out option, so my DH had to go downstairs Monday morning to check out. He was annoyed about the $8 per day "resort fee." What is that for exactly? I guess just parking, since you don't get anything else.
We only saw the DTD resort busses go by 2 or 3 times and they were not frequent enough for us, so we drove to DTD and parked and used the busses from there, or we drove directly to our park destination.
On our last night there, we picked up dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express and took it back to the room. DH takes the ice bucket to find ice, but it is nowhere on our floor. On our way out Monday morning, one of our floormates tells us in the elevator that the closest ice machine is on the 11th floor. How convenient!
Overall, I found many things about this resort lacking compared to staying directly on property, but the cheap rate was worth a try. I would not stay at this particular resort again.
We arrived at 3:30 to check in on Friday Sep 1st. The lobby looks like any other photo you've seen on this board. There were only 2 desk attendants working, and over 10 people waiting in the lobby to check in. I'm spoiled by always checking in early at a Disney resort, but they did not have any tower rooms available, so they would not check me in. We sat in the lobby for 30 minutes, until the check in time of 4:00 PM. We got back in line and checked in. They did not have the Tower King Bed room ready that we booked online, so we took a Tower room with 2 full beds.
We received no resort info at all. No resort maps, no restaurant info, nothing. Great.
We took the elevator to the 15th floor and got into our room. The AC was on and it was cold, so I turned it to be a little warmer (we normally keep our home at 78). We checked out the room and unpacked. Our view was out the left side of the resort, towards I-4 and the Lake Buena Vista exit, with the pool visible below us.
We left the hotel and walked to DTD, shopped, and ate dinner at RFC. We walked back to the resort, and the lobby was still very busy with check ins. Our room AC was still on, but it was a little warmer. We got to bed around 11:30 PM.
I'm trying to go to sleep, but keep hearing a noise like dripping. We turn on the light and notice that the ceiling is dripping from in front of the AC vent in the ceiling. DH looks at it, thinks it's the AC or maybe an AC pipe, so we turn off the AC and call maintenance. 10 minutes later, they arrive and bring the ladder in the room to look at it. They towel off the ceiling and go up to the room above, thinking that the upstairs guests left their water on. It's dripping that much, and there is a ~24 inch spot on the ceiling.
They come back after determining its not the room upstairs. They take off the AC cover , take a look around, note that it all looks good. They leave it open to go get us a new filter because the current one is FILTHY.
My husband is looking at the AC and points out a couple of capped wires, noting that the way they are wired and left open is against code (electrician), and makes me feel so much better. What can you do?
The maintenance guy returns and tells us that he thinks it is the AC dripping condensation and opens the AC vent wider. He turns the AC back on and it continues to drip frequently. He decides to bring us an ice bucket filled with towels to catch the drips. I ask about another room, but he says they only have smoking rooms available. Ewww...no thanks very much.
He leaves and we try to go back to sleep. The dripping is driving me crazy.
I get up, move the ice bucket (its only catching one drip, there are 2 or 3 still hitting the carpet) and put down a towel. The dripping sound is minimized a little. I turn the AC from Medium to Low, but it begins making a hellish rattling noise so we decide to just turn off the AC to try and sleep.Trouble is, with the AC off, all you can hear is I-4, and it was loud all night. Neither of us slept very well.
Saturday morning I get up to take a shower. While in the shower, within 5 minutes, the tub is full of water to my ankles. The drain isn't working very well. Great. Now I get to stand here with my feet in soapy icky water. I pull the shower curtain out to keep it from getting soaked and note the nice tub ring surrounding the tub about 10 inches up. So clearly they bother to clean the tubs thoroughly. Gross!
We get ready and get out of the room to head to the parks. We turn the AC on, because the maintenance guy said that the sensor in our room knows when you are out, and turns the AC off to conserve energy. This turned out not to be true, because it was going full blast everytime we came into the room all weekend.
We parked on the left side of the resort each night, and came in through the side door which takes you through the smoking room gauntlet, which was quite disgusting.
Otherwise, the rooms do look like the photos. Our beds were nice and the room was otherwise clean. The hotel was quiet, the elevators worked fine, and we had no problems with parking.
We did not get an express check out option, so my DH had to go downstairs Monday morning to check out. He was annoyed about the $8 per day "resort fee." What is that for exactly? I guess just parking, since you don't get anything else.
We only saw the DTD resort busses go by 2 or 3 times and they were not frequent enough for us, so we drove to DTD and parked and used the busses from there, or we drove directly to our park destination.
On our last night there, we picked up dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express and took it back to the room. DH takes the ice bucket to find ice, but it is nowhere on our floor. On our way out Monday morning, one of our floormates tells us in the elevator that the closest ice machine is on the 11th floor. How convenient!
Overall, I found many things about this resort lacking compared to staying directly on property, but the cheap rate was worth a try. I would not stay at this particular resort again.
We never saw a wash cloth the entire time, even after repeatedly calling down for them. The bath products were nice, Bath & Body Works stuff. We did one day of the driving to the park thing and having to face "THE TRAM" as we refer to it. It was a nightmare, people refusing to take their kids out of strollers and fold them up, making us sit in the heat while they argued with the drivers. DH said, "I don't care WHAT it costs, get us a room onsite!" Well, one phone call and $300 later, we were ensconced in our garden view room at the Contemporary (yep, that much if you wait till last minute and have no code over Easter!). They were so nice though, we were actually in a room by 10:30 the next morning. One thing I remember about the HRP was the strange room configuation, two beds, then an alcove area by the window with a small pull out sofa. The girls took turns sleeping over there, even though the alcove part was teeny tiny.
