Luxury Resort Hotels…Vacation Part 2

Loew's Royal Pacific Resort

Well to continue with our little family vacation I am going to report on luxury hotels. We stayed at the Lowe’s Royal Pacific Resort, a 4 star hotel, on the property of Universal Studios, for convenience. The theme of this hotel was Hawaii and, when we got there, a man came running out to give us each a lei. Very nice touch! At the front desk, they asked my husband if he wanted a complimentary newspaper delivered every morning and he said yes. Check in went very smoothly and all our questions were answered about park tickets and express passes to the parks.

We go up to our room, with two queen beds, and I find the room is very small with barely enough room to walk around the beds. A table and two chairs crammed into a corner that could hardly accommodate them, let alone anyone who wanted to sit there. They were right up against the dresser so there wasn’t even room to maneuver. I would have expected a larger room for the sake of comfort and luxury, which is what we are paying for.

On the dresser were four boxes of expensive “snacks,” clearly labeled by price ($10 for 3 ounces of cashews) and two $7 bottles of water, for our convenience. I was afraid to use the Keurig coffee maker because it didn’t specify if it was complimentary or $10 a cup. I didn’t want to ask the concierge and look like a pauper either.

It seems that luxury hotels charge guests for everything. They nickel and dime you every step along the way. Nothing is a courtesy. For example, for me to make a local phone call to arrange for transportation back to the airport, they charge $1. My husband ordered a turkey club sandwich at the pool which was priced at $15, AND the bread wasn’t even fresh! He told me that at the end, so I couldn’t very well complain about it, but I did remember to put it in my survey comments. The wifi in the lobby was free, but in your room you would have to pay $10 a day for the privilege to use it there. Let me just say that the room was about $300 a night, so I would have expected some of these things to be gratuitous. I guess rich people don’t care how they spend their money, but we do. Ordinarily we would have stayed at a more spacious, wifi and local calls for free Holiday Inn, but we wanted the close proximity to the parks since we only had four days. Holiday Inn also provides less expensive meals and they are just as good. An all you can eat breakfast buffet at this place costs $20 a person. I ordered from the menu instead and got two eggs, toast, bacon and potatoes with coffee for $10...which I considered a bargain. Breakfast for four, without the buffet, ran us about $65 with tax and tip. I think that’s a lot of money for eggs, but we haven’t had a vacation in a long, long time. I tried not to let getting royally ripped off bother me too much.

We never did get the complimentary newspaper every morning either. My husband went to the lobby every day and got it himself. No big deal. The hotel advertises several dining rooms, but because of the low occupancy this week, they neglected to inform us they would not all be open regular hours. We accommodated this inconvenience by eating at the parks before returning to the hotel for the evening. The Hard Rock Café, the larger, closer to the parks, more expensive resort, had a more varied and reasonably priced menu. It was situated where we board the water taxi to get back to our hotel. We took advantage to that to have our dinner there.

There have only been maybe three times that we took the extravagant route with luxury hotels. The first time was on our honeymoon in Hawaii. I remember a little balcony outside our room with an ocean view and we watched the sunset as we had cocktails. They served every meal with sweet, delicious pineapple too. They provided bath robes and all kinds of amenities that I wasn’t expecting. The second time was in Cape Cod for our 25th anniversary. The room had a Jacuzzi in it, a fireplace and canopy bed. It was spacious and beautiful. The only thing I could complain about is that we were in a rush to leave at the end of our stay and my toasted English muffin took over 45 minutes to get to me. The reason being that our server took off for an emergency and they did not replace him or let us know until I started complaining. Of course they didn’t charge us for breakfast, but they ended my little trip on a sour note. And this last time, at Universal, we decided to go with luxury and convenience.  All in all, I don’t think luxury hotels are worth it, even if you can afford to throw good money away.

We all have dreamed of being rich and staying at expensive hotels and eating at the finest restaurants. I’m not so sure we would be happy. It sounds good on the face of it. They want you to feel like you are getting pampered and your every need is being met. I’m not used to my every need being met so I wouldn’t know how to use these places to my advantage. What I am used to is getting what I paid for and not being made a fool of. When I see $15 for a turkey club sandwich, I think this is outrageous! Unless of course, they just went out and shot the turkey that morning, roasted it all day and carved it up to put in some nice, homemade, freshly baked bread. Then, in that case, $15 would be more than reasonable. When your whole hotel is wired for wifi and I have to pay $10 a day to use it in a small room that costs $300 a day already, then I don’t feel pampered, I feel screwed. Just make the room $310 and throw in the damn wifi, would ya?

I really think Holiday Inn gets you the best bang for your buck and I have yet to leave one of their hotels dissatisfied or feeling robbed.

Universal Studios & Islands of Adventure

Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while. I miss it. As you all know, my younger daughter graduated in May and then studied two and a half months for her state licensing exam, which she passed at the end of July. I wanted to take a family vacation, but I needed to wait until after the exam. I came across this “package” to Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure in early August. We had been there over ten years ago, before they added Islands of Adventure. My daughter had said she would like to go there and I wanted to make her happy, she deserved it. The package was for 5 days and 4 nights at a resort hotel (another blog on this will follow) on the premises of the park. Everything, except food, was included Universal Studios & Islands of Adventure. We all needed to get away, and away we went.

The week of Labor Day is a very slow travel week. Airports, hotels, and even the theme parks were virtually empty. I know it’s because school is open, but things pick up again next week, so I’m not sure why, because school is still open. Never-the-less, we lucked out because it was convenient for us and there were virtually no lines on any of the attractions. We saw everything two or three times in both parks and had time to enjoy the pool at the hotel. If you go there during this week, you only need two days to see both parks. They are not nearly as big as Disney World. 

At Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, there are quite a few 3D motion simulator rides. I really enjoyed those for the most part. The 3D animations have improved so much since the last time I was out there. We went on a Simpson ride and you actually feel like you are on an episode of the show! The motion simulator car you ride in makes it feel like you are on a roller coaster. It’s amazing what they can do to make you feel like you are going up or dropping. Since I can’t tolerate real roller coasters any more, this was the same kind of experience without the motion sickness afterwards. There were about three of the outrageous roller coasters that do loops and turn you upside down, but we skipped those. My younger daughter is the only one who can tolerate them and she didn’t want to go on them alone. I almost broke down and went on one with her, they were always my favorite, but the thought of feeling sick for hours in the hot humid sun made me think better of it.

At Islands of Adventure there is a Harry Potter section. It’s pretty impressive the way they designed the buildings. There was one ride there that was very popular. It was crowded and we waited until we got there early one day to go on. My husband and I decided not to try it. It sounded rougher than the other 3D motion simulator rides. There was a 30 minute wait. The girls went in and my husband and I found a cool spot to wait by the gift store. After 45 minutes we are expecting the girls to come out. Instead, a British woman passing by tells me the ride is broken and they don’t know when it will be fixed. I start to get a little panicked. The girls don’t have their phones because you have to check everything before getting on. After waiting a full hour, a woman from Ireland says 5 members of her family went on the ride an hour ago and haven’t come out. I told her neither have my girls. She proceeded to tell me this ride broke last year while her son was on it! I’m thinking what are the odds that this ride breaks twice while this woman from Ireland is at the park with her family??? It must breakdown quite a bit. I run around to the entrance to demand some answers. Are people on the ride and when will it be fixed. The guy tells me no one is on the ride and he has no idea when it will be fixed. I go back to my husband and the Irish lady and tell them what I learned. I console myself that the girls will use common sense and come out if it takes too long. Meanwhile, a lot of people are coming out in droves. They don’t want to wait around wasting their day with the uncertainty of the ride. After 75 minutes the Irish woman is reunited with her family of five, who tell her the ride is fixed. I am still a little anxious. Five minutes later both of my girls exit. They tell me they were near the front of the line when the ride broke down and were waiting for it to be fixed. That turned out the be a good decision, because that was the highlight of Islands of Adventure.

I have to say that many of the 3D rides had some very scary elements to them. I’m not sure too many young children would be happy, but I didn’t see anyone crying either. There was a flume ride and a white water raft ride that gets you soak and wet too. I never remember to pack shorts that will dry out quickly. We are always wearing denim and they never dry! All in all it was a great little getaway for the four of us. 

On the last day, as we leave to take the water taxi to the entrance of Universal, my younger daughter says to me, “Oh, I just realized it was MGM Studios that I wanted to go to.” My jaw dropped. MGM is connected with Disney World and is a whole other theme park. “You picked a fine time to mention that,” I reply. I was thinking that if she had maybe realized it sooner we could have taken transportation over to MGM for a day, since we had seen all of Universal. Not to mention the fact that I asked her more than once to look up Universal online and check out the attractions she wanted to see. Her response, “I want to be surprised.” So there you have it! Surprise!