Loews Royal Pacific Resort at Universal Orlando

Starting with arrival, every single touchpoint to customer service was just plain bad. We arrived earlier that the scheduled check in time of 4pm to see if we could drop our bags in the room and freshen up before heading to the parks. "the best thing to do is self park your car and go to the front desk" says valet. Ok so let's do that. Of course, room not available. No problem, we will get our key cards and just go to room later. "Will these key cards let us out of self parking?" "Yes, they absolutely will" (NARRATOR: they absolutely didn't requiring a 15 minute process to get out of lot with parking machine broken to ask for help.) "Will you please have housekeeping make up sofa bed for our daughter" "Yes, no problem." (NARRATOR: they absolutely didn't...requiring us to make up bed ourselves when getting to room exhausted) "When will our room be ready? "By 4pm, latest" (NARRATOR: it was not ready until after 6pm) Market cafe/coffee shop in lobby had line 20+ deep trying to order and pay. Why was there only one person helping? Luggage service/bellman had line 15+ families deep trying to check bags in and out. Ridiculous. We literally only stayed in the room for 8 hours and still was one of the least enjoyable hotels I've ever been to. The only positive attributes of the hotel are the location and Unlimited upgrade.

Special thank you to Lila, Kiley, Daniel, and Kawena who provided excellent customer service at the Royal Pacific Resort. They went above and beyond to make our stay special! I travel frequently as a VP for an advisory company so I appreciate and acknowledge excellent customer service and they are top notch! They were kind, listened to our requests, and accommodated us in Check-in and for extending our stay. Loews is fortunate to have this team represent their resort. I know when someone genuinely cares about their customers and they do. Thank you to Kiley, Lila, Daniel, and Kawena for helping us which started our trip on the right foot and for staying longer!!

Stayed at this resort as part of a trip to Orlando after spending the first part of the holiday at Disney. The hotel is lovely and well decorated. The lobby felt clean and spacious and we received a very warm welcome (as well as pretty flower garlands). All of the staff we encountered were really professional and friendly. The room was standard size but felt like a little bit of luxury compared to our Moderate Disney hotel (which I guess is fair as different hotel grades). We grabbed some food in the evenings in the TukTuk market which is their grab and go. The food was actually very very good and much better than I had expected for ‘convenience’. The only thing I found weird was that a lot of the selfserve items were not priced and apparently I would have had to take them to the till to find out the cost. It put me off getting additional items because it was busy and I didn’t want to be ‘that’ customer. Odd not to price things (eg beer, cokes, wines etc) but hey ho. On to the access to Universal: fabulous. A brisk seven minute walk or a boat ride from the hotel jetty. Made everything so accessible and just tons more fun! Overall an excellent experience and we would 100% return here next time in Orlando.

The disappointment is real, guys. Out of the different stays I had during this trip, I was looking forward to this one the most - I wanted to end with a relaxing stay in an upscale, peaceful setting. I found this hotel almost outrageously expensive in return for value received. Let's start with the positives! - The location to Universal is very nice and in my opinion the main selling point. It's a 10-minute walk to City Walk. You can also take a hotel boat there, but I think that takes longer than walking. - The person who checked me in was competent and thorough. The concierge we spoke with was also very professional. Thank you! The not-so-greats: - at $500 a pop, the rooms are a little dated. But for me, the worse part is they don't feel very clean. When I arrived, I found some food bit on my sheets and a dark, easily visible stain on one of the pillowcases. It made me uneasy and wonder if these have actually been washed...? See pics! - Maintenance/housekeeping needs work as evidenced by the above and the conditioner bottle that ran empty by Day 2 (wasn't checked or filled by staff). The bathroom sliding door handle was askew and very loose on its hinges - easy fix that indicates that not a lot of effort is put into the rooms. The little table by the window had dried food stuck to the surface. - I called a couple times prior to my stay because I had a question on my reservation. They seemed disinterested and gave me inconsistent/not really answers to my questions responses. As you probably know, the majority of people stay here because it offers early admission (note: during the time here, it was only applicable to IoA) and unlimited express passes to the Universal parks. This could be nice except the express passes can't be used on rides you really need it most, like Hagrid's Magical Creatures ride. Unfortunately if there's any delay in the ride at all (which is very common) it could be like us where the delay ate into our ENTIRE early admission hour and wasn't operating until 9AM (regular admission time). And from there it was STILL over an hour wait. By the time we got done waiting and off the ride, it was 10:15 AM. Early admission was 8AM. Anyway, the express pass is still why many stay here, which is likely why so little effort is put into the rooms despite the high price tag. I would not recommend staying here. It may be better to book elsewhere and determine the day of whether you'd like to buy express passes separately. Last minor point: I don't know why other reviews mentioned leis because we weren't offered any at check-in. I don't know if this is still a practice.

Overall, the Loews Royal Pacific is an adequate hotel for a Universal trip. The rooms are clean and functional, and the value proposition (free express pass for all registered guests) is hard to beat. Two dings to the rating: 1. Rooms are not adequately soundproofed. We could hear loud screaming children on all sides (including, surprising, above and below). We are no strangers to Orlando hotels, but it was nonetheless surprising to us just how poorly the rooms were insulated from sound. 2. The rooms are starting to show their age. The furnishings are rather basic for a hotel at this price point, and you could be forgiven for walking into the room and thinking that this was a run-of-the-mill, $150/night three-star hotel. The location is great, and paired with more modern furnishings the hotel could be even better.