Last weekend, my husband and I took the kids for a wonderful weekend getaway down to Florida. When we left North Carolina early Friday morning, it was chilly and rainy outside. We were bundled up in sweaters and coats and ready to get out of the cold.
Several hours later, we were swimming in the warm water of the gorgeous Caribe Royale pool.
It was an amazing getaway!
The Caribe Royale Resort is 1.5 miles away from the Walt Disney World area so it’s the perfect place to stay for a Disney World vacation. But for this trip, we decided to just stay at the resort and take advantage of all of the awesome amenities.
The kids wanted to spend all day, every day in the pool, of course. It’s an enormous, 250,000 gallon free-form pool filled with sparkling, heated water. Although we had beautiful weather while we were there, I loved the fact that the pool was heated. I’m one of those inch-slowly-into-the-pool people, so being able to walk right down into the water was so nice. And since the kids wanted to head back down to the pool in the evening when it was cooler, the warm water still felt wonderful.
There’s a poolside bar and grille called Calypso’s that was a great place to grab food and drinks while we were relaxing by the pool. We ate lunch there during the day and my husband and I enjoyed a frosty beer while we relaxed. There was island music playing, the sun was shining and I was really enjoying myself.
This is how my son enjoyed himself. He pretty much wanted to do this non-stop during the days we were there:
The kids absolutely loved the winding 75-foot waterslide. The girls were able to go down by themselves and my toddler son would go down on my husband’s lap. There was an attendant there making sure everyone was safe and even on the busier afternoons, there was never a long line to go down. The slide was a huge hit with the kids!
Another cool part of the pool was the waterfall area. The kids loved swimming through the waterfalls and climbing up into the grotto behind it. It was neat to sit in one of the lounge chairs behind the falls and watch the kids swimming nearby.
Another favorite activity was playing games in the arcades. There are two game rooms at the resort – one in the main building and one right off of the pool. The kids had a great time dancing, driving and playing lots of fun arcade games.
After spending hours swimming in the pool and playing games in the arcade, my toddler needed a little nap during the day. One of us would walk him up for a rest in our gorgeous double Queen Suite.
You can’t see it in this photo, but the resort had a Pack-n-Play ready for us, as requested. My toddler slept comfortably there and the rest of us had plenty of room on the huge Queen-sized beds.
Isn’t this room gorgeous?
As pretty as the rooms were, my favorite part wasn’t how they looked.
My favorite part of our beautiful suite was that it was a SUITE! When my son was napping, or when a couple of the kids wanted to get up earlier than we did, and especially when I needed to stay up a little late to work, we had another room to use. It was so nice to be able to go into the living room and not disturb everyone who was sleeping.
You can’t see it in this photo, but there is a large desk over to the left side of the room, where I could get some work done at night.
It was wonderful to have so much space to spread out in and was perfect for our family of five.
When it was time to eat, we had a lot of dining options to choose from without even leaving the resort. The Caribe Royale has everything from fine dining at The Venetian, to more casual meals at The Tropicale to the market-style Café Largo that’s open 24 hours.
Each morning, we enjoyed the amazing Breakfast Buffet at The Tropicale.
The buffet was insane. The above photo doesn’t even show all of the food that’s available. In addition to that long line of hot items, there are 2 other stations of fresh fruits, pastries, cereals and more. Then there is yet another station with freshly prepared made-to-order omelets and waffles.
It was wonderful!
We have very different tastes and preferences of foods among the members of my family (spice-lovers and sensitive palates, meat-lovers and vegetarians) and we all loved our breakfasts at The Tropicale. There were wonderful dishes that we’d never tried before in addition to the favorites we love, so the breakfast buffet was definitely a hit.
I’d love to say that after eating those amazing breakfasts that I headed over to take advantage of the gorgeous Fitness Center:
Yeah, that didn’t happen.
My husband did go over twice to work out and said the fitness area was really nice. It had all of his favorite machines, along with lots of flat-screen TVs, so he could watch while he worked out. Since the fitness center overlooks the pool area, he was also able to see me playing with the kids in the Spray Ground and on the kids’ playground.
I have to say that everything at the Caribe Royale absolutely exceeded our expectations. We had planned to do a few things in Orlando while we were there and ended up never leaving the resort – it was that much fun!
If you’re considering a family vacation, definitely check out the Caribe Royale. We had an amazing time from the moment we arrived to when it was (sadly) time to head home.
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Right now you can get 15% off a trip to the beautiful Caribe Royale!
Use Discount Code: FUN15
Offer: 15% off undiscounted Best Available Rate for travel April 24-August 15, 2014
http://www.cariberoyale.com/specials-packages/
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Disclosure: Compensation was provided by Caribe Royale via Burst Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author.