Official APH Rate Info for Universal Loews Hotel Properties

[MLB1974]

Hello, Everyone. I have January 20-26 booked at Royal Pacific Resort. When we booked our flight, we added one extra night. For some reason, that last night (January 26-27) is very expensive. My options are 1. Keep waiting it out. 2. Book Hard Rock for about $235 for the one night. 3. Book Sapphire Falls for the one night (about $145 for a standard room or $235 for a Kids' Suite). My question is how difficult is it to get from RPR to one of the others with all of our stuff? Is one a better choice over the other?

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[FinnsMom7]

Hello, Everyone. I have January 20-26 booked at Royal Pacific Resort. When we booked our flight, we added one extra night. For some reason, that last night (January 26-27) is very expensive. My options are 1. Keep waiting it out. 2. Book Hard Rock for about $235 for the one night. 3. Book Sapphire Falls for the one night (about $145 for a standard room or $235 for a Kids' Suite). My question is how difficult is it to get from RPR to one of the others with all of our stuff? Is one a better choice over the other?

Thanks in advance for the help!

I can't speak to HRH but I recently moved from SF to RPR and it was easy, there is an interior walkway connecting the two thru the meeting/convention spaces.

 

[wdwrule]

If the 27th is a full park day, I would be tempted to stay at Hard Rock for EP. Otherwise you’re covered on the 26th no matter where you go with EP from RP.

Sapphire Falls is near RP but you’d have to Uber/Mears to get from one place to another. Technically you could walk over depending on how much stuff you have to lug around. Length of walk is just a few minutes. This resort is beautiful and offers boat launch. Up to you if you need the kids suite for just one night. SF doesn’t offer EP but for that one day (27th) I’d think you’d be fine being that it’s a weekday.

ETA: didn’t know there was an interior walkway that FinnsMom7 mentioned. Even better!

 

[JJ2017]

I'm getting a little confused reading through all of this. We are planning November 2022 during the NJ Teacher's Convention (first week of November). Right now, the Express Pass hotels are very pricey - higher than I have ever noticed. Is it just too far out? Or is it likely that Hard Rock would be $430 a night (without the discount)? Thanks!

 

[Nabas]

I'm getting a little confused reading through all of this. We are planning November 2022 during the NJ Teacher's Convention (first week of November). Right now, the Express Pass hotels are very pricey - higher than I have ever noticed. Is it just too far out? Or is it likely that Hard Rock would be $430 a night (without the discount)? Thanks!

The basics of getting a really good annual pass room rate are:

1. Discounts tend to be released 2 to 3 months in advance.
2. Discounts, especially at the deluxe hotels, usually are not offered when the parks are crowded. This often means no discounts on Friday or Saturday nights, and no discounts during most holidays. There are always exceptions, depending on how strong or weak hotel bookings are.
3. Check multiple combinations of dates. There might be no discounts for (for example) Sunday to Thursday but a great discount for Sunday to Wednesday.
4. Keep checking. Once you are within the 2-3 month window, discounts change daily. In fact, they sometimes change more than once each day.
5. As long as you are more than 5 days out, it's easy to cancel. (The email confirmation you receive will have a link to your reservation, and you can use this to cancel.) This means that you can book one rate you like early, but if something better shows up later, you can cancel that and book a new reservation. It typically takes Universal 10-15 days to refund your one-night deposit for your first reservation.

There are other considerations but these are the basics.

 

[JJ2017]

The basics of getting a really good annual pass room rate are:

1. Discounts tend to be released 2 to 3 months in advance.
2. Discounts, especially at the deluxe hotels, usually are not offered when the parks are crowded. This often means no discounts on Friday or Saturday nights, and no discounts during most holidays. There are always exceptions, depending on how strong or weak hotel bookings are.
3. Keep checking. Once you are within the 2-3 month window, discounts change daily. In fact, they sometimes change more than once each day.

There are other considerations but these are the basics.

Thanks so much for the info. So it is possible for the Wednesday and Thursday nights to be discounted but not the Friday and Saturday? I have no idea if that time period is considered a "holiday." It certainly is in NJ!

 

[Gentry2004]

Thanks so much for the info. So it is possible for the Wednesday and Thursday nights to be discounted but not the Friday and Saturday? I have no idea if that time period is considered a "holiday." It certainly is in NJ!

its possible. It’s really just supply and demand. They will look at what % of rooms are already reserved when deciding whether or not to offer an AP rate. We got it for Easter this year but obviously we live in strange times these days. But if they don’t think they need to discount the rooms, they won’t. You may also need to book some nights seperate from others if you can only get the discount some nights.

 

[JJ2017]

its possible. It’s really just supply and demand. They will look at what % of rooms are already reserved when deciding whether or not to offer an AP rate. We got it for Easter this year but obviously we live in strange times these days. But if they don’t think they need to discount the rooms, they won’t. You may also need to book some nights seperate from others if you can only get the discount some nights.

Can you clarify about booking some nights separate from others? Should I have two reservations?

 

[AJA]

Thanks so much for the info. So it is possible for the Wednesday and Thursday nights to be discounted but not the Friday and Saturday? I have no idea if that time period is considered a "holiday." It certainly is in NJ!

Yes it is possible to only get the APH rate for certain nights of your stay. This happened to us in Oct 2019 our Sunday-Thursday nights were discounted at a great APH rate, but Friday and Saturday had no discount, they were full rack rate.

 

[Nabas]

Can you clarify about booking some nights separate from others? Should I have two reservations?

As @AJA said, you sometimes can get discounts for only some of your nights. We've done two reservations (one for the discounted nights and one for the non-discounted nights) but I have read others who have:

1. Called to get the reservations combined.
2. Told the front desk when they checked-in that they had 2 reservations and didn't want to switch rooms.

We have not tried either so cannot say how successful you might be with either approach.

 

[Gentry2004]

Can you clarify about booking some nights separate from others? Should I have two reservations?

Lets say you want to go the nights of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. When searching for discounts you should try all 4 nights together, each night alone, as well as the 1st &2nd together, 3rd and 4th together, etc. I can't explain it but sometimes a discount will pop up one way but not the other. If you can get all 4 nights together discounted, great! But if not, book just what is discounted and keep looking for other discounts to pop up because they very well could. I've posted this before but last spring break we stayed at HRH for 6 or 7 nights and I believe I had to book most of the nights either individually or 2 nights together. We were able to stay in the same room.

 

[JJ2017]

Gr

Lets say you want to go the nights of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. When searching for discounts you should try all 4 nights together, each night alone, as well as the 1st &2nd together, 3rd and 4th together, etc. I can't explain it but sometimes a discount will pop up one way but not the other. If you can get all 4 nights together discounted, great! But if not, book just what is discounted and keep looking for other discounts to pop up because they very well could. I've posted this before but last spring break we stayed at HRH for 6 or 7 nights and I believe I had to book most of the nights either individually or 2 nights together. We were able to stay in the same room.

great explanation! I’ll certainly hunt, it’s worth it!

 

[AJA]

I know this is the APH thread but as more people start staying longer at Universal (making it a full vacation as opposed to 1-2 nights) always check the Savvy Traveler rate, if some of your nights aren’t available at the APH rate, like the above poster stated it might be better to split the stay.

In October 2019 the difference between a week stay at the APH rate as opposed to Savvy Traveler was only $20 dollars (but that is 3 Butter Beers so we switched to the APH rate!)

 

[mamapenguin]

Lets say you want to go the nights of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. When searching for discounts you should try all 4 nights together, each night alone, as well as the 1st &2nd together, 3rd and 4th together, etc. I can't explain it but sometimes a discount will pop up one way but not the other. If you can get all 4 nights together discounted, great! But if not, book just what is discounted and keep looking for other discounts to pop up because they very well could. I've posted this before but last spring break we stayed at HRH for 6 or 7 nights and I believe I had to book most of the nights either individually or 2 nights together. We were able to stay in the same room.

Do you recall when the APH rates appeared?

 

[Gentry2004]

Do you recall when the APH rates appeared?

It was our first universal trip and I didn’t even start looking until right before I booked, which was 2/21/21 according to my email. The trip was early April. With Covid though I don’t know if that is indicative of anything.

 

[MLB1974]

I can't speak to HRH but I recently moved from SF to RPR and it was easy, there is an interior walkway connecting the two thru the meeting/convention spaces.

Thank you so much for this! Knowing that there is an indoor path definitely makes it seem less daunting. I don't suppose I could push a luggage cart between the two...

 

[MLB1974]

If the 27th is a full park day, I would be tempted to stay at Hard Rock for EP. Otherwise you’re covered on the 26th no matter where you go with EP from RP.

Sapphire Falls is near RP but you’d have to Uber/Mears to get from one place to another. Technically you could walk over depending on how much stuff you have to lug around. Length of walk is just a few minutes. This resort is beautiful and offers boat launch. Up to you if you need the kids suite for just one night. SF doesn’t offer EP but for that one day (27th) I’d think you’d be fine being that it’s a weekday.

ETA: didn’t know there was an interior walkway that FinnsMom7 mentioned. Even better!

Thanks for the feedback. We will be flying home that evening and will need to leave for the airport by about 4pm. I'm also envisioning that as a sleep in day, breakfast at the hotel, and if the weather is nice, a pool day. We may or may not hit the parks that day. With all this considered, I booked a lagoon view king room at Sapphire Falls for $142. I will still keep an eye on getting that last night at Royal Pacific just to keep it easy.

 

[shh]

In October 2019 the difference between a week stay at the APH rate as opposed to Savvy Traveler was only $20 dollars (but that is 3 Butter Beers so we switched to the APH rate!)

I like the way you think! I convert every dollar of savings into goodies - "that's a couple more butterbeers....a pizza fries platter...2 Fat Tuesdays frozen cocktails". Sure makes those small savings feel a lot more valuable.

 

[patster734]

Thank you so much for this! Knowing that there is an indoor path definitely makes it seem less daunting. I don't suppose I could push a luggage cart between the two...

I don’t believe so. They said no when we asked in May going from RP to SF.

 

[FinnsMom7]

Thank you so much for this! Knowing that there is an indoor path definitely makes it seem less daunting. I don't suppose I could push a luggage cart between the two...

We had two large suitcases and two small carry ons so we just split them between us. A staff member that saw us offered to help but we were fine. Once we got to RPR it was like another world, where SF lobby was quiet and empty every day RPR had luggage and carts filled waiting to be taken to rooms. I am sure it all depends when you are going too because they used to provide a luggage service pre covid but they haven't decided to bring that back at this time (response I got when I called star services the morning of our switch)