My Hilton Head Review

[patandtwins]

My family stayed at Disney's HH for 5 nights in July. We wanted a cheap vacation and so we used our DVC points for the room and by not going to WDW, we saved on park tickets and DDP. We drove down from the Baltimore area. It wasn't a bad drive, better than driving to WDW. We arrived around 10:30 am on check in day. We had to wait for our room. We decided to wait at the beach and was given a map that showed how to get there. It was a little confusing, given all the gated entrances, but we figured it out after a few misturns. They have a parking lot with only 30 or so spots and when we got there it was filled (the check-in lady didn't mention this possibility to us). After circling for 10 minutes, we realized that nobody was going to be leaving anytime soon, so we drove back to the resort (which is about 3 miles and a 7-10 minute drive). We then decided to go to the pool, figuring we'd only be there for a few minutes before our room was ready. Well, check in is 2pm and our room was not ready until 1:50. I know this is how it is at Disney during peak season, but never expected it at HH. But not a big deal, we just wished we planned better. We would have packed a seperate beach bag and hopped on their shuttle to the beach. Instead, we wasted a day at the pool. We went to our room (1 bedroom villa) which was located in the check-in building, which is farthest from the pool. Getting all our stuff out of the car and into the tiny elevator proved to be no small task and there were no bellhops around to help, like they have at WDW. We get unpacked and head to the beach. It was around 4:30 pm and we got a spot in the parking lot as people were leaving. We learned that if you go by 10 am or after 4ish, you can get a spot. The waves were rough that week. We, however, enjoyed hours of fun in the sun. Because I did not want to overload our van (there is 5 of us and all the luggage) I mistakenly did not bring beach chairs. I brought a blanket and thought that would be fine. Me and my back longed for a beach chair. I rented one for 2 days, which was very expensive (it would have been cheaper to buy one). There is a nice pool, bar and counter service food place at the beach. The pool at the resort is nice and they have a ton of kids' activities. My gripe about the main pool is that the food place and bathrooms are on the second floor of the building, so if you are enjoying a few beers by the pool (and they do have waitstaff to bring you drinks) and have to use the restroom frequently, it can be tiring going up those steps a bunch of times.

[patandtwins]

1 more gripe about our vacation and I'll be done. It was the room location. It was the worst we've ever had with DVC. We were on a corner and when you rounded the corner, there was an entire balcony of HVAC units. On the other side of the wall from our master bed was this row of HVAC things that would run and vibrate and hum the whole night long. My DH can sleep through anything and was not bothered, but I got the worst sleep ever on a vacation and was utterly exhausted. On top of that, there was a family of heavy footed people above us who would stomp and bang around until 11pm and than their kid would wake up and run around at 2am every night and then again at 6am every morning. We've never been bothered by neighbors at any of the other DVC resorts, ever. I have no desire to go back.

[TheDuckRocks]

Sorry you had such an unhappy experience at HHI. We just returned from a quick trip down a week ago and had a completely wonderful time there, even with 3 and 1/2 days of rainy weather from hurricane Ida. We can hardly wait for a time in the future to go back and take our dughter's family with us.

[BluewaterBrad]

Thanks for sharing!