- Joined
- Aug 20, 2006
- Messages
- 3,368
- Reaction score
- 1,297
- Points
- 548
- Location
- Honolulu, HI
- Resorts Owned
- HGVC South Beach, HGVC Las Vegas, HGVC Las Vegas on the Strip, HGVC Sea World, Misner Place
We recently traded into Lagoon Tower Penthouse using RCI. Although the points were only 5800 (+$40/day resort fee which the resort would not waive even though we are an HGVC owner). The penthouse unit they assign for RCI trades is in the back corner (2472/3). Although laid out nicely and the balcony and view were fantastic, the elevator noise in the master was very loud because the machines are on the roof next to the headboard. Earplugs did not seem to help much.
We tolerated the noise but next time will spend the extra HGVC points for an internal trade to get a quieter unit.
If you do an internal trade for the Penthouse you may not get a better unit since there is very limited number of Penthouse units. We have stayed in the Studio portion of the suite right next to the elevator 2471 for a week. Now we have stayed in Lagoon Studios for many nights, they are small and the kitchen is very efficiency, however, that Penthouse Studio is really small due to the machine room taking over a portion of the studio that you have on the lower floors. Even though you get a Lanai, which is very nice, it is ridiculously small. The dinning table is so small that we could only fit our vitamin bottles on it and had to eat all our meals on the Lanai. Luckily it was in late April so it stayed light longer and the weather was perfect so we didn't have to concern ourselves with eating outside in the dark, wind, or rain. The King bed is nice but it leaves only enough room for 1 night table so we had to take the laundry basket and turn it over with a towel over it to create a second one in the small space on one side of the bed. We have lots of luggage which we usually leave open for access on a luggage rack. We had to keep them standing up and only access one at a time since the floor space was so limited.