Originally Posted by flying_kittens
Except for some nice views, I don't see what the big fuss is over the Ocean Tower...I used the adults-only pool in the Ocean Tower every day, and it seemed like it would be a generally noisy tower to stay in, because voices tend to echo inside the cylinders.
We burned 200,000 points for 2 rooms (remember the good old days
) in the Fall of '02 for a vacation at the HWV. We loved the place and had an unforgettable trip.
We had rooms down the hall from each other in the Ocean Tower. My room was in the center "cylinder" at the outermost part of the curve (hope that makes sense), and it was quiet and private (couldn't see other balconies and they couldn't see us). The floor below us must have been a smoking floor, because the day we arrived we had to close the sliding glass door due to the smell drifting in. The rest of the week was breezy and that seemed to solve the problem, luckily.
Our other family members were in a room on the outer curve of a "cylinder" facing the adjacent "cylinder." They mentioned that every morning around 6am, a guy int he adjacent tower would sit on his balcony and gab on his cell phone, and you could easily hear every word due to the echo. I would definitely take this into consideration when booking in that tower in the future.
Our kids did Dolphin Quest and really enjoyed it. We dined at Kirin and liked the food, but the downside was the air conditioning (uncomfortably cold).