My boyfriend and I recently stayed here for 5 days. We booked it through a JetBlue vacation package. The vacation package from JetBlue had a great advantage that our resort fee was only $10/day vs $32/day. I booked this hotel before checking Yelp and was terrified due to the reviews people have left here. After staying here, I have to say, I do not understand the awful reviews!
The hotel is on International Drive, which means there's supermarkets, fast food chains, deli's, and activities very close to us. It was a $25 Uber ride from Orlando International Airport, and any other Uber's including to Universal Studios was always less than $10, making transportation great as we both live up to the New Yorker stereotype and do not drive. They do have a free shuttle to Universal, but we went so early to our parks we didn't utilize them. The hotel was conveniently placed near activities and food.
We were placed in Building 6, room 6527. That was a great decision because it seems like the rooms in B6 all come equipped with microwaves (don't quote me on this though), we did not have to rent one for 10 dollars a day. B6 is right in front of the convenient store, which made quick snacks or drinks easily accessible. We were a 3 min walk away from all the food and water park. Our room had 2 Queen beds. I would have preferred to just have a room with 1 King bed, but it was fine. The tv channels we got were awful, but it wasn't a problem for us, I brought my iPad with me. The fridge is small but you can take out the metal shelf inside to fit more. The toilet was annoying, it would never fill up all the way so flushing became harder and harder each day. It would eventually flush so we never had to call maintenance. Everything else about the room was fine. We had one water bug in our bathroom, which isn't the end of the world. The lamp in between the two beds was missing a bulb, but the outside light, lamp, and vanity light were enough.
The waterpark was cute, it was open from 11am-7pm. The slides were fun. 3 big slides, the rest are in the big play area and are a bit more kid oriented. The lifeguards were all attentive, and the place was clean. The pool inside the water park was heated. One slide was closed for whatever reason, which was the slide that actually let you fall into the deeper end of the pool. I had a nice time at the water park, it's small but worth the $10 resort fee. We were there for about 3hrs, which included all the slides and playing around in the pool. There is an entire kiddie area for younger kids who want to play, that includes smaller slides and shallow water which is nice for families.
If you are a hotel guest, you get access to a private pool and hot tub. Both of these are outdoors, and farther away from the water park. There is a bar next to it, but it wasn't open once the entire time we were around. This pool was not heated, and it became freezing cold towards the end of the night, as these pools are open from 8am-10pm. We assumed this pool would be heated like the one in the waterpark, but it wasn't which was super unfortunate. The hot tub was nice, but a lot of children were playing in it as if it were a large pool, which made it unenjoyable sometimes. There is no lifeguard on duty like there was at the water park, so be careful when it comes to kids running around and swimming!
The food was hit or miss. We read that the pizza from the grill was a Pizza Hut, but it wasn't. The pizza was awful. I ordered mozzarella sticks on 2 occasions and they were delicious, so was the popcorn shrimp. It was a bit pricy but wasn't enough to burn a hole in our pockets. The breakfast buffet wasn't appealing for the price. They did allow us to look at what was being served before we had to pay, and we saw that it was like a continental breakfast priced at $13 a person, so we decided against it. My boyfriend and I are not huge breakfast eaters, so we preferred to just have a bigger lunch outside wherever we went or heat up leftovers from a restaurant the night before in our hotel room.
The staff were very nice, didn't really speak to them much. My biggest complaint is it seemed as if no one knew anything at times about their own hotel. The resort fee includes a coupon book for Universal/IOA, which is great to check out because it will save you a few bucks at the parks. The arcade was cute but expensive. The prizes aren't great, but you have a lot of fun. There were a decent amount of games, a lot of them were broken.
This is an inexpensive hotel. You get what you pay for. It's a 3 star hotel that made us both happy on our quick vacation for 2. We do not have any kids and still had a blast at this obviously family oriented hotel. The water park was the reason why I booked it because it worked great with our 2 day passes to Universal. After so much walking back to back it was nice to spend our last full day at the water park. Don't expect to enjoy staying here for days straight with nothing else! read more