We stayed here for 14 days and unfortunately, although there were some positives, our overall experience was heavily affected by repeated maintenance issues.
For the first 10 days of our holiday, we stayed in the same room. During this time, the damp/mould on the ceiling progressively became much worse and spread across a large area of the ceiling. The toilet also became blocked during our stay. When we reported the blocked toilet to reception, we also mentioned the damp and were told someone would check the A/C unit. The toilet was fixed, and afterwards the A/C did seem to be considerably cooler.
Two days later, we received an email asking us to go to reception to change rooms because housekeeping had noticed a large amount of mould and the room was considered a health concern. However, the email stated that the mould was apparently caused by us leaving the door open and turning the A/C off. This was completely false. We had not been leaving the door open or turning the A/C off as suggested, so it was very frustrating to have the issue attributed to us.
The extractor fan in the bathroom also did not work. It never came on when using the bathroom, which was particularly concerning given the damp/mould problem.
Another issue we experienced was the timing of housekeeping. On several occasions, our room was still being cleaned as late as 5pm. We would often be returning from a full day at the parks around this time, looking forward to getting back to our room to shower, relax and unwind, only to find the cleaners still in the room. We appreciate that staff have a job to do, but the very late cleaning times regularly conflicted with when we were returning to the resort and wanting to use our room.
We also had ongoing problems with the laundry room. The key card would flash green and red at the same time and would stop working. We went to reception around 3–4 times and were given a new card each time. The card would work once after being activated, but then stop working again the next time we tried to use it.
On our final visit to reception about this, the manager happened to be there. Once we explained the green and red flashing light, she identified that the battery in the laundry room door was low and contacted maintenance. After this was fixed, we had no further problems. We had explained the same issue to staff on previous occasions, but unfortunately it wasn’t identified until the manager dealt with it.
With only four days of our holiday remaining, we were moved to another room. As this room was on the ground floor, we then had multiple creatures/insects getting into the room.
The A/C in the second room also had its own issue, as it was leaking a considerable amount of water. I had to put two large towels underneath it as well as plastic cups to catch the water, which I repeatedly had to empty.
It was particularly disappointing that after spending a significant amount of money on a two-week holiday, we spent a large part of the stay having to report problems, change rooms and deal with maintenance issues.
The staff were generally polite when we raised issues, and the manager was helpful in resolving the laundry-room problem once she became involved. However, there were simply too many problems during our stay, and some could have been dealt with much sooner.
On the positive side, the location is great if you want to be close to International Drive and the attractions. It is an okay place to stay if you mainly want somewhere to get your head down after a day out, but based on our experience, you may come across maintenance or room issues during your stay.
Unfortunately, based on our experience, we would not choose to stay here again.
