Ok, so after seeing some of the reviews I feel like I have to state THIS IS A BUDGET FRIENDLY HOTEL!
We were extremely concerned seeing some of the reviews on here and even looked at changing our hotel with out travel agent.
We stayed at the Avanti International for 18 nights, and we have no faults, considering it was a budget friendly hotel!
We arrived around 2pm, as was seen immediately by the reception staff, we were told that we were too early for check in but that they would check if there were rooms available. There were, and we were even told that if we didnt like the room location that we could go back and be moved.
Our room was a standard queen room with two queen sized beds. The room itself was clean, and the best way i can describe it is dated but with new furniture added. By dated I mean, the walls, ceiling, doors, door frames etc. We were told that rooms are cleaned every 4 days, but beds are made and towels changes are daily and they were. There is a safe in the room and the bathroom had a shower over the bath. The bath came in handy with our 8 year old so I was quite grateful of it despite the bathroom probably being the most dated part of the room.
We were also given travel sized soap, shampoo, conditioner and body lotion daily if they were used. We used these for the water parks, as they all have showers. Our room was located in Block 4, ground floor and at the back of the property. We next to the laundry room and the first room from the interstate that the hotel backs on to. We didnt have any issues with the interstate, but we are people who sleep with a fan on at home for white noise. The air conditioning unit could be considered as loud for some I suppose, but again we didnt have an issue with it. There is a small kitchen area in the room this includes: fridge, microwave, ice bucket, Coffee machine. There are no dishes/bowl/cutlery/cups. We bought cheap carboard/plastic ones from wallgreens.
There is also an Ironing board and an iron in each room. I would have liked to have seen a full length mirror, and maybe something/somewhere to hang wet/damp clothes. Theres definitely room for it. I would also say, even though floors are mopped every 4 days, they do need a deeper clean, our white socks were marked after walking around the room.
But beds were really comfy, towels were nice.
The Pool is a nice area, there is sand in the pool, which I assume if from the manmade beach/volley ball area at the side of the pool. I do think the pool should have been cleaned out more regularly. For the 18 days we were there, there was ALWAYS sand in the pool. Now I dont mind there being sand in there, I do mind that the amount of sand in the pool never seemed to reduce. The pool is also salt water. There is also a hot tub, which is lovely and hot, like a hot bath back home.
The pool bar is EXPENSIVE! We paid $23 for two cans of corona, in comparison to sports bars offering 5 bottle buckets for £20 this seemed to extreme. We also priced up the cocktails and were told they were $25 each but we never purchased these. We couldnt justify it. Also you're not allowed to take any outside food/drinks to the pool area, although I did see people doing this and werent pulled up about it, maybe just dont make it so blatantly obvious.
BUT, one friday afternoon there was a DJ on, he was playing music, and getting people involved in activities. We arrived at the tail end of it and only caught the tug of war competition. At the end of his set, I believe it was the last 10-15 minutes he told everyone to get to the bar and all drinks were $5!
There are also pool towels available, so you dont need to use your own, these are available to the left of the pool bar, with a drop off point for dirty pool towels there too.
There is a small cafe/shop to the right of the pool bar, serving starbucks, breakfast and lunch, theres also a small shop selection here for toiletries, snacks drinks etc. We had breakfast here once and lunch once. Food was nice, I believed just reasonably priced. They serve things such as: pancakes, breakfast burritos, toasted sandwiches, pizzas, kids menu also. There is also a starbucks in the reception area, however a number of times were were there it was normally closed.
Next to the cafe, is a small arcade and next to that a small gym. We didnt use these so cant really comment.
The shuttles. So you book your Disney and Universal shuttles separately. The hotel seems to use different services for each, Universal needs to be booked in person at the shuttle bus counter in the reception area. We didnt use the universal buses, and the only reason being is that whenever we went to book a shuttle there was never anyone there. We would usually go when we returned to the hotel, so I would suggest if you want to use the Universal shuttles do in the morning the day before. But the drivers/coaches we seen for universal seemed nice, the drivers were friendly, the transport is on a large coach as apposed to the standard bus type transportation for Disney. With Universal there are 3 pick up and drop off times going to citywalk (for IOA, Volcano bay and Universal studios) and a separate one for Epic.
For Disney, the hotel using the Florida Bus service, this area is not manned in reception but there is a QR code for you to book online, we found these buses were looking a lot more worse for wear compared to those being used for Universal, not the hotels fault. The drivers were usually grumpy, and it could take you at least 45 minutes from pick up before you got to Disney. Sometimes they were crowded and wed have to stand the entire way. Again not the hotels fault, its the Florida Bus service they use.
The Location is amazing, you are in the centre of I-Drive, right in between Pointe and Icon park. There are Itrolley stops to the left and right of the hotel, Red stop 15 and 17. Dennys, Hooters, Senor Frogs, Howl at the Moon and more are directly across the road, there is a Raising Canes being built infront of the hotel to the right or reception, there were no noise complaints that we were aware of but our block was one of the furthest away and we only saw builders during the day, its also going up really quickly.
The resort fee we paid was roughly $16 per night. This covers the free shuttles and wifi etc. I do think this was pretty steep, seeing the condition on the Disney shuttles and not being able to book Universal shuttles at a time that suited us, but that was more our issue than the hotels. The wifi was good, with good coverage, we had no cell service and only used Wifi, and we never had any issues.
There are also, vending machines in the hotel blocks, as well as Ice machines, ours were on first floor. But this is explained to you when you check in, and youre told wheres yours are.
Ive seem some people complaining about the smell of weed etc, we only seemed to smell it once in passing. But nothing around our room. Our room was next to the only working laundry room, at the time of our visit all other laundry rooms were out of service, theres on in each of the 4 blocks. This could on times be annoying, theres no sign on the door stating what times its open, if someone locked it we had people trying to open the door using their hotel room key multiple times, some as late as 12:30am - 2am. The laundry room consists of 4 washing machines, 4 tumble dryers and a vending machine for washing powder etc. The machines are $4 per use, we didnt use the vending machines but I think items were $5.
Overall, despite my recommendations, we did have a nice stay, I think this was partly to do with our room location being away from the pool though. With drinks flowing and the music going, people can get rowdy.
My stepchildren were holidaying in Orlando the same time as us and they were staying in Coco Keys, they said our beds and Pool was better than theirs, they are 12 and 14 and said the slides at their hotel were a bit young for them, and they missed a good pool.
