Review: Doubletree by Hilton Hotel (Orlando Florida)

Review: DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel (Orlando Florida)

Every Hotel has its pluses and it’s negative – here is my review of the Doubletree Orlando, Florida hotel by Hilton. I have a lot to say!

If you didn’t know my story starts with Walt Disney trying to cheat me with what look like to me like a sort of "bait and switch" kind of scam.

After searching for the closest hotel to Sea World to take my mini-weekend valentine vacation with the wife, who decided to take the kids with us (Ohm – Don’t ask me, I still don’t know why she did that?) I settled on the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel. It was too cold for Coco Keys, it’s a great Hotel but it’s mostly a water park – not the kind of thing I wanted to do when it’s chilly.
Besides, I wanted to try something new, something deferent and most of all – something elegant; something that was as close as possible to sea world as I could get. After all, that was where we were headed before my wife converted a “you and me” setting to a whole family adventure outing.

I have to say the Hotel has a lot to offer: trust me, it gives you the right amount of elegance, high end allure (the hotel restaurant was amazing – and it showed in the price) and it gave you the right amount of family fun activity fun.

doubletree sea world heated pool
This DoubleTree Hotel is close to Sea World which was a plus in my book, it also has four “Heated” swimming pools, two kiddy pools and two hot tubs – of which were heavy used by my family. The big kicker my friends is the extra free stuff – yes, free stuff I personally enjoyed.

To give a small breakdown let me start with the large checker board game where my wife and I played a few games (yes, I won) and she also played with my son who thought it was cool. There was a ping pong table where my daughter and her friend (did I forget to mention we also took along a close family friends daughter with us. My wife I wonder about her sometimes). There was a bean bag toss game, the pool table was fun (my son loves to play pool) the sad thing about the pool table was that since it was outside the condition of the table was a little worn (but my son had fun and that is what counts).

free mini golf at doubletree hotel orlando
The big bang, the best part as it were according to the family was the mini putt-putt golf course, I enjoyed watching the kids play. The club house was in the center of all these activities and except for the ping pong balls – everything was free: FREE I say! I love free.

Of course this only meant that late into the wee hours of the night the kids were playing pool, checkers, mini golf after spending hours cooking, basting, I mean relaxing in the hot tub. Personally I simply enjoyed the atmosphere of the pool side and until I was disturbed my loving family who needed a star bucks coffee fix (they had one on the premises) I was relaxing and chillaxing (chillaxing is a word I learned from my NY brother-in-law, it means that you are chilling as in relaxed to the max).

One of the greatest things I experienced there was their true to life Hotel motto: WIT.

sea world hotel by hilton
WIT which originally I confused for a name tag means: whatever it takes. The hotel employees are trained to do “whatever it takes” to make the customers stay at the hotel the best they can have – which for several of the employees I encounter, it was true.

I have to say, the room was a bit small compared to what I was used too, but I did have five people in a “sleeps four” room hotel – but I didn’t ask for the roll away bed until late in the night.

Now, you may be thinking: are there no negatives to this place? Yes, there are.

The negatives are these: it’s expensive to eat at the hotel restaurant – delicious as the hamburger was it cost $13 dollars and they charge $3.50 for a Pepsi (thank goodness they give free refills). You do not want to know how much it cost to feed a group of five.

vacation review of doubletree
Another negative is – they charge for parking. Granted the parking is inside a gated area and while you feel more secure as you enter the gate I don’t think they should charge extra for parking (you can get valet parking but they charge five dollars extra) what I found funny was – the valet parking area is outside the fence where anyone can get to your car?

At least in my room, the bathroom was small, it had no sink and the fancy shower curtain would touch you if you use the 'loo' (if you know what I mean).

The minor surprises were the free chocolate cookies we were given at check in and the fact that even though I was told the roll away was an extra $15 that would be charged to my room – they waived the fee: nice touch.

All in all I gave the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel by Sea World a four star rating!
It’s clean, nice and has a lot to offer even if the room rate was a bit high.

Comments

Unknown said…
Reading this makes me so jealous! It has been so cold here up north. I would love to be in Florida right now.

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