About a year ago, we responded to a solicitation from Buena vista travel and paid more than $400 for the right to spend 5days/4 nights in Orlando, as well as other short stays (3days/2 nights) in Fort Lauderdale or Puerto Vallarta/Las Vegas/Honolulu and 4 days/3 nights in a Bahama Cruise. Additional fees were required for the Bahamas deal, as well as 'booking fees'($58) and upgrade costs for the others. When it came to actually booking the trips, it turned out that the Bahamas 'Cruise' was not a cruise after all, but transportation to a Freeport Island Resort, with the hotel being several miles from the resort itself. We, therefore, elected to do the Orlando part of the package. Booking was thru Absolute Reservation Center (Arcfun.com).Again extra sums were required for the upgrade ($35 per night) in addition to $85/night for addtional nights. We had to book our flights separately which we did with Orbitz. Various options were available for the various excursions, which we also booked. - unfortunately, it was not clear from the descriptions that, for example, the Go Orlando option included the Kennedy Space Center Tour, which we bought as an option in addition to Go Orlando. So we had duplicate options.
When we arrived in Orlando, we were booked into the Amerisuites Hotel on site at Calypso Cay, and not into one of the timeshare units, which they are trying to sell. The room was very average, somewhat dated, with a tiny bathroom. There was a pervasive mildewy odor to the main corridors probably because of the carpets and constant high humidity. The room had a microwave oven, a coffee maker and best of all a refrigerator. The reception area was nicely appointed with a concierge on duty. A continental breakfast was included and was quite comprehensive, and coffee was available at the reception area all day. A free shuttle service was available to the major theme parks. We had to go thru a time-share presentation which,in our case, lasted 2.5 hours, and we were given 2 tickets to Sea World. At the end of our stay, we were presented with a bill for the taxes on the hotel stay, despite the prepayment and additional costs that we had already paid. Overall, we enjoyed our stay, but could have done better not buying this package. Better to look at some of the ads in the Wall Street J or search Trip-advisor(we only discovered this after our trip). Also be careful about the optional packages with Orbitz - you don't save any money and in fact pay extra because of the built-in service fee. Rather wait until you get to Orlando and see the special offers that abound in the hotel reception areas.

We love this hotel. We have two children ages 6 and 10 and they love the water silde and the putt putt golf right there on the grounds. The room was very clean and the customer service and check in was no problem..very nice employees. We've stayed here in the past and think it's a great value for your money.

I recently stayed at the Amerisuites as a chaperone with a large middle school jazz band group, and I had quite a bizarre and disturbing experience here. The first night I found the sheets stained, and the blanket with a large hole. Other rooms had dirty tubs - the kids refused to use the showers until we had them cleaned. But the most repulsive experience came on the second night. After a late evening meeting with the other chaperones, I returned to my room at 11 pm to find the toilet clogged. I called the front desk, and they assured me they would send someone right up. I called again at 11:20, then 11:45, then midnight, and was then informed that no one would be up, since the maintenance man left the premises at 11:00 pm. The man answering the phone at the front desk said he was the ONLY employee at the hotel after 11:00 pm, so I would have to come down to the front desk and get the plunger myself, since he could not leave the desk. I went down at 12:20, and now the man said that they had no plungers in THIS hotel, but that I would have to walk across the dark courtyard by myself to a different hotel next door, and they could loan me their plunger!!! I asked if he was seriously telling a single woman to walk to another hotel in the middle of the night to get a toilet plunger, and he laughed and said yes. Needless to say, I was infuriated, but did not want to wake the other chaperones, so I ended up going alone. Fortunately I was not mugged, but found a somewhat unpleasant woman at the other hotel, who said she wanted me to bring the plunger back to her - but she thought maybe I could wait until the morning to return it! After returning to my room, I called the front desk and said I would leave the plunger in the hall in case anyone else needed it overnight - and HE could return it in the morning. I finally went to sleep, and then the phone rang at 2:30 in them morning "anonymously". UNBELIEVABLE! By the way, the toilet plunger sat in the hallway at least until I checked out 2 days later - for all I know the dirty plunger is still sitting there! By the way, as for the "breakfast" - forget about the earlier post that mentioned eggs - we were there for FOUR days, and they never had eggs available even once - the excuse was that their supplier ran out. I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that there was a serious egg shortage in Florida, but apparently there was here!

There’s little wrong with this hotel !

This is our fourth visit to the Amerisuites over seven years. I disagree with previous poor reports, as our room was clean, beds comfortable, and the free continental breakfast served from 0700-1000 has now scrambled eggs and sausage added to the list.

The pool area is popular and can get busy, but there are 3 pools to lounge around shared between the two hotels. There is a new pool complex of a similar scale currently being built beside the adjacent Country inn. That should ease any congestion which some do mention during peak season visits.

The rooms are still in reasonably good order, carpet was fine, and bearing in mind you get a fridge, microwave, coffee maker, iron, it was well equipped. There were a few patches of worn carpet outside the lifts. I couldn’t see any mold, yes our bed sheets were initially paper thin, later changed to better ones. We had no issues with the air con, nor did we have to take a timeshare tour. My understanding was that those who had to take the tour, had been sold a room by a third party booking agent at a ludicrously low price, on the condition of attending the presentation tour, so why complain!

Other than that, I could not see justification for the very exaggerated comments purely put down for dramatical effect. For the price we paid we received excellent value for money and will continue to use this hotel again without hesitation. Its around a 3 star, at 2 star prices, and with the Disney’s entrance area only 6 minutes drive using the adjacent Osceola parkway (toll costing 75 cents), it is very convenient for Disney.