I booked this resort for my husband's annual visit to Orlando for the Veterinary Conference. Three years ago we stayed here by chance because we arrived in Orlando without booking a room in advance. After checking at least 7 other local hotels with no vacancies, we finally saw this place with a vacancy sign. Even though it's a timeshare they allowed us to rent a room. I was impressed immediately with the whole unit. We thought that the full kitchen, 2 bedroom/2 bathroom with 2 jacuzzi tubs was fabulous and immaculate to boot. I liked that the floors were tiled everywhere except the bedrooms. The beds weren't the best but they were very clean and everything smelled great. That was then.
This time our experience was completely different. When we got there, even though we already paid in advance, the night staff (security officer) had no record of our payment so in order to get our room we had to pay again. She insisted that the daytime staff would correct everything for us in the morning. She tried to be helpful but it was only her 6th day on the job and she wasn't very knowledgeable so we paid again.
When entered our unit everything seemed fine, but I immediately noticed that the bedroom didn't smell fresh. It had a very strong musty odor. I wasn't sure if it was the carpet or the Window treatments but it was noticeable and very annoying. Since it didn't smell fresh, everything, including the bed was suspect to me and I did not feel like I was sleeping in a clean room or on a clean bed. In addition to that, the next day I noticed that my feet were sticking to the tile floor. I got tired of that quickly so I put some clean, white socks on my feet. Clean and white didn't last long. After walking around in the bedroom and on the tile in the hallway for only a few minutes the bottom of my white socks were now black! I thought about complaining to the front desk but that is not my style. Instead I put up with the dirty floors for 2 more days before I decided that I would just wipe down the tile floors since I had some terry cloth rags in my car trunk. I took a rag and some soap and cleaned all the tile from the hallway to the front door of the unit. When I was finished, my white terry cloth rag was so filthy with black dirt that I decided to throw it away.
To be fair, the first time we stayed here in 2008 we had a 2 bdrm/2 br unit at a rate of $129 per night. The unit we stayed in this time was a 1 bdrm/1 br at a rate of $70 per night. I don't know what happened this time because we were so impressed the first time we stayed here that I kept the hotel business card in my wallet for almost 3 years so I wouldn't forget the name and address of this place. After our latest stay , I won't be staying there again. Maybe they had a change in management due to the downturn in the economy or something. I don't know, but whatever happened, now this place is just like any other cheap hotel in Orlando that lacks cleanliness. I would have gladly paid $129 a night or a little more just to get a spotless room. Too bad they didn't offer it. Even if I'm only paying $70 per night, I expect my room to be immaculate. Tile is so easy to keep clean. If the floors were that dirty, obviously the maid is not mopping the floor. She probably sweeps up a little and calls it done.
They did resolve our double payment issue immediately and they were very nice to us over the phone.
- Grand Lake Resort Kissimmee
