Having stayed at this hotel a year ago and read some of the reviews on this site I'm not sure that they stayed at the same place, although the picture is right so it must be.
The staff were all very friendly and helpful, except maybe one young guy on reception. Even he wasn't rude, just clearly not thrilled to be working there. I always find that by being friendly and polite to staff in hotels/restaurants etc the service I get is better than others less polite experience. IMAGINE THAT! I realise that staff are paid to be there, but most of the time people are naturally nice if you're nice to them.
With the exception of the one guy the reception staff were all incredibly helpful and always took time to make sure that I understood their directions or whatever. The concierge/ticket guy was happy to chat for 30 mins or whatever while I waited for my partner to dry her hair after showering. The little shop on site was relatively well stocked and not terrible for price.
The room was clean, relatively large and the bed was very comfortable. I'm not sure what size 6 feet wide is, but that was the width of the bed. There was a table and two chairs provided to eat at when we ordered takeout, and the places that we tried which were in the book provided next to the telephone were excellent. The fridge is big and the microwave is useable. It was a pain the there was no kettle provided only a coffee machine, but then my partner and I are probably in the minority who prefer tea to coffee. There may have been the possibility of a kettle but I didn't ask for one, so can't comment on the availability of one. As it was I just bodged the coffee machine to give me hot water to make tea anyway, having bought tea bags at the shop in the lobby.
Breakfast was a mixture of sugar laden pastries or sugar laden cereal, with tea, coffe, apple juice and orange juice available too. After two days we decided to give it a miss and bought cereal, milk, disposable bowls and disposable cutlery from Walgreen's. It meant that we could avoid the crowd of people trying to get breakfast and take it easy in our room. While it's not ideal to do that the hotel was so cheap so it's not really terrible.
The pool was clean and provided a cool respite to the heat and humidity. It's not huge but doesn't need to be and it wasn't crowded. Orlando is more of a "doing things" holiday than a "sit by the pool" holiday anyway, so it really was only for lazy days after late nights.
The location was superb. It's less than 2 mins walk from the North end of International Drive. Within two minutes walk there is a Denny's, a 7eleven and a crazy golf where you can feed live baby alligators. Within 5 minutes walk there is a Wallgreen's, a SubWay (as in sandwiches and salads) and Wet n Wild. Stop #7 of the iRide trolley is within 2 minutes walk. Universal Studios is an easy 25 minute walk away. Obviously there is lots to do on IDrive itself and with the bus stop minutes away it's all easy to reach.
The concierge/ticket guy has tickets to all sorts of attractions. He deals tickets for Grey Line tours (Google: Gray Line Orlando and pre plan some days) and they have lots of good trips on offer. The local pickup for all of these tours is at the BACK of the Sheraton Four Points, not out the front as we were told. Make sure you wait out the back! This is again within two minutes walk of the hotel. He also has tickets to Disney/Universal etc at good rates.
All in all the hotel isn't perfect but it is SO cheap it would be harsh to judge it badly. I think with our package we ended up paying around £230/$350 for 14 nights bed and breakfast. Some places that would barely cover two nights. I can't imagine the places we looked at that cost 7 times as much being 7 times better. Going back to the first thing I wrote, I think some people want to pay next to nothing but expect the best. If you want the best you normally have to pay for it. A quick check shows that the Sheraton Four Points at the end of the road (which is stunning, by the way) costs around 10 times as much for the same stay. I don't imagine that it's 10 times better.
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