We stayed at this hotel for 2 nights in July. I booked this hotel because I have stayed at many hotels in the Orlando area, including the Ritz and have not been able to find a really good hotel and reviews where fairly consistent regarding the hotel. This hotel is a cut above the hotels in the market and an excellent value for the money. Rooms are nice, clean and the staff is courteous and helpful but if you are looking for a super luxury hotel this is not it either. However, for the Orlando market I would consider this one of the better hotels. We really enjoyed the pool and lazy river, but the reviews about the lack of seating are all true. For the size of this hotel there are not enough chairs, towels or chair covers. I had to go down to the pool at 8 am to make sure we had chairs together on a Saturday morning and although I got some chairs (just barely) the staff said they were out of chair covers (it was 8 am). The hotel management should really take note of all these reviews and add additional chairs to the pool area. We used the gym, but for a hotel that wants to consider itself high end, the gym is not very good and the equipment is outdated. My husband also used the golf facility and he was very impressed with the facility and the staff. Overall I would have to say that for Orlando this is a good hotel and I would rate this an excellent value for the money.

My wife and I were there in July and the place was handsdown a disorganized. Basically if you didn't get to the pool to "reserve" your chairs the second it opened you were out of luck for the entire day. The second day we were able to get chailrs, but when we left for lunch our umbrella was stolen. Management was no help at all.

We had to wait extensively to check in due to the people in front of us complaining about mis-charges on their bill. Further, check-in did not leave us with a good feeling about how the rest of our stay would be. I guess we got the one miserable, unfriendly employee, who in my opinion should not be the one to give the first impression of the hotel. Without going into particulars, let's just say we certainly did not feel like she was happy to see us.

Another complaint was the "hidden" hotel fees - the "resort fee" tacked onto my bill when I went to check out. Shame on this and every other hotel employing this deceptive practice. Another problem that soured my experience and opinion of Omni Hotels.

Heard the kids next door in the early morning and late at night. The rooms must have very thin walls. If we were staying longer I would have requested a room change but after unpacking and such, I did not feel like packing up again. You can hear every door slam in the middle of the night.

All in all, I would agree it is a 3 star hotel but the staff are more like a 1 star. I don't think I would pay that kind of money again and stay at this hotel. There are alot of beautiful hotels out there that really care about the comfort and happiness of their guests - such as the Shingle Creek.

Overall

The pool area is too crowded and not well managed
Zen is overpriced
The service at Trevi's is slow and the food is fair
The check in process was terrible
The coffee shop closes too early
The noise in the hallways is terrible

I had to laugh and squint to see if I could spot myself in those pictures of guests fighting for chairs, I was there over Memorial Day weekend and found myself a nice piece of concrete too. I suppose I can appreciate management saying they post signs (I saw none) about chair reservation policies but it is certainly an area of opportunity for this resort to improve. I actually wasn't planning to mention the chair situation at all until I saw the previous man's pictures. I was down for breakfast one morning around 8 and didn't see one person stopped from plunking down their stuff and leaving the area by the pool staff when the pool opened, that's the main thing management could do, is nip it in the bud each morning when you see the mom or dad coming down in non pool-attire with stuff for four and being handed four towels there should be some questions there. If it's really a policy it makes me questioned where management is letting the policy is fall apart because it's certainly not communicated to the towel guy who probably handed out 100 towels to 20 fully dressed people who clearly had no intention of going to the pool at that time, just my observation that morning eating at Trevi's outside by the empty pool.

Overall the resort was very nice, it's not too bad of a trip to get Disney, only about 15 minutes or so. You do need a car. Driving up to the resort is very impressive and there's a Chili's or Applebees, McDonalds and Walgreens right at the entrance. We ate dinner at David's and the steak was excellent, everything is ala carte though. We also ate dinner at Trevi's and felt like the only people in there, the pasta was great though. Didn't get a chance to make it up to Zen but everyone I talked to seemed to rave about it too. With the restaurants the resort really exceeded my expectations and I guess the pricing overall was kind of in line with what it should be.

The room was really nice, we did have an issue with the tv being broken and the hotel full but without asking the technician whipped out a $50 breakfast coupon for us, fair enough for me because I love to eat breakfast in restaurants. We were planning to eat breakfast one morning there anyway so it worked out fine and I would have had no problem paying $50 (total for 2 people) anyway because it was worth it.

The other problem we had was with the "hold" on our credit card mentioned by other guests, it was way out of line with what we might possibly charge up and plus because we ended up with three credit cards on file, the one when we booked the room, another when we checked in and a third when we charged something at the hotel they seemed to "rotate" in the system and nobody seemed to be able to fix it so we had various high amounts being held daily tied up three different cards and well it's a long story. Needless to say we did bring it up to management and it was resolved to our satisfaction eventually. Although it was a kink, kinks happen and there's nothing worse than staying in a hotel and having complaints fall on deaf ears, so in that respect this hotel is to be congratulated on really attempting to fix the inevitable wrongs.

It's funny the official Omni website doesn't tout the pool more, you learn more here on TripAdvisor than on their site about their best feature. They have 2 big pools, a water spray area, a very long and attractively landscaped lazy river, a couple hot-tubs and a sand volleyball court. It's a very nice set-up. The room was always very clean and a very nice size. And make sure you join the Omni club (free) because you do get free coffee/juice/pop in the morning along with croissants or toast, a really nice perk.

We arrived at 11.45pm and the bell person was right there - courteous and helpful. The desk needed help - 2 staff members - one with a problem guest and the other trying to ignore us and get to the back to stay out of sight? After 15 minutes and literally hearing the whole story of the poor women with the problem (the staff had placed her luggage in a room for her earlier in the day but not in her room and were not sure where it was - the response in the end was that they would find it as soon as possible). Finally we checked in - the room was great and room service was quick but our luggage was not yet delivered. After the problem earlier we were concerned so we called the desk and the response was as soon as possible? About 1 hr. later it showed up. (Bad news is we had to stay up until the luggage arrived. 1.30am) We were off to Disney for the day - not exactly at the front-gate but not too far. Upon our return, midnight - parking was extremely crowded unless you use valet ($14.00) but again very courteous and right there. Next morining trying to check out - forget it. Two lines that were about 20+deep and no in room check out. Also I had fed-express deliver a package to the hotel but no one was interested in locating it. I had to call fed-exp. and get the time and person who signed for it then the desk decided that the bell desk had it. The bell desk argued that it was not their job the front desk was passing the buck and blah blah! After 10 minutes of listening to that finally one of them decided to look it up and sure enough they had received it ( yes out room number and name were on the package). Omni needs more desk staff day and night - in room check out or at least a check out line and customer service training for the day help at the bell stand --Night help is wonderful!