Clarion Inn Lake Buena Vista, a Rosen Hotel

Everything in the hotel lived up to our expectations: the room was comfortable and clean, with all the amenities we expected/needed (electronic safe, good bathroom, tv, spacious closet). The breakfast buffet was excellent, with a wide variety of choices, and the staff was always helpful and soicitous. The location is great as well, a quick ride away from most parks, outlets and malls, with some good restaurants around. They also provide a good enough schedule of bus times to the parks. The one thing we did not like was the fact that the receivement of packages was charged $10 each, when so many other hotels do it for free. Overall, we were very happy with the hotel. If you're going to Orlando to to spend the entire day in the parks, and do not plan to stay in the hotel a lot, the Clarion is a very good choice.

The Clarion Inn is really in need of a full deep clean and a decor update. I guess for the location and at a reasonal price it's ok. Our room smelt stuffy and the air con was noisy. We have had several cockroaches visit our room whilst here. The dining room buffet was ok but not great quality food. We ordered some food from the main bar and when we got it to the room some of the order was missing so I raised it with them the following night and I got some bad attitude and a response saying I dont know I wasn't working last night, no apology or refund. The pool was good for the kids but the pool furniture is in great need of a clean.

Stayed at the Clarion Inn for a recent visit to Disney. Hotel was in great location, close to Disney properties. Rooms were clean and the price was right. Bed were comfortable and had a nice pool, which we used. Guard at the front gate for security and plenty of parking spaces. I thing there was a shuttle to Disney parks, which we did not use. Will be back again when in the area.

When you hear Disney affiliated hotel, you assume you are going to be staying somewhere really special. What met us was certainly not special! Day 1 - After checking in, we headed along a dark flooded path where we were met with a row of dark brown dingy stained doors. We found our room for the electronic door key to take a few attempts to actually let us in. After opening the door, I kind of wish the keys hadn’t worked! Two small double beds on dirty carpets and dirty net curtains covering old fashioned brown curtains were what we had booked for our special dream holiday. It was 4pm and we had been travelling for 11 hours, we were tired, ratty and hungry so went for something to eat. We were told the two dining restaurants weren’t open until 6.30pm. We could either order takeaway to take and sit in our awful room or get a sandwich from the overpriced tatty gift shop. Excellent. Day 2 - My toddler spills some water on the already dirty carpet. As we aren’t zoo animals, we attempted the clean the spill with a towel. The once white towel now looked as though at it had been chucked down an open sewer. Safe to say we were wearing socks for the rest of the trip. We went to reception to buy some Disney tickets from the side desk under the Diamond Resorts brand. We were given a four day pass for four for $1200 which was half the gate price. Excellent - or so we thought. Our card would be charged an additional $1200 hold fee if we didn’t agree to go to a presentation on property time share, would take two hours max (or so were told!) booked for day 4. Day 3 - Went to the Splash area kids area to let my little one have a play. It was locked off, but frankly even if it wasn’t I wouldn’t have let him anywhere near it. It was absolutely and utterly filthy. We headed into the far side pool instead, which is the only upside of the stay. The pool was lovely. Unfortunately the poolside seats were disgusting. Stained, slats missing and dated. The raccoon that kept coming for the rubbish from the bin did keep us somewhat amused! Day 4 - A driver was waiting at 8am to take us to the time share presentation. We got there at 8.30am to be told our 3 year was to go in the crèche and our 12 year was too old so couldn’t stay with his little brother. The presentation was okay, show around fine, we expected a “do you want to invest” with an opportunity to then say no and leave. Oh no! By 12.30 after many, many, MANY “that’s a great deal, but not for us at this time” speeches by myself and my husband they finally said they would take the additional $1200 hold off our credit card and get us a driver to take us back to the hotel! A great waste of 4 and a half hours of our trip!!! Day 6 - went to wash our clothes at the in house laundry: a touch on the expensive side! $3 per machine, $1 per box of cheapy powder and $3 per dryer. We used 3 washing machines (colours, whites, delicates) with 3 boxes of powder ($12) then two driers ($6) $18 total. Bit steep! Day 7 - woke up feeling lousy, extremely dizzy and sickly. We were checking out at 11am. We were already packed so I decided to stay in bed for a little while whilst my husband went to Walgreens pharmacy to pick me something up before our flight. There was a bang on the door at around 8.30am, which I ignored as I wasn’t feeling well enough to get up. The door banged again. I shouted just a minute as I attempted to get up. Banging continues. I opened the door to a cleaning lady who grabbed the room occupied sign from the other side of the door, grumpily said “you need this on,” and sauntered off. My husband on his return went down and said “my wife is ill. We are supposed to check out at 11am but our pick up isn’t until two. Is there anyway of spending a little more time in the room?” He was told “you have 45 mins before you’re charged!” Probably a good thing to get out. The only good time we had the whole week was either spent away from the hotel or in the pool.

After reading quite a few negative reviews before my holiday I was a little dubious about staying here but I needn’t of worried. The location was good with free shuttle buses to and from the parks. The pool was literally just outside our room door with free pool towels and the room was very adequate for what we needed. However be aware that if you don’t hire a car places can be long winded and hard to get to and although having a complimentary fridge was lovely, we found that if you left things in there for longer than a day it would get frozen. The shuttle buses to Epcot run at various times throughout the morning the last one being at 11am but if you want to go to the other parks its probably best to get a taxi as the buses leave early and get back late. Also if you buy anything from the lite bite shop be sure to pick up your cutlery from just outside as you’ll have trouble eating it otherwise. Rooms were cleaned daily with fresh towels and free WiFi worked most of the time. All in all I would say that we enjoyed our stay. Thank you to the staff and security at Clarion for making us feel welcome and cater to our needs.