Renaissance Orlando Hotel at SeaWorld: A New Favorite

This is not a sponsored post!

Now that I got that out of the way, I can continue.  This past weekend I had the pleasure of staying at the Renaissance Orlando Hotel at SeaWorld.  I was staying there as an attendee of the Izeafest 2009 at SeaWorld.  This hotel was by far the best hotel that I have ever stayed at.  I am not claiming to be a hotel connoisseur or even somebody that has traveled the world, but I have stayed at my fair share of hotels.

From the second that I walked through the sliding glass doors I just had a welcoming vibe and a feeling of wow!  The scenery is some of the best that I have seen on the inside of the hotel.  The front desk and concierge were right there in the front for when I needed help.  On Friday night Izeafest had a private party at the ICEBAR Orlando, and I had no clue how to get there.  I asked the concierge how much a cab would be to the bar and she said, “don’t take a cab, take the trolley, it’s cheaper” Well thank you very much; I love when people save me money.

After taking a walk around the downstairs of the hotel and stopping to take pictures at the awesome bar with the underwater video experience, then onto the cabanas and finally in front of the beautiful small little waterfall.  Remember, this is all inside of the hotel.  The elevator provided a great view of the inside because it was a see-through type elevator.  The magic continued when the door opened.  Here’s a little side note: I love hotel rooms.  I am very particular not so much about the bed, but the couch and office chair that is in there.  I relax on the couch and am more motivated to work with a nice office chair.  I could not complain about either one of these two things at the Renaissance.

I was able to reserve a king suite that faced out towards SeaWorld.  The bed was huge, comfortable and had great pillows.  The view from the patio was amazing at night.  I loved being able to sit out on a deck late at night and just look at the stars.  The Renaissance provided that opportunity for me.

The restaurant downstairs in the hotel had great food as well.  It was a large plate size, so it provided me with leftovers to eat after a long night at the ICEBAR.  The food was reasonably priced as well, not the cheapest, but I’ve seen worse at hotel lobbies.  They must have known also that my girlfriend and I would both need the sink and mirror at the same time because there were two huge sinks and counters for us to both work on at the same time.

Finally, the phone system was great.  What I mean by that is this.  The wake-up call was loud enough to wake me up.  It also allowed a second wake-up call scheduled, which is what I use as my emergency snooze button.  First phone rang at 7 a.m. and the next one went off at 8 a.m. just in case I wasn’t up.  Also, being able to check out via voicemail was fun.  I know you can do this at a lot of hotels, but I haven’t done it before, but this time I did it because I was in a hurry to get to SeaWorld.

This is just another reason why I only stay at Marriott hotels. If I ever travel to Orlando again, it will be at the Renaissance Orlando Hotel at SeaWorld.