We stayed here 2/26/06 - 3/3/06, and we are very sorry for that fact. We won on a bid of $50 for 5 nights. The rate on their site was $79/night, including a cocktail reception that we didn't get. We got there and checked in with Yonique. She was polite but not very personable. We asked for a Magic Kingdom fireworks-view room, which she was very nice to help put us in. We were assigned room 602, just off the elevator on the 2nd-from-the-top floor. She said to stop in at a little booth around the corner for some welcome package. You could buy tickets at the booth, but of the 2 women there one was on the phone and the other didn't know how to sell tickets. We went back to our car and drove around to the back to get to our room (in the North Tower). As you walk up to the doors the building looks worse and worse - peeling stucco, dirt/mold up the sides of the building, and horridly dirty windows. The back door had no hotel personnel presence (it went straight to the elevators) and was not locked the entire time we were there. It was a bit creepy to tell the truth. The elevators were quick but a little grimy, with the buttons being quite well worn. We laughed a bit at the decor of the elevator - typical hotel style, but with a chrome diamond-plate ceiling. We got to our room and realized it was a double-double. Since this was our 1-year anniversary trip we weren't going to settle for that. I called down and asked if we could be put into a King and was informed that it would be $10 more per night because it was a Sleep Number bed. We were not happy with this arrangement, but it was the only option. We switched rooms to the 4th floor - room 404. Still a fireworks view, just not as good of one. There was no offer to help us move our bags. When I went down to the counter to get the new keys Yonique did not recognize me from 10 minutes ago, but that's fair enough. We got to our new room and everything looked OK at first. The room was a good size, and the bed had new white linens & a fluffy comforter. The first thing we did was try to access the internet to check if the hotel normally charged $10 extra for a King room. We couldn't get connected to the wireless for 20 minutes on either of our laptops. I would say it was user error, but my husband is a computer repair and network technician and has been for a number of years. We continued to have problems with the internet connection the entire stay. Eventually we did find that they do charge $10 more for the King, so I felt a bit (but not much) better. We played around with the Sleep Number bed (quite the novelty - it's an adjustable, 2-celled airbed essentially). It was cool at first, but it turns out that you can't cuddle on it since adding weight to one cell increases the pressure and makes the bed a rock. Then when you roll back to your own side of the bed the other person kind of sinks on their side. If you've ever slept on an airbed with another person you know what I'm talking about - if one person is on the bed and another person sits or lays on it, the first person gets kind of bounced around. Not my idea of a romantic anniversary stay, especially when you pay $50 more for it. :) Next we continued to explore the room. There was a mini fridge in a cabinet, which was nice. However, not much thought was put into its placement. The doors open opposite to each other, so you had to open the cabinet door completely before you could even crack open the fridge. Trivial, but it added into the dissappointment. Next to the fridge was the A/C unit. We had no problems with the unit itself. The enclosure for it was falling apart and the paint was blistering up off it from what looked like water damage. The windows were grossly dirty. There was significant water damage to the walls on either side of the window. We started looking for outlets for the computers. I plugged my cable (just the cable, no computer attached) into a wall socket and it sparked and the lights dimmed. :o My husband found another outlet behind the bed... it had an orange 1-to-3 socket plugged into it, with all 3 sockets having lamps plugged into them, and the whole shebang squished into a 45-degree downward tilt by the bed pushing against it!!! Scary! We found another plug on the wall under the desk with carpeting simply cut around it. Needless to say, we used that one. The TV and stand were nice, and the closet was pretty standard. No complaints there. The bathroom was horrible though. First, when opening, the edge of the door comes within 4" of the front of the toilet seat. Just weird. The "marble" countertop turned out to be black plastic with white paint artistically spattered across it. The overhead flourescent light was set into a 3-sided surround, and the light was drooping out of its housing. The area above the light was really gross - dusty with peeling wall texture stuff. The vent, the door frame, the towel rack, the shower curtain track, and the door hinges all had extensive rust. The vent also had a whoooooole lot of dust. The caulk around the tub and the floor was gray & black with mold/mildew. The tub itself was clean though. The tub was at a 45-degree angle with a curtain that followed the curve of the tub edge. The curtain was very thin and filmy, and was about 1" too short to make it into the tub, so there was water all over the floor after every shower. The offset angle put you in a position that while you were close to the spigot/shower head rinsing your hair the shower curtain clung to the left side of your body. It was just so dissappointing. I've stayed in a Super 8 that had better respect for their property than this place did. Anyway, we took tons of pictures and will probably post them eventually. When that happens I'll try to remember to post the link. On the plus side... the pool area was very nice. The pool was heated and very clean. There were plenty of chairs and a nice landscaping job. We had breakfast at the restaurant one day. It was a bit pricey, but there was a lot of food. The service was QUITE lacking though. The hotel has the potential to be really nice, but they've just kind of let it run down. Every hotel staff person we ran into was disinterested and none were outright helpful. We got our bill under the door on the last day, and there was a $3.96 resort fee charged for each night. I know that this is part of the Priceline agreement, but I was pretty miffed at paying $60 already for a sub-par room, plus the fact that this fee was not disclosed at check-in. I successfully fought to have this "fee that everyone in the Orlando area charges, that covers the shuttle service, restaurant service, and phone usage" removed. Who charges a fee to use their overpriced restaurant!?!?! I would say this hotel was just barely worth the $60 per night we paid. I would never stay here again, nor would I recommend this hotel. I wish I would've just ponied up for a 4* in the first place. Lesson learned... :)
