Staybridge Suites – Lake Buena Vista – Maingate Review

Hotel Being Reviewed:

Staybridge Suites – Lake Buena Vista

Because we had until the 15th of August before we could get into our condo, we had to find a short term place to stay.  I had ordered the Visit Orlando’s information a while back, I mean like a year ago, and while we were still in Foster, NE I started to go through it and saw a great deal!  The Staybridge Suites, they had a two bedroom, two bath with a full kitchen available for a discounted rate of $109 a night.  $109 a night!!!!  Heck Yes!!! So I checked out all the photos on the website and read a couple of reviews.  It is a Holiday Inn Brand, so I went ahead and booked us for 13 nights.Perfect, we will have Stevie and Becca share the room with the two queens and Pat, the babies and I will take the King room.  So after spending two days at the Port Orleans Riverside, we packed up and headed on over to our new hotel, the last one before our condo would be ready.  On first impression, it seemed ok.  I mean they were very nice at letting us drop off a bunch of stuff to hold while we spent the day at the parks waiting for our room to be ready.

I am trying to think of the best way to give this review, as I want to be sure to include everything.  I think the best way to start it off, is to say that it is highly unlikely I will ever stay in this hotel or recommend it to any clients, friends or family.  There are pros and cons to the Staybridge.  The problem is that the cons, after 13 days were more than I could simply overlook anymore.

Also I should note that they did have signs up saying they were getting ready to go under renovation starting in September 2012, because of this, I do plan on checking up and seeing if any of the outside issues have been fixed, and will let you know.

On to my review:

The Outside:

Can you say run down, rotten wood, dead frogs, underwear and a general unkemptness?  I remember when I was walking up to our room, first floor, across from the pool, thinking that we are in Florida, and there is a lot of rain and humidity, so some wood rot and water stains are to be expected.  But as we got to our room, it reminded me of a cheap inner city apartment complex. There was rotten wood everywhere, and a general feeling of the buildings not being well maintained or halfassed maintenance on them.

Everyday outside of our door, for HOURS on end would be the trash bags of all the rooms above us, as well as one or two house keeping carts.  It was just gross.  But not as gross as the underwear that sat in the bushes for an entire day, I saw numerous workers walk by them, and no one touched them until finally I asked for someone to please remove them.

The Room:

The layout was nice, definitely spacious compared to a normal hotel room.  As for cleanliness, OMG, was it ever gross.  The first thing I did when we got into our room was take some Clorox wipes and start wiping down the tile by the front door and picking up all the little pieces of dirt that were left.  I didn’t want Courtney to eat them.  I then cleaned the cabinets and tables with Clorox wipes as well.  The couch was old and a little creepy, but it only looked worn.  The rooms were fine, except Stevie’s bed broke almost immediately.  It was hilarious!  Since it was so late at night, I called and let them know and asked that they send someone to fix it in the morning.  Which they did, a whole two hours BEFORE we requested.  Yeah that makes life interesting when babies are still sleeping….Really other than a few things, like the items being old, dated and worn, the room itself was ok.

Cleanliness:

Of the room – – Level NASTEY!!!!!!! Courtney ruined at least 5 full body one pieces there, as there was NO WAY I was about to let her crawl around without being covered.  Her clothes were immediately black when she started crawling around.  Carson spilled some yogurt one day, and I took a wet wash cloth to wipe it up, OMG it was so GROSS, the wash cloth turned black where I was cleaning.  YUCK!!!!!

Housekeeping – – I am sorry to say it, but the only description I can give is, THEY SUCKED.  At first I was pissed, then irritated, then by the time we left it was truly comical.  I mean, every day I was calling to ask for the things they didn’t leave, like coffee.  EVERY DAY – – on day 9 I asked for a full service, I called and specifically went over everything, like the microwave, new sheets, clean the tubs, vacuum… (we had been to the beach and there was sand everywhere).  I even cleaned up all of our stuff, had the kids put all their things away, so it was completely ready for a deep cleaning… Yeah we got back to the room that night and no go.  They didn’t even wipe down the counters, no coffee, microwave not cleaned… I called down to the front desk and asked for a full clean for the next day and was informed they only do that after 7 days and how long had we been there, I let her know we were on day 9.  After I hung up with them our phone rang and it was the director of operations.  She apologized and said that the room would be taken care of the next day.  Great!

LOL – – we got back to our room the next day after being in the parks, and guess what?  You got it, the room was NOT deep cleaned.  No Coffee, Microwave still NOT cleaned, Dishwasher NOT run, Counter Tops NOT wiped down… I wanted a cup of coffee, so I called the front desk and asked for them to please bring us some coffee, well the immediately transferred me to the DOO, who said she has even sent a supervisor to our room to make sure that it had been cleaned and everything was done and she apologized that it was once again not done, and they would send some coffee.

The next day was even better though, as we got back to the room while housekeeping was still there, 4:30pm – We sat around and waited.  After about 20 minutes she came into the living room and told us she was done but, oh yes BUT and get a hold of this – They RAN OUT OF sheets.  Yeah a hotel ran out of Sheets.  LMAO!!!  I am pretty sure there a few things hotels don’t run out of, and sheets is one of them!  Anyhow, they were out of flat sheets and so our bed was shorted a sheet.  At this point, I was not in the best of moods.  We had just dropped Stevie off at the airport, and I was still in tears from that.  I went ahead and walked on over to the front desk and asked to speak to the woman whom I had been speaking with.  I went to her office, and informed her that once again we were left NO COFFEE and that today they ran out of sheets.  She couldn’t believe it.  I just looked at her and said yeah, this is comical now.  She apologized, and said she just couldn’t believe this.  I didn’t tell her I would be blogging it, which at that time I didn’t want to, as I was too shocked at the absurdity of the whole thing.  She made a half-hearted attempt to offer me something, a night off or something to make up for our troubles.  I don’t think they ever took a night off our bill, Pat is checking the records and if they did I will be sure to up date this.

Seriously – they need to fire their whole Housekeeping staff and start over, based upon what I have seen….

As for their Free Breakfast in the morning, if you know my husband, then you know he loves Free food.  He will eat almost anything too.  I mean the man is great, when we don’t want it, we just give it to him.  Well even he wouldn’t eat their breakfast.  That is saying A LOT.  The eggs, if that is what they were, were running in some liquid.  The sausage smelled like wet dog, and was nasty!  The bacon, while overcooked, was delicious.  The ham, OMG, BARF, it was soooo gross!!!!  We were able to figure out their schedule, so we knew which mornings to go up to the lobby area and get bacon, and stay away on the other days.  Since they only serve eggs, one meat and make it yourself waffles each day.  We bought breakfast foods for the room and just made our own breakfast instead.

Some positives:

Tues – Thursday – FREE beer, wine and a nice little small dinner for their social hour, which is two hours long.  We met a couple of families during this, and Pat enjoyed the FREE Bud Light and Red Wine.  Becca, Carson and I enjoyed the FREE pop and food.

Pool – The pool was great there, they had a bunch of free to use pool toys, which the kids loved!  The hot tub was great, if you didn’t look up and see the rotten gazebo roof falling in.  The baby pool was great, and the little deck chairs that were provided for the babies were nice.

I think this pretty much covers the finer points of our stay.