The Nickelodeon Suites in Orlando

As many of you know, we were hotel hopping for two weeks while waiting on a long term location to open up due to a fire and flood.  For one of our weeks we stayed in the Nickelodeon Suites.  Before getting there I was super excited for it.  I couldn’t wait to get there.  I was sure that it would be fun for the kids and offer some relief to the absolutely hectic and craziness that was going on.  The website boasted of gorgeous, fun 1 bedroom suites that included a kitchen!  Just what we needed.

Upon arrival, I noticed how things were a little different than the rest of the resorts in the area.  No one was allowed through to even check in without talking to a security gate person, which isn’t too odd, but those staying on site, also had to talk to her to get through.  After getting checked in I headed back to the van so we could drive around to our room.

Immediately upon driving through, there were two sheriff cars with some guests.  I can safely say that I have never seen that at any of the Disney or Universal resorts before.  Once we parked, we got a luggage cart and started noticing how beat up everything was.  I understand wear and tear, but this place was beat up and filthy.  Maybe it’s the guests who stay here or their staff doesn’t care, but trash on the floors and in the elevator really don’t help to make your resort look like a fun inviting location.

The kids were begging to use the pool that first day, but it was kind of cool, and we needed to get all our belongings to our room and out of our van. It just didn’t feel safe leaving it all in the van.  After we got everything out of the van and took a minute in the room to get a little organized, we decided to head out to a theme park for a bit.  It was just after 6pm, well we were SHOCKED to see that the pool we  were facing was all ready closed.  I inquired about this later, and learned that it closes everyday at 6pm!  I was so completely blown away by this!  The other pool was NOT close and really, when you get back from one of the theme parks, do you really want to walk a long distance to another pool for a quick evening or night dip?

We originally chose to stay at the Nickelodeon because of wanting the ability to cook meals and not have to continue to eat fast food for 7 more days, but we soon learned that wasn’t going to be a option.  I understand that each kitchen is supposed to come equipped with a sponge, dish soap, cups, glasses, bowls and utensils.  Our room was missing bowls, glasses, sponge and the dish soap was LITERALLY a mixture of more water than soap.  It was as thin as water!  After 5 days we finally went to the Walmart and bought some bowls to serve the kids cereal in, and some cups that could hold water instead of constant water bottle buying.

Some of the things that we liked or found to be fine at the Nickelodeon Suites:

• Food was good from Room Service
• The food courtyard, or the Mall as they called it, had several options for quick food with a Subway, Starbucks and a Pizza place
• It is EXTREMELY close to Disney, and makes getting on site or off site a breeze during the busy park times
• Easily accessible and easy to get to all the Orlando area attractions from there
• The Arcade – It was a normal arcade with good games and prizes the kids could select for exchange with their ticket winnings

A few things we noticed about the Nickelodeon Suites that made us realize that we will not be returning again nor recommending to our readers to stay there:

• Dirty and run down
• Pool area – flooring coming up everywhere, which makes for holes and little crunchies under your feet.  The kids HATED that 

  

  

  

  

  
  

  

  

  

  

  
  

  

  

  
  

   

• Pool area – with toddlers or young kids, unless your little ones don’t mind water splashed in their faces, the pool play areas are not friendly
• Cost – we paid $253 a night for a total of $1,770 for 7 nights (3/24 to 3/31/2015) (We could have stayed at a much nicer resort for less, Cabana Bay for instance!)
• Noise – the walls and floor are THIN.  There were other groups partying all night long in the hallways and in the rooms above us.  With Becca having to be at work at Disney by 7am each morning, it made for several very LONG days dealing with loud people.
• Sleeping Conditions – for being a suite it only sleeps 4 (if you could say that).  You get ONE small king and a full size pull out couch.  Becca was miserable by the third night on the pull out with the bars digging into her because the mattress was so cheap, that she finally started sleeping on the couch without pulling it out.  There is no way a family with two children could comfortably sleep there on the beds. (at least IMO)
• Wristbands -you are expected to wear these plastic bands for the duration of your stay, they are the hospital type ones, uncomfortable and neon colors.  For obvious reasons, Becca was unable to wear her’s and they didn’t notice.  But I don’t feel like resort guests should have to advertise the Nickelodeon Resort for free for them in the parks, which is essentially what we would have been doing.
• Parking –  speaking of the wristbands, the only way to get into the parking lot is to show a wristband.  Not room key swipe, not a code, but to wait for the guard, who is also helping NON Resort guests, to acknowledge you and see your wristband in order for the gate to be raised to let you in
• Broke Down & Falling a Part – in our room alone, both the dishwasher and a kitchen drawer were broken.
• Distance to Main Pool – like I mentioned above, the pool we were close to closed at 6pm, so we were told to head to the main pool.  Okay, well that sounded easy, until we discovered that we had to head through the mall, and follow a path around the hotel, cut through a set of buildings and 10 minutes later get to the main pool.  When traveling with little ones, that was a pain. – Of Note we were in Building 4
• Pool Closing  Times – 6pm!  Really?!?!?  and the other pool closed at 10.
• Trash in Hallways – from about 9am until 7-8pm the hallways would have bags of trash just laying there and the room service trays would be sat in the hallways for just as long.

Things to note that we didn’t experience, so we can’t rate:

• We didn’t do any of the entertainment items listed on their website while a few were free, the others required additional cost and we just didn’t trust that it would be worth it.  We may have been completely wrong on this but I am ok with our decisionTo say we were far from impressed is an understatement.  I really wanted to love it there, I really wanted it to blow my socks off.  But in my opinion the best part of the Nickelodeon Suites, is the view from the highway, when driving past it.