Lake Buena Vista Village Resort & Spa

We have just come home from a 2 week holiday and it was amazing from start to finish. I was slightly worried as had read some not so good reviews. But our experience was all good room was perfect for what we wanted. We had a 3 bed apartment and perfect for a family of 5. Kids loved the swimming pool and the slide. It was 10-15 mins from Disney which was perfect for us. Close to Walmart and lots of other shops also. Would defo stay here again. Even had the view of Hollywood studio fireworks from our apartment. Read less

I was worried before we arrived due to the amount of negative reviews I saw but after a 14 night stay, I don't understand why. We arrived at the hotel around 4.30pm checked in. We asked about a chance to upgrade to a 3 bedroom from 2 bed but they said we would need to contact Virgin holidays for this. Fair enough and we never bothered in the end. After check in we were directed to another desk where they tried to sell us things (timeshare, park tickets, spa etc) which after a long travel day was rather annoying and unwanted so we simply decided and left. Our room was 5511 in building 5. The room was a great size for our family of 5 and was clean and pleasant. Yes the furniture is a bit dated but it never bothered us. We cooked a lot of meals in the room, the huge fridge was great. Dishwasher and washing machine were so handy too. We were given small packets of cleaners to use which did soon run out during our stay but we bought some bits and had also brought some things from home so we're not bothered. The beds were comfy but maybe slightly shorter than our beds in the UK. The huge bath tub was great but we never tried the jets so can't comment on that feature. We discovered our room had a slight partial view of the MK fireworks, if only the trees were a litter shorter or if we had a higher floor it would have been a much better view. The noise from the highway is loud on the balcony but never bothered us as we soon got used to it. Our room was very close to the pirate pool which was great apart from the high drinks prices and there was signs saying no external food or drink were to be brought in. It would be better if we could have brought our own as we would have spent longer down there. The hotel was well kept and there was always maintenance men working on something, from jet washing to replacing furniture. There is small lizzards all over which we loved to see them every day. The location of this hotel is really amazing! So perfect for Disney and the free shuttle service was great. Our only complaint was the timings of the shuttle bus coming back were not the best. We would book the latest shuttle to Epcot (this is the only Disney stop) at 11:25am and we were often the only ones on the whole coach. Sometimes the bus would stop at other hotels to collect other passe in but if we went straight to Epcot it was so quick, less than 20 minutes. Coming back the shuttle was 5:10pm from Magic Kingdom or 8:20pm and 9:20pm from Epcot. Sometimes we would get an uber back as the timings didn't always work out for us. The Epcot fireworks are at 9pm every night and last around 15-20 minutes so you could never catch the shuttle. They should consider things like this in the timings. You could also book a shuttle to Universal but we only did Disney this trip. The hotel has a Racetrac gas station over the road which was so handy for grabbing bottles of juice to take to the parks. A bottle of pepsi was 2 for $4 where as the parks were $5.50 for one bottle. There was a lot of slush flavours, hot food snacks, ice cream, Krispy Creme inside which was great. The hotel does have an onsight shop and pizza hut which we never used. We did go into the shop one morning but there was no prices on any of the bottles of drinks so we just left. You can walk to a retail shopping area easily from the hotel. It took us around 20 minutes. There is Petco, Publix, TJ Maxx, Five Below and more. It was great. Walmart is also around 5-10 minutes drive from the hotel. We did a big shop there on the first night. Car parking was free at the hotel, another great touch. The outlets opposite the hotel were great too, got some great bargains in Under Armour and Nike. The shops were good and great that you just crossed over the street to get to them, so easy. We saw a spacex launch from the sunroof terrace at the pirate pool which was amazing. I definitely would stay here again. We drove to Kennedy Space Centre which was only 1 hour away and a little bit longer coming back as it was rush hour traffic. The hotel was only around 20 minutes from MCO airport. Our only slight issues were the key fobs to get into the building hardly ever worked and on our check out day an emergency alarm started going off telling us to evacuate immediately. We rushed outside and no one seemed to know what was happening so we all went to reception who didn't know it was going off. They made some calls and then said it was a false alarm so we could return. After check out, we spent some time in the hotel lobby building where there was comfy couches, computers, toilets and a large locked luggage storage room. Read less