Florida Homewood Suites adventure begins in Lake Buena Vista

It all started a few weeks ago with a call from Hilton. Would I be interested in writing for a Web site run by Homewood Suites, they wondered.

Homewood Suites? Now there’s a name I don’t hear very often — which is actually a good thing.

I looked through my files. No serious complaints about Homewood Suites. It’s squeaky clean, on a par with Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons. Not bad for an upscale, all-suite chain with close to 300 properties.

Then I realized that I knew almost nothing about Homewood Suites, other than that it belonged to the Hilton family of hotels, and recognizing its distinctive duck logo.

So this weekend, I packed my family into the car and we drove to the Homewood Suites property in Lake Buena Vista, which is just a stone’s throw from I-Drive, SeaWorld and, of course, Disneyworld.

We were not disappointed.

Homewood is an unpretentious hotel chain. It offers big rooms (our family of five stayed pretty comfortably in a one-bedroom suite), thoughtful amenities and a generous, self-service breakfast. But you could have probably gotten those facts off the Hilton Web site.

What you won’t read there is this: Everything is bigger. The hallways are wider, the accommodations more spacious — it’s all slightly larger than life, right down to the waffles you make yourself in the breakfast buffet. If you’re worried about running out of room when you’re on vacation like we are, this is a worthwhile option.

My criticisms are minor. Our breakfast didn’t have any fruit, and I’m dying for an espresso. The pool was a little chilly, but considering the cold winter we’ve just suffered in Central Florida, it’s amazing it wasn’t any colder.

There are another 26 Homewood Suites properties in Florida, and I’ve decided to visit all of them in the next year. There’s a reason for this hotel endurance race. I’ll be contributing to a site called SuiteLiving, and by golly, if I don’t know anything about the “suite” life, how am I going to offer any credible advice to my readers?

Beyond that, my family tells me they actually like staying here. That’s something I don’t hear after every hotel visit.

I’ll check in from another Homewood Suites property soon with a completely unvarnished, no-holds barred look at the suite life.

The bar is set pretty high. Let’s see if the other 26 hotels are this good.

  • Aaron

    I’ve previously stayed at Homewood Suites before and had no issues with them.

    My only gripe was one morning receiving a notice from housekeeping that they were going to skip my room due to still having the Do Not Disturb sign out, prior to 9am and that if I wished to have service, to contact the desk. I personally think that 9am is too early for that notice.

  • J C

    Thanks Chris. My wife and I are trying one out for the first time at the Sacramento Airport. We are only staying overnight to catch a flight, but we are looking more and more and suite type properties. We love Embasy Suites. The living room gives us some nice space and the two tv’s are great, keeping the Wife and I from having to arm wrestle for the remote, especially at playoff time.

    Looking forward to your coments.

  • JMA

    I used to live in FLA. If you want fresh oranges just get in the car and drive east of LBV.
    I realize this is a vacation but finding an orange grove within minutes of driving from one’s hotel/apt/house/whatever is REALLY AWESOME.! Picking fresh oranges right off the tree is one of the best memories I have. Ever.

  • Alac Marshall

    @Chris
    I am looking forward to checking out some Homewood Suites with my wife and two young boys when we do our annual summer road trip out west. The boys love waffles, so that will be a big plus. But I am with you and will miss that espresso. We have a lot in common. I guess regular coffee with have to do. I am looking forward to reading more about the other properties that you will be visiting while writing for the SuiteLiving site. By the way, road trips are so much fun, you don’t have to deal with those pesky airlines and TSA agents. Happy Easter to you and your family!

  • SirWired

    Chris,

    I’m assuming you have an ironclad agreement with Homewood that they have absolutely no control over anything you might choose to say about Homewood or it’s corporate sisters under the Hilton umbrella in your other writings elsewhere? Because while you haven’t written about Homewood, you certainly aren’t shy about problems with Hilton.

  • Christopher Elliott

    @SirWired, you’re right, I’ve been pretty critical of Hilton since the Blackstone LBO. That makes this discovery all the more surprising.

    @Alac, thanks for the holiday greetings. You might want to look at getting a place out in California if you make yearly road trips out there. I hear Tahoe is nice.

  • Phoenix Justice

    @Chris,

    I have found the Hyatt Place to be a great all suite hotel, especially if you like your suite hotel to be on the more upscale and geared toward the business traveler.

  • Christopher Elliott

    @Phoenix, I like Hyatt Place, too. I reviewed one of the Orlando-area properties last year.

  • MeanMeosh

    I’ve stayed at Homewood multiple times over the past 3 years, and have never had a problem. The free dinner/beer/wine on weekdays is a nice touch

  • frostysnowman

    Re: the Homewood location in LBV, I’d make he assumption that Hilton put a little more thought into that particular property than other Homewood locations because of the location. In my experience, most of the chain hotels near Disney/Orlando are a little nicer than the usual builds. I’m not saying that Homewood suites are not nice everywhere, but I’m interested in reading about Chris’ future visits to other locations and whether they are on the same level as this one.

    Hyatt Place: I fully agree that this is a great brand.

  • ptkdude

    Stay at the one in Richardson, Texas and you’ll never stay with that brand again.

  • Chicky

    My hubby and I did a staycation at the Homewood Suites in Huntsville, AL. We were really impressed. Nice, nice place. Good breakfast.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    @ Phoenix Justice – ” I have found the Hyatt Place to be a great all suite hotel…”
    - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
    Hotels like the Embasy Suites, Hyatt Place and etc. are for the business travelers who are on a ‘long’ business trip, need more space, conducting job interviews and etc.

    Hotels like Homewood Suites and Marriott Residence Inns are more for extended stays (i.e. on a job site or job assignment for a long period of time; waiting for a house to rebuilt from a fire; relocation until housing is found and etc.) and family vacations because they have kitchens, full-size fridges, hot full breakfast and etc.

    We usually stay at a Marriott Residence Inn when we take our annual summer trip to San Diego because of the feature of having a kitchen.

    In the past, I had co-workers that preferred to stay a Residence Inn since it can get old eating out; forcing to eat high-calorie meals and etc. so they preferred to cook their own meals. At most Residence Inns, the local staff will pick up groceries for you.

  • ABEFLYER

    We found Homewood Suites several years ago when we went visiting our out of state daughter. It was the closest to her home. Everything in your review is what we found. We have now stayed at that one a dozen times and have always found it exemplary. When we travel we look to see if any are close and found that nationwide that they have a great consistency.

  • Michelle B.

    We stayed at the Homewood Suites in West Palm Beach a few weeks ago for 3 nights using the Advanced purchase rate off the web site. I normally have no problems with this chain, but this property disappointed me from the lack of breakfast replenishment (basics like plates and spoons were completely out at times in addition to edible items), and check out took over 30 minutes because the bill was so messed up (even though we paid in advanced we got a bill for the room for 2 nights at a much different rate than our adv purchase rate (1 night higher, 1 night lower)). Front desk clerk couldn’t get the system to override since the number of room nights and prices were so different.
    I’d be curious how your stay at this property is.

  • J News

    Much like Aaron, we had housekeeping in Arlington, TX skip our room because of “do not disturb”. We asked the front desk if we could at least have clean towels for the next morning, and the manager refused, saying that because we had already pre-paid our visit (!!) we could like it or lump it.

    Astonished, I checked this with the day manager when we checked out, who confirmed that indeed that was the policy of the hotel. Even more astonished, I filled out the web survey and didn’t hear a peep.

    At no time did I ask anyone for any discount or refund. I only ever asked for clean towels. Lesson learned — I’ll never pre-pay for a hotel room again.

    (Note: I did not book my visit through an opaque site. I paid the full “prepaid” price using Hilton’s own website.)

  • Mike

    @Chris, congrats on the new business opportunity.

    As for the breakfast, I stayed at a very cheap $40 a night hotel last November and they had one of those waffle makers. My girlfriend and I keep joking that we are going to get a night there again soon just so we can make those waffles for breakfast. lol

  • The Good Doctor

    I’ve stayed in Homewood Suites from NY to Seattle and they’re one of my preferred brands. The rooms are large, they offer free Wi-Fi (unlike the Hiltons that charge $10 a day), and their complimentary breakfasts are a real cost-saver. The HS in downtown San Antonio even has a wafflemaker that spits out waffles in the shape of Texas!

  • Steve

    J News, that’s *unbelievable* that they would refuse you clean towels. While I agree with you that the maid skipping your room was in no way grounds for a discount or refund, after being rebuffed by the manager I’d have been inclined to dispute the stay on my CC and claim that the hotel was not what I had been promised. (Again, I would be doing that because of the total arrogance of the manager, not because of the housekeeping thing).

    I’ve stayed at Hilton properties on prepaid reservations (through their own site) before, and the only way I’ve been treated differently was that I was told I couldn’t get a receipt upon checkout because my reservation had been prepaid. And it was said semi-apologetically and explained as a computer system thing, not presented as “because you were a prepaid guest, we don’t care about you.”

  • Adriel

    I have always liked the Homewood Suites places. In fact, when I got married, I chose them to house our wedding party and immediate family (several from overseas). It was a perfect fit for the wedding day – no stress from the hotel at all. The staff was wonderful, booking was straightforward, and the rooms are HUGE!

  • Nancy

    Homewood’s ‘light dinner’ on weeknights is great, whether you have young children with you and don’t want to mess with doing the restaurant drill, or when you’re a business traveler arriving alone, in a driving rainstorm, in an unfamiliar city (as I was recently) and you don’t want to bother having to go back out to find a location for dinner!

  • Laura

    My family and I are planning to stay at Homewood Suites Lake Buena Vista this summer. Since you’ve already stayed there, just wondering in your opinion, if our family of six (we have 4 girls ages 13,11,6 and 5) will have enough space in one of their 2 queen and sofabed suite. By the way, my daughters love hotels with waffle makers, did they have waffles available on a daily basis? Thanks.