Homewood Suites by Hilton Lake Buena Vista - Orlando — Hotel in Dr. Phillips

STAY AWAY!!!!

I honestly wish I could give zero stars. This was by far the worst hotel experience I've ever had.

Check-in was late, and despite booking a King Studio room directly with the hotel by phone four months in advance, we were given a room with two double beds. When we brought this up, Kinara at the front desk was dismissive and said it was because we booked through Expedia, which was flat-out wrong and a plain lie -- we booked directly with the hotel. She claimed they "don't take bookings over the phone," which is another lie since that's how we made our reservation in the first place!!!

To "fix" the issue, they offered to cover parking, which made no sense because parking was through a third-party app and not affiliated with them. Total deflection. 2 days back home from vacation and that "refund" was never returned to my account. SCAM!!!

The room we were eventually given was disgusting. There was mold in the bathroom, no working light, and no lock on the bathroom door. The iron leaked and left water stains, the AC was ridiculously loud, and to top it all off, the light switch in the second room sparked when we tried to use it -- a clear safety hazard. Not to mention the fact that when I'm taking a shower, the water zones in from hot (more like a lukewarm) to cold, another negative.

We weren't told about any amenities -- apparently, there's a Wednesday evening reception, but we only found out because we happened to see it in progress. Kinara never told us about it at check-in or during our stay and was also visibly annoyed when we brought up our grievances and problems that THEY are responsible for!!!!

The shuttle service was beyond incompetent. They dropped us off at the wrong hotel, and the driver didn't speak any English, making it nearly impossible to get back. If we hadn't had Google Translate, we would've been stranded. He also smelt like he never showered a day his life, I almost didn't want him to touch my phone to look at google translate/maps.

Basic requests like towels and shower caps weren't delivered to our room. We were told to come get them ourselves at the front desk at 9 PM by Kinara. At that point, why even call it service?

On top of all that, broken washing machines were left out in the hallways on the first floor, and there was visible mold with peeling wallpaper on the walls (photos attached). It was just gross and felt like the building was falling apart.

Management was nowhere to be found, and when I finally spoke with Shirley the next day, the supposed front desk manager, her solution was for me to cancel my stay and leave the hotel -- not even an ounce of empathy or a real attempt to make things right or accommodating. Just rude and unprofessional.

Kinara and Shirley were completely unhelpful and incompetent throughout. No one seemed to know their job or care that they were ruining someone's stay. Not an ounce of accommodation to try and right the wrongs of their poor service. Kinara was at the front desk every night, and when we would return to the hotel after long days at the Disney parks, we were not greeted with even a hello or welcome back. Not even a nod, nothing. Some lack of front desk hospitality from someone whose job is to be hospitable.

I will say the one saving grace of this entire mess and clown show was Oscar. He was the only one there who seemed to care at all about his job and being an actual professional. Greeted us the last 2 nights we came in from the parks with a warm welcome and smile. I don't know about Shirley, but I really question why she's the manager and not Oscar when he clearly has way more hospitality skills and manners. Homewood suites, please look into giving him a promotion, Shirley is incompetent and flat out RUDE!! She never addressed the issue of me paying for a king studio instead of the double twin beds bedroom I got, A SCAM!!!! Thank you so much Oscar.

Do yourself a favor: do not stay here. I wouldn't recommend this hotel to anyone -- not even for a one-night EMERGENCY stay. Save your money and...

If possible, I'd have rated about a 3.5, but cannot justify rounding up to 4.

On the positive side: The hotel is conveniently located to I-4, so easy access to Disney and Universal theme parks. It is also nearby several restaurants. The hotel comped the $25/night self-parking fee. Breakfast is included in the cost, and we were pleasantly surprised with the quality of the breakfast. They had a station that included bread, English muffins, bagels, and mini-muffins, with butter, peanut butter and multiple spreads. They also had gluten-free muffins. They had a cereal bar with yogurt, cold cereal, hot cereal (oatmeal or grits, depending on the day), and overnight oats with chia seeds. They had fresh fruit and fruit juices. The hot bar had scrambled eggs, breakfast meat, potatoes, and something extra - sometimes sausage gravy and biscuits, sometimes meat and a taco bar. One day, they had make your own Mickey shaped waffles. They have coffee/tea available all day, just off the lobby. The suite was clean. The kitchen included place setting for 4, a stovetop, microwave and full sized refrigerator. The bed was comfortable and the pillows were reasonable. Housekeeping came in every day.

On the negative side: The hot water was never hot. To say we were taking lukewarm showers would be a stretch. It wasn't ice cold, but certainly cool enough to have you rushing through your shower because it wasn't comfortable to be under the water. The AC units were not strong enough to deal with Florida humidity. Even when the temperature was cool enough, your skin still felt clammy from the humidity in the suite. And the carpet felt just a bit damp - not wet, but not the fully dry that you'd expect for carpet. Towel inventory was spotty. Some days we'd get 2 hand towels, some days 1, some days none at all. The buttons on the elevator nearest to our room didn't really work well. The down button never worked. By trial and error, we found out that most days the up button worked and the elevator would show up. Of course, that meant sometimes you had to go up to go down, as other guests were already in the elevator going to higher floors. We reported this the first night, but it never got fixed. The ice machines on the 5th and 4th floors were not working. It felt like they did not cool anything beyond the lobby and the suites. The hallways were HOT, and hot air was blowing in the ice machine rooms. The bathroom outside the conference rooms was seriously warm. The pool and the whirlpool were both super cold, and the whirlpool didn't seem to be working. The pool was full of leaves and needed to be skimmed. The free internet speed is slow. We took our Amazon Show along, as well as our Amazon fire stick. After many attempts, we were able to finally get the Show working, but the speed was too slow to ever get the Fire connected to the network. The Hilton Honors app indicated that we could check in early and pick our room. This was not the case. Check-in is at 4 and we got a room about 5:30. We were supposed to be able to use a digital key. We didn't end up trying it as the team member who checked us in stated several times that they recommend you use your physical keys. Our assumption was that the digital keys may not work consistently.

In the end, we decided that for the price, we'd likely be willing to give the hotel another try in the future. Of all the things listed above, the cold showers and the AC/humidity were the only 2 things that were more than nits to us. For this reason, we'd be willing to give them a...

Soooo many issues with this hotel. We booked this hotel because my family often stays in Hiltons, and I have never stayed in a bad Hilton. This one definitely does not live up to the Hilton standard. First issue, they advertise that they have a shuttle to Disney, which they do, but it only goes to Disney once a day, only drops off at Epcot, and leaves after the park opens, and it comes back BEFORE the nighttime entertainment, so you can't get a full day in if you take their shuttle. Additionally, if you have a wheelchair, you have to book the shuttle 24 hours in advance. Lastly, the staff have no clue about Disney transportation. They tried to tell me that you can take the monorail to any park, but as someone that used to work at Disney and knows all about how it works, you CANNOT take the monorail to any park. It only goes between Epcot, Magic Kingdom, and the MK resorts. The next issue we ran into was when we got to the floor our room was on, the air conditioning in the hallway was not working. The thermostat even said error. It was September, and extrememly hot outside, so this was very unpleasant. We were there 8 days and they never fixed it. Then, we get into our room, and we don't have any hot water. It's already very late and we wanted to go to bed, so I reported the issue with no hot water and asked if they could look at it the next day. They said they would make sure maintenance came and looked at it. The next morning, we go down to breakfast 30 minutes before it was supposed to end, and they have already packed everything up and blocked off the breakfast area. We complained, but this continued every morning so we tried to go down earlier some of the mornings, but they were terrible at restocking, and the quality of the food was very poor for a Hilton. We came back to the hotel after our first day out, and still didn't have any hot water, so I called to complain about it again. They sent someone to come check it, who agreed the water was not even close to hot, and he said he would go check the hot water heater. I didn't hear anything back after that, so I checked in with reception again and they said everything is fine with the hot water heater. They also couldn't move us rooms because everything was sold out. Basically I continued to complain every day that I had no hot water, and at one point one of the receptionists was very rude and said no one else was complaining about hot water, so clearly it's not an issue (but if you go back and read other reviews, they also complain about hot water, we just assumed they were old enough that they would have fixed it by the time we went), but another receptionist said he had had multiple complaints about no hot water so it wasn't just me. He also assured me that they could move us to the hotel they are connected to, but the receptionist later that same day said they couldn't because it was sold out. Then the final issue we encountered was the hot tub outside was also not working, so we couldn't enjoy that either. I ended up writing to the managers, and they refunded us for our stay, but I just want others to know just how awful of a stay this was. It looks like a good deal for the price, and the rooms are clean and spacious, but you won't get your breakfast you paid for, you will have to pay for transport to the parks if you want to get your money's worth out of Disney or Universal, and you won't be able to take a shower. And don't waste your time in the pool or hot tub because they...