Residence Inn by Marriott Orlando at SeaWorld — Hotel in Dr. Phillips

My family and I (two adults, a 12 year old and 7 year old) recently stayed here or our trip to Orlando. ||Before we travelled, I noticed that there were pictures of rooms with bathtubs and some with showers. My son is autistic and things need to be how he likes them. One of the things he uses to regulate is water play and therefore he loves his baths and will not go in a shower. My husband called the hotel a couple of weeks prior to our arrival to request that we were allocated a room with a bathtub and we were assured this wouldn't be a problem. ||Upon our arrival after travelling for around 20 hours from the UK, we checked in with no problems and headed to our room and discovered we had a shower and not a bathtub. We were all desperate to relax after such a long journey but instead, my husband had to call down to reception to see if we were able to move to a room with a tub. He spoke with Reception and advised that he had called ahead to request this. He was put on hold for approximately 15 minutes only for the receptionist to come back and say that they couldn't move us because they don't have any rooms which have tubs in. This was despite the fact we had called ahead and I had seen photos on the website with tubs. Also, if there are no rooms with tubs in the hotel, I'm not sure why it would take 15 minutes for a member of staff to realise this?! We were all exhausted and my husband just had to accept this. ||The other issue we had, after arriving at the hotel, only a couple of hours later my son's feet were covered in dirt. I can't say that the room seemed unclean but the floors obviously can't have been very clean. ||Other than these issues, the hotel was ok - nothing wrong with it but just ok. Breakfast was included and they had a fair selection of cereals and breads. There were bananas and packets of apple slices most mornings. Sometimes there was yoghurt and muffins. There were cooked options of scrambled eggs, sausage patties and usually chicken or turkey sausages. There is a make your own waffle station which was very popular and juice, tea, coffee and water. The quality was fine and we managed to find something we liked every morning and I'm quite a fussy eater.||The room was well kept and fine for what we needed it for. For a room that sleeps 4 people, it was a shame there is not more wardrobe hanging space but there were plenty of drawers and this is something we knew about prior to our trip from the website. The kitchen seemed relatively well equipped with a big fridge and decent sized freezer. I ran all the cups, glasses, plates and cutlery through the dishwasher before use as they didn't seem particularly clean. There were dish washing sponge, washing up liquid provided and dishwasher powder. ||The pool was a lovely area and we had it to ourselves both times we visited although I think this was more to do with the February weather which being British was still very pleasant for us! The pool area was clean. The pool was a little on the chilly side but it didn't stop us from going in.||There is access from the hotel to a walk way which goes directly to the shopping mall opposite the property. There are a wide range of places to eat here. We ordered several takeaways to the hotel which was never a problem, we just had to wait in reception to meet them.||We travelled to Universal by Lyft and this cost us approximately $8-$11 dollars per journey. ||Would we return......

I stayed here for 2 weeks while waiting for my home renovations to be complete. While there were some positives, I overall found the experience to be lacking for a number of reasons.

-Shortly before 8am 3 days before I was scheduled to check out and after I had just undressed to get in the shower, I heard a rustling at my door. I waited a little bit and then heard another soft noise, not what I would consider a knock. I then heard "Housekeeping" and the person attempted to open the door. I pushed the door back closed shielding my body behind the door as much as I could, "I am changing. How can I help you?" The response was "I'm sorry. I was told the room was vacant." I called the front desk and they said the person must have been confused as they also said my reservation was for 3 more days. -As a person in a wheelchair and with a service dog, breakfast was completely unmanageable. The hotel is not responsible for people choosing to treat me and my service dog like a jungle gym, but the layout makes little sense and is in part to blame for these issues. Coffee, juice, and milk are at the same station and people decide to use up most of the station to put 7 sugars and creamers in their coffee, creating a traffic jam. After trying breakfast 3 times, I decided it wasn't worth getting trampled. -In those 3 visits, I found the breakfast quality to be lacking. The eggs were lukewarm some days and cold on others. Healthy options were limited to some very questionable looking yogurt and oddly textured oatmeal. -On 2 different occasions, dogs were running around the hotel off leash. One of these instances was in the lobby. I don't understand why a staff member didn't get involved. -The hotel is very busy and I found sometimes that mess would accumulate. The area by the back door (which is heavily trafficked) was always dirty with leaves everywhere. These would take 24+ hours to get cleaned up. -There were 3 days in a row where my towels and washcloths were taken and not replaced. On the first night this happened, I called at around 7pm and was told they would be sent right down. That never happened. The next morning I went to the front desk and explained I was going to shower and needed a washcloth. The towels and washcloths were then finally sent down. On the third day this happened, the washcloths and towels were sent down on the first request. -The room overall was very dated. There were also aspects that were broken such as the dishwasher completely missing a button to select the cycle. I raised this issue, but it was never addressed.

There were a couple of positives. I found most of the staff to be professional and polite when approached despite a lot of things falling through the cracks as noted above. There was a gentleman from maintenance who was incredible (He never gave his name) when faced with accessibility challenges with the room. He went above and beyond to make fixes to improve the accessibility. There is also a gentleman at the front desk with a British accent (I also didn't catch his name), who is very nice and personable. If you are there for the theme parks, Seaworld is very close by and I saw that there was a shuttle for it as well. There is a Bonefish Grill walking distance away along with a CVS and 7-11.

Overall, I would not stay at this hotel again due to the challenges...

We had been to this hotel back in 2016 and had enjoyed it so much, we came back. However in 2024 things have really changed, and I wouldn't say for the better. In the past, there was some variation in the breakfast each day (sometimes sausages, sometimes bacon, sometimes sausage patties), however this time there was only ever sausage patties for the 4 breakfast we were there for. What was even more troubling (deceitful?) was that on one of the business computers that we passed along the way to breakfast, there was a Marriott advertisement for breakfast (start your day right) that showed a picture of an English muffin with egg and bacon. Variety is the spice of life, but not for breakfasts here. There was also a server manning the toaster, which some people liked because the server had pre-made toast, but others were disappointed because the pre-made toast was not hot.

The hotel room was nice with a dishwasher, fridge, and cooktop. Unfortunately the dishwasher racks were broken (bottom was missing 2 wheels, and the top was not sliding properly). My husband did his best to fix the top so it would slide open, but there was little he could do which made the dishwasher difficult to use. The safe was locked when we got there, but when we called the front desk, someone came very quickly to open it up. Other than that the beds were comfy and everyone slept well on them (the sofa bed was not too comfortable). Water pressure and temperature in the shower was great, and the exterior bathroom sink was nice while people were in the shower/toilet.

A very nice thing about this hotel is that they have propane BBQ grills (3×) for the residence to use, which we managed to do steaks on 2 nights in a row. The hotel asks that they light it, which was fine the first night, but the second, we waited for a long time and no one came. And while they seem to clean the grills each morning, the first time we used it (Sunday evening), the grill was dirty and there was no grill brush to be seen (all the other grill tools were available in the room). The maintenance person on Sunday evening was very helpful however, and tried to find some brushes to clean the grill with.

The family enjoyed the heated pool and hot tub, except when they closed it due to the small brown nuts that had fallen from the trees into the water. I think some young lad took them as excrement. I guess better safe than sorry?

The hotel is very close to Sea World and Aquatica, and they provide a shuttle (which they take no responsibility for and when it doesn't come, it really sucks for your family waiting to get back to the hotel). There is a concierge on sight in the mornings selling discounted attraction tickets, but you need to do your homework. He tried to sell my husband tickets for more than one could get on the Aquatica website which was having a Black Friday pre-sale. They do match prices though, so we ended up matching to VisitOrlando which was even cheaper than the Aquatica site due to the admin charges that Aquatica was adding.

There is lots of parking, but they now charge $25 per night, which was complimentary back in 2016.

The hotel is smoke-free, but there seemed to be some 'skunk' smells (coming in from the parking lot area?).

All in all, we enjoyed the hotel, but disappointed with the...