Balmoral Resort Florida — Hotel in Haines City

Check in was ok I was shocked not to see the employees with any masks on. We got to the room it appeared to be clean however the counter had something dried up on it. I had to go to store to buy cleaning products to clean it up and everything else since kitchen counters wasn’t clean, what else did they miss! (although we pay a cleaning fee 😏) I go to use the dishwasher it doesn’t work, I try to plug in my cell to charge the plug doesn’t work ,go to the other outlet plug doesn’t work look at the house phone it’s isn’t on just plug in. So I tried to handwash the dishes...while I’m missing a stopper for sink and I have hand towels to wash dishes no dish rag. I’m frustrated now. I call the front desk and mentioned it they said someone would come out sometime later it fix it and bring the missing items. Maintenance person was very nice he was able to get the dishwasher working after a little while but wasn’t able to get the sockets working said someone else would come (never got fixed while we was there). We decided to use our pool. We enjoyed it until it got dark. All of our neighbors around us had pool lights. We called front desk and asked how to turn on the lights. We was told that some houses pool lights don’t work and they had to order parts but due to COVID it’s taking longer to get. So I asked is our house one that you had to order she couldn’t tell me an answer said it’s a light switch that will turn it on. I understand back ordered issue but no one mentioned our house was one of the defected ones and she didn’t even know which ones worked or didn’t. What the point in having a private pool if you can’t enjoy it whatever time you want to. Well than most terrifying thing happened. I woke up to get some water and the front door was wide open!! I stood there in fear shaking as I’m trying to call my husband to wake up. I check on my son he’s ok. My husband is asking me what’s wrong as he running towards me and sees the front door open. He looks at me and says that door wasn’t open when he woke up to get a protein shake at 3am. I immediately call the front desk notify them what happened. Her response is did you close the door last night?. I calmly explained to her that we check all doors at night before we go to bed and again before we actually lay down. She says ok no one has been in your house. So I explain to her my husband got up and door wasn’t open now at 1pm it’s open. Someone opened it . She said she was going to let her manager know. I asked to speak to a manger and was told she was. I asked to speak to someone else in charge and she said no one else was there and that she emailed another manger. At this point I’m beyond disgusted how do you email an issue like this. They made it seem like it’s not a big deal when a customer is telling you they woke up to the front door being open and they are terrified! I hung up called the police department they came out super fast. Remember there was no other manger there well after 5min of the police getting there a manger shows up! The police do a walk through everything making sure no one was hiding out anywhere. The manager that couldn’t come to phone had time now to actually show up to the house. He had a sheet of paper that he claimed we a log and that no one use any codes and that we must have left the door open. I explained to him also that is not true due to my fear of doors not being lock and me double checking my husband. The police officer came up with the idea that someone must had their schedule confused and thought it was check out day for us and they saw our stuff and than shut the door but didn’t pull hard on it. However the resort manger said no codes was used and that it happens people forget to lock the door. Again I say that is not us we double check. He let us change the code to what we want but we was so disgusted on how they handle the situation. He blamed us for the door instead of investigating the issue when we knew it...

OK, let me first start off by stating that our stay at Balmoral was free as I won it in a contest. The positive comments I will make are that the home was very spacious, very clean and reasonably well supplied. There was an ice maker in the fridge which was very nice. Our home looked out over a small lake, and we were able to watch the sunsets nearly every evening through our screened lanai. That's the best I can say about this place.

We stayed there in mid-November where evening temperatures on some nights were dipping down into the 50’s. According to the information provided by Balmoral prior to our visit, we could request the pool to be heated for $25 / day. Since the pool temperature was somewhere around 70 degrees, we asked for the pool to be heated. We were told that the home doesn’t have a pool heater. As a result, we couldn’t use the pool as it was way too cold. Also, the lounge chairs provided had no cushions and were extremely uncomfortable to lay on. We grabbed the cushions from the couches inside and used them.

The clubhouse was bad. The hot tub was not working. The lounge chairs, like the ones in our home had no cushions and were extremely uncomfortable. The main pool was heated but not very clean.

After reading some of the previous comments from others who stayed here, we were a bit concerned about our security. The front gate was never closed, anyone could drive in. The back gate was closed but the pedestrian gate was always unlocked which backed onto a dark alley way. Some people mentioned about their home being broken into at night while they slept. When we slept, we always jammed the bar stools under the doorknobs at the front door and the door to the garage. The front door has a keypad lock. We assumed that the staff who worked there would have access to this keypad code which was very concerning. Whenever we went out during the day, we always grabbed our expensive belongings and kept them in the trunk of our car. We did however make one mistake that cost us. When we initially arrived in Florida, I was carrying $160 in Canadian money (about $120 US). Since this cash was useless in Florida, I took the cash out of my wallet and stuck it in my jeans pocket. Unfortunately, I completely forgot about this money until we arrived back home in Canada. I never wore my jeans during our stay, and they were always left on the bedroom floor until the day we left. When I got home, the cash was gone. Now, I’m not going to make any direct accusations here, but here are the facts. The money disappeared sometime between our stay at Balmoral and when we arrived back home in Toronto. On the day before we left, we called the front desk because the furnace wasn’t working in the home and the temperature inside the home was 68 degrees. Within 30 minutes, a maintenance guy showed up and let himself into the home without knocking or ringing the doorbell. He looked at the furnace and said he needed to get the technician to come and look at it. My wife and I were planning to go out for dinner soon which I told him, and I asked if the technician could come before we left. The technician showed up soon after and just like the other guy, he just unlocked the door himself and let himself in. He fixed the furnace and then left, and we left soon after to go out for dinner. Again, I’m not making any direct accusations here and I’m just merely stating the facts. The facts are that my money went missing from my jeans pocket, the cash was always in my pocket and the jeans were never worn and remained in the home until the day we left, workers/staff had access to the keypad code (or key) to our front door, and I made it known that we were going out for dinner to the maintenance guys. I’m just stating the facts. You can draw your own conclusions, but the optics don’t look good. Stay at your own risk. We won’t be coming back.

P.S. This resort has a mixture of rental homes and homes...

Although we had a good time staying at your resort, I do have some concerns.

The Beds were extremely uncomfortable. One of the single beds had all the slats laying on the floor (as we found out later). One of my guests arrived late the first night, when he laid down in that bed, he sunk to the floor and ended up trying to sleep with the mattress almost touching the floor the entire night (very embarrassing for me, very uncomfortable for him). The next day we put all the slats back in the bed, that worked for awhile, but in the middle of the night the slats fell out again, very poor quality. Even the King size bed I used was cheap, I sat down on the end to put my shoes on and four of the slats fell out, again very cheap design. And to top it off, we had a roll out bed in the living room, but there were no sheets or blankets provided for that bed ( not very comfortable without sheets). We ended up taking the sheet off the king size bed and using one of the blankets from our bed (not the type of thing you would expect to have to do).

The handle on sliding door to the pool was broken which made it very hard to open. Tried to fix that, but the threaded holes were stripped.

The screened in room around the pool had two missing screen panels. On a few occasions we had to chase birds out of the room.

We had planned to spend Saturday at your community pool with our group. We already new that the water park was out of service from your Email, but when we got there, the pool was also closed and the hot tub was at 80 degrees (again, embarrassing for me in front of my guests). We did not have the fun that we anticipated.

You should also post your check out procedure somewhere in your rental as I did not read the check out email you sent until I got home. I had to wing it, but I believe I left your condo in very good shape.

I am very disappointed, I thought your resort would have much higher standards than this. I would think if you advertised for enough room to sleep 10 people, that you could accommodate all ten, you certainly charged for it. I thought it would be fair if I expressed my concerns to you before I leave my review. After sending this note first to Balmoral, I received a reply they send the following:Hi Jeffrey,

Thank you for providing us with feedback from your stay. We are sorry to learn that your experience at Balmoral Resort Florida was less than satisfactory. While we understand that sometimes unexpected items may occur, we assure you we work to address and rectify any and all concerns that may be affecting our guest's experience. At Balmoral. Our main goal is to provide a memorable vacation experience for our guests in hopes that they will not only return but will consider us a home away from home. To do that we rely on our guest's feedback, the good and the bad, and we use every comment, suggestion, or praise as a tool to build upon.

We understand your concern and frustrations, and we want to assure you that the safety of our guests is of paramount importance to us. We are taking precautionary measures to ensure that our guests have a safe and pleasant stay. We take all guest concerns very seriously and extend our sincerest apologies that you felt your vacation was disrupted by all the issues reported through email.

Thank you again for your time and for your feedback. We value your business and hope to have the opportunity to host you and your family again in the future.

Again, thank you for your feedback.

Balmoral Resort It doesn't even look like they...