Encore Sherwood Forest — Hotel in Kissimmee

We stayed in a cabin in the park to save money to be able to enjoy Disney and Orlando. Here is a breakdown of our stay:

Check-in: The check-in time for the cabin is 4:00 and the office was only open until 5:00. We got delayed by traffic but we still arrived at 4:45 and could not check in at the office and had to pickup our packet at the guard gate. I am not sure how they expect everyone to be there right at 4:00 to check-in, evidently you can only be 30 mins late to check-in as they put the packets at the guard gate at 4:30.

Cabin: It was not ideal for our family but we made it work. They are really small with very little room to move around except in the living space. The bedroom was very small with very little room to move around the bed. There wasn't a lot of room to store our clothes, even with the closet space. The bathroom was so small that that my husbands knees hit the door when using the toilet. The stairs to the loft are very steep and we had many slips getting down them. The loft was also very hot even with the a/c running the whole time. You could not open the refrigerator and the bathroom door at the same time. The tub did not drain well either.

Cleanliness: The unit was not very clean and the stairs to the loft had not been vacuumed or even swept. There was a stack of hand towels in the bathroom cabinet that must have soured in the wash because they smelled really bad. I had to add them to the dirty pile without being used. They also do not have housekeeping available.

Park amenities: We really didn't use them but when we walked to the bath house, near the cabin, to check it out I definitely would not have used them. They were really outdated and dark and dingy. We have a travel trailer and I would not bring our TT to the park. The spaces are grass with some patios but mostly all grass, I didn't see fire pits and very few picnic tables. Even their premium spots are not "premium" in our book.

Proximity to local attractions: The park is about 15 minutes to each of the Disney parking lots. We were able to navigate getting there without any issues and without having to get back on I-4. When we went to Universal it was about 35-40 minutes away due to the I-4 traffic. Old Town / Fun Spot is about 5 mins away and is a great getaway from the Disney hype.

Check-out: Because we left so early we dropped our keys in the night drop box as we left. We never saw the office staff.

Overall, the cabin served our purpose but we will not stay in it again. I will definitely spend the extra money to have housekeeping and more...

Traveling full-time in a 42-foot coach we've stayed in over 400 RV Parks, we stayed here two-months Oct-Nov in 2019.

(1) Dust, some parks are so dusty that even after just a couple nights your unit needs a bath, this place has no dust. (2) Level pads, big coaches need paved or thick gravel pads that are level. We give this park a 3-star rating for having level grass sites. The site we stayed in was a level grass site, but we did observe several sites that were not as level as ours. This park has average sized sites and the space between sites is fairly generous. (3) We live in the age of WIFI technology and there is nothing to stop any RV Park across this country from investing in doing WIFI properly. For some users such as ourselves, WIFI is an important feature. Unfortunately, this park does not offer wifi and we were told before we arrived that we would need to subscribe to a internet company in order to have wifi access. The park office recommended Spectrum internet and we took their advice and subscribed to Spectrum for $50 per month. (4) Maneuverability, some parks have very narrow roads which make backing up and turning very difficult, we found this park to have plenty of room to maneuver. (5) Satellite, as you know satellite reception is very hard to receive when their are large trees present. If you stay away from the sites with the tall trees to the south you should receive reception here. (6) Phone Service, we have AT&T which worked great here. (7) Dog play and potty, plenty of room to walk your dog here, plus there's an off-leash fenced dog area. (8) One very bad note: We were in the back of the park in a site that was backed up to the trees and brushes. Although this was a very nice quiet site, there were some homeless people that were living illegally in the tree area behind us. They arrived one week before we left and kept us awake sometimes until 1:30 am with their pounding rap music. We complained several times to the office, and also to security, but nothing was ever done to remove these illegally camped people. Very bad business not to remove them. The occupants in about 12 of the surrounding sites were very upset about the noise. Wonder if management ever solved...

How comes this rv park can have 4 Stars overall? I cannot leave any star at all but i am forced by the system to at least leave one so i can post. Their lots are so tiny that i saw 2 incidents in 2 days in a row from people rubbing against other rv’s when they turn on curves. When it rains the lots are muddy and 3 people had call wreckers to pull them out from the lot Security is not constant all day. Their cameras doesn’t take an image when you leave premises or register any tag. It just point to the security car. Anyone can have access do a felony and just walk out thru the front door. It happened to be that my bike was stolen from my lot on day time and went to the office to tell then and they told me was that i was on my own and needed to call the police. Well i call them and found out that wasn’t the first time that happened from the police officers and members of the office. The management knows that is a constant issue and I cannot see any security update on their day time security. Everybody can go in at their pleasure on day time but at night they stop you if you don’t have a paper. And i ask myself,Who stop people on daytime? Besides the neighborhood behind has easy access to the campground. There is no fence dividing both areas and it happened to be that I found the bike thanks to my son that 2 days ago was stolen in a flip of eyes. We found both bikes in a house behind the campground but in a blink of an eye mine disappeared when the police showed up. Having that on my vein I decided to look for my bike myself and guess what, found my bike in a forest behind the house on dispute. Called the police and their answer was that because they took it from a nobody’s land the cannot accusse no one. It’s ashamed that i have to take care myself on searching for my stuff. Be sure that i am not coming back and i will make sure that whoever owner is and the Members of One thousand trail knowledge about this incident and makes this place run a 24 hour security service for the good of the people enjoying facilities. I blame the administration for their poor security system. It was a bike thanks God but what...