Sweet Escape Mansion near Orlando — Hotel in Minneola

The rooms and bathroom have a great theme decor around them. Each one is skillfully decorated to go along with the sweet escape candy theme, you will be impressed with the attention to detail. The pool looks amazing and is 8 ft deep in the ice cream cone section, 3 ft in the ice cream section, and the cherry on top is the spa. The slide goes into the 8ft section which is a great design. The property manager is very helpful and responsive during reasonable hours. The cereal killer game was fun and definitely recommend you do. Make sure you record how to use the TV in the movie room and karaoke machine as it will save heartache later on. The arcade games in the main house are of excellent quality and we're the most used part of our trip. The golf course and backyard was fun... especially the live sized chess. Some things like the lifesaver tires and hamburgelur monument need a power wash and deep cleaning, especially for children usage If you plan a trip in the winter it's best not to pay for the heated pool or spa. We tried this past season and wasted $280 because it was not warm enough for the pool at all. You can see this complaint in other reviews as well so it's not just a historical temperature type issue...best to just count your losses and save your cash. DO NOT close the door to the lollipop ball pit room. You can imagine this was a great hit especially for the little children, however the room door locked three times during our stay and two times someone was in there. They could not open it from the inside, I think the locks were removed, but, we're not done properly. I recommend the entire handle and door be removed to avoid someone having to break down the door in the future. The guest house is way farther than 15 feet separated by a driveway I was led to believe. Luckily I was the only young person in my group that stayed in that house as the older guest didn't mind staying put early in the night while the younger family partied it up. Keep in mind in 20F and 30F degree weather I walked back and forth often with a toddler on my shoulder between the homes. You are looking at 200 feet or more walk between the garage of the mansion to the front door of the guest house. The main house needs more bathrooms, or at least a half bathroom added downstairs. You have 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms in the guest house...but only 3 bathrooms with 7 bedrooms in the main house. Only one bathroom downstairs where 3 bedrooms (9 beds) are located. It gets congested very fast. I would recommend you have 35 people or more to feel like you are getting your money's worth, we had around 30 and while everyone enjoyed themselves it was very pricey per individual/family. We honored the shoe policy and we're diligent about it, however during our stay one of the approved onsite chefs accidentally came to our house and walked in the kitchen with his shoes on. Then, one of our guests who is a local had to come back for his son's glasses and found the cleaning crew had shoes on all throughout the house. Lastly a soap dispenser and shower door came off in the guest house while a guest was taking a shower. Luckily no one was injured but hopefully this gets fixed. The washer machine in the main house is pretty high tech and difficult to use. Our guest had to wash in the second house as this washer machine was much more user friendly. Overall the family had a good Christmas at the...

Our family enjoyed a wonderful 5-day vacation (with a family reunion on one of those days) at The Sweet Escape and everyone says it was the best get together ever! We had all ages, from toddlers to senior citizens, and there were plenty of things for everyone to enjoy. I was afraid that the kids would get bored with five days at the house, but they were still begging for another day at the end. The ice cream cone pool was perfect for our family since it had the splash pad for the toddlers, the ice cream wading pool for the preschoolers, and the deeper “cone” section with slide for those that were more adventurous. And then of course, everyone enjoyed the “cherry” hot tub. Also having two separate houses on the same property worked out really well for the 22 of us that stayed on site the full 5 days.

I can’t say enough good things about Andrew, Belinda and their team! We were originally supposed to rent the house in May 2020, but the pandemic forced us to postpone a year. Andrew worked with me on our new dates and even kept our rental rate the same as it would have been last year. They keep you well informed in the days leading up to your arrival and a property manager even meets you on site on the first day to go through everything with you. They pride themselves on providing 6-star service and they really mean that! It is expected with a rental that has as much “turnover” as these do that things are going to break or not work every once in awhile. Ginger made a special visit on our first full day to repair a couple of the games we couldn’t get to work. We also had a microwave break in the middle of our rental, but in keeping with their 6-star service, Harley had a brand new one delivered to the front porch within 3 hrs of me letting her know it had broken.

The “cherry on top” (get it?😁) of our vacation was that on our last full day, which was also Memorial Day, Andrew and Belinda invited us to tour the grounds and use the pool at their Ever After estate (which is their full time home except for when they are on vacation and rent it out). AND we also got to tour and use the pool at Great Escape Parkside since the previous guests had left earlier that morning. Andrew gave us a personal tour at both estates and it was so interesting to have him point out all the hidden gems and details in the various rooms. We even got to tour their newest addition to Ever After as they were putting the finishing touches on it. This new room, which is in one of the guest houses, is a great replica of the restaurant from the movie Ratatouille. The kids were so excited to get to see this room before any of the real guests of Ever After got to see it!

I know this is a long review, but I rely heavily on reviews when I’m selecting a vacation rental - especially when you’re spending this much on a house. But The Sweet Escape was so much more than just a house - it was also a place where lifetime memories were made by each and every family member! I guess the ultimate complement is that we’ve all decided we want to rent another of Andrew’s houses for our next big vacation/family reunion... now if we can just all agree on which one...

It was the perfect place to host all of the wedding party + spouses, & a few extra close friends, for our wedding nearby.

Very responsive hosts! We had a contact that we could text at any time & got very quick responses to any issues that came up. One of the arcade games had a broken button & they brought a substitute out within a couple hours. We had some issues with karaoke & they sent technicians out to fix it right away. When they couldn’t get the skeeball machine fixed in time for us, they offered us the opportunity to go to another property of theirs to play skeeball there, or a few hours on a lazy river at a different house. I feel confident they would handle any issues right away.

They even added a password to their wifi after we pointed out the lack of security there. They took our concerns seriously & we appreciated that.

Amazing property! It has so much stuff on it that we barely scratched the surface. Disc golf, putt putt, arcade games, karaoke, pinball. The pool was really nice & I really enjoyed the water slide. Everything was exactly as described in the listing. It made for an ideal location for hosting our BBQ dinner. The caterer they recommended, Chef Hidalgo, was also excellent & a really nice guy. Seems like they have a good relationship with a lot of local vendors.

The themeing is very fun! They went all out for each & every room. A lot of the candy related art is a little creepy, but in a fun way. It’s suitable for kids but with jokes aimed at adults, much like some cartoons. There’s a room with bunk beds that’s in a literal ball pit. How awesome is that? I enjoyed the themes of each room.

Sent us a free sundae bar to celebrate our wedding! It was such a kind gesture from the owner. Free ice cream!

A few things to note, but aren't really issues:

1.Lots of emails, very easy to miss key info. Most are super helpful though!

Well water. Not the biggest issue, but we were not informed about it until we went to use water. Or maybe it was buried somewhere in their emails, even the water “filtered” by the fridge was not palatable to some of our guests. Easy enough to hit the dollar store just down the road on the way in to get some bottled water.

No shoes in the house. An understandable policy, but plan to have easy on/off shoes like sandals or crocs for the pool side door and the garage.

Over all it would be a great place to host a family reunion or any large number of guests! There’s no need to leave the property at all with the amount of activities available to you & the outside vendors who can be brought in easily to accommodate anything else...