Grande Lakes-Orlando — Hotel in Oak Ridge

We stayed two nights at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes (Friday & Saturday nights). It was rather disappointing on the whole. The air conditioning temperature control did not work AT ALL, so the room merely stayed at 74* probably mostly because we were on the 16th floor, and were surrounded by other rooms. The mattresses (two queens) would have been comfortable IF the room was 72* or lower (we really wanted it to be 68*), but they held our body heat entirely too well, so all four of us had to sleep only partially covered by a sheet, or not covered at all. My wife was hot all night and got very little sleep both nights. There were no fans (ceiling fans or otherwise) in the room either, so you couldn't just turn on a fan for a breeze. Also the bathroom had neither a lock on the bathroom door, or an exhaust fan to vent shower steam which of course exacerbated the room's (already warm) temperature.

In addition to these issues, the room keys wouldn't open the doors to the pool area so each time we wanted to go there, we had to wait for someone else to open the door for us or hunt down hotel personnel to get the gates opened. I even went back to the lobby and told them our keys didn't work on the gates to the pool area, and they "reprogrammed" our keys, but.... you guessed it... they STILL didn't work.

On the positive side, the room TV was relatively large, with decent cable, and the food that we tried there was good, but the drinks were WAY overpriced (roughly double what any quality restaurant charges)... ie. $4 sweet tea, and $15 for a ~6oz margarita. A 2oz. pour of Monkey Shoulder was listed at $18, and George T. Stagg was listed at $90. LOL. So do your wallet a favor, and dine elsewhere.

Considering the cost (~$300/night) it was NOT what I was expecting, so I'm giving it only two stars, and that rating is exclusively because of the "lazy river" and other...

This hotel is advertised as a luxury stay, but it’s really just a 3-star experience at best. From start to finish, it felt like one issue after another. We were put in a corner room they claimed was an upgrade, but it turned out to be the smallest hotel room I’ve ever stayed in.

Room service was shockingly overpriced — I ordered two crème brûlées and a bottle of water, and it came out to $70. The pool area was decent, but it was loud and the service was almost nonexistent.

The on-site restaurants were underwhelming. The only one that seemed promising, Citron, was closed for private events the entire time we were there. While there are some solid Uber Eats options nearby, drivers aren’t allowed to deliver to the room, so you’re stuck picking it up in the lobby — and depending on who’s working, that can be a hassle.

Honestly, the best part of the trip was spending time at the Ritz-Carlton pool nearby, where the service was impeccable.

Do yourself a favor and stay far away...

It was very nice. When we 1st arrived there was a woman that wouldn't help me, I had a problem with the view in my room she was rude but then when the bellman came up and dropped our luggage off I asked him if we could get a higher up floor with a nicer view (we were supposed to be on a high floor with a view, we got the 4th floor looking at the actual units) the girl on the phone said nothing could be done. The bellhop took care of it and got our room changed, so our stay ended up being amazing, and he was so nice to go above and beyond to do that for us. We ended up getting a room on the 25th floor with an amazing view. This hotel was pricy, but I feel like it was worth it once we got our new room.

We stayed here for a week for the Dance convention and I will say the stay was great after dealing with that 1st worker and her being rude no one else was rude the rest of the time so hopefully she was just having a hard day because this hotel is amazing and I will definitely be...