Red Roof Inn Orlando South - Florida Mall — Hotel in Oak Ridge

Check-In & Customer Service: 2/5 Check-in is listed at 3:00 PM. Arrival was around 3:10–3:15, but the front door was locked. After knocking and lightly shaking it, someone eventually let me in. A woman with barking dogs and multiple declined card attempts was ahead in line. Once at the counter, I was told my room wouldn’t be ready until 4:00 PM — a full hour after check-in time. The card wasn’t charged until I received the key, but by then I had no other option. No apology, no explanation, no effort to make the delay right.

Room Condition & Cleanliness: 1/5 -Cobwebs in corners -dust on fixtures -stained dresser drawers -One of the sheets had a brown dried spot about the size of a thumbnail — possibly blood. -Cigarette burns were present on the bedspread and bed skirt. -German cockroaches were seen inside the room. -A hole in the ceiling looked like it may have been from a bullet. -The curtain was installed about a foot out from the window. It blocked the air conditioner vent completely, causing cold air to cool the window and curtain instead of the room. -The curtain didn’t sit against the wall or window, so bright exterior lighting poured in all night, and people walking by could easily see inside. -The air conditioner filter wasn’t properly installed. -Gaps around the door let most of the cold air escape. -The freezer in the mini fridge had half an inch of ice buildup. -The microwave and fridge were plugged into a single low-quality power strip, which is an extreme fire hazard. -The room safe didn’t work. Several buttons were unresponsive unless pressed hard. Instructions were useless, and the safe hadn’t been reset between guests. -Door hinges were rusted and coated in multiple layers of paint — not cleaned or replaced, just painted over.

TV, Wi-Fi & Amenities: 1.5/5 The TV was nonfunctional. All channels were static, black screen, or white snow. Wi-Fi was available but nearly unusable. Signal was weak and browsing speed was slower than dial-up. The pool looked cloudy. It wasn’t closed, and children were swimming in it, but the water didn’t look properly treated.

Noise, Privacy & Environment: 1/5 Frequent door slamming — every few minutes throughout the day and night. Guests gathered outside rooms drinking, talking loudly, and arguing. A group two rooms away stayed out drinking for hours without any staff intervention. The ashtray outside the door hadn’t been emptied in a long time. It was full, and cigarette butts were overflowing onto the ground. The smell was sharp and sour. Due to the way the curtain hung, people outside could see directly into the room at night. No real privacy.

Shower & Bathroom: 2/5 Water pressure in the shower was extremely low — barely more than a trickle. The handle had poor temperature control, with options jumping from freezing cold to scalding hot, and little in between.

Parking & Security: 2/5 Parking was tight and awkward. Several oversized trucks took up multiple spaces. Speed bumps were scattered throughout the lot and around 2–4 inches tall. After rain, the parking lot flooded in sections — not deep, but enough to soak your shoes. Security was present near the front lobby, but did nothing to address the crowd constantly loitering outside. Walking through the front entrance meant pushing through groups of people just standing around.

Final Thoughts This stay was disappointing on nearly every level. Delayed check-in, a room that felt barely cleaned, visible damage, fire hazards, pests, and little sense of privacy or security. It may be budget lodging, but that doesn’t excuse the condition this property is in. A few basic standards — clean bedding, working TV, secure environment — weren’t even met. Not...

If you have no where else to stay it will do the job.

Convenience wise it's a five star. You can literally walk to Barnes and Noble, Florida mall, and tons of other places. It's also only a short drive from a lot of Orlando's main attractions. I'd say the pool was a 5 star aspect as well.

Specifically to the hotel though, it's a hard one star. We witnessed multiple drug deals, prostitutes soliciting, and there were police there multiple times. The stench of weed could be smelled every single night out by the dog walking area. I should also note that you can't actually walk your dog in the dog walking area. Why? Because no one picks up after there dog. There were hundreds of piles of dog poop. Also, near the palms at the back of the dog walking area, there is a huge sinkhole that I nearly snapped my ankle in. I fell to my freaking knee, and had to crawl out.

There were screaming children all hours of the day, and screaming adults at night. We were genuinely concerned that we should call the police because of some fights we heard break out. It happened at least 5 times during our stay. There were even police walking around one night trying to find some prostitute that was there soliciting people that had took off toward the back of the hotel.

The parking lot is absolutely awful. So owful it needs special mention. Every single night we were there the lot filled over capacity. The hotel staff directs people to just park in the lot outside of parking spaces. That makes it extremely difficult to maneuver the lot. I left to grab food one night, and there were 6 cars just sitting randomly parked in the driving area. Also, if you pull into the lot, and you can't find a spot, you have to reverse your entire way out. No turn around at all. I didn't find out until I called the front desk to ask where I was supposed to park that apparently there is an entire back lot that was totally empty these 6 other cars could have beeb parked in. It also would have been nice had they told the guy with his trailer attached to his SUV that he could park back there. Maybe he wouldn't have has his SUV backed into.

As for the hotel staff, Brenda was extremely rude throughout our stay. There were multiple times when she asked me why I was on the premises, and if I was even staying there. This was after she checked us in, she reloaded our keys when they quit working, and we discussed an issue we were having with our room to which she suggested "there isn't anything wrong." The next morning the other guy (never got his name)switched us to a different room because there was in fact something wrong. He had been rude and very impatient our entire stay as well.

As for housekeeping, Karry let us know that "anything you leave in your room belongs to me. If it's there when I go clean it's mine." Yep, pretty glad we kept our "privacy please" tag up the whole stay. She also refused to let us leave the hotel until we filled out her satisfaction survey card as all "satisfactory."

The only person that seemed to have any sense there was some guy that worked overnight at the front desk. He at least seemed to understand the concept of customer service.

I'm just really glad we aren't there any longer, and we'll...

This location is still in the the most active part along the ( Orange Blossom) Trail and pretty much has always been since the completion of The Florida Mall which has basically remained a staple of Orlando, FL in regards to shopping. This area has had its ups and downs throughout the 3 decades that I've been in the city.

For some reason it has still managed to obtain it's charm throughout the adversity and rough times, something as iconic and American as Chick -Fil-A relocated from nearly a half mile away up the street to behind the Red Roof Inn and went from borderline profitable to being so busy that you must order online (in advance) or drive thru in order to make it to and from on a 30 min lunch break to not be late. In other words, it's beyond super busy so I think this is a result of the location x 3 motto.

Though the most recent era was during the 2012-2016 opiate epidemic and that area nearly suffering turmoil IMO it has definitely been able to recover in ways most cities wouldn't have. Not to mention, from (2014-2022) it was in along the small cityscape that straddled what was considered "Red Light District" and/ or "Red Light Distraction" known by us locals, but I feel that was a result of "Post Pandemic" and personally again IMO it has definitely cleaned up. Thanks to the OCSO (Orange County Sheriff) being able to prioritize when it came to tourism over local activities and execute by having a strong presence in what was once " prime real estate" area and still is because it's such an important through fare for the city of Orlando and Orange County communities.

Losing that area would mean losing a lot and I don't think that was an option, especially during the era our beloved Mayor Buddy Dyer is in office, he should be an example for the Mayors to come in the future that "it's okay to play, but playing rough won't be tolerated" so I respect all actions that have been taken to get this city beautiful to where it's currently at, because an example would be Detroit, Baltimore, Memphis and though we are not a large city like mentioned or on that scale. There have been other cities and towns that are much smaller who've received similar damage, but that doesn't get the (negative) press like such to show that there could be a lot more at stake than just a shopping plaza but an entire quadrant of the city.

I apologize to Red Roof Inn for giving this bravado of mentioning past discretions and events that took place and are what this establishment has went through in prior during and post to past events I experienced in regards to this relative location of my city. But someone has to do it and at times it should be done to give a better understanding of why things may be the way that they...