Universal Helios Grand Hotel, a Loews Hotel — Hotel in Oak Ridge

There’s a difference between expensive and valuable- this hotel does not bring the value for what you pay for.

I would rank this lower but my husband said it seems unfair as this is a really nice clean luxurious hotel.

We were so excited for this trip and we are avid travelers.

So what went wrong? Not a whole lot but Universal really missed the mark at this hotel being worth it’s price tag.

Things I would have liked to have known before my trip- the check-in process is slow.

You will get a credit card hold at check in -an additional $200 nightly fee (per room /per night).

You will get charged $36 per night for parking

We booked and paid for connecting rooms. We had to ask to be moved - to which we were advised connecting rooms are a request not a guarantee.

A standard room does not have a microwave but they will offer one for $15 a night.

When staying on site- there isn’t a lot to explore - 1 Epic themed store, a restaurant downstairs, a coffee shop, a bar (you need reservations for), a small congested lobby, small game-room/ gym.

Outdoors - the pool (not themed, no slides- just a pool)

Nothing is themed about the hotel itself. There are long narrow hallways and you can not view Epic at all unless you get a park side room. It’s hallways with frosted glass at the end. There is no where to truly explore in this hotel. I felt trapped and at times overwhelmed.

The shuttle service is slow. You have to wait to be picked up at each venue and it made our party contemplate driving / parking at the parks later during the week. Even the transportation people warned us - as a Helios guest you have to wait to be dropped off at all other hotels first before going back to Helios. This sucks if someone is sick or there is inclement weather.

It was these smaller details that really took away from the experience. It wasn’t magical- it wasn’t Epic.

The rooms are small and comfortable. They were fairly clean but some stuff was missed -like fingerprints on the pocket doors and the glass windows. I let it go -there was a tight turnover between us and the guest before us. This seems like it would be a common trend since it’s booked at full capacity, which makes sense because the hotel is new.

However the fingerprints were there all week long even with housekeeping coming every day.

To add- Housekeeping also comes randomly during ANY time of the day - the sign says from 8-5 but they also came way after that. It was odd considering we were gone to theme parks all day. So we’d have to shuffle everyone to our room and vice versa depending on which rooms weren’t turned down.

We ordered room service / there were lots of extra fees- 6 chicken wings cost $36

$24 for the wings + $5.26 conv fee (22% auto gratuity + $5 delivery + tax

-And they were just okay wings -nothing special - None of the room service food is themed - it’s just pricey.

There’s a laundry-mat - again, with fees.

It was a nice hotel, but with small up-charges that really took away from the emotional bank account. Maybe if I had lower expectations this place would have received a higher rating.

The service staff kept asking how the stay was and I felt bad replying it was underwhelming. They would ask how they could make it better- but they didn’t have anything to offer.

So the plus - You do get early entry and it’s convenient to rest at the hotel during the day and there is a shuttle service to and from the parks.

The early entry is the only saving grace from staying here - lines were super long everywhere we went and this gave us time to explore the more crowded areas before everyone came flooding in but if Universal has a nice themed hotel that’s more cost efficient (with early entry) go there instead.

Overall my family still made the most of our trip and I’m sure you will too.

I’m in the hospitality / service industry myself and my heart is for folks to get more than what they paid for. So hopefully this review helps you guys make a good decision for yourself and your families- set realistic expectations and have the vacation you truly...

We stayed at the grand hellos for 3 nights from 4-17-25 to 4-20-25 in a club level, 2 queen suite with park view. In total this cost around $2000 just for the hotel.

The good:

Proximity to park - the hotel is inside Epic which is very convenient and offers grest views of the park. You're constantly walking by the hotel entrance so it's no problem to take a few minutes to drop off a souvenir to your room, or just take a quick break. You do have to go through security each time you re-enter the park but it was generally quick and painless.

The club lounge - our room was club level on the 9th floor so it came with club access. The club had complimentary continental breakfast that we used each morning. It was nice being able to eat a fresh meal before the park opened. They offered pastries like croissants and danishes. Additionaly fruit, cereal, yogurt, oats, bagels, coffee, tea, and juice. They offered other lunch snack services through the day but we never used them.

Flora taverna - the restaurant attached to the lobby was very good. For dinner we ordered pizza and the burger. It's now one of our favorite burgers we've had.

Staff - everyone was very friendly and welcoming.

The bad:

Lobby/hall sizes - the left side of the lobby is entirely a restaurant, so everything else you need was crammed to the right side. The gift shop, security to the park, a snack shop, the 1 and only entry door from the park, and the only elevators in the hotel are tight and all right on top one another. These areas get absolutely packed during peak times. Around park close there was a huge crowd waiting for elevators, blocking up the hallways and adjacent areas. This section needs someone directing people to form a line because it was chaos otherwise.

The room lights - On our first night the reading lights would not turn off and a side lamp would turn itself on. At nearly midnight, after waiting 30-40 minutes for maintenance to come, they basically just said they'd fix it in the morning. No other help or suggestions offered. We had to sleep with all the lights on. Thankfully the front desk did comp our (messed up) room service for these issues. Then, during night 2 our lights in the bathroom would not turn on. Had we not already showered earlier, we would have had to do so in the dark which is frankly unacceptable.

Room service - we ordered a steak with fries, plus an extra side of fries. After 45 minutes they showed up with just two plates of fries, no steak. After dealing with the light issue we didn't want to waste any more of our night on the backed up phone lines so we just decided to deal with it. So we're glad this got comped for the lighting issues.

bathroom/shower - initially the shower looks nice. It's spacious enough for two people and has a small seat. Maybe it's because we were on the 9th floor, but the water pressure was just awful. It was hard to even rinse soap off due to the weak stream. The shower heads do have a setting for a stronger but smaller stream, which doesn't work great either because it's focused on such a small area, also negating the benefit of having a shower big enough for two. The shower head was also not even attached to the wall. Additionaly, the bathroom is designed with a partition so one can privately shower while another uses the sink. However, turning the sink on further reduced the shower's pressure to an unusable level, also making the partition pointless because no one is gonna use the sink if it pauses someone's shower. Lastly, there's an "all lights off/on" button at the front door of the hotel room. This means someone at the front door could turn the lights off and leave you sitting on the toilet in the dark.

Everything about the room feels like it was rushed, untested, and just broken. For the money spent no one should have to deal with these very basic issues. It did not feel grand or epic. We don't feel the stay justified the cost, especially considering it won't offer express pass for some time, if at all. The only reason to stay he is park proximity if you...

We just wrapped up a week at Helios and overall had a decent stay, but for the price tag (nearly $20k for the week including park tickets and express passes), we left feeling a little underwhelmed. Sorry, this is going to be long!

Pros: The biggest perk by far is the direct entrance to Epic Universe. Being able to stroll right in without the long walk or shuttle ride was amazing, even better for midday breaks.

For the most part staff was helpful and friendly. Wish I could remember the name of the guy working the register of the gift shop our first night. He was awesome and shared some helpful tips for the park! The young lady who checked us in was also great!

Our rooms were clean, beds were comfortable, and the park view room had an incredible view of both the park and nighttime show. One cool feature of the room was being able to control the lights, AC, curtains (when they worked), and TV from a tablet, super convenient.

The food at Flora Taverna was delicious, and having a Starbucks on-site was perfect for grabbing coffee and a bagel on the way to the parks.

I personally loved the pool, if you go early there is a zero entry end that was perfect for laying out and enjoying the sunshine with a good book. Poolside service from Lotus Lagoon was awesome. My kids are older and thought the pool was too shallow and got bored pretty quickly.

Cons: We stayed in a How to Train Your Dragon suite, and while the theming was adorable (huge How to Train Your Dragon fans) the kids space was tight and very dark, as was the living area. The main bedroom had the only window. The curtain switches by the door never worked right. Sometimes we could open/close them from the tablet, but they’d randomly reverse on their own seconds later (which was not fun in the middle of getting dressed). The AC worked well but was extremely loud, like really loud. I slept with earbuds in and that helped. To that note, if you have a park-facing room, be aware it is noisy morning and night from the park music.

House keeping was fine except we kept getting only four towels and had to track down extras late at night (asked them multi times to please leave 5). One night my son was even given a towel that smelled like literal feces, which made me think it was just grabbed from wherever. On another day, my mother in law was alone in the room and while in the shower, house keeping opened the door and called out, but because they didn't hear her respond back they turned off all the lights on her while she was showering!

Food options were limited, especially after 5pm. It's either the expensive sit-down restaurant, room service (very pricey with long waits), the small market/Starbucks for bagged snacks, or the rooftop bar (also expensive and required reservations). Nothing quick or family friendly for those tired evenings when you just want some pizza or fries after coming back from the park.

We were charged for parking when we did not park a car, staff fixed this quickly so just a minor inconvenience.

On our last day we had an issue with our park tickets so we approached the counter where we had them printed our first day. The staff member at the counter was totally unfriendly and while I understand he couldn't help us, he could have at least acted like he enjoyed his job and that we weren't actually an inconvenience to him.

We had high expectations considering the price we paid to stay here. For a premium property, Helios felt less grand than we hoped for. It is a beautiful hotel, but besides that the proximity to the parks is really the only standout value here. Unless they eventually add Express Passes like the other premium hotels, I’m not sure...