Wyndham Garden Orlando Universal / I Drive — Hotel in Orlando

4/14/23 edit: I was going to give this hotel perfect marks but had some unpleasant experiences with the room cleaning service staff so had to take a couple of stars off from the service category.

Even though I had the do not disturb sign on my room, I came back to see that the crew had been in the room. The do not disturb sign was there for a reason. I did not want them to enter. Not only that but one of the caps of my contact lens case was missing. When I called downstairs to tell them, they said there's nothing we can do about it. Disappointing.

I ran into the cleaning crew ladies three times in or by the elevators. They have zero acknowledgment for the guests. You are invisible to them. On top of that, they are pushing their cart and going in and out of the elevator and feel like they get priority over the guests who were already waiting for the elevator. Unprofessional.

The owners of the hotel should look into training these ladies properly. Everything else about your hotel is top notch.

Vanessa at the front desk was great. Very helpful and polite.

The hotel is very close to the international drive and a highway. Perfectly located for business or personal travel.

Wyndham garden is a very nicely designed hotel that reminds me of some of the European ones I've been at.

An outdoor pool which is decent but nothing great.

A fitness facility which is better than decent and could accommodate a few people working out in the space.

Beautiful large room with wood floors.

Comfortable chairs and round tables for just having coffee or working on a laptop. Motion activated lights.

Single serve coffee machine like Keurig but from a different company called Bev.

Waterfall shower.

Nice looking see-through refrigerator which is actually available for you to put stuff in instead of stocked with items they want to sell to you. Much appreciated.

Not just a single dustbin but a recycling bin as well for the environmentally conscious folks. Always good to have that choice.

So overall all good stuff.

But having said that, here are some other things to think about.

The motion activated lights in the room come on automatically obviously so that means that if you don't remember to turn off the lights, all of them, when you are going to sleep and if you move around in your bed then those lights will turn on automatically. Getting a hang of the control of these lights could be confusing in general.

The circular tables are good for having coffee or lunch in the room but when it comes to doing work on your laptop, it's not as comfortable as an actual desk would be.

And one last thing, the breakfast at the property is not included so if you want breakfast, be ready to fork over about $15 or so. I understand that many properties don't have breakfast included but it's always a good to have when it is.

Overall, I would definitely recommend staying here. You will be...

Nice hotel, clean, and good location. But…customer service was horrible. Check in is super strict, Rebecca (I believe that was her name-blonde with glasses) was not flexible at all. We had told her we had an important meeting, and we asked her if we could check in a little earlier. She said no-at 1:45 pm we asked her again and she once again said no making us wait 15 minutes until check in time 2pm. She wanted us to pay $50 for early check in. Very condescending and unprofessional. The hotel was a ghost town, it was a Tuesday, we spoke to the cleaning lady and she told us that our room had been ready for hours. Rebecca interrupted me when I was telling her that we come to Orlando once a week and have stayed in many hotels in this area and none of them were as strict with check in times. She told me that she had worked in several hotels with the same strict policy. She probably worked in several hotels because her customer service was just awful and was probably fired! I understand if is a weekend, very busy season, or if the room was not ready-but my goodness that was not the case. After I mentioned that we travel to Orlando once a week, she gave me a business card and offer me deals and perks for frequent clients. I will never stay here again-the fact that she made us wait exactly to check in time, and not giving us the room 15 minutes earlier is just really bad customer service. She charged another customer and he was not a happy camper either! I invite Wyndham Garden to check their competition next door for check in policy. I have stayed in 90% of the other hotels nearby and have had no issues with a little earlier check in time. If you need flexibility...

We were not impressed with the hotel. The refrigerator stopped working our first night there, and we lost $50 worth of food. I have food allergies so this was an extreme inconvenience. We were told someone would be by 9 am when they came in. We ended up calling around 10 am to have it exchanged before we left for the day.

Side note... We were also hopeful that the continental would have something, but it was a poor selection - e.g. package muffin, packaged pastry, oranges or bananas that were mush after being frozen or kept in a refrigerator. It was a huge let down. If you want cereal or anything outside of that, be prepared to spend at least twice as much. I do recommend the Walgreens within walking distance for any food or beverage needs. It's open 24/7.

There aren't any perks if you're visiting for local attractions. It is simply a newer hotel that doesn't offer housekeeping outside of towels... And you have to request those. It would have been nice if someone could have at least emptied the tiny garbage can once a day.

Upon checkout, we were not notified of a pet charge applied to our reservation. I asked for the $150 charge to be reversed when checking out on Monday since it must have been applied in error. Instead, I heard back Wednesday. Apparently, the housekeeper that never attended to our room saw a cat. My husband and I left our pets home with a sitter. We would never put them through the stress of flying and storing them for hours on end. Rebecca credited us back in "good faith" since the staff member was not working.

This was our first Wyndham Garden experience, and it will be our last. Stay...