Back from Crowne Plaza Resort (Kingston Reef)

[Figment22]

We have just returned from a four night stay at the Crowne Plaza Resort Orlando (Kingston Reef). We booked here because of the $66.00 rate from Hotel Kingdom. I know that some other people here on the boards had posted that they, too took advantage of this good rate so I wanted to post a review of the hotel.

I can't say that this will be a glowing report. The resort itself is lovely to look at, beautifully appointed. There are several buildings in the complex, the lobby/check in area is separate from the hotel building where our room was located. The pools (2 small free form pools) are located behind the lobby building. The restaurant, which we did not use, is located here also, along with a small gift shop. The hotel building is across the road from the check-in area. Our room was on the fourth floor of the hotel building. Our room turned out to be a handicapped room. Why we were put here I don't know as the hotel building seemed far from full. We stayed in a handicapped room once before at the Hard Rock Hotel (they were overbooked and that was what was available). This does give you a bit more square footage but the main problem is in the bathroom. There is no shelf space whatsoever. This was consistent with the room at HRH. We are a family of four and there was no place in the bathroom to put our toiletry items, i.e., toothbrushes, toothpaste, razor, deodorant, etc. At HRH, although there was no shelf space, there was a small rolling 2 tiered cart that you could put toiletry items on. I called down to the front desk and mentioned that there was nowhere to put our stuff and I asked if perhaps there was a small table or tray that they put in the room when it is not being used by a guest in a wheelchair and was quite rudely told that if it's not mandated by ADA, they're not going to put anything extra in the room. I know this sounds rather minor, but I don't think it was handled well at all by the front desk. Unless you need a wheelchair accessible room, be sure you're not getting assigned to one before you start unpacking!

We like to be at the theme parks at opening so I wanted to set the alarm clock provided for 5:15 a.m. They have a clock radio/CD player in each room, which at first glance is a nice touch; until you try to set the alarm. The thing came with an instruction manual and try though I might, I could not get the alarm to set properly. I am not technically challenged; this clock was just ridiculous. My 14 year old son who's a whiz at anything electronic or mechanical thought he had it working but to no avail. OK, no problem, I'll just call down for an early wake-up call, which I did. Well, the wake-up call never came. Thankfully, my husband awoke at 5:00 a.m. and woke me fifteen minutes later. I finally called the desk at 6:00 a.m. to see what happened and was told I wasn't on the wake-up call list. Needless to say, if you're staying here, you may want to pack a travel alarm clock.

Both of these issues might have been able to be overlooked but here comes the big one, especially for a relatively new hotel.....
the beds were AWFUL. The mattresses were not made of foam but they might as well have been. You just sunk right down into them--no support whatsoever. Even my 10 year old, who can sleep anywhere complained that he couldn't wait to get back into his own bed so he wouldn't sink down so far into the mattress. This one really stumps me as we have stayed at Crowne Plaza Hotels in the past and have found the beds to be quite good. Indeed, there is another thread on the boards right now about the Crowne Plaza Universal and how good the beds are. I mean, you're not in the room that much; ALL you really need is a good quality bed. Not here. Also the fitted sheets don't fit properly on the mattresses. Both DS14 and I were re-making the beds in the middle of the night because the sheets were pulled clear off the mattresses. We didn't sleep well on any of our four nights at the hotel. DH has a bad back and I went to the front desk to see if they could put a bed board under the mattress but several calls to engineering on the part of a desk clerk yielded no results.

Also, (and this is not specifically the hotel's fault), the water is TERRIBLE. Usually, if you fill a glass with ice you can get away with drinking the tap water. Here, bottled water is definitely the way to go.

The rooms themselves are very pretty to look at and very clean. No complaints there. Housekeeping was excellent.

It also feels very strange that there are no employees (other than housekeepers) who work in the hotel building. The building is designed with a lobby area but no one works at the "front desk" area.

Even with a great rate, I would think long and hard about staying at this Crowne Plaza again; mainly because of the poor quality beds.

Sorry for the long rant.

 

[wdisneelvr]

Well, at least you got your rooms at Crowne Plaza


When my family (adults only, no kids) went to check-in at 4pm they told us to wait a minute. 20 mins later the manager came out with a letter they just typed up and said they were sorry but they had overbooked and the rooms that were available at the hotelkingdom price $66 were on a first come first serve basis and that they were already gone for the day!!!!!!!!!! I was not a happy camper at that point, and they moved my family (who are visiting from CA) to what they said was a comparable upgrade at the Holiday Inn SUNSPREE. I had heard many negatives for this hotel, but they said that was the only thing available. How could they said that the Sunspree was a upgrade from a Crowne Plaza resort???? My family had no choice but to go to the other hotel. They had only a few hours before a family reunion dinner that was scheduled and they still needed to pick up their rental cars. They were under pressure to take this hotel since they did not have any other options at the last minute. The hotel was over run by children (spring break) since they mostly have older family suites. The hotel rooms were disgusting and smelt badly of mold. It is a much older hotel painted in very gawdy colors. Thank god they weren't in their room much and never had to use the pool since it was packed all day and night with children.

I am currently working with Hotelkingdom to get this straightened out. They need to know that the Crowne Plaza (Kingstown Reef) did NOT honor their confirmed ressies. But by the sounds of your review, it seems like it was not that great of loss by not staying there after all.

 

[Figment22]

Originally posted by wdisneelvr
When my family (adults only, no kids) went to check-in at 4pm they told us to wait a minute. 20 mins later the manager came out with a letter they just typed up and said they were sorry but they had overbooked and the rooms that were available at the hotelkingdom price $66 were on a first come first serve basis and that they were already gone for the day!!!!!!!!!!

Wow! I would have been absolutely furious.

By the way, they also had my rate wrong at check-in. The balance owed to the hotel after the HotelKingdom deposit was $59.00 per night. When they printed out the check-in paperwork they wanted me to initial our nightly rate at $69.00 a night. I had printed out copies of our hotel kingdom reservation showing the balance to the hotel to be $59. The desk clerk went in the back to a manager and came back with the rate corrected but if I had not had my paperwork in order I probably would have been up the creek.

We checked in on a Wednesday. What day did you try to check in?

If you paid with a credit card, I'd dispute the charge. See what kind of settlement they might make with you. Let us know if hotel kingdom has any input. Good luck!