Holiday Inn Family Suites?

[beautybelle]

Does anyone out there know anything of the Holiday Inn Family Suites? We're thinking of staying there and would like to talk to someone who already has. Any info? Especially convience.

 

[Robinrs]

Hi, beautybelle:

The Holiday Inn Family Suites, or the HIFS as we so affectionately call it, is a very popular hotel on this site. If you do a search on HIFS you will find PLENTY of reviews.

The hotel happens to be one of my favorites and I've stayed at lots of hotels in Orlando. It is very close to Disney, about a half a mile away from the official entrance. I like the kidsuite, which gives the kids their own room with bunkbeds, a game machine and their own TV. They have a huge breakfast buffet that offers just about anything you can imagine and they allow you to take the food back to your room.

Any other specific questions? I know you'll get all of your questions answered here!

--Robinrs

 

[beautybelle]

Thank you so much for you reply that makes me feel better. There are soooo many hotels to choose from that I seem to get lost just searching for the perfect one. You wouldnt happen to know any of those websites that have those reviews you were telling me about do you? If you do Id love it if you would let me know where to look. Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

 

[taylor1293]

HIFS is a wonderful resort for families!

We stayed there last summer in a kidsuite for $109 a night and that included breakfast and dinner buffet!!! It was a special rate at that time, that they are currently not offering.

The pool was wonderful, the restaurant was good, and the room was clean and had plenty of space!

You are literally two minutes from WDW property. And only a few more minutes to all the attractions except MK which is a little farther away.

Have a great trip!

Teresa

 

[beautybelle]

I noticed that you had 150 some days left till your next trip, thats about how many days I have left till our trip. We are going from May 17-23. When are you going?

 

[jellymoon]

.

 

[taylor1293]

We are going May 31st for 8 or 9 nights (not sure yet, lol!).

Have a great trip

Teresa

 

[tazdeb]

If you want to read reviews of this property or any topic on these boards, scroll to the top of this page and click SEARCH. Then enter HIFS or Holidayinn family suites or whatever and every thread with that name will come up....hope this helps. By the way we 've stayed at HIFS 3 times in the last 2 years and its allways been fine, the kids love it.

 

[beautybelle]

Thanks Teresa, I hope you have a good time too. Keep in touch.

 

[disneymom1]

I have stayed there a five times over the past 3 years. If you have children under the age of about 12 it's great. The pool is fun for the kids, with water toys in the pool and flotation toys for rent (no slide, however). There are also evening activities like bingo and kareoke where they can win tokens for the game room.

I have never had an experience like jellymoon. You do have to keep in mind, however, that this is a Holiday Inn and not a 5 star hotel chain. While the rooms are pretty much basic Holiday Inn in quality, except that they are suites, I have always found them to be clean, and since the hotel is only about 4 years old, the rooms (especially the bathrooms) are pretty modern. The buffet breakfast is standard buffet fare, but they change some of the items each day so there is a pretty good variety.

The bunk beds in the kids suite are very hard and the bedding does not fit very well (doesn't seem to bother my kids). If this is a concern, you might try one of the other suite types. There is one with twin beds in the second bedroom and one with a queen in the second bedroom.

If you are going during a busy time, try to get to the hotel as early as possible. That way if you do have a problem with your room like jellymoon did, you can move without a problem.

I have no hestiation recommending this hotel, in fact, I plan to stay there again in April. Hope this helps you decide!

 

[beautybelle]

Thank you so much for helping. I have done quite a bit of research on this hotel and I think that I will give it a try. I am looking forward to the pool as that seems to be what everyone is raving about. My little boy is chomping at the bit waiting to go, but we still have a while left, but it gives us something to look forward to. See ya and I hope you have a good time.

 

[sayremom]

This is a long one, but worth it, I think.

We stayed at The Holiday Inn Family Suites for two nights of our Halloween Party stay. I highly recommend the Hotel. It is important to note that there are TWO Family Suites hotels in close proxinity to each other. We stayed in the FS accross from the Marriot World Center. The other one on the Lake Buena Vista Main Drag (SR 592?) did not look as nice, although the parking attendant was very friendly.

I was deathly ill on the plane with the lovely stomach bug my daughter brought home from school. The hotel looked like an oasis to me. But before we could check in my son threw up in the lobby. They didn't even bat an eyelash or make a face, nor would they let me clean up, they just took care of us.

This was the beginning of 12 hours of hell. My husband came down with the same bug 6 hours later. We used up all the clean towels in no time flat. They cheerfully brought us more and offered to call the Dr. (I had already spoken our Pediatrician who informed me that half of his office had been wiped out by this bug along with a good part of Lexington, KY.)

The family suite gave us room to be apart from one another. this was an absolute must. The helpful FRIENDLY staff were wonderful. we would have stayed longer had they had any availability.

You should also know that a large part of the staff is from Haiti, so if you speak any French it is a good opportunity to practice, and it really made my server's day that someone bothered to greet him in his own language.

Also save time to feed the fish behind the restaurant. There are some real Whoppers in there. My kids really loved that.

Thanks for sticking with it, I hope you have a wonderful time.

 

[beautybelle]

Thanks sayremom, I didnt know there were 2 HIFS's I will have to look into that.

 

[beautybelle]

Hey, for all you nice people to gave me advice. Guess what? I called tonight and made my reservations at the HIFS for 6 nights. My family and I are tickled pink about it. I guess it just gives a little more reality to the idea of getting to go. Oh well just wanted to let you know and share a little bit of our excitement. By the way, I've enjoyed talking to all of you so if you have anymore advice about anything else, I'd love to hear from you. See ya and hope to talk again soon.

 

[sayremom]

Congratulations, you will enjoy your stay. There is a Walgreens, a Publix (grocery store) and just about anything you will need within 5 minutes of the hotel. If your kids are big snackers you might want to stop on your way in and oick up drinks and chips at Publix or Goodings, another grocery store not far away. I think Publix has much better prices. It's a few miles further away, but geared more to locals than tourists, so the prices are better. Walmart is about 3 minutes from Publix in Kissimmee. I really recommend getting an Orlando map at AAA. You can end up paying 20 to 30 percent more for things at the hotel when with the phonebook and 10 minutes drive you can get what you want at stores you know.
There is also a nice little outlet mall (much smaller than the big 2) just down the road. They have a nice Disney outlet. We bought plush dolls at 20 percent of retail, and those little message spinners (they spin like New Years noise makers, but spell messages in red lights) were less than half what they wanted in the park.
We didn't have a lot of time to shop, but there were other interesting stores there.
One other thing that might interest you. The Parking at the All Star Resorts is not gated. We went back to swim at the All Star Spots pool after our stay one year. Next year we are going to try to swim at All Star Movies. The pool has a Fantasia theme. Even if you don't feel comfortable doing that the hotel grounds are fun to look at with all the giant sculpture. Two Story Woody and such.

Now I wish we were going in May too. Maybe next year...SIGH..or better yet, a trip with out the kids... I still haven't ridden Splash Mountain or Big Thunder Railroad.