I think that's a fantastic rate for a hotel with those facilities. I have stayed here when it was the Orlando Mariotte and thought it was a very nice mid to up scale resort. The pools and gardens are VERY good, it has one of the best buffet breakfasts in Orlando (granted not the cheapest, but TOP quality). It's in a great location with many restaurants in walking distance and the on site restaurants are pretty good as well.
The rooms are laid out in blocks of about 40-50 rooms to a block, I'd guess there are 15 blocks so you can work out it is a pretty sizable hotel, but walking through the pretty gardens and over the little lakes it's easy to forget you are right next to one of the main roads in the area.
IMHO there are a couple of things to take into account when you read "room reports". First is that people are 10 times more likely to write a report if they have a bad experience than if they have a good or adiquate one. Second is that how much you pay for a room tends to give you expectations of what you should expect. I think the regular room rate at this hotel is well over $100 per night, sometimes people paying mid/high end rates expect, IMHO, an unrealistic level of service. Reading those room reports ( which on the whole were pretty positive I thought) it seems the major complaint someone had was they had to wait 20 minutes to check in ( TWENTY MINUTES
is hardly a hardship) because 45 people had decided to arrive at the same time to check in and there were only 3 staff on duty to check people in. I doubt there are many mid range hotels that have many more staff on duty 24 hours a day on the off chance that 50 people will all choose to come in at the same time. IMHO it colours my view of someone as a "reliable witness" if they make a trivial issue like 20 minutes check in time into a big deal. It makes me question their other (possibly valid) points like "staff attitude" and noisy neighbours. On those reports (on the first page of them) , out of a possible "score" of 50 the resort scored 39, which I think is more than respectable.
I think some of the "reviewers" may not understand how a hotels "star" rating works, which often has more to do with the number of facilities a hotel has , as opposed to the "level of comfort/expensiveness of the hotel's furnishings" . Given that "ignorance" I can see where some of the people are coming from when thinking a 4* rating is pushing it a little ( particularly if you've paid $130 a night plus tax). I would agree that it certainly isn't a "top of the range" 4* hotel ( but those are going to be in the $150-200 range a night), but it does have the facility level of a 4* hotel and I would say the room quality alone would be, what I would consider. a reasonable 3* hotel. For the price you're paying I think it unlikely you'll think you've got a rough deal.
