After staying in Homosassa, FL for a few days to go snorkeling with manatees, we headed eastwards to stay in Orlando for 8 nights.
I found a good deal using IHG One Rewards points at the Staybridge Suites Orlando Royale Parc Suites. That’s why we ended up staying 8 nights as that allowed us to maximize the points redemption (more about that in the ‘Cost’ section towards the end of the review.)
Shae and I enjoyed our stay there as we were in a nice, spacious one bedroom suite with a kitchen. There are some useful amenities – especially for families – like free guest laundry, a good-sized swimming pool as well as an arcade game room. Breakfast is complimentary for all guests too, but as you can probably imagine – an Orlando resort with lots of families staying there means breakfast gets pretty busy. In other ways though, it feels like the hotel cheaps out more than it should.
Here’s a full review of our stay at the Staybridge Suites Orlando Royale Parc Suites in Florida.
Check-In
Although it was only a relatively short drive from Homosassa (about 1.5 hours), we’d stopped at a few places along the way. As a result, we didn’t arrive until 6pm and there was a little bit of a line to check in with only one person at the front desk.
The front desk agent was friendly though and helpfully shared which elevator was best for us to get to our room on the third floor as the layout of the property is different to your average hotel. What was also helpful is that they have a map of the hotel at the front desk displaying the layout and where various amenities are, as well as all the room numbers.
As you can see in the section highlighted green on the map above, we were in room 344. That meant we had to head out into the courtyard, then head down to elevator C to the left (see the black highlighted parts above) and then back along the third floor to our room as it was effectively above the lobby.
To give you an idea as to the layout of the large courtyard inside the property, here’s the view from outside our room. The hotel’s layout as well as the suites were very reminiscent of the Holiday Inn & Suites Phoenix Airport North that we’ve stayed at a few times. That Holiday Inn was formerly an Embassy Suites, so I’m curious if this Staybridge Suites once was too before being converted.
Something that was frustrating about both the check-in and check-out process was that for being such a large hotel, they have very few luggage carts. In fact, they only seem to have one regular luggage cart and one flat bed cart that looks like the kind you get at home improvement stores. It can therefore be very hard to come by one of the carts, so be aware of that if you’ll have a lot of suitcases or other stuff with you.
1 Bedroom King Suite
I believe that all suites at the Staybridge Suites Orlando Royale Parc Suites are one or two bedroom suites. Their website does list a studio suite option, but the photos of it suggest that that too is a one bedroom suite.
We entered our suite into the living room. The kitchen was further on, the bathroom opposite the kitchen and the bedroom through a door at the end.
Living Room
The living room had a corner sleeper sofa, along with a couple of ottomans. It was useful having it be a sofa bed as Shae’s mom and stepdad stayed our first night there before driving back to Virginia (they’d joined us for the manatee swim).
Opposite the sofa was a dresser with a TV on top. The selection of TV channels was extremely poor, so I was grateful that we had our Fire TV Stick with us.
Between the living room and kitchen was a high dining table and chairs. Off to the left of this photo, the living room had a good-sized closet. I forgot to take a photo of the inside of it, but you can see the double doors of the closet a few photos up.
Kitchen
In theory, it was awesome having a full kitchen with a fridge-freezer, dishwasher, stove top, etc.
However, the kitchen was very sparsely furnished in terms of what was in there for guests to use. There were only place settings for two or three people despite the room accommodating up to four guests thanks to the sofa bed.
What’s in the two photos above is all that was in the kitchen other than a colander hidden away in the back of a cupboard and a spatula and spoon on the counter.
There was no toaster, no coffee mugs, no pots and pans, no ice bucket (the freezer didn’t have an ice maker nor ice cube trays), etc. We ended up asking for pots and pans at the front desk and they brought up a couple that had seen better days due to caked on oil or food on the base that’s never going to come off.
Bedroom
The bedroom was a good size with a very comfortable king bed and blackout curtains that worked well. Opposite the bed was a desk and office chair, along with another dresser with a TV on top.
At the far end of the bedroom was a closet containing lots of shelving, an iron, ironing board and a larger-than-average safe.
Something that was goofy about both the living room and the bedroom was their thermostats. That’s because you had to set the temperature to three degrees below the current room temperature in order to get the air conditioning to kick in. If you wanted the room to cool down from 71°, you therefore had to set it to 68°.
Bathroom
The lack of luggage carts when checking in and the lack of kitchen equipment were two examples of how it felt like the hotel cheaped out in some ways. Further examples could be found in the bathroom.
For example, you can’t see it in the photo below as it’s pushed together, but the shower curtain only extended 3/4 of the way along the rail. That meant we had to be careful not to spray water out one end or the other, rather than the hotel providing shower curtains that are the correct length.
Another example is the toiletries. There were large wall-mounted bottles of Dove toiletries in the bath/shower which I’m absolutely fine with (I prefer that to the waste and inconvenience of small bottles). However, neither the shampoo nor conditioner contained Dove products.
Both bottles were filled with some kind of orange or peach-colored shampoo and conditioner (you can see the coloring in the photo below). It therefore felt like they’d just gone to Costco to get some kind of cheap shampoo and conditioner but put them in Dove bottles to make it look like they’re offering a premium product. For what it’s worth, I’m writing this review from a Holiday Inn (another IHG brand) which has exactly the same kinds of toiletries but which do have actual Dove products in them, so what the Staybridge Suites Orlando Royale Parc Suites stocked definitely wasn’t Dove.
Breakfast
Complimentary breakfast is available for all guests. It’s offered from 7am-10am each day and is buffet-style. However, only part of it is where you serve yourself. For hot items, there’s hotel staff serving which ends up becoming a good thing because a) it helps the line keep moving rather than being a free for all and b) it means you don’t get some guests piling their plates so high that there’s no food left for anyone else.
Other breakfast items – yogurt, hard boiled eggs, fruit, cereal, waffles, bagels, etc. – are all items you serve yourself.
The breakfast area was always very busy when we went down, so I never got a chance to take any photos. However, suites do have a helpful weekly breakfast menu in the kitchen to let you know what’ll be available each day.
Amenities
Guest Laundry
There are two guest laundry areas at opposite corners of the hotel. There’s both a washing machine and dryer and are complimentary for guests to use – you just need your own detergent (the hotel has some for sale if needed).
Swimming Pool
In the center of the hotel’s courtyard is a good-sized swimming pool. Considering how many families were staying there, it was surprisingly not packed during our stay.
The water temperature wasn’t bad either – not incredibly warm, but comfortable enough considering it was January.
Whirlpool
Next to the swimming pool was a whirlpool.
Arcade Games
Just outside of the swimming pool area was a room with arcade games, air hockey, etc.
Fitness Room
The hotel’s fitness room was much smaller than I’d expected considering the size of the property, with only a few pieces of cardio equipment and weights.
That said, most people staying at this hotel are probably spending most days walking miles around theme parks and so are less likely to want/need to spend as much time in the fitness room while they’re there.
Outdoor Bar
Just outside of the swimming pool area there’s a bar. Something to be aware of is that for some reason they don’t provide the ability to charge drinks to your room, so you’ll want to either have cash or cards on you, or you can pay using your phone if you have a mobile wallet set up (that’s what we did).
Concierge Desk
Next to the hotel’s front desk is a concierge desk. We didn’t need to make use of their services, but it seemed like they were mostly there to help guests with tickets for nearby theme parks.
Theme Park Shuttle
Speaking of theme parks, the hotel offers a complimentary shuttle service to several Orlando theme parks which is bookable through ThemeParkBus.com. Seats have to be booked at least two hours ahead of time online and rides are available to the theme parks listed on the sheet below.
Note that the shuttle runs to and from each park only once per day, so if you need a ride earlier or later you’ll need to either drive yourself and pay for parking there or grab on Uber, Lyft, etc.
Pantry
If you have any emergency snack needs during your stay, there’s a pantry area by the front desk where you can get those, frozen meals, drinks, medicine, etc.
Pet Policy
The Staybridge Suites Orlando Royale Parc Suites is a pet-friendly hotel and dogs up to 80 lbs are allowed. The pet fee is $75 + tax for stays of 1-6 nights and $150 + tax for stays of 7+ nights. We stayed 8 nights, so in theory we should’ve been charged $150 + tax, but thankfully they only charged us the lower $75 + tax amount.
The hotel’s courtyard is quite spacious and there’s lots of grassy areas for your dog to do their stuff. There’s also a sidewalk running along the main road outside the hotel, so I sometimes took Truffles out for longer walks along there.
Service
We didn’t have too many interactions with staff members during our stay as we declined housekeeping throughout our time there. Staff members were friendly enough though when we needed something, although the hotel could do with staffing the front desk better during busier times when guests are checking in and out. There frequently seemed to be only one person at the front desk with a long line of people waiting to check in.
Wi-Fi
The hotel’s Wi-Fi is free for all guests and worked well – we had no issues with connectivity or speed and Zoom calls worked fine.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
Check-in is from 4pm, while check-out is at 11am.
Location
The Staybridge Suites Orlando Royale Parc Suites is located in Kissimmee along Rte 192. There’s all kinds of restaurants within walking distance, along with a Publix grocery store only half a mile away.
Disney, Universal, Epcot, etc. are all within 10-15 miles, so it’s not a long drive to each of them.
Resort Fee
The hotel charges an $18 resort fee. I’m not sure exactly what this is meant to include other than parking, but knowing what hotels that charge resort fees are like, they probably claim that this fee gets you all kinds of value like Wi-Fi, access to their fitness room and other ridiculous things that normal hotels provide as a matter of course without adding a surcharge.
When booking with points, IHG normally still charges resort fees. I’m not sure if it’s intentional or not, but this property doesn’t charge resort fees on award stays which saved us $144.
Parking
This is (sort of) complimentary for all guests. I say “sort of” because they do charge for it indirectly via the resort fee if you’re paying a cash rate rather than booking with points.
Cost
As I mentioned above, we booked our stay using IHG One Rewards points. IHG uses dynamic pricing which means the number of points you have to redeem varies from night to night depending on demand. For our dates the award pricing ranged from 17,000-25,000 points per night.
We booked an 8 night stay rather than a week-long stay because a couple of IHG credit cards have a 4th night free benefit which gives every 4th night free on award stays. By booking an 8 night stay, we got both the 4th and 8th nights free. I also have an IHG Select credit card (which you can no longer apply for) which gives a 10% points rebate on award stays. That reduced our overall redemption cost to an average of 13,613 points per night.
We’d bought those points when they were on sale for 0.5cpp (cents per point), so our stay effectively cost $68.07 per night. The cash rate for our stay was $147.29, so we more than halved the cost of that by booking with points we’d bought.
Final Thoughts
Overall, we were happy with our stay at the Staybridge Suites Orlando Royale Parc Suites. It was good value for a one bedroom suite with a kitchen, included free breakfast and had useful amenities like free guest laundry, a swimming pool, etc.
It wasn’t a perfect stay, as evidenced by all the ways that it feels like the hotel cheaps out while also charging (most) guests an $18 per night resort fee. That said, I’d be more than willing to stay there again on a future visit to Orlando depending on what our hotel needs were.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives this hotel three paws out of four – pawsome! While it was nice having so much space to be able to walk her around, Truffles didn’t like the sound of the housekeeping and laundry carts being pushed back and forth past our room from morning until evening.
Our Rating
Room = 4.1 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.4 / 5
Food = 4.0 / 5
Location = 4.2 / 5
Service = 3.8 / 5
Overall Value = 4.4 / 5
Total = 4.15 / 5
Address
Staybridge Suites Orlando Royale Parc Suites, 5876 W Irlo Bronson Memorial Hwy, Kissimmee, FL 34746
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