I’ve been at the Renaissance Sea World in Orlando, Florida since late Thursday night for IzeaFest09.

Price: I found a pretty sweet deal for Florida residents only, so I’m paying $100 a night plus tax, and that includes free parking. More on the free parking later. Considering this hotel is within walking distance to Sea World (it’s literally across the street and just steps away from the Sea World parking lot) you can’t beat the price. It’s a more upscale hotel and I’m sure a room normally goes for closer to $150.

Location: See comments on price above. International Drive is just a few blocks away, but it’s the end of I-Drive without many dining options. If you were here without a car, you could walk to Sea World but not much else. There are dining options in the hotel, but they are vastly overpriced.

Cleanliness: The room looks clean…but appearances can be deceiving! When we checked in on Thursday I noticed a room service breakfast menu on my pillow. I opened it up to check out the options and noticed it was used – a previous guest had filled in her name and all of the food choices she wanted for delivery. I dumped the menu into the trash. When we returned to the room the next day, I noticed a room service menu on the pillow of the other bed. I again opened it up and it was the SAME MENU I had thrown into the trash the day before! It really creeped me out to think of a housekeeper removing items from the trash and placing them back on our bedding. Blech.

Staff: No issues at check in, but obviously I did call and complain about the trashed menu on the bed. While I was doing that, I brought up the fact that a staff member representing the timeshare program called our room and left a message at 8:43am. We were up and gone, but seriously? Do you want anyone calling your room to push a timeshare on you at that hour? The staff member asked what he could do to make the situation better, and I suggested free internet access. (The hotel charges $15 per DAY!) He agreed and here I am.

Amenities: There’s a great pool outdoors that I can see from my room, and it’s surrounded by a beautiful manicured lawn. There’s an overpriced spa as well – I won’t be taking advantage of any of that on this trip. There’s also a Starbucks in the lobby where we grabbed $3 muffins on day 1 for our breakfast. The hotel charges you for self parking which is regularly $12 a day I think – a complete rip-off in my opinion, since you are PAYING to stay here. My Florida resident deal included free parking. However, the gate to the self parking is wide open so apparently everyone is getting it this weekend. Is it wrong to feel like the deal I got really wasn’t that special after all?

Comfort: The room we’ve got seems a bit bigger than most regular hotel rooms. It has 2 queen beds, a large bathroom with double sinks, and a sitting area by the window. The bedding is very nice – high thread count and all that.

Overall rank: On a scale of 1 to 10, the Renaissance Sea World receives a 7.