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The Conrad Orlando is insane. In a good way! The resort has an 8 acre lagoon with real sand beaches on the sides. You’ll forget you’re in Orlando and think you’re in the Maldives. Only on America would someone come up with such an idea!
I was in Orlando for one week on business. I’d been staying at the Sheraton in Lake Buena Vista. On the last day, I splashed out and stayed at the Conrad Orlando. I used 90,000 Hilton Honors points to book the room. Which was a really good deal.
The Conrad Orlando has a $50 resort fee. But this is waived if you book with Hilton Honors Points.
I had great time on my one night stay. It’s a great resort with lots of activities for the family.
This review is an in depth guide. With loads of photos and videos. Each photo can be clicked, to open out the full slideshow.
There’s a lot of hotels and resorts in Orlando. I’ve been to a few. In this article, I review the Orlando Outdoor resorts I’ve stayed at. And which I think are the best.
This page on my website has some of my favourite travel deals. For how to save serious money on luxury travel.
The Conrad Orlando is a Hilton Hotel. I stayed for one night. The cash rate to stay for one night was $743. This includes a $50 resort fee.
Book your stay at the Conrad Orlando on their website here.
The Conrad Orlando has a military discount. Just book the Military Family Rate on the Hilton website.
I’ve spoken at length on this blog, how I don’t like resort fees. However, nearly every resort in the US charges one. So they’re here to stay.
A resort fee is basically a fee on top of the ordinary price. To justify the additional fee, hotels will provide a list of benefits that you get with the resort fee. Typically, these ‘benefits’ would have been provided anyway by the hotel.
The Conrad Orlando provides the following benefits with the resort fee. Kayak and paddleboard rentals for one hour, daily bottled water, shuttle service to Disney World, $20 off golf club rentals and 20% off spa treatments.
I used 90,000 Hilton Honor Points to book the room. This was a pretty good deal, as the Conrad waives the resort fees if you book using points.
You can earn Hilton points by staying at Hilton Hotels. They also have a partnership with American Express.
You can also buy Hilton Honors Points Directly from Hilton. To buy 90,000 points costs $450, which is a big discount on the cash price.
I’m a Hilton Gold, which is Hilton’s mid-tier. I got the following benefits:
This is probably the minimum that I would expect to get. However, the hotel was full and there were probably a lot of elite members staying
One fee that I wasn’t able to avoid was the parking fee. The Conrad charges $50/night for valet parking. I had just spent 6 days at the Sheraton in Lake Buena Vista. They charge $25/night for parking and $25/night resort fee. However, they forgot to charge me either fee for the 6 nights! So I saved $300.
At the Conrad, my luck ran out! I had to pay the $50 to park my car for one night. If you wanted to, you could park your car next door (at the Evermore) and walk over to the hotel. However, the staff will know you’re doing this and it will get awkward!
The city of Orlando isn’t a place that charges a lot of money to park your car. Nearly everywhere has free parking. So it’s annoying that the Conrad charges for parking. Orlando isn’t like New York or London, where parking is expensive everywhere.
Regardless. You gotta suck it up sometimes!
There are some amazing Orlando Outdoor Resorts. I’ve been to a fair number of them, so I want to highlight a few of them here.
The Conrad Orlando is super close to the action in Orlando. Orlando being the theme park capital of the world, in the state of Florida.
You’re 5 miles from Walt Disney World. Universal Studios is 16 miles away. About a 25-minute drive.
Animal Kingdom is 20 miles away. A 25 minute drive.
Orlando International airport is 21 miles. About 30 minutes to drive.
I’ve been to a few lounges at Orlando Airport. My review of the Plaza Premium lounge is here. One of the best lounges in the US, with great food, unlimited alcohol and floor to ceiling windows.
Sign up to Priority Pass here to access the lounge – at a 30% discount. The cheapest plan costs $69. Standard Plus membership costs $263 and comes with 10 free lounge visits per year. So each lounge visit is $26.30. There are over 1,800 lounges you can access worldwide.
The Club MCO is another Priority Pass Lounge in Orlando. I liked that lounge when I visited. Click the link for my review. The buffet was tasty, the alcohol was complimentary and there were excellent runway views.
The Conrad Orlando isn’t just an Orlando Outdoor resort, it’s a mega resort in every sense. It’s absolutely massive with loads of facilities:
The resort is huge. Which isn’t surprising as the lagoon is huge. The Conrad has 433 rooms and suites. The entire resort is 1,100 acres. The resort map is shown above.
The resort is all about the lagoon. It’s the centre piece of the resort. You can see if from everywhere you are. All of the other activities fit around the lagoon.
The lagoon has real sand beaches around it. When you’re here, you feel like you’re at the beach and forget you’re in Orlando.
The resort is right next to Disney World and there’s a complimentary shuttle. It’s conveniently located for a Disney holiday.
However, I don’t think I would come here if I was on a Disney Holiday. Disney Parks take you whole day and you won’t get time to enjoy the facilities here. The Conrad Orlando is a destination in its own right. You would want to have at least one full day here, probably two.
In fact, I didn’t see many people who looked like they had been to the Disney Parks. I saw people here to enjoy the resort.
The resort has two golf courses.
The decoration of the Conrad is very modern and very classy. You can tell they spent a lot of money decorating it. The lobby is actually quite simple. However, you get an amazing view of the lagoon for there.
The resort has a kids club. I wasn’t with my kids, so I didn’t visit it. However, they looked to have a wide variety of activities.
I got up at 8.30am to get some shots of the resort. View the slideshow. Nobody was out at that time. Which pleased me!
In Hawaii. There will be people out at 6.30am for sunrise. Having fun. Getting in the way of my photos! Check out my review of the amazing Westin Hapuna in Big Island Hawaii. The review is worth checking, just for the amazing photo of the resort.
I spent 90,000 Hilton Honors Points. I was booked into the lowest category of room (Guest Room). As a Hilton Gold, I was upgraded to a Nature View Guest Room.
This was a one level upgrade. While it was welcome, I’ve had far better upgrades as a Hilton Gold.
My nature view guest room was on the Floor 7 (out of 8). This is good. However, it faced out towards the parking lot at the front of the hotel. I didn’t get a view of the lagoon. The room didn’t have a balcony either. The rooms with lagoon view all had balconies.
The room was a good size. 440 square foot. I was alone, so this was easily enough for me. I probably would have been comfortable in this room for a few days, with my family of four.
The room was modern and luxurious. It had the following features
The room was super modern. There were buttons with different modes for the lighting – day, night and work.
I made sure to try the Nespresso machine. It was good, as you might imagine. I also tried a couple of the teas. I had an English Breakfast and a green tea. The quality of the tea was very good.
The bathroom worktop had a beautiful marble effect. There was a shower, but no bathtub. The Toiletries were by Byredo.
The Conrad Orlando is all about the lagoon. It’s insane!
The Lagoon is massive. It’s 8 acres. There are 17 million gallons of water in the lagoon. Equivalent to 100 swimming pools.
There are real sandy beaches with beach chairs. You can swim in the lagoon. However, you’re only allowed to swim close to the edges. You can’t swim into the very middle of the lagoon. They have ropes signalling where the swimming area ends.
I should mention that the lagoon is cold, when you swim. But this makes it fun in the Florida sun! The lagoon is much colder than the swimming pool. Not surprising. You didn’t think they would heat the entire lagoon did you?!
You can get to the middle of the lagoon. But you can’t swim to it. You need to use one of the paddle boards or kayaks. You can rent one of these for free (as part of your resort fee). I used the kayaks for about 20 minutes. It was good fun.
If you stay with Hilton points, you don’t pay the resort fee. But you can still use the kayaks for free.
When you’re at the hotel, you forget you’re in Orlando and feel like you’re at the seaside.
Around the lagoon are loads of games. Like Giant Jenga, connect 4, corn hole and table tennis.
I’ll the honest, the lagoon is really special. It upgrades the Conrad from being a luxury hotel to something spectacular and unique. The lagoon looks amazing as it glistens in the Florida sun.
The lagoon has beaches on the sides, with real sand. It’s a really nice and cool thing. Is it as good as a proper beach?
No, it’s probably not. At the seaside, you can look out to the horizon. I wouldn’t want to spend 1 week at the resort.
But’s it’s super fun for a couple of days at the end of a Disney Vacation.
There’s a family friendly slide. This slide is large and goes into its own swimming pool.
The slide is wide and can take four people at once.
I used it once, but I didn’t find it to be too fast. I didn’t use it again, as I was sick of all the kids cutting in front of me!
That being said, the slide looks really impressive.
The Conrad has something called the Blue Hole. It’s basically a platform that’s about 10 foot high. From there, you can jump into the lagoon.
There are 3 platforms to jump from. One of the platforms has a rope.
Best of all, no kids cutting in line. They were all too scared!
It was super fun. When you’re on the platform, it looks like a long way up!
On the day I checked out, I made sure to go for a swim. Only so I could use the Blue Hole!
The Conrad has one heated swimming pool, which is separate to the lagoon. It’s pretty nice, but certainly not amazing. Frankly, it’s an after though, compared to the lagoon, the slide and the blue hole.
It wasn’t very big. And there weren’t any extra activities like a slide there. It was nice and warm to swim in it.
The pool didn’t have a hot tub.
If the hotel only had this pool, I would be disappointed to be honest. But as you have the amazing lagoon, it’s cool that they have this swimming pool also.
The swimming pool was a bit annoying to get a photo of. I couldn’t stand in an elevated location to get a photo from. So sorry for the crappy photos above!
The Resort has a spa (obviously). The photo is above.
I was super impressed with the food options at the Conrad. A luxury hotel like this could get away with not providing any affordable options.
However, if you go to the back of the lagoon, there’s a food hall with casual options. Pizza, Burgers and wraps. I got a veggie burger and large fries for dinner. Which costs $23 with tip. Similar to the price of a restaurant outside (not somewhere budget like Burger King!).
The burger was pretty good. I don’t normally eat burgers. But I might get one if nothing else is available. This one was better than most.
I had the breakfast buffet at Sofia’s restaurant. The costs is $45 for the buffet. As a Hilton Gold, I get a $25 food credit for each day I stay.
At Hilton hotels outside the US, you get a full continental breakfast as a Hilton Gold. Which is much better. In practice, you nearly always get the full breakfast buffet. Not just the continental breakfast.
The breakfast was pretty good. As you would expect from a $45 buffet.
The following items were on offer:
The spread wasn’t huge, but the quality was good. I had potatoes, avocado on toast, pancakes with syrup and cream and a bowl of berries.
The smashed avocado was really nice. With onions and lemon juice.
The berries were decent. Blackberries and blueberries. These grow in Florida.
I had some drip coffee with breakfast. Which was also good.
The Conrad has lots of activities. These activities are dotted around the lagoon.
You have multiple places to play table tennis, corn hole, giant connect four and Giant Jenga. I love Giant Jenga. When I saw it, I instantly missed my wife and kids! As I would have played it!
They also have a beach volleyball court.
There was also a pickleball court.
As I have said repeatedly, you really need one or two full days here!
The conrad Orlando has a fantastic fitness centre.
I hadn’t planned on doing a workout here. I almost changed my mind when I visited the fitness centre.
However, it was the last day of my trip. I’d already been to the gym 3 times that week and been for two long swims. So I decided not to do a workout.
The fitness centre was large, and had all the facilities you would expect at a high end gym. Cardio machines, lots of free weights and resistance machines.
They also have these zero gravity ropes that I don’t know how to use!
The Conrad Orlando isn’t an ordinary hotel. It’s an outdoor adventure park! The very best of the Orlando Outdoor Resorts.
It’s a special place with golf, a giant lagoon, real sand beaches, giant water slide, blue hole 10 foot jumping board, loads of activities, nice breakfast and modern hotel.
I would suggest to stay for two days at least, to enjoy the resort to the fullest. It’s the perfect resort for any Orlando Vacation.
One of my favourite trips to Florida, was when I stayed at Marriott Crystal Shores in Marco Island. It was so much fun! I had an amazing two bed apartment on the 15th floor with a great view – check out my review. View it as a vacation home. The resort is right on the beach, with loads of activities. In the review, I explain how to stay there for $1,895 for 5 nights.