We spent the last week in Orlando for David’s conference. We decided to stay at the Hilton Grand Vacation Resort on International Drive instead of the hotel where the conference was being held because, like I mentioned in my previous post, we are almost 100% brand loyal to Hilton in the US.

While trying to determine where to stay, I saw this:

Wow a non smoking resort? Sign me up! And I booked our stay. Back in November.

We arrived on Saturday evening and the people we dealt with in the office were lovely. She did tell us that parking is a bit difficult but if we had to park all the way back out at the gate, they have shuttles that could take us to our building. We had a lot of luggage and we managed to get semi-close to unload and there were luggage carts available so that was good.

The room was really pretty.

The towels were amazing! Bigger than a normal bath towel but not quite a bath sheet. And fluffy!

The toiletries were by Peter Thomas Roth and I first used this brand when I went to Washington DC as a guest of Eight O’Clock coffee. I LOVE this stuff. The shower gel is the best and smells just like a freshly cut grapefruit.

I loved being able to walk around the resort every morning. There’s a nice sidewalk that’s about 3/4 of a mile long. I got some cool photos on the move.

There’s also a bridge that cuts the loop in half and we usually did that at the end of our walk to get our typical morning walk distance in.

We mostly enjoyed our stay here. I loved sitting on the balcony while knowing it was only 10 degrees in Tulsa. I kind of wished that we had stayed at the other resort where we saw the time share presentation because their balconies are not screened in. I’m sure having screens when there are bugs is awesome but I wasn’t able to get a good photo from the balcony because of the screen.

I hated that I had to go back into the room and close the balcony door because of cigarette smoke. I feel the website is a bit misleading saying it’s non-smoking when apparently only the rooms are non-smoking.

Still, when I stay in a standard Hilton hotel in a non-smoking room, I rarely smell smoke.

Again, the people were lovely and helpful but I’m highly allergic to cigarette smoke and this just didn’t work for me.

They were not kidding about the parking situation. It’s AWFUL! If you get back to your room in the late afternoon, chances are you will get to park in the spaces in front of your building. The night after we went to the BICSI Exhibit and then out for dinner, we had to park .54 miles away from our door!

Again, in a regular Hilton hotel, I’ve never parked that far away from my room.

So we live and learn. Hilton Grand Vacation Resort life isn’t for us but we were super pleased with the lovely, helpful staff. And the towels. Now we’re on to Tennessee where we’ll be staying at a Hampton Inn. 🙂