Staying and Eating in Celebration

So I promised the other night that I would post a little more about some of the things we found in staying in Celebration this last time around vice the over stuffed holiday hotels on property.

I’m sure most of your are aware that Celebration was a planned community laid out by the Disney Company on a large tract of the land that used to be inside the RCID boundaries south of I-4.  Many of you also probably know that Celebration isn’t really yet a town (it’s technically still part of Kissimmee) as much as it is a place, though they’ve made some recent progress on that front I hear from the web.

There are two places to stay now in Celebration.  The first is the Celebration Hotel which is right in the middle of the Celebration town center.  We’ve never stayed there, but the Unofficial Guide and others give it very high, if not expensive, marks so I’m sure it’s a great place to stay.  They always have several cool old cars parked out in front, and they are a block away from the reason we started our journey’s into downtown Celebrations: Starbucks.

We got a great deal thanks to Expedia for the latest addition to Celebration which is the Mona Lisa Suite Hotel.  The hotel has only been open about 3 months and is just ramping up on their occupancy, so right now it’s a great place to stay if for nothing else than it’s not packed (but that won’t last long, trust me!).

The hotel is a very nice, modern building that sits between Hwy. 192 and Celebration Place.  It’s maybe a 1/4 mile from Celebration Health and very close to the office buildings in Celebration Place that you see from 192. 

I believe the quoted rack rates run from $199 to $400 a night, but through Expedia we got a very attractive offer for a two bedroom suite for around $120 a night plus taxes.  Granted this is the off season in a weak market with a new hotel offering, so don’t expect a discount like that to hold forever.  You can find other hotels on 192 for cheaper, though they won’t be nearly as nice (trust me, I’ve stayed in many of them!), and unless you have an affinity program for staying at the Ramada or someplace like Hampton Inn, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a similar set of features in that close area for the money.

The rooms are nicely modern with large beds, floor to ceiling windows and drapes, a full kitchenette, a flat screen TV in each room (though their digital TV service I found a little annoying) and two large bathrooms.  The room also had a small front load washer and dryer combination machine in the closet.  The overall decor style reminded us of another favorite place to visit in Orlando and that’s IKEA, and we consider that a complement.  Others of you might just be fine with it being considered modern, and that’s cool too.

The main building is a small 3 story circle.  Downstairs is the check in, the bar and the restaurant.  I didn’t venture to the second floor, but my wife said that it was very nice and I presume it’s where their conference rooms are.  We had breakfast in the morning a couple of times in the restaurant which was all you eat buffet for $12.95 per adult.  They had a very nice selection of hot and cold food with omelets to order, a side of cold salmon, and all the bacon you could eat (which made my father-in-law quite happy).  In the evening the bar was also nice and well stocked both for beer and drinks, and I don’t think I noticed a cheap bottle of liquor in the whole place, so the drinks are made with good stuff (and priced accordingly).

The pool is an interesting, and at the same time very cool, affair that makes a circle around the inner courtyard behind the main building and inside the middle of the almost round hotel buildings.  It has a small ‘island’ in the middle with a hot tub and shower, and the pool has a zero entry on one side of the approach to this island and a set of stairs on the other.  My 15 month old thought the zero entry was awesome, as she could wade in and out of the pool without help from mommy or daddy.  Poolside towels are also provided.

My wife met the owner’s wife by the pool one day in a chance encounter and they chatted briefly about the hotel.  Carrie said they owners hope that people will enjoy the hotel and their goal is to make it a very nice place to stay off property and yet stay affordable for families and travelers.  We’d say that so far they’ve succeeded and it will defiantly be on the top of our short list for future off property stays in the area!

Oh yeah, and if you are a classic art fan, this hotel it particularly cool and interesting.  Throughout the hotel common areas (lobby, elevator entrances, etc.) are some of the largest (wall size large) paintings of some of the most classic paintings in history.  I saw several wall size paintings inspired by Da Vinci, Degas and Monet just to name a few.

I’ve got some other goodies from our visit to Celebration as well for a next post.  We ate in a few of the restaurants and studied all the menus for the places in town to eat and I think you’ll be impressed with the quality, diversity and even the cost of eating there.  I know we were.