Crowne Plaza Orlando - Universal Blvd

Sort-of Upscale Hotel

Located near Universal Studios and I-4 (most direct route to Disney World). The best feature - a Giordano’s Pizza within walking distance. The hotel has an upscale, perhaps even a little gaudy and artificially pretentious feel. The rooms and public areas are clean and well maintained.

Perhaps because of the convenient location, the roads around the hotel are very contested, making it hard to get in and out of the parking. Parking is the other issue - there is not much, and what there is, costs $12 a night. There were 2 private events at the hotel the night we checked in, and the parking was over-full with abandoned cars blocking parking empty spots, and other cars which could not get out - a perfect nightmare. Finally, the hotel seems to be the location the chain uses to lure people to Orlando for their time-share presentation - "Stay 3 nights in Orlando for free if you attend a 45 minute presentation." If you are into timeshares, great! We are not. If we ever visit Orlando again, we will choose a different hotel.

FITNESS CENTER NEEDS WORK

General clean, quiet, hotel with all the necessary amentities, bar, Breakfast , computer printer, clean rooms

The fitness center equipment was old and not well taken care of. The two days I was there only 1 of the 5 treadmills was functioning on the first day and the second day there were two different ones working and one had a loud screech and the other rocked and knocked against the floor. They also had a bike and elliptical, but the elliptical was not working either.