00:00For this video, I'm going to be taking you on a hotel room tour of the Red Lion Hotel
00:05Lake Buena Vista South, located in Kissimmee, Florida.
00:35Let's go!
01:06I was recently vacationing in Central Florida again, and recently I've been kind of focusing
01:11on staying at hotels that actually have water parks.
01:16Now I'm not really sure if the Red Lion actually hits that threshold, but it comes pretty close.
01:20They have both a lazy river and a water slide.
01:24And this is the only hotel you're going to find in Central Florida that has those things,
01:29with a room rate under $100 a night.
01:31They basically undercut the Flamingo Water Park Resort by about $25-$30 per night.
01:38But they have a much better water slide tower over at that particular park.
01:42The lazy rivers at both the Flamingo and this Red Lion are pretty much equivalent.
01:48Now this Red Lion is typically more expensive than some of the other nice budget hotel offerings.
01:55You can typically stay at a Rosen Inn on International Drive for about $65-$75 a night.
02:02This Red Lion is going to run you more like $85-$95 a night, depending on the season.
02:08During the peak season, the room rate of the Red Lion here will exceed $100 a night.
02:13Just depends on what time of year you stay in here.
02:15Now the first thing that I will point out about this particular hotel is the rooms are
02:20meticulous.
02:21The sheets were very clean, the beds were very comfortable, a ridiculous amount of pillows,
02:27definitely a lot of towels to support an entire family staying here.
02:32Now at this room rate, you would generally expect just a continental breakfast included
02:37with the room.
02:39Continentals are ok, usually coffee and orange juice, a couple bagels, and some Raisin Bran
02:47basic stuff.
02:48But here you get a full breakfast buffet.
02:52Scrambled eggs, home fries, sausage, and bacon, as well as a waffle maker, coffee, tea, and
03:01orange juice.
03:03This is a full breakfast buffet.
03:05You get tickets for two people when you do the double occupancy room.
03:11You can purchase the breakfast buffet for $14.99 each for any additional guests.
03:17It is a restaurant attached to the front of the hotel, but let's face it, I didn't
03:23think they were really bringing in too many customers.
03:26It's all pretty much people who are staying at the hotel that eat at this restaurant.
03:30There is a second restaurant and bar in the back building of this hotel called the Oasis,
03:36and they've got hamburgers and drinks back there.
03:39So I mean all the alcohol is in the back of the hotel.
03:43The restaurant in the front of the hotel is mostly for the breakfast buffet in the morning.
03:47One oversight that I kind of noticed here at the Red Lion though is for a family hotel,
03:52almost all of them have an arcade.
03:54Every Rosen Inn has one, the Flamingo Waterpark Resort had one, Coco Key has a massive one.
03:59So that seems like one thing that they're overlooking.
04:03I guess they're assuming your family is going to bring their tablet or play games on their
04:09cell phone or something, but just about every other hotel in Orlando has an arcade.
04:14So I did notice that this one lacked one.
04:17This hotel has a pretty decent exercise room, although this is the first time I ever saw
04:21one with an old school scale from a doctor's office.
04:25So never seen a fitness center having one of those before, but it was cool, it was something
04:30different.
04:31I always see something different at pretty much every hotel I've ever stayed at.
04:36Another unusual choice that I noticed at the Red Lion, they don't have cable TV.
04:40No satellite TV.
04:41There's no premium channels on any of the TVs here.
04:45They have about 28 channels.
04:46A couple of them are like an internal DVR hotel information channels, and then they've
04:51got the antenna channels for Orlando.
04:56You'll see Channel 2, WESH, and Channel 6, and Channel 9, WFTV I think.
05:05They don't actually have any HBOs or Cinemaxs.
05:09If you're planning to watch some movies on cable TV, you're not going to find them here
05:16at the Red Lion.
05:17So the pool area here is pretty nice.
05:20They've got a conventional swimming pool on the one side of the restroom building, and
05:26then on the other side of the restroom building, there's a lazy river and a small water slide.
05:31Now I've already posted POV videos of both the water slide and the lazy river, so if
05:35you want to see the size and scale of them, you can basically click on the links below.
05:40There's also an on-site gift shop located at the Red Lion.
05:43It's just behind the lobby, and you know, it's a place you can go in there for the typical
05:49souvenirs from Florida, t-shirts, magnets, keychains, that kind of stuff, as well as
05:55some snacks that are kind of overpriced.
05:58I mean the t-shirts are pretty reasonably priced.
06:00Most of them were like $19.99, which is a fair price compared to what you'd spend at a theme park.
06:06Now the exercise room and the business center are both open 24 hours a day.
06:11Although they are locked, you will need your hotel keycard to get inside them.
06:15The swimming pool itself is open from 6am in the morning to 11pm at night, and the lazy
06:20river doesn't open until noon, and during the summertime it closes at 7pm.
06:25I believe it closes earlier in the spring and the fall, so that is a seasonally operated
06:32attraction, so the hours will vary.
06:36As for the basketball and tennis courts, those are open from 6am to 9pm.
06:40So this hotel has 410 hotel rooms, so it's a pretty big facility.
06:44I stayed here on a Thursday.
06:46It was a weekday and it was very quiet and slow.
06:48I think I was the only person on the entire floor, and it was really nice.
06:52I've now stayed at about a dozen hotels on Highway 192, otherwise known as Erlo-Bronson
06:57Memorial Highway, and I would say that this is definitely among the nicest ones I've stayed.
07:03The Ramada Gateway is almost as nice as the Red Lion.
07:07You could probably stay at the Ramada just a hair cheaper, but obviously they don't have
07:11a lazy river or a water slide at the Ramada, so you are getting a newer, nicer hotel too
07:17in the Red Lion compared to the Ramada.
07:19This is definitely light years better than, say, the Cerro Lago or the Magic Key resorts
07:24on 192.
07:26Those are probably the bottom of the barrel, at least from my point of view.
07:30So what's my bottom line for the Red Lion, Lake Buena Vista South?
07:33I would give this, on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the best, probably about an 8, maybe
07:40even an 8.5.
07:42It is just really clean, nice, new, and modern, and was a great value in the $80 price range
07:50for the nightly rate.
07:53And when you factor in the two breakfast buffets that were included in the price, which sell
08:00for $15 a pop, that puts this nightly rate more like $50 a night for the hotel room itself.
08:08So if you're planning to stay in Kissimmee, I would definitely recommend the Red Lion
08:11Hotel.
08:13It's one of the nicest properties that I've stayed at so far on Highway 192.
08:17Thanks for joining me on this tour of the Red Lion Hotel.
08:19If you enjoyed this episode of Mike Invades the World, don't forget to click on that
08:22follow button above.
08:24See everyone next week on Dailymotion.
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