Our Orlando Home Away From Home
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 1/9/08
We have traveled to Orlando frequently over the last fifteen years, and the Altamonte Springs Hampton has been our Orlando home-way-from-home since we discovered it about seven years ago. It is consistently the best value in the area if you want a clean, comfortable room with some nice touches and amenities at a very reasonable price. It is an especially good deal if you travel with kids, as a very nice breakfast buffet is included (one of the best of any hotel I've stayed in), as are thoughtful extras such as coffee and soft drinks any time, and cookies in the evening. In addition, on several evenings during the week we last stayed with them, they had cookouts in the very nicely landscaped courtyard for no additional charge. That is quite a benefit, especially for a family. The hotel is not located in the touristy area of Orlando - International Drive is about a 20-25 minute straight shot down I-4, depending on traffic, which admittedly can be bad during rush hours - but that is another one of the reasons we like it (we alternate touristy days with unrushed, hang-around-the-pool or go-to-a-neighborhood-park days). The heated pool and jacuzzi area is very nice, better than average. In fact, it's sometimes hard to get our boys to want to leave the hotel to go do other things. With all of the extra touches and the way the staff treats us like family, it tends to become very much like a home a way from home. We recommend it to anyone who wants to visit Orlando without being surrounded by Disney 24/7.