Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham Lake Buena Vista, A Sky Resort

Hotel Review of Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham Lake Buena Vista, A Sky Resort

We only got to spend one night at this hotel, but even in less than 24 hours, they people at the front desk managed to make this a negative stay.  Let me first start with the positives.  The hotel is very easy to reach from Disney World, especially Downtown Disney.  The hotel lobby is simple, but inviting and clean, as is the rest of the hotel.  And, that about ends the positives.

The rooms are quite small and cramped.  For an area rich in hotel rooms, you can easily find a more comfortable room for less money.  In addition, in the bathroom, the sink has no space to place any items on, which is quite annoying.

The biggest issue we ran into though was with the service.  When we went to use the toilet, we discovered that it was clogged and needed to be fixed.  I tried calling down to the Front Desk, but there was no answer after several rings.  I went straight down there instead and asked that someone come and fix the toilet, but they said that maintenance and housekeeping weren't on duty for another few hours so no one could fix it.

Plenty of staff were at the hotel, so someone should have come and taken care of this.  The most they offered me was a plunger to fix it myself.  This was a completely unacceptable answer for a hotel to give.  In the hospitality industry, asking a guest to plunge a toilet is a big problem with your service.  The front desk refused to do anything about this.

As we were checking out in about an hour at this point, there wasn't too much recourse for us except contacting Wyndham directly.  After I contacted Wyndham via their website, they did get back to me about a week later with an offer of a $75 refund to be delivered to me, which was received after about another week.  I'm glad that Wyndham did provide this compensation, but they didn't address the need to re-train their front desk staff on how to deal with these situations.

In addition to this major issue, they also did manage to "lose" our reservation and we had to jump through a few hoops to get them to find it.  Due to this, I believe it is best to avoid this hotel and use one of the numerous other hotels in the Disney World area.

6-ft. Waves at Disney's Typhoon Lagoon

Gang Plank Falls at Disney's Typhoon Lagoon (video)

The Trip Down Summit Plummet at Typhoon Lagoon

Portobello

Downtown Disney's Portobello is a nice hidden gem. It's tucked into a corner and a little bit out of sight, and the food and service is amazing, to boot. If it's a nice night out, ask for a table on the patio, the view is amazing. In the evenings, the lights reflecting off the lagoon are beautiful and you can watch the boats go between the hotels and Downtown Disney.

We ordered their value special: soup, entree and gelato. If you're looking for a full meal, this is definitely the way to go. We ordered the spaghetti pomodoro with meatballs (meatballs are an additional charge, but worth the price) and the tomato bisque soup (which was topped with shaved Parmesan cheese - yum!). The spaghetti had perfect sauce and the noodles were cooked perfectly.

We also ordered the grilled pork chop on top of polenta with Florida sweet peppers. The polenta was like grown up mashed potatoes, I couldn't get enough! And the pork chop was cooked perfectly - it fell right off the bone and melted in your mouth. The whole plate was delicious.

Garden Grove Restaurant

The Garden Grove Restaurant, located in Disney's Swan Resort, has been decorated to make diners feel like they are in a garden, with a tree in the middle of the restaurant and, if you are there in the early evening or later, after the sun has started to set, the lights in the tree begin to light and twinkle, giving the garden a magical feel.

The Garden Grove also has character dining at dinner time, and themed dining each night of the week. Characters change throughout the week, with Goofy and Pluto being one set of characters.

While the setting is beautiful, the food choices are not the greatest. The selection is small and what we had was either under cooked or over cooked. However, the dessert options were delightful, and a much larger selection than the dinner buffet. The brownies even has Swan and Dolphin on them in gold writing, which was a nice touch.

Cat Cora's Kouzzina

Cat Cora's Kouzzina on the Boardwalk at Disney is a delicious restaurant in WDW. Unfortunately, everyone knows it and it books up very, very quickly, so make reservations early! And, if you can, make your reservations for when they open (5 p.m.) and get there a little early. Before they open the doors to seat diners, all of the servers, chefs, and staff go outside and do an opening cheer. Definitely walk outside and witness this, as it's definitely fun and interesting!

Also, ask for a seat by the kitchen. The kitchen is completely open, so you can watch the chefs work, and even prepare your own meal. Its fun to watch as the chefs prepare the meals. As they start fires on the cook top, one chef will yell "forte!" (Greek for fire) and every other chef will subsequently yell Opa!

We ordered the oak-fired pork tenderloin, which was moist and had this crust from being grilled that was incredibly flavorful! It's served with zucchini cornbread, an interesting cornbread that was sweet and tangy and paired nicely.

We also ordered the slow cooked lamb shank, which was fall off the bone and cooked perfectly.

Top everything off with the delicious pomegranate splash, sweet, fruity and candy-like. (Super yummy.)