Rosen Plaza

Well reccomend the Rosen Plaza

by A TripAdvisor Member

We have just stayed at the Rosen Plaza for 9 nights, i found the Hotel to be of a very high standard, the rooms where clean and spacious enough for a holiday hotel. The pool was never overcrowded during our stay. The staff where always helpful, as most Americans seem to be.
Point to be aware of make sure you put your do not disturb sign on your door if you dont want the maid waking you early (Same for all hotels). The Pizza/snack bar has refillable cokes and lemonades although they do not advertise them as free refills. The nightclub has freed drinks for ladies on wed and thurs nights, saves you a few dollars at the lounge bar. We paid $69 dollars per night using a voucher i found at the Florida turnpike service station. Ask for the Turnpike rate from the voucher they origonally qouted me $150 over the phone and then $99 when i arrived at reception until i showed the voucher. Finally for Hurricane Frances they seem to have learned from Charley and had a better procedure in place.

Rosen Plaza Hurricane Experience

by A TripAdvisor Member

Having just read a review about this hotel by another traveller staying during the recent hit by Hurricane Charley I felt I had to reply.

We had planned to travel to Clearwater for the last 3 nights of our holiday but decided to stay put in Orlando due to the impending hurricane.

We had been staying at another hotel just off International Drive and I shall just say we were NOT impressed.

We decided to book into the Rosen Plaza Hotel. We were very impressed right from the start. Even with the many evacuees arriving the staff were pleasant and helpful. Our room was wonderful - very clean.

During the afternoon of Friday 13th August a note was put under our door advising precautions to take to ensure our safety during the impending hurricane strike - keep away from windows, etc.

The message we heard over the tannoy system in our room at the height of the hurricane was to make our way to the ballroom on the ground floor, keeping away from windows, use the inner stairs - NOT the elevators. Yes to get to the ballroom you had to pass glass windows but staff were there to ensure the public were kept well away. Indeed they were putting themselves at risk for us! We were in the ballroom while the hurricane passed over and yes there were flickers in the power supply but I did not see any water pouring through the ceiling as stated by another reviewer. Everyone was calm. Once the eye of the hurricane had passed over we were advised that we could return to our rooms.

I can honestly say that at no time did I feel the hotel staff had put us at risk.

The remainder of our short stay was relaxed and everything seemed to run as normal. I cannot recommend this hotel enough. If we return to Orlando we would definitely make a point of returning to this hotel and would recommend it to anyone.

Rosen was average

by TripAdvisor Member stlouisblueslover

The Rosen Plaza was OK. The room was average. The bathroom was a little too small for my taste, but the rest of the room was Ok. The view was nice. The pool area was really big, kept clean, and there were always fresh towels. The hottub was something I haven't seen before with the waterfall running into it. (The kids sure liked it, even though they were too small to be in it.)
We ate at the Cafe for breakfast, it was good, but I didn't think it was worth the price you paid. We also got a pizza and that was really good!
Backstage Lounge was a lot of fun. They had a band the night we went and they had specials on the drinks. Compared to the lobby lounge, the drinks were really cheap.
I really liked the Pointe Orlando across the street. It was nice being able to walk somwhere and not get into your car and deal with the traffic. Traffic was pretty congested.
All in all our stay was good. I would go back.

Excellant hotel

by TripAdvisor Member davagg

Rosen Plaza is an excellant hotel clean well kept rooms. Beautiful pool area friendly staff lovely clean lounge areas. Restaurant was good value with good choice of meals.
Only complaint was lingering smell from pizza shop in lobby. Would definately come back to this hotel we can also recommend the Castle Hotel for something a bit different.

Excellent Location !

by A TripAdvisor Member

Stayed here 8/5/04 - 8/9/04. My husband & I just planned a quick getaway w/o doing the parks thing this time. Just to relax by the pool & doing some shopping. The location is great. Right at the start of the "desired" area of I-Drive. The hotel went out of their way to get us a king room, the front desk gave us a handicap room due to a "no show"-bigger room & on the second floor (nice when elevators are busy). The I-trolley is a bargain @ $3.00 each for unlimited rides for 3 days. We didn't even rent a car. The pool area is large - during the week since its a "convention" hotel its usually pretty empty. 24 hour deli is handy as well as its own pizza place. Backstage lounge has a very good dance band & no cover ! Worked out well for us since one night it poured for hours & we spend the night in at the hotel dancing the night away ....Rosen Plaza does have free shuttles to Universal, Wet n' Wild & Sea World as well as a Shuttle to the Florida Mall. We booked thru Hotwire (upscale hotel) which made this deal even better. Loved it !!!

Management decisions questionable

by A TripAdvisor Member

My family were evacuated to the Rosen Plaza during the recent hurricane Charley from St Petersburg.

The hotel itself is well located and well presented, however, the competence of management decisions at the height of the hurricane, and poor management reaction to criticism leads me to question why anybody would want to use this hotel as an evacuation centre.

As hurricane Charley reached full strength, a PA broadcast requested that all guests leave their rooms and go immediately to the ballroom on the ground floor. Nothing wrong with that you might say - however, we were told to use the elevators (we were on the 12th floor)! This was after we had already experienced two very brief power outtages and the danger of being trapped in a packed elevator with no power, air circulation and lights was at its highest.

When we reached the ground floor (we used the stairs) we found the ballroom took us past great lengths of plate glass windows - with the pool, and many large trees on the other side. The hotel had put up a length of tape about 4-5 feet from the glass to keep guests away - but I'm sure a tree coming through the window, or the glass shattering would have ignored the tape and an incident of this nature could have severely injure the many guests that were milling around the area.

When we got to the ballroom, water was pouring through the ceiling, so about 30% of the ballroom could not be used, causing many guests to stay out in the corridor in front of the plate glass windows.

I asked a senior member of the hotel staff whether it was sensible to recommend the use of the elevator to evacuate the higher floors of the hotel, and reported that the ballroom roof was leaking. He told me to go away, and that he didn't have time to listen.

Once the hurricane had passed and my family had returned to the room (again we used the stairs, although the hotel staff seemed to be directing people back to the elevators, even though we had only just been through the eye), I went and found the general manager, and questioned whether their should have been a PA broadcast even suggesting the use of elevators to evacuate the higher floors. I also mentioned my concerns about the plate glass windows on the way to the ballroom.

To my surprise and the surprise of many people around me, I was first called a drunk (I'd had two bottles of Budweiser) and then called an "ungrateful ----". The general manager insisted that he had "....just saved my life" and that he would "throw me out of the hotel."

I officially complained to the CIO of the group about his general manager - but have not received any communication.

Personally I will never use this hotel or any other hotel in the Rosen group again.

Nice Hotel but be very aware...........

by A TripAdvisor Member

.........that this hotel is mainly a convention hotel.

We have stayed in convention hotels before and been very happy due to the fact that large numbers of guests are not in the general areas including the pool during the day...this normally equals a quiet holiday.

This hotel is different however as it hosts large and do I mean large conventions that are attended by children and teens.

We have just returned from a three week vacation in Orlando and the last week and a half was dominated by a large religious convention.

Staff told us delegates occupied at least 80% of the hotel...... I reckon this was a conservative estimate. The lifts, corridors and lobby simply cannot cope with this number of people all trying to get to one place at the same time. When they are kids between the ages of 8 and 12 it becomes a nightmare. Room doors slamming until well after midnight commencing again at 5.30 AM became the norm.

Complaints fell on deaf ears as the hotel was so full of these guys the options were very limited. We were moved onto a floor that in the words of the Manager On Duty had been isolated for holidaying guests only to find the very next day more of these kids were just along the corridor from us presumably because the accommodation was so overwhelmed.

A number of the hotel staff expressed to us they were very unhappy with the situation as we were but they were powerless to help us........Rosen management listen up!!!!!!

We will never stay in this hotel again or for that matter any hotel in the vicinity of the Orange County Convention Centre.

Family Trip to Florida

by Suzze

"A hot, busy, very tiring 2 weeks!"

This was our third trip to Florida. We first came out in 1993 when our son and daughter were alot younger and we hired a villa for three weeks and had an absoulutely wonderful time. The second time was visiting my sister who moved out there to Lakeland for two years in 1996 which was a bit different to the first time we came out. This was our third time and did we find it soooo different not having young kids this time! We stayed in The Rosen Plaza Hotel on International Drive. Lovely hotel and room only. We tried to do all the parks again but we did feel it more this time, one we're older now and two we were not doing it with children and it wasn't the same! and it was soooooo hot! I enjoyed the fact that we went out there with our son and daughter and their partners and it was great to spend some time with them. We all enjoyed it but we all tried to get in too much in such little time we had there.
We will be going back again but this time with grandchildren in tow!