Hyatt Place Orlando/I-Drive/Convention Center [In-Depth Review]

Debating the merits of various hotel brands recently, a well-traveled friend of mine said, “What I like is that Hyatt Place doesn’t pretend to have any ambition.”

Not quite a compliment and not quite a diss, it’s a statement that I found to be truer every day of the 6 my wife, young son, and I spent in mid-May 2025 at the Hyatt Place Orlando/I-Drive/Convention Center, a humble but efficient establishment in Central Florida.

Here’s what our stay was like.

Booking the Hyatt Place Orlando/I-Drive/Convention Center

I had a specific date I had to be in Orlando, and I knew it’d be in the middle of a major national event that could conceivably drive up room rates and tie up hotel space near the Orange County Convention Center, which is around where my wife, first-grader, and I needed to stay.

Last year, I opened the Costco Anywhere Visa^® Card by Citi, so I decided to give Costco Travel a shot after reading so much about it at my main source of points-and-miles news and guides, Upgraded Points. Looking online at Costco Travel via my member portal, I found a 6-day travel package that included a double room at Hyatt Place Orlando/I-Drive/Convention Center (near but not connected to the convention center), round-trip Delta tickets on the days and times we could all travel, and 2 days of Universal Studios Park-to-Park tickets.

I paid $2,940.27 for the package, and since this was a Costco Travel purchase, I put the charge on my Costco Anywhere card and got 3% cash-back, which came to $88.20 as a Costco credit.

I won’t go into the nitty-gritty, but I compared what I paid for the package to what I could’ve paid had I bought each element separately. According to my calculations, my savings came to a grand total of a mind-blowing, legendary, whopping … 6%. Still, I consoled myself by telling myself I was saving something and staying exactly where and when I needed.

Had I decided to book this hotel à la carte, I would probably have tried to leverage any World of Hyatt perquisites I had. This Hyatt Place is a Category 2 hotel, meaning redemptions cost 6,500 points on off-peak nights, 8,000 points on standard nights, and 9,500 points per night on peak nights.

If you’d like to use points to book this property (or any Hyatt hotel), remember that it’s easy to earn World of Hyatt points. The chain offers a couple of co-branded credit cards, and Chase Ultimate Rewards points can be converted to World of Hyatt points at a 1:1 ratio almost instantaneously.

Hyatt Place Orlando/I-Drive/Convention Center Location

The hotel was about a 20-minute walk from the convention center, part of a cluster of hotels on International Drive (or I-Drive, as everyone called it) just to the north of the convention center. It was about a 15-minute drive by car from Orlando International Airport (MCO).

It wasn’t connected to the convention center by a pedestrian bridge, like the Rosen Centre or Hyatt Regency Orlando. Still, we had no trouble walking there and back every day, as there were enough sidewalks and crosswalks to get there safely in this part of the city.

The Hyatt Place was about a 20-minute drive to the Magic Kingdom or Animal Kingdom. To any of the Universal Studios parks, including Epic Universe, it was barely more than 10 minutes by car.

Hot Tip:

This is basically everything I ate at Epic Universe, by the way. TL;DR: Get the DK Crush.

Checking In

Though we’d planned on arriving midafternoon, severe thunderstorms over MCO meant our flight from New York (JFK) was put into a holding pattern, diverted to Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) for refueling when we started running out of reserve fuel, and then finally rerouted back to MCO several hours after we’d expected. So we arrived at the hotel around midnight.

We were greeted by a lone clerk at the reception desk, which was literally nothing more than a desk on one side of the entry hall (the staff didn’t even get chairs to sit in). The woman happily checked us in, gave us our key cards, and sent us up to our room, 415.

Behind the reception desk, a lounge branched out with armchairs, couches, and coffee tables. Around the corner were banquettes, dining tables, and a single high-top table with tall chairs.

It turned out that some of this may have been overflow seating for the hotel’s usual sit-down restaurant, which normally operates behind the reception desk but was wrapped off in plastic for renovations. In any case, it’s where several people ended up taking their buffet breakfasts during our stay, as the hotel was quite packed for that weekend event at the convention center.

Room

The hallway carpet evoked images of oceanographic maps or your garage floor when your kid opens up and pours out every paint can you have at the same time. I actually kind of dug it since it was at least a change of pace from the Trapper Keeper-esque vaguely geometric floating patterns that I’ve come to assume the corporate hive minds seem to have decided are the best at hiding stains and requiring less money to clean (looking at you, PDX!).

Disappointingly, as soon as we stepped out of the elevator on the fourth floor, we saw that our room was directly across from us, meaning elevator noise might be a problem. Perhaps we got this room because we came in so late, but as we were exhausted by a 3-hour flight that had morphed into a 12-hour odyssey, we took it. The elevator noise didn’t end up being that bad, but it was occasionally noticeable from inside the room.

The room was open-concept, with a sitting area with a pullout couch, a bed by the windows, a vanity and sink, a corner with a small desk, and a kitchenette. The only blocked-off area was the small bathroom for the toilet and tub.

It looked like it was just big enough for the 3 of us to live in for just under a week without going crazy.

The double beds were clean and comfortable, about medium firmness. We wished we’d gotten more blankets, though, as the air-conditioning in the room was hard to get just right and often ended up getting too cold in the middle of the night.

The nightstand between the beds had a digital alarm clock with USB-A ports and U.S.-standard 3-prong power outlets.

The flat-screen TV was mounted on the wall at the foot of the bed, but we never watched anything. I flipped it on in the middle of our second-to-last day here, and it seemed simple enough to use, but it took me 5 minutes to figure out how to turn it off.

The corner desk was small but functional, and my wife used it a few times both during the day and at night without any issue.

The kitchenette was also small and functional, though we had to dial the small beverage refrigerator up to the max to keep it cold enough to feel comfortable keeping perishables there for more than a day.

There was a small coffee maker and 2 mugs, but there were no plates, utensils, or napkins. We ended up having to get these from downstairs when we needed them.

On the other side of the wall from the desk was the open closet, which housed a safe, an iron, an ironing board, a luggage rack, a few hangers, a plastic laundry bag, and 3 drawers. A bag on top had an extra pillow and a light blanket (still not enough for when the air conditioning was on cold).

The sink and vanity were in the main room instead of the bathroom. There were plenty of extra towels underneath the sink.

Our window, which had blackout curtains, overlooked the side parking lot and had a view of nearby ICON Park Orlando, including the Orlando Eye, the city’s Ferris wheel counterpart to the London Eye that went through several name changes before reverting to its original name last year. (Orlandoans just kept calling it the Orlando Eye the whole time anyway.)

At night, the Orlando Eye lit up brightly. On a whim, I left the blackout curtains somewhat open one night to see how bright the eye got. It got bright! I ended up closing the blackout curtains fully so I could go to sleep instead of being bathed in a spooky blue-indigo luminescence.

I got my first taste of the Hyatt Place’s lack of any pretense of ambition less than a minute after I took my shoes off and walked around. Just in front of the kitchenette, I thought I stepped on an exposed nail, only to discover that a corner of the faux-wood adhesive tile on the floor was upturned, and that I was stepping on the pointy corner.

I stepped on this upturned corner. Every. Single. Time. I walked to the kitchenette, and it got old fast.

At the threshold of the room’s door, the rubber strip that kept the hallway rug secure and prevented tripping was showing wear and tear, including dirtiness, discoloration, and warping that was causing it to lift up — it was clearly not going to be able to continue performing its function for much longer.

Bathroom

The bathroom served our needs, but was small — it felt like I barely had room to turn around when I was entirely inside.

Still, everything was clean and mostly functional, even if the lighting was somewhat dim.

The wall-mounted KenetMD shower gel, shampoo, and conditioner flowed easily and weren’t watered down or anything like that. I really can’t tell you how invigorating or nourishing I found them, but after I used them, I stank less!

Here, again, the shortcuts the hotel had taken showed through. For one, the inner lining of the shower curtain kept coming unbuttoned and never seemed to stay fastened, no matter how many times I fixed it.

In the last couple days of our stay, the flapper in the toilet tank stopped closing properly, so we had to open it and manually push the flapper into the opening at the base of the tank with every flush. Otherwise, the toilet would not stop running loudly.

The hotel did not seem to have used the most professional contractors in building or refurbishing this room’s bathroom. The caulking around the baseboard moulding and bathtub was intact but sloppy, to say the least.

This is the kind of caulking job I would’ve done. As in, I’d have probably done it the exact same way, followed by my dad witnessing the result, loudly chewing me out, and then making me drive him to Lowe’s to get supplies so I could spend the next 4 hours redoing it while he stood over me watching me and correcting every mistake.

Sorry, Dad!

Amenities

The Hyatt Place had a handful of amenities that I’d describe as workaday but well-maintained and usable.

Pool

That seemingly ever-present storm over Central Florida and a stuffed schedule meant we didn’t get as much use out of the small but clean swimming pool behind the hotel overlooking the back driveway. Besides 1 guy lying out next to it on his cellphone, we also seemed to be the only people to ever use it.

The water was clean and not overly chlorinated, and there were plenty of towels out in the wicker cabinet by the gate.

The pool, which was heated, was open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day.

Gym

The gym was also tidy and stocked with towels, but as far as I could tell, I was the only person to step foot inside in the entire week we were there, even though it was open 24/7.

It had the usual free weights, a single workout machine for lats, stationary bikes, and treadmills.

There were plenty of towels that went unused, as well as a water and Purell dispenser.

Desktop Computer and Printer

Across from the reception desk in the main hall were a desktop computer and printer, which I saw a guest use once to print out the schedule of events for the convention center, and another to print out boarding passes for a flight the next day. There was no chair here, so it’s not like you could comfortably settle down and type out a 10,000-word presentation.

Curiously, between the desktop and the usual stand full of tourism brochures was a thick stack of the Epoch Times, the Falun Gong newspaper that seems primarily concerned with opposing the Chinese government but is also known for promoting various conspiracy theories and has been roundly criticized by a wide range of experts for disinformation — again, a curious choice for a corporate hotel to display so prominently.

Laundry Room

There was a laundry room on the ground floor, and you could either buy detergent from a vending machine or ask for a free packet from reception. I learned this from my wife, who did our laundry one night after our son and I sacked out on a bed after a 12-hour day at the convention center.

Pets

We didn’t see any pets or service animals here, but the Hyatt Place allows pets for a fee of $100 for up to 6 nights and $200 plus an additional cleaning fee for 7 to 30 nights. Pets must be 50 pounds or less each, with a maximum of 2 pets for a total of 75 pounds.

Service animals don’t have to abide by any of these restrictions.

Food and Beverages

Every day, on one of the tables across from reception in the main hall, there was some sort of dispenser with cucumber- or fruit-infused water. One day — the hottest — there was lemonade, which was so refreshing after the hot, humid 20-minute walk in the midday Florida sun.

Breakfast Bar

The breakfast bar, which was open from 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. on weekdays and 7 to 10 a.m. on weekends, was across the entry hall from the hotel lounge.

Most mornings we were there, it was absolutely packed with ravenous gangs of kids and their increasingly exhausted-looking parents. Despite that, the staff did a commendable job keeping everything continuously well-stocked and tables clear and clean as soon as they opened up.

The breakfast buffet had all the greatest hits of a kitchen and larder for an American family with 2.5 kids, including various milks (including chocolate), various juices (including apple, orange, and grapefruit), cereal, and cereal toppings.

Oh, there were so many toppings!

And, yes, there were more carbs in the breadbox, which was next to a conveyor belt-style toaster. On the first day, however, there were no tongs for the breadbox, forcing people to stick their hands in the drawers to get their bread out. It was a rare lapse for the kitchen staff, but the tongs were there the next day and all successive days.

An island held the usual condiments and always included a basket of ripe oranges (this was Florida, after all) and a bowl of bananas.

The buffet started off with the usual midtier hotel breakfast fare: breakfast sausages, small pancakes, and wedge-shaped hash brown patties.

But the hotel surprised me a couple of days later by actually switching up the offerings. Toward the end of our stay, the hot breakfast included French toast sticks, scrambled eggs, and home fries.

I usually avoid fruit salads at hotels, not because I hate fruit, but because chain fruit salads typically bulk themselves up with melon chunks. Melon chunks, the filler material of fruits, the Styrofoam nuggets in the box with your online purchase shipment. If fruit salad were a speech, chunks of underripe melon and cantaloupe would be the words “like” and “literally.”

Anyway, this Hyatt Place’s fruit salad actually had more pineapple than honeydew, and the melon chunks were actually ripe and soft instead of being unripe and having the consistency of packing foam.

The cold buffet also always had yogurt and some sort of fruit compote, which were perfect for mornings where waffles replaced the pancakes.

From Friday to Sunday, when the event at the convention center was in full swing and the hotel was brimming with families with kids, the plates and bowls were paper and the cutlery plastic. This seemed like a practical choice.

Once most of the kids left, the ceramic dishware and metal cutlery came out.

The bottom line is that we had enough of a variety of hearty foods that were more than enough to keep us all running through long, active days, and we had that every morning.

I came to realize that these filling, energy-packed breakfasts were one of the biggest keys to our successful weeklong trip to Orlando. They were easily the facet of the Hyatt Place that we appreciated the most, by far.

Market

Next to the reception desk was a small cul-de-sac that served as the 24/7 market. It sold snacks, soft drinks, frozen meals, confections, and other items.

We bought pizzas a couple of times to microwave in our room on nights when it was too late to find anything else, like the night we first arrived. It was handy to have it here in a pinch, but we mostly avoided it.

Hot Tip:

For lunches in and around the convention center, I mostly used my usual go-to credit card, the Chase Sapphire Reserve^®, which earns 3x points on dining purchases.

Placery

The hotel’s sit-down restaurant was closed for renovations, but if I had to give a single-word description summing up my takeaway impressions of what I managed to see, it would be: plasticky.

According to hotel staff, the Placery has reopened since our visit. It’s open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Service

The service was generally friendly and efficient. The late-night check-in clerk was helpful and more than merely pleasant, considering the circumstances. Throughout the week, the staff was always ready to help out with directions and estimate how long it’d take to walk or drive here or there.

The breakfast staff did an admirable job keeping the buffet continuously stocked and tables clean under the days-long onslaught of the plague of locusts that was dozens and dozens of hungry schoolchildren, all while somehow managing to keep smiling.

Final Thoughts

We came to Orlando with a mission, and having a fancy resort stay with lots of creature comforts and amenities wasn’t even anywhere near that mission’s to-do list. Instead, we were looking for a clean hotel with free breakfast and a pool that was walkable to the convention center and reasonably convenient to the Orlando theme parks.

Though the room itself could’ve been more tidily built, the breakfast was solid and got us through the week. Overall, the Hyatt Place Orlando/I-Drive/Convention Center proved to be a hotel that did the job promised and didn’t need to pretend to have ambitions beyond that.