What we liked
- Suites are enormous, with full kitchens, washer and dryer and a screened balcony, which makes a real difference on longer family stays.
- Lake Austin, the nature preserve and the quieter Springs Pools give you a genuine break from theme park intensity.
What we didn't
- The resort fee of $45 to $50 plus tax per night, and paid parking on top, mean the headline rate isn't the final figure.
- Prices at the on site market are high, and the better value restaurants are a ten minute drive away.
In 2025, Orlando welcomed more than 933,000 UK travellers, and it isn’t hard to see why.
As the British evenings close in, Florida’s warmth, its theme parks and its increasingly interesting dining scene make a compelling case. Yet where you base yourself matters more than most people realise. Stay too close to the parks and the holiday becomes one long queue. Stay too far and you lose half a day to the road.
The Grove Resort & Water Park Orlando answers that neatly. Set on 106 acres along the shores of Lake Austin, with a nature preserve wrapped around it, the resort sits around six miles from Walt Disney World, close enough for an easy morning run to the gates, far enough that the pace drops the moment you turn into the drive. It is a Walt Disney World Good Neighbor Hotel, and daily transportation runs to Disney, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld, which spares you both the hire car and the car park queue.
The accommodation is what sets it apart. There are 878 suites across 16 interconnected buildings, residential in style rather than hotel rooms. Each has a full kitchen, a separate living and dining area, a full size washer and dryer and a screened balcony. Two bedroom suites run from around 1,265 to 1,434 square feet, roughly four times the size of an average hotel room, which turns a family holiday from an endurance test into something genuinely relaxing. Kitchens are properly equipped, down to the colander and the pizza cutter. Standard suites look over landscaped grounds or the courtyard fountain, while superior ones face Lake Austin, the pools or the water park.
The heart of the resort is Surfari Water Park, included for every registered guest, which in Orlando feels like a small miracle. There’s a FlowRider Double surf simulator, available for a fee, dual water slides, a lazy river of nearly 700 feet and a zero entry pool that suits toddlers and grandparents equally well. Quieter days belong to The Springs Pools, where three full size pools, an oversized hot tub, a children’s splash zone and private cabanas sit in a calm lakefront setting.
Lake Austin gives The Grove something most Orlando resorts cannot match. Take out a kayak or a swan boat, join a guided pontoon tour, or simply fish from the pier as the light softens. After days of rides and crowds, an hour on a still lake is exactly the correction the holiday needs. Elsewhere there’s the Escape Spa, a fitness centre open around the clock, a children’s activity centre and an arcade with glow in the dark mini golf.
Dining is built around the way families actually eat. Valencia Restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, The Springs Bar & Grill handles poolside plates with live acoustic music on the patio, and Longboard Bar & Grill keeps the water park supplied. Alfresco Market is the quiet hero, stocking groceries and coffee and turning out takeaway pizza for the evenings when nobody can face going out again.
What lingers about The Grove is the balance it strikes. Come back in the late afternoon, put the washing on, let the children loose on the lazy river and take a drink out to the balcony as the sun drops behind the preserve. The parks will still be there tomorrow.
Address: 14501 Grove Resort Avenue, Winter Garden, FL 34787, around 40 minutes from Orlando International Airport.
One liner thought: The rare Orlando resort you’d happily spend a day at without ever visiting a park.
How we review
Travelling for Business pays for the rooms, flights and products we review unless we explicitly say otherwise. We never accept paid reviews or gifted stays in exchange for coverage.
