I stayed at this hotel since I was going to Universal and the shuttle service was convenient and great. However, the hotel was bleh. The hallways smelled like smelled like smoke and the rooms where very dark. I must admit that the free breakfast was nice since it included frozen donuts and eggs/waffles. Service was also decent. But the appearance and smell took away from the experience a lot.

The room was clean, the staff was friendly and the location is excellent!

I can't really add more than that...

I picked this hotel because it is close to Universal Studios. It was around $5.00 by taxi to get to the parks or back to the hotel in the evenings.

The hotel will call a car for you if you need a ride, but it's a flat rate of $7.00, so I recommend calling a taxi yourself if you want to save a couple bucks.

They do offer a free shuttle in the morning, but it's small and filled up before I could get on the one morning I tried...

They offer free wifi in the rooms and the lobby.

The staff was great. I had a late flight out of Orlando and they kept my bags in the office so I could spend a few hours at Universal in the morning...

I have 2 more reservations... one in October and one in January... can't wait to go back!

The staff there was pretty rude, unprofessional & poor attitude.
If you are looking for a good service, this is not a good place to be in. The room & hallway smell like cigarette.
Find a better hotel with much better customer service, it will be worth it.

Never ever stay at this place anymore.
Don't recommend it at all.

After checking numerous hotels and websites and ratings, I finally chose Best Western. I was checking out a college for my daughter in Downtown Orlando with a stop at Epcot, so I chose a hotel midway between both destinations. Check in and out where no problem. We ate at the continental breakfast every morning. The only down side was the same menu every morning. We only had bananas on the first day. The only thing that changed was the muffins. So if you are not looking for a large selection it was fine. Our room was clean and comfortable and up to date. My only complaint was the lighting in the room. It was not very good for reading. Also we did not have a remote and we did not discover it until about 8 pm. The front desk only had one person on staff, so my daughter went down twice to try and get a working remote without any success. They never did follow up to get us a working remote and we came back too late to ask.
As far as the surrounding area, the hotel is behind a strip mall with a Japanese, Chinese, Pub and Golden Correl restaurant, Starbucks and Walgreens. So it was great for the first night when you are tired and do not want to go far to eat. We were around the corner from Universal and about 2 miles from International Drive.
We found a great affordable place to eat at Sweet Tomatoes on the corner of Kirkland and International Drive. All you can eat salad, soups, pasta and dessert for until $10. Everything is homemade.