I remember the first time I saw this, i was like "Who asked for something that makes sliced egg come out of Figment’s belly?
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Conrad Orland Wellness Room Wrap Up
As I mentioned at the start of our trip, we were lucky enough to be upgraded to a Wellness Room when checking in last week. I did not know these existed, nor did I expect to be given anything other than a better room view if we were very lucky.
It turned out that these rooms have to be a pretty rare upgrade - there are only FOUR wellness rooms in the hotel!
And, I have to say - the best possible upgrade we could have been given. My DW and DD alone were over the moon with the garden, plunge pools, and spa, and DS and I were not that far behind in loving it.
The garden has tranquil music playing and lots of shade. Our lanai that led to the garden was fairly spacious and the music floated in there nicely. DD and I spent time one night sitting there and watching an overhead lightning show in the clouds. Was wonderful.
The spa workers were extremely nice and offered to give us all tours and help us with lockers etc. One took a liking to my girls and even came over to me once to tell me how delightful my wife is. 
Returning from the spa and garden you had to badge in both ways enter our lanai.
| If you were lucky, you might even catch our DS having a zen moment with a bag of dill pickle potato chips and the Conrad bunny. |
For a different perspective - when up on the main (3rd) floor of the hotel where the spa and hotel entrance is, if you walk past the spa door there is a door and hallway that leads to the amazing fitness center (which, BTW has the BEST lemon and tea tree cotton facial cloths kept cool in the fridge for after your workout…) you look over the private garden and the wellness rooms (on the right in this photo.)
The wellness rooms themselves also contain several upgrades - a smart mattress you can control with an app, special sheets and a selection of pillows. (The beds were terrific. Two of the three pillow types choices were weird and surprisingly dense and heavy.)
Here’s the full rundown on those extras:
Within the garden were various places to just sit and relax, The inside the spa was amazingly beautiful - with lemon cucumber and ginger teas, granola bars, books and places to relax.
On either side of that staircase were men’s and women’s lockers, with individual showers with combo rain showerheads and handheld massage jets. There was also a large aromatherapy shower that had a whole light and scent show at the push of a button.
We had access to all of this - which was very nice, since we could all shower at the same time in our own pods! That sure makes getting ready to go out more efficient - and everyone loved the whole experience of the room and surroundings.
The Conrad Orlando IG has a video going over some things in these rooms as well…
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This place is amazing!
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Quick report on the bead bracelet room key: was very fun and helpful to not have to worry about the usual “where did I drop that room key” shenanigans that eventually happens to all of us.
It is only used for room entry (and the spa when you are in a wellness room) and not charging.
Only issue was - they need some better quality control on the string. When we checked in, DW’s was tighter than the rest of ours and we had trouble readjusting it for her. Mine kept unravelling!
They are designed to be used in the pool and lagoon etc, but I think that caused the center slide-y section to expand and contract too much.
Good news is the desk will replace them any time you need to - and I did THREE times! Even so: thumbs up, they are fun and cool looking and really give you that “I’m on vacation” feel. 
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That’s really pretty.
Quick follow up: Highly recommend the Palm, was really fun!
Next time we’re going to have to try an early tee time and play the full course.
Thing I learned from one of the local fellows we played with: you can book last minute play on these courses using GolfNow - he said he finished up work and grabbed the 5:50pm tee time at the Palm for something like $20! I have to look into that.
Pro Shop was very nice - definitely a nice selection of things at the prices you’d expect a Disney golf shop to have. 
With the Sunset 9 here you didn’t hit the snack bar for your drinks (no snack anymore) - you just grab a pair of drinks from the cooler in the shop. No beer - but with the heat we had I was focusing on electrolytes anyway.
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Good to know! I also know there is a fair amount of walk-up availability if you’re super flexible. But this is helpful when the site might not show anything — especially for that price!!!
Well that is a demerit. I do enjoy a couple of ice cold beers while golfing!
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Whenever we come back from a trip, my family starts playing the “1 week ago RIGHT NOW we were…” game.
Here’s my 1 week ago RIGHT NOW photos…
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Wish you were back there? Beautiful family, @JJT !
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One week ago that table was off center.
In case you weren’t aware 
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Funny thing we noticed when at the Conrad Orlando last week - even though the place has been open for at least 18 months now - The Google still has not updated their maps or satellite images completely.
The streets are all in place - but there’s no lagoon or any new buildings showing.
Weirdly, they did add locations for the hotel itself and some of the restaurants on Evermore Property - but several don’t coincide with where they actually are.
Ceiba, for example is located on the top floor of the Conrad - yet Google Maps thinks it is way on the other side of the resort.
Locations were also weird for our family - on vacation we’re all shared up so we can find each other, especially on a resort hangout trip when we often split up to do different things. It was fairly impossible to tell if one of us was at the pool, lagoon, or fitness center, because Google was very inconsistent with dropping pins on the map. (More than can be attributed to different phones pinging at different intervals.)
Google Maps
Funnily enough, Apple Maps has done updating to show the actual resort footprint - but has a lot less details and incomplete streets and missing many buildings on the regular street map as well.
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Wait, isn’t that the new Duneland?
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Moving DD into her college dorm this weekend, we’ve booked a local hotel room in case we just want to crash and sleep over instead of turning around and taking 5 hour drive home the same day.
While I remembered earlier this year to book a room for Parent’s Weekend up there way in advance - I completely forgot about doing so for this weekend until about a month ago.
Local places were all booked, but I snagged a room at a Hampton about 30 minutes away for a relatively decent 34K Hilton points. We’ve stayed there before and is a nice location, but would like to avoid adding another hour drive time on the trip, so I kept an eye out and snagged another Hilton location very nearby for a slightly higher points price.
Would be a new hotel for us to try - but has some mixed reviews: a bunch of good reviews and a decent report from a friend who has stayed there a few times now - also some really bad TripAdvisor reviews I’m not sure are based in reality or not.
Since there are some other locations we like better for access to food and better parking, I continue to watch to see if anyone drops a room at those. Looks like the answer is no - AND the hotels are really ratcheting the prices up. The hotel we are staying at is now charging $587/night before tax. Which is about 3x more than it should be for an upstate location, but that’s how it works around college move in dates.
What struck me funny is one of the other locations we’ve used does have a points room available - for 1,000 MORE points than the 5-star Conrad Orlando.
But, man - that free Hampton breakfast and them cook your own waffles (after you stand in line.)
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I think they know they have you over a barrel on pricing for the big college weekends!
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Insane!
I have family in vestal/binghamton and have been up there at (very) varying levels of frequency since I was born! I’ve stayed at the courtyard a fair amount and it’s never been that cheap, but I have to imagine college weekends they really dial it up, too! Hope your DD’s move-in and start go well!
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