other resort
Holiday Inn Orlando — Disney Springs Area
The short answer
The most straightforward hotel on Hotel Plaza Boulevard: 357-square-foot rooms, a forgettable pool, and beds a reviewer who has stayed everywhere on the strip rates better than they need to be. A $39 resort fee plus 12.5% tax, parking from $27, and 30-minute early theme park entry.
How you get to the parks
- Busto every park, from every resort
- Wheelchair or ECVhow each bus, monorail, Skyliner and boat boards
Routes as Disney publishes them, read Sep 2026.
How long it really takes to get to each park
We haven’t timed this resort yet. A door-to-gate time goes here once we have walked the route with a stopwatch at least five times — a single reading hides the variation that actually makes people miss a breakfast reservation. How we measure.
What it costs
Who it’s right for
Budget-conscious guests who find a genuinely low nightly rate here and will not use a pool. Disney Springs-focused trips. Anyone who wants more floor space than a Disney value room without paying moderate prices. IHG One Rewards members. And guests with a car, who can ignore the hourly shuttle.
Who it’s wrong for
Anyone comparing headline rates, because the resort fee and tiered parking add roughly $70 a night. Families who want a resort pool — its own reviewers call this one forgettable. Guests without a car on a park-heavy schedule. And anyone with an oversized vehicle, where parking jumps to about $50 a night.
Is it worth the money?
As a place to sleep near Disney Springs at the lower end of Hotel Plaza Boulevard pricing, yes. 357 square feet beats a Disney value room by nearly a hundred square feet, the beds are well reviewed, and you still get 30 minutes of early theme park entry.
What undermines it is the total. At about $109 plus a $39 resort fee plus $27 parking you are near $175 before tax — past a Disney value resort, and close to a Disney moderate on a discount. At that point you are paying more for a hotel with an hourly shuttle, no theming and a pool its own reviewers call forgettable.
So it works at a low headline rate and stops working quickly as that rate rises. Check the Drury Plaza before booking: no resort fee and two included meals usually beats this on total cost.
What the rooms are actually like
Standard rooms are 357 square feet with two queens or a king — larger than a Disney value room at 260 and slightly smaller than a Disney moderate at 314. That comparison is the reason to consider this hotel at all.
Disney Tourist Blog, which has stayed across the strip, is lukewarm and specific: the rooms are "nothing special", the pool "fairly forgettable", and the one thing singled out for praise is "the comfort of the bedding, which is far better than it has any business being at a Holiday Inn". That is a fair summary — a clean, roomy, unremarkable hotel with good beds.
Sleeps up to 4, not counting infants — the table below says which room that takes.
Which room should you request?
On Hotel Plaza Boulevard inside Walt Disney World, a short walk from Disney Springs. As with every hotel on this road, no theme park is walkable.
Transport is the shared hourly bus shuttle to all four parks. Parking is tiered and worth reading before you book: about $27 for standard, $31 for preferred and $50 a night for oversized vehicles, on top of the resort fee.
What are the pools like?
- Outdoor pool
What has changed recently?
The public areas and dining were refreshed, which is what moved this hotel out of the bottom of most rankings of the strip. The charges have moved the other way: the resort fee is now about $39 plus 12.5% tax, and parking has been split into standard at roughly $27, preferred at $31 and oversized at $50. Price the parking tier you actually need before comparing with neighbours.
Working from here
workable
357 square feet is more room to work in than a Disney value gives you, and there is a desk. Wifi comes with the resort fee. The lobby was refreshed and has seating. What is missing is anywhere with character to work from — this is a functional hotel and the change of scene is the walk to Disney Springs, which is genuinely useful.
Common questions
- How big are the rooms?
- 357 square feet, which is the only sourced room size on Hotel Plaza Boulevard. For comparison a Disney value room is about 260 square feet and a Disney moderate about 314, so this is more space than either — and that, rather than the pool or the theming, is the reason to consider it.
- What does it actually cost per night?
- Add roughly $70 to the headline rate. The resort fee is about $39 plus 12.5% tax, and self-parking is about $27 standard, $31 preferred or $50 for an oversized vehicle. A $109 room is realistically $175 before tax if you drive, which puts it past a Disney value resort.
- Is the pool any good?
- Not especially. Disney Tourist Blog, which has stayed across the strip, calls it "fairly forgettable" — and singles out the bedding as the hotel's real strength, "far better than it has any business being at a Holiday Inn". If the pool matters, the Buena Vista Palace's beach-entry pool and float lagoon is the one on this road.
- Do you get early theme park entry here?
- Yes — 30 minutes at any of the four theme parks, every day, the same as Disney's own resort guests, because this is an Official Walt Disney World Hotel on Disney property. There is also an hourly bus shuttle to all four parks. You do not get the Disney Dining Plan.
What it looks like
Illustration, not a photograph of this resort — a real one is on our shot list.
Sources
- IHG — official page for Holiday Inn Orlando, Disney Springs Area — official source · checked
- Holiday Inn Orlando Disney Springs — official FAQ (resort fee $39 plus 12.5% tax; parking $27 standard, $31 preferred, $50 oversized) — official source · checked
- Holiday Inn Orlando Disney Springs — 2 Queens Standard View room page (357 square feet) — official source · checked
- Disney Tourist Blog — Disney Springs hotel rankings (firsthand: rooms "nothing special", pool "fairly forgettable", bedding "far better than it has any business being at a Holiday Inn") — Melissa was there · checked
- Disney Springs Resort Area Hotels — official consortium site (30 minutes Early Theme Park Entry daily, hourly shuttle) — official source · checked
- MouseSavers — 2026 Walt Disney World room rates and season dates — reported by · checked