Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista hotel is near Walt Disney World, offering shuttles to the theme parks. The hotel is a short drive away from Disney Springs and the rest of WDW and a strong off-site option for those looking for a value. Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista offers suite rooms that can be regularly found under $200. In this post, we’ll review the hotel’s rooms, amenities, location and value, discussing whether it’s a viable place to stay for a trip to Disney World.

Staying on-site at Walt Disney World has always been our preference. We love the different hotel themes, not having to worry about a rental car once on-site, the early (and sometimes late) hour perks and everything else that comes with staying at a WDW hotel. But there’s a plethora of other hotels sitting right next to the resort that can fill a void price wise or for a specific room type that you’re looking for.

Oftentimes when we visit Walt Disney World, we are looking for a bigger room because Melissa and I work at different hours of the day. She gets up with the sun and I stay up much later than her. Having a separate space for work rather than a conventional hotel room seemed like a good idea so we set out to find one that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. That led us to Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista.

Obviously, our example is work focused but this could also go for families looking for space and to save a few bucks. Art of Animation (and a few other on-site Disney World hotels) have family suites but they are expensive! The rooms at this Embassy Suites can easily fit 5 or 6 people. Let’s take a look at them!

Rooms

This is the view of the room from the door. The green color scheme lasts throughout the room and works well enough, although all of the different shades aren’t my favorite. The couch pulls out into a full-sized bed if you need more sleeping options.

That front room also includes a TV and a desk, which was a nice enough workspace.

This sink and other in-room amenities are in the corner of that front room. There’s a coffee maker, microwave and mini fridge there.

In between the front room and the bedroom is the bathroom. Technically, it’s attached to that front space but not a big distraction from either.

Like the rest of the room, everything in here looks solid but not spectacular. The room doesn’t feel dated but isn’t overly memorable either.

Here is the bedroom portion, with 2 queen beds. There’s also a 1 king bed suite option. This space looks like a standard hotel room and is pretty simplistic in design. The mattresses were comfortable, on the cushier side of things.

There’s a needed window as well as a TV, dresser and closet. I liked this room more than the front portion in terms of design but both are pretty generic hotel rooms.

Our first time at the hotel the room was clean and nice enough. Sadly, this wasn’t the case the second time around and has soured our opinion. For what it’s worth, the first time we stayed here we were inside of the tower and the second time our room seemed older and was out by the pool. All of these photos are from the first stay.

While they may be generic, the size of the room is hard to ignore. Rooms range from 470-490 square feet. Having a space for 6 different people that costs less than $200 is hard to ignore if you’re doing Disney World on a budget. We were pleased with the room as it fit our needs especially well.

Location

As I mentioned, we always prefer staying on-site at Walt Disney World. It just makes things easier from a convenience standpoint, along with the perks included. But if you have a rental car then staying at Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista is pretty easy.

I circled the hotel in the top right of this screenshot. Disney Springs is close to the hotel, within 3 miles. Assuming traffic isn’t bad then getting there within 10 minutes is easy!

The theme parks are a little farther and cost some money to park in unless you have an annual pass. If you do have free parking, then staying off-site becomes an even better value! We made it to Epcot in about 15 minutes from the hotel and, all in all, found it pretty easy to get around.

The hotel does offer a shuttle to different theme parks, you can see the schedule here. This would suffice to get to the parks and then using Disney transportation once within the bubble. I used the transportation a time or two and it was fine but a generally crowded experience. A Lyft is a good option and costs between 10 and 20 dollars depending on where you’re going on property. Getting to Universal was roughly $20, as well.

I wouldn’t call location an asset for the Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista. There are hotels much closer, both on-site and off-site. But the location is close enough to work, especially if you get free parking or don’t mind the transportation options at the hotel.

Amenities

Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista has more than just room size going for it though. A complimentary made-to-order breakfast is offered, including omelets and Mickey Waffles. As far as continental breakfasts go, this is a really good one. There’s also an ‘evening reception’ that includes a few drink tickets and light snacks. Both of these are served in the same place, in the middle of the spacious ground floor. We thought both were really well done and a step above other Embassy Suites locations we’ve visited.

Outside of the complimentary options, there’s also an ice cream and pizza window, a coffee (Starbucks) shop, a pool bar, and a full restaurant. All of these locations looked nice and gave guests plenty of options if they wanted a resort day.

Speaking of a resort day, the pool was a decent size and had an inside portion in case of a Floridian downpour. There was ample seating around the area and a few cabanas.

There was this nice water playground for the younger swimmers. Complete with a pool bar, I thought the hotel used the outside space well. Tucked off to the side of the hotel, there’s a tennis, basketball and sand volleyball court.

Back inside, there’s a gift shop with some Disney and vacation trinkets, as well as essentials if you forgot anything at home. There’s also a light Disney theme in the decor that is more pigeonholed than anything but it’s a small touch that guests might enjoy!

An exercise room and a few games are also inside of the hotel.

The list of amenities at this hotel is really strong, on par (if not better) than the Disney World value resorts. But the downside here is that the Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista is not included in the hotels that get Early Theme Park Entry inside of the parks. There are some hotels right by this one that are included but not this spot.

Value

Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista prices are under $200 regularly and can even be found for under $150 on occasion. Despite not being on-site and not included in the Early Entry perk, that’s a great value if you’re looking for a larger room size and a great list of amenities.

We’ve stayed at a few other off-site hotels at Disney World and this hotel is the first one where we’ve come back to. Part of that is because of how it fits into our work schedules but the same could be said for larger groups or anyone looking for a more spacious hotel room. On top of that, having a decent breakfast included as well as a good spot in relation to Disney Springs made for some nice resort days followed by a night out. We are hoping that the room’s lack of cleanliness on our second visit was a one off, but I did knock the overall rating down half a point because of it. Even so, if you can find this hotel for under $200 then it’s worth comparing to the on-site options available. If it’s around $130/night then we recommend Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista!

Overall Rating – 7.5/10

Have you stayed at Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista? Let us know your thoughts or any questions you might have in the comments below. Planning a trip to Walt Disney World? Check out our Disney World Trip Planning Guide to help you out. Looking for discount tickets? Check out this site! If you enjoy what you are reading here on Wandering in Disney please share this post with your friends, as well as like our social media pages. You can also subscribe to the blog via WordPress or email. All of those links are on the right side of this page. Thank you for reading, we really appreciate it!