Balmoral Resort Private Pool Homes & Townhomes in Haines City, FL

Reviewed as a Virgin Holidays UK Guest. We paid for location and Welcome pack, both were perfect. Close to clubhouse and lake view plus enough Tea, Coffee, Milk, Bread, Cereal, Ham, Eggs, Jam, Butter to survive first night and breakfast next day. Booked a 3 bed, allocated a 4 bed house. Perfect, cleaned very well, plus good midweek clean. Towels provided for use at your villa pool. Clubhouse and pool area very nice and good. For UK readers, the Appetizers on the menu can feed 2 very well, they are HUGE!! Yes it's outside the 'normal' Orlando tourist area, BUT it's only 9 miles South along the 27 from the I4. We averaged 30-35 minutes travel time from the resort to the Disney resort area such as EPCOT. Ultimately the question is- Would I stay here again ? MOST DEFINITELY.

We had a fabulous Four Bed villa, very spacious, modern and clean. All essentials supplied including hairdryer, towels, pool towels and WIFI. Our pool over looked a lake. We enjoyed sitting outside for breakfast watching the wildlife, gators, sandhill cranes and herons. Conveniently located on US27. Walmart and Manny's restaurant are close by.(Highly recommend Manny's) Publix is very close, take a left at the rear exit of Balmoral, then a right turn, 2 minutes by car. If visiting the parks, allow plenty of time, especially during rush hour, as the I-4 gets very busy. Particulary from Champions Gate to Celebration. Would I recommend Balmoral Villas, Yes most definitely, great place.

The resort is really nice! The kids as well as the grownups really enjoyed the pool/water park. Everything in the house appeared to be nice, new and clean. On our first night my daughter had an ant crawling on her( we thought nothing of it). The following morning when I went to wake up my kids my daughter had ants all over her bed and a few crawling on her. When I called the front desk the lady assured me that engineering would come and spray the area and later that afternoon pest control would spray the entire house. Long story short ants were still all over the house when we returned from a day out. The only ant free space was the area that the engineering sprayed in the children's room. We had to go buy our own Ant spray and we literally killed ants everyday all day during our stay at Balmoral. The night before we left we discovered that ants had invaded our suitcases so we had to wash/clean every single item that belonged to us to ensure that we didn't take the ants home with us. I called the front desk upon my discovery and was told that there was no manager on duty but she was emailing the manager as I told her the situation and someone would be contacting me first thing in the morning.Shortly after the conversation with the front desk agent ,engineering showed up at our door asking to take pictures of the ants. After taking pictures in 3 separate rooms he said that was more than enough pics. Upon my checkout, I was told that a manager would contact me after the departure inspection. It is now 3 days later and no one has contacted me.

We stayed at Balmoral last year 2018 and had such an awesome experience that we recommended it for a Mini family reunion this year. Balmoral met our expectations again and all of our family members had a great time! Balmoral Resort is definitely our family favorite place to stay when visiting the Orlando area. Our home was clean, contemporary and we enjoyed having a private pool. The kids enjoyed the water park and game room! My ONLY complaint and its just a personal one is that the beds are a bit uncomfortable, very hard but I made it work.

It’s interesting that when you call the Balmoral Resort because they say something about being “the gold standard” in terms of resorts. They also label themselves on AirBnB as a “luxury” resort. Perhaps my expectation of “luxury” or “gold standard” does not align with their definition? We booked a 4br/4.5bath house for 5 nights in early July. Check-in is 4pm, so we arrived at our house around 4:30pm in 95 degree weather and discovered that our house code did not work. Not a great sign of things to come. I called Guest Relations and my husband walked around the back to see if there was another way to get in. Wouldn’t you know it, the back door was unlocked? The girl at guest relations said they’d dispatch maintenance immediately to our home to reconfigure the lock. After we unloaded and unpacked, my husband and I drove to the clubhouse to get registered. No maintenance yet. At registration, I told the receptionist that no one had come yet, and she got on the phone to get a hold of maintenance. It took about 10 minutes before she was able to get a hold of someone. Eventually, someone showed up to fix the lock. The home itself was decent sized. Our group had four adults and three kids, so there were plenty of bedrooms for us. The dining area seated six, but we ate mostly at the counter because it was sizable and worked great for cooking and eating. The kitchen itself was also lovely - SS appliances (electric 5-burner stove), small pantry, plenty of dinnerware, cups and mugs… However…the kitchen seemed to be stocked for eating but not necessarily for cooking. The small appliances included a regular coffee maker (no filters available, so bring your own), a 4-slice toaster, and a blender (probably a Proctor-Silo set of some sort from a retail store). There was a subpar knife set and very limited set of cooking utensils - a ladle, a large fork, a large serving spoon and a spatula, wine opener, and can opener... There were four pots/pans - one fry pan, two sauce pans, and a dutch oven. There was also a large stock pot and a tea kettle. The can opener handle was broken, and because there were no tongs, I cooked bacon and sausages with a fork. And because there was only one fry pan, it took an hour to cook bacon, sausage, and eggs for breakfast! The kitchen towels were also quite lacking - both for wiping your hands and for cleaning. The pool was lovely, (they do provide pool towels which is great), and having a half bath right by the back door was incredibly convenient, but there needed to be more floor towels or mats to place near the back doors to help with tracking in water. Even the kitchen needed an additional towel or mat for the floor. We had a little bit of a pest control problem as well - ants in particular. There were a few noticeable mounds in the back near the back door, and by the end of our first day there, they were finding their way inside towards our food and trashcan. For a luxury resort, this receptacle could have been a bit nicer — perhaps with a step to open the lid (it’s one of those you have to use your hands to open the lid to deposit your trash). Nonetheless, the ants found their way into the trash bin. I called Guest Relations, and they sent someone out within an hour to ameliorate the problem. We still had ants for the rest of the week (particularly in the pantry), but it was not as severe as before. We also had some issues with the air conditioning on our first night. One of the perks of a resort is 24-hours guest services and maintenance. After a quick call, we were able to get someone to the home to figure out the problem: a very old filter. Maintenance somehow mismanaged their upkeep of the home, and the guy who came by replaced the filter. That changed the temperature drastically! There is Wifi available, but it’s a little frustrating with it cutting in and out. The connection just wasn’t very consistent. All of the TVs are Smart, but if you want to connect to your streaming accounts, the connection will affect the quality of your streaming. Midway through the week, a storm passed by and the house experienced a power surge in certain areas. The storm fried the garage opener, the wifi router, and two of the televisions in two of the upstairs en suites. The router was replaced quickly because of my husband’s need to get on line for work, but unfortunately, it only reconnected TV. We were unable to get online for the remainder of our stay. When you're traveling on vacation for an extended period of time, you want to be comfortable. You want where you're staying to have everything you need and more. Often times, when you're renting an entire home (especially here in Florida), it's owned by someone. As a result, the owners go to great lengths to ensure the home has everything they need when they're using it. Thus, you have a lot to work with. The Balmoral Resort homes are not privately owned, and, as a result, were a bit disappointing to me despite their label as a "luxury resort". For what we paid to stay here, there are comparable homes in the vicinity that might feel more homey. You might not have a water park, but hey - we used it once while we were there. We're from the Atlanta area and travel to FL quite a bit, but this was not my favorite home away from home.