Guest Review of the Nickelodeon Hotel by Julie
From Julie: Nickelodeon Hotel is worse than a used car lot salesman. Our weekend was during the Kids’ Choice Awards, so the rates were more than doubled. Yet, when it comes to giving your kids a memory to treasure, we all know it is “priceless.”
Check In
The lobby (if you want to call it that) was small, over-crowded, had a line about 40 people long, and its appearance was nothing special…almost like walking into a rental car shop. We reserved and paid for a specific room theme with two twin beds (as one of our children is an ER visit waiting to happen and would most certainly do various dives from the top bunk). We DID NOT get [the ones] we wanted/booked, and we ended up with bunk beds.
Rooms
A cool mural in the kids room, but that was it. The rest of the decor reminded me of a cheap hotel decorated in the early nineties. The color scheme was even inconsistent. For the amount of money this place profits, an investment into the themes would make it so much more worth the hundreds of dollars you spend to stay here.
Kids Eat Free - Wrong
They should print KIDS UNDER 5 EAT FREE ONLY AT CERTAIN RESTAURANTS AT CERTAIN TIMES AND ONLY FOR SMALL FAMILIES…I wonder if they also base this on the lunar phases as well. It is a major misleading claim. They only eat free at the cheapo restaurants. So, if you want to have a semi-nice dinner, Nickelodeon Hotel obviously feels the only foods the kids should receive for free are those that have made a lot of American children overweight: hot dogs, fries, hamburgers, and peanut butter and jelly (which is actually a pre-made one: Smuckers Uncrustables)
The Mall
It is really that of a typical American food court, too little space to accommodate the people, too little space in the walkways - so you are constantly bumped into, shoved, and stepped on. The mall offers several restaurants, but none of them have a bathroom in them. You have to walk across the mall, through the swarms or families and random wandering kids to the only bathroom that has 3 stalls.
Grocery Mart
Everyone knows and expects the marts to be over-priced. What blew me away was the limited amount of sundries offered (when most rooms have a mini-kitchen) and the clincher: SWIM DIAPERS….they are mandatory for kids under 4. The mart sells one diaper at a time for $6.00 plus tax. We opted to be rebellious and put our son in just his bathing suit.Activities
All activities have additional charges that apply. Of course, the hotel refuses to list those fees for the guests. Pretty sneaky…you get your children excited to do something and have to wait for the bomb of inflated fees to hit you on the spot in front of your kids…so you feel obligated to pay for this so not to disappoint your kids, or feel like a cheap skate. Many of the activities overlap as well, so you really don’t have as many activities to chose from.
Activities Requiring Reservations
Apparently the resort (if you want to be nice to call them such) is understaffed as the events requiring reservations have extremely limited space. We were not able to participate in 3 activities that our children wanted to see and lured us into coming here.
Bottom Line
We felt this was a scam. We felt a lot of information was withheld from the guests intentionally in fear of losing business. The website listed so many really cool things that just don’t exist or are very distorted in reality. Our expectations were not met and I feel very taken advantage of. We spent a lot of money to come here - more than we can afford, and I feel I have misled our family based on false advertising on the websites.It is over-crowded, and the lack of nightly QUIET TIME just added to our frustration. I would not recommend this to anyone I know…especially for the rate we paid, $510 a night.
