Common Orlando Lodge has shared a primary have a look at Loews Helios Grand Lodge, a 500-room luxurious in-park lodge overlooking Epic Universe, their 3rd theme park in Florida that opens in 2025. This sneak peek stocks thought artwork & information about visitor rooms, eating places, retail and the whole lot else within the upcoming lodging–together with how perks and tiers are converting with the coming of this new belongings.
Epic Universe is Common Orlando Lodge’s 3rd theme park, simply down the street from Common Studios Florida and Islands of Journey, in addition to Volcano Bay Water Park. As soon as totally constructed out, the brand new theme park campus would necessarily double Common Orlando Lodge’s present footprint. It received’t be that massive in 2025–that construct out is years, if no longer a long time, down the street.
Epic Universe will delivery visitors to expansive worlds that includes greater than 50 studies that come with points of interest, leisure, eating and buying groceries to create an unforgettable journey positioned at Common Orlando Lodge. For a large image assessment of all of the park, see our Common’s Epic Universe Preview, which unveiled the entire lands and a lot more. In opposition to that backdrop, let’s introduce Common Helios Grand Lodge, a Loews Lodge…
Helios Grand Lodge is dropped at lifestyles through the award-winning Common Ingenious crew and co-owned and operated through Loews Motels & Co. The brand new luxurious lodge is an impressive Mediterranean-inspired break out emerging above the plush gardens and scenic waters of Celestial Park at Epic Universe.
Designed to mix immersion and rest to create a resort keep like no different, this palatial lodge options tranquil drowsing lodging, entertaining facilities for the entire circle of relatives to experience, divine eating choices, a surprising rooftop bar and the resort’s very personal devoted front to the brand new theme park.
Bringing Common Orlando’s lodge portfolio to a complete of eleven accommodations and 11,000 visitor rooms, Common Helios Grand Lodge builds upon Common’s greater than 3 a long time of experience in world-class leisure and inventive theming – mixed with Loews Motels’ hospitality and repair excellence – to set a brand new usual in immersive resort studies.
Handiest at Common Helios Grand Lodge can visitors unwind within the serenity of a sunlit retreat in a single second after which inside of mins in finding themselves within the middle of exhilarating theme park adventures. Common Helios Grand Lodge is so a lot more than only a position to stick; it’s the crown jewel of Epic Universe and the top of Common Orlando’s resort studies.
In line with Common Orlando, once visitors step into this radiant sanctuary, they’re going to be transported to a fantastical global throughout the palace of Helios, the Greek god of the solar, embellished with gorgeous main points of celestial patterns, dazzling constellations and stylish but informal Mediterranean design parts. (All their phrases, no longer mine.)
In the course of the foyer’s floor-to-ceiling home windows is a vista of Celestial Park – boasting one of the most easiest perspectives of Epic Universe in all of the resort and showcasing the park’s brilliance through day and evening.
Right here’s the whole lot that Common Helios Grand Lodge provides:
Serene Visitor Rooms and Spacious Suites – Brilliant, inviting and heat, the visitor rooms and suites of Common Helios Grand Lodge evoke the tranquility of a happy lawn – with most of the rooms providing incredible perspectives of Epic Universe. And distinctive to Common Helios Grand Lodge are the imaginative The way to Educate Your Dragon Youngsters’ Suites, the place little ones can take to the skies and leisure among dragons in a colourful room encouraged through the Viking village of Berk.
Devoted Front to Common Epic Universe – Positioned off the foyer is the resort’s devoted front into Epic Universe – an unheard of amenity for visitors of Common Helios Grand Lodge that gives direct, handy get entry to to and from the theme park (legitimate theme park admission required).
Bar Helios – A glowing and classy rooftop living room, Bar Helios at Common Helios Grand Lodge provides a tasty menu of inventive tapas and acquainted favorites, thoughtfully-handcrafted uniqueness cocktails, and unrivaled 360-degree perspectives of Epic Universe and past – making this the easiest spot for visitors to sit back within the night after a hectic day within the parks.
Lodge-style Pool – The oasis of the zero-entry pool is without equal spot for leisure and rest – entire with underwater audio system, poolside cabanas to be had for hire, a scorching bathtub, poolside films, leisure actions and extra.
Visitors of Common Helios Grand Lodge too can experience:
- a complimentary cutting-edge gymnasium that includes numerous energy and aerobic apparatus;
- a recreation room for visitors to blast, zap and race their approach thru a choice of arcade video games with the acquisition of a recreation card;
- a Common Orlando Lodge Retailer for visitors to buy the whole lot from sundries and prerequisites to Common Orlando products; and so a lot more.
Visitors taking a look to have a meal or seize a snappy snack in between visits to the parks can choose between numerous distinctive eating choices, together with:
- Flowers Taverna – a full-service eating place providing breakfast, lunch and dinner and foyer bar with a mild and ethereal environment – that includes an open-style kitchen with are living cooking, Mediterranean convenience meals, pizza ovens, and al fresco seating overlooking the gorgeous surroundings of Celestial Park;
- Aurora Marketplace – a modern espresso store and marketplace providing freshly-roasted coffees, pleasant grab-and-go meals pieces and attractive snack and dessert choices from morning to nighttime;
- Lotus Lagoon – a poolside bar and grill the place visitors can cool off with refreshing cocktails or non-alcoholic beverages and experience informal fare choices like burgers, salads, sandwiches and extra.
Staying at any Common Orlando resort is one of the best ways to revel in all that the vacation spot has to supply and is derived with unique theme park advantages. Visitors staying at Common Helios Grand Lodge, or any of the opposite Common Orlando accommodations, obtain Early Park Admission to experience choose points of interest on the theme parks, which is able to enlarge to incorporate Common Epic Universe with the park’s opening in 2025. Early Park Admission will be offering as much as one hour of precedence get entry to sooner than the park opens with legitimate theme park admission.
Common Orlando resort visitors too can profit from complimentary commute bus transportation to the theme parks and Common CityWalk, resort-wide charging privileges, complimentary products supply and extra.
The addition of Common Helios Grand Lodge additionally brings 3 reimagined resort classes to Common Orlando – designed to make it even more uncomplicated for visitors to select the resort that most closely fits their most well-liked genre and funds:
Signature Assortment – Providing full-service facilities, prominent carrier, outstanding eating and extra:
- Common Helios Grand Lodge
- Loews Portofino Bay Lodge
- Exhausting Rock Lodge
- Loews Royal Pacific Lodge
- Loews Sapphire Falls Lodge
High Worth Motels – Providing a mixture of products and services and facilities made for convenience
- Common Aventura Lodge
- Common Stella Nova Lodge (opening January 21, 2025)
- Common Terra Luna Lodge (opening February 25, 2025)
Worth Resorts and Suites – Providing a laugh, inexpensive choices providing usual rooms and spacious suites with kitchenettes.
- Common Cabana Bay Seashore Lodge
- Common Never-ending Summer time Lodge – Surfside Inn and Suites
- Common Never-ending Summer time Lodge – Dockside Inn and Suites
Turning to remark, let’s get started with the perks and adjustments to resort tiers. Lovers may well be surprised to be told that Common Helios Grand Lodge received’t be offering Limitless Categorical Cross. This has been showed through Common Orlando on social media: “Whilst Common Helios Grand Lodge is not going to come with Common Categorical Limitless, Visitors can profit from different fantastic unique theme park advantages.”
Common readers of this web site received’t be too stunned. We’ve speculated for some time that Helios Grand Lodge wouldn’t be offering it or that Epic Universe wouldn’t…or each. I might’ve wager at the latter–that no resort would provide Limitless Categorical Cross to Epic Universe. So it’s quite sudden that Helios Grand Lodge received’t be offering Categorical Cross in any respect, no longer even to Common Studios Florida or Islands of Journey.
As I’ve been pronouncing for some time, I don’t know why Common first opted to supply Limitless Categorical Cross to its Premier Motels, however my shot-in-the-dark wager is a care for Loews to get that hotelier on board. Accordingly, I might additionally wager that the one theme parks matter to this type of contractual settlement will be the ones in life on the time.
Likewise, I’ve warned fanatics that Common would no longer make the similar deal within the 2020s that it did within the past due Nineties, which is exactly why Sapphire Falls doesn’t be offering Categorical Cross. Common Orlando is now already established as a bona fide theme park heavy hitter, and there is not any want to hold this type of park to get a dedication from Loews. The hotelier couldn’t get a sweetheart deal this time–it’s Common with the leverage now.
As soon as once more, the error fanatics proceed to make is assuming that Common is any other than Disney as a industry. It feels essential to reiterate this, as a result of there’s this inaccurate perception that Common is extra guest-focused than Walt Disney Global. The concept Comcast, of all corporations, in fact cares about shoppers and provides higher worth, perks, or no matter out of the kindness of its middle is ludicrous.
Truthfully, I’m pleasantly stunned right here that Early Park Admission is being expanded to Epic Universe. I wouldn’t essentially have wager on that (Helios Grand getting the perk on the present parks gave the look of a given), and anticipated that Common Orlando would as an alternative attempt to monetize early get entry to in the similar approach they do at Tremendous Nintendo Global in Hollywood. So that could be a small victory on the very least.
Any other marvel to me is that Sapphire Falls is transferring as much as the highest tier. We in point of fact like Sapphire Falls, and felt that it punched above its weight with its categorization sooner than. On the other hand, I additionally suppose it’s smartly beneath the opposite choices in that prime tier. Extra importantly, it’s the one some of the currently-operating present accommodations that doesn’t be offering Limitless Categorical Cross at Common Studios Florida and Islands of Journey.
So there’s the query of whether or not Sapphire Falls is getting Limitless Categorical Cross for the primary two parks, or the others are shedding it? I feel the latter state of affairs is the much more likely of the 2–in all probability phrases of Loews’ deal got here up for renewal or Common used to be ready to renegotiate with the addition of Epic Universe.
Any other solely believable state of affairs is that Sapphire Falls is being bumped as much as the highest tier with none adjustments–it received’t be offering Limitless Categorical Cross and the opposite present accommodations (Portofino Bay, Exhausting Rock, and Royal Pacific) received’t lose it. Once more, Helios Grand Lodge received’t be offering Categorical Cross in any respect, in order that wouldn’t be an enormous surprise.
However, it’s going to make for an peculiar classification if 3 of the accommodations within the most sensible tier be offering Limitless Categorical Cross however the two latest–together with what I suppose goes to be the flagship resort of Common Orlando in Helios Grand–don’t be offering it. Limitless Categorical Cross is the defining amenity introduced through the highest tier inns, so it’ll be peculiar if some have it and others don’t. But it surely additionally wouldn’t marvel me if Common needs extra choices in that prime tier for the sake of selling.
It additionally wouldn’t marvel me if the unique 3 most sensible tier accommodations retain Limitless Categorical Cross for now, however lose it in the future in the following few years. If my assumption about this being a contractual care for Loews is right kind–and Common couldn’t or didn’t renegotiate–that’ll possibly expire in the future down the street. I will’t consider the perk present in perpetuity–even within the Nineties, it’s no longer like Loews had that a lot leverage.
As for the themed design of Common Helios Grand Lodge, I find it irresistible! The outside seems to be to me just like the unusual love-child of Disney’s Riviera Lodge and Gran Destino Tower at Coronado Springs, however with extra artifice and a spotlight to element so it’s no longer so boxy. I do suppose that Walt Disney Global fanatics nonetheless would’ve complained if this have been the illusion of Riviera Lodge, however no longer as loudly.
Nonetheless, no longer just about as just right as Portofino Bay, which stays the high-water mark for themed inns at Common Orlando. In fact, it’s additionally a fabricated from a unique generation. Visitor personal tastes have modified since then, and so too have each Common’s and Disney’s approaches to themed resort design.
Common Helios Grand Lodge seems to be higher than Disney’s Riviera Lodge (no longer fairly as ‘worth engineered’), and there’s additionally the truth that Common and Disney are held to other requirements. I’ll be the primary to confess that I do that, and I do know maximum of you do too, judging through how a lot of a move Common will get for the issues fanatics would excoriate Disney over.
The pool likewise seems to be great, which isn’t an enormous marvel since Common Ingenious and Loews have carried out an improbable activity with pool complexes at most of the present inns. It’s most probably truthful to mention that Common accommodations, on reasonable, outdo Disney from the standpoint of swimming pools. The swimming pools at Exhausting Rock and Portofino Bay are my private favorites, however there are a number of nice ones. (Cabana Bay can also be just right, however it’s regularly packed.)
The usual visitor rooms at Common Helios Grand Lodge glance lackluster. The The way to Educate Your Dragon suites are a laugh, and I’m positive households will love them. No complaint there.
The common rooms, even though, are strangely bland. The usual rooms additionally glance very small. Not anything about those say ‘luxurious resort’ or ‘flagship lodge’ to me. It as an alternative seems like Common sought after to cram as many rooms into as small of a footprint as imaginable. If Disney did this, other folks can be evaluating those rooms to the All Stars.
I don’t see a lot sunlight between those and the opposite rooms that Common has carried out within the final a number of years (new rooms and redone ones on the present inns). Possibly I’m lacking one thing, however I don’t see a lot to split the rooms at Common Helios Grand Lodge from Sapphire Falls. Possibly that’s why the latter has moved up into the highest tier?
Identical is going for the bars, markets, eating places and different not unusual spaces. Those glance similar to what we’ve observed carried out through Common Ingenious within the final decade–the whole lot post-Cabana Bay, which does have a definite genre. It’s all very underwhelming. I did a double-take after studying the lofty language within the press liberate in regards to the theme and high quality…best to look thought artwork that appears beautiful pedestrian.
That’s completely nice for the decrease tier inns, as the ones not unusual spaces are approach higher than their opposite numbers at similarly-situated Walt Disney Global inns. However Common Helios Grand Lodge is possibly drawing comparisons to the Deluxe Inns at Walt Disney Global, and the ones aren’t just about as favorable. Even Gran Destino Tower (a Average Lodge) seems to be extra bold at the inside of.
In fact, those are all first impressions according to thought artwork launched for Common Helios Grand Lodge. However I do suppose it’s roughly peculiar that a number of items of artwork have been showcased for bland bars and markets. Those all glance very same-y, and unquestionably don’t promote me on Helios Grand Lodge. The some of the bar overlooking Epic Universe indisputably does…and in all probability that view and site are all that’s wanted. This resort will most probably promote itself with its proximity to Epic Universe. Possibly Common learned that, and made up our minds to chop corners at the resort. It wouldn’t be the primary time that’s came about just lately (taking a look at you, Fable Springs Lodge at Tokyo DisneySea).
Want commute making plans pointers and complete recommendation to your seek advice from to Central Florida? Be sure you learn our Common Orlando Making plans Information for the whole lot about Islands of Journey and Common Studios Florida. Additionally take a look at our Walt Disney Global Holiday Making plans Information for the whole lot about the ones parks, inns, eating places, and so a lot more. For normal updates, information & rumors, a heads up when reductions are launched, and a lot more, join our FREE e mail publication!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you recall to mind Common Helios Grand Lodge? Inspired through the manner or substance? What do you recall to mind the outside vs. internal? Will you ebook Common Helios Grand Lodge, or stick to some of the present inns? Suppose Epic Universe might be a 3rd gate that’s a worthy addition to Common Orlando Lodge…and probably on par with Disney’s easiest lands? Agree or disagree with our evaluate that a lot of the internal seems to be too very similar to Common’s new lower-tier inns? Any questions? We like listening to from readers, so please percentage some other ideas or questions you’ve gotten within the feedback beneath!
