Gaylord Palms

Since I have visited the original Gaylord “atrium” resort, the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, I also wanted to check out Gaylord Palms, its sister resort in Orlando.

Visiting, not Staying

Let me make a good general statement–you don’t have to be staying at a resort to visit it! Public areas are just that, free for the public to enjoy. You can’t sleep in a room or play in the pool, but you can do pretty much everything else–read in the lobby, eat at the restaurants, drink at the bar, enjoy entertainment, take pictures, etc.

I first got used to this idea while vacationing at Disney World. Disney resorts have beautiful lobbies and quiet nooks where you can get away from the theme park madness for a while. Occasionally, I will leave the Magic Kingdom, take a boat to the Wilderness Lodge, find a quiet spot and read (or nap, that happened) for a couple of hours!

Especially if you are having a non-park/activity day, visiting a few resorts and watching a show or taking a tour is a great FREE way to spend a few vacation hours. And during Christmas, the resorts look amazing!

At the Disney resorts, there are outdoor movies which are FREE to attend and great for families. And it’s great to watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks from the surrounding resorts. They pipe in the music and everything!

Gaylord Resort Hotels

What makes the Gaylord Hotels (owned by Marriott) so unique are the huge interior atriums filled with lush landscaping. In a Gaylord Resort, you want a room that faces the atrium inside the hotel, never an outside view!

And each Gaylord Hotel has a theme. The original Gaylord Opryland in Nashville is southern-themed with a huge Delta atrium with a flat-bottom riverboat ride and New Orleans-style buildings. The Gaylord Texan has replicas of the Alamo. Gaylord National has Colonial-style interior buildings that face the Washington DC waterfront. The new Gaylord Rockies takes the rugged outdoors inside.

Gaylord Palms

In Kissimmee, Gaylord Palms takes its theming from three distinct Florida areas: Key West, St. Augustine, and the Everglades. Compared to the Gaylord Opryland, it’s quite a bit smaller, with one large central atrium, two smaller ones to each side, and a large pool & lawn complex out back.

Lobby

The lobby area of the Gaylord Palms is really the front hallway before you get to the main atrium. Here, you can check in, get concierge help, get coffee or a cocktail. Down the hall to the left of the entrance is a Transportation Lobby with car rentals and FREE bus transportation to the Disney theme parks and Disney Springs. Shuttles to Seaworld and the Universal parks cost $21 per person. And speaking of transportation, daily parking at Gaylord Palms will set you back $24/day.

St. Augustine Atrium

The St. Augustine Atrium is the main room of the Gaylord Palms, and it is dominated by a large stone fort, the Castillo de San Marcos. It looks like a dining space to be reserved for private parties, as opposed to a proper always-operating restaurant. You can climb the fort to walk along the upper walls, or around the outside, past waterfalls, streams, turtles, and alligators.

Key West

To the left of St. Augustine is Key West. There is a small market area with colorful shacks near the entrance but the room is almost entirely taken up by a lake with a huge sailboat in it. This boat is the MOOR restaurant, with seating in the boat itself, as well as in the restaurant in the corner.

The lake is stocked with fish and information and feeding times are posted around the water’s edge.

Everglades

To the right of St. Augustine is a lush two-level atrium themed to the Everglades. The buildings are swamp-rustic and a boardwalk above leads down to garden pathways below. This is the main route to the pool, but also the home of the Old Hickory restaurant, which you’ll find in each Gaylord Resort.

The multi-room restaurant takes up most of the space but my favorite area in this entire hotel is down in Sawgrass Place, a little swamp shack with tiny alligators and snakes in tanks. Not that I love snakes and alligator so much (though the “grunts” are awfully cute) but if you walk around/through the shack, there are deck chairs and a little swing that make a quiet place to rest for a minute.

Pools, Lawn, & Spa

Behind the Everglades Atrium, there’s a huge waterpark-style pool area and a large adults-only pool behind that, on the other side of the pool bar. Behind the Key West atrium is the Coquina Lawn, a large artificial turf play area. Between the lawn and the adult pool is the large Wreckers sports bar and behind everything is the large convention center.

Every Gaylord Resort has a Relâche Spa (from a French word meaning, “to take a break.”) and the spa at Gaylord Palms is in the lower level of the Everglades, near Sawgrass Place.

Events

Gaylord Palms has a few events during the year, and there always seems to be a light show in the St. Augustine atrium in the evenings. In March & April, it has been “springtime” themed, but the website doesn’t say what they’ll do for summer.

They also planned several Easter events, including a scavenger hunt, photos with the Easter Bunny, and oversize decorated eggs throughout the lobby.

You can schedule a garden tour anytime by emailing gpgardengeek@gaylordhotels.com.

Visiting Gaylord Palms

As a day visitor to Gaylord Palms, note that you will have to pay for parking, which is $24/day.

I had wanted to come back to revisit at night, but I #1, ran out of time, and #2, was afraid I’d have to pay another $24. You shouldn’t have to since it is a daily fee but I didn’t test it out to see where to put a card or receipt that said I had already paid.

The Gaylord Palms is an impressive resort! It’s maybe not as jaw-dropping as the Opryland Hotel, but it’s really fun to walk around and take pictures. As a hotel design, it’s super unique. And it would make a great rainy-day activity–you can walk around the gardens and feel like you’re outdoors even when you are inside! Viewed as a free (besides parking) botanical garden with opportunities to eat and shop (and possibly a guided tour) it’s not a bad option.

Staying at Gaylord Palms

If you actually want to STAY here, you can do that too! Rooms rates are generally in the $250-850 range, but if you use the “flexible dates” option on their calendar, you can find rates as low as $142 on certain nights here and there.

Of course, I would love to stay in beautiful hotels like these. But when I can get an Airbnb room for ~$30/night, it’s hard to justify the expense. Maybe one day I’ll be able to afford to stay and not just to visit!