Balmoral Resort Vacation Homes in Haines City, FL

Avoid avoid avoid !!! We booked our villa with virgin holidays for a family holiday, we was allocated our villa one week before travel. The virgin holiday villa was let through a company called tropical estates on the balmoral estate, Haines. Following reading reviews about tropical estates properties on the balmoral estate we become concerned about reports of problems with the villas and the travelling distance between the villa to the theme parks. so we contacted virgin to express concerns, and request a villa in a different location, virgin assured us the reviews we had read wasn’t about their villas and that we was only 21 miles from theme parks, Virgin stated they couldn’t relocate us as it was to close to our departure date. (Even though they had only given our villa details the day before we contacted them) We arrived at our villa following a nine and half hour flight absolutely exhausted just wanting to climb into bed. We had our 76 year old mother with us who was really exhausted. However upon arrival at our villa upon opening the door we were greeted with the foul smell of human excrement, every toilet in the villa had excrement left in them, beds had clearly been slept in,bed linen dirty, sink full of dirty dishes, bathroom basin covered in pubic hair, what appeared to be a used condom on the bedroom floor, a fake eyelash on the bedside cabinet, the villa was dirty and the smell was unbearable, there was no way we could spend a night there. We contacted tropical escapes who did answer the phone and they did reallocate us another villa which was next door. This villa was better, it appeared to be cleaner other than a torn sofa in the lounge area and another sofa which had a stained cover over it, when we removed the cover to wash it the sofa the sofa under the cover was torn,all the leather coating had been peeled of and wood exposed, their were no cushions for sun loungers or outside seating. This has led to a very uncomfortable holiday. We did notify virgin, but no action has been taken to make our holiday comfortable. The travel from the villa to the theme parks has taken hour and half each way, daily. It’s such a shame as these villas are large and spacious but are not very well cared for. Virgin have compensated us £293, which equates to £58.60 each person in our group as a good will gesture. We would have rather have had replacement sofas and cushions for the outdoor furniture to make our two weeks comfortable. We are considering returning to Orlando but will not be using Virgin again as we feel massively let down by virgin. This was a long awaited family holiday with our 76 year old mother and we are left feeling let down and very disappointed. Also exhausted as for 2 weeks we have had no comfortable seating in the villa. I would not recommend virgin holidays or tropical escape villas on the balmoral estate to anyone wishing to visit Orlando. Absolutely shocking !!!

Terrible,terrible,terrible!! Utter rip-off, I don't know where to begin! These villa's are sooo NOT what they are advertised as on virgin holidays. The only right thing about them is the size & location! Certainly not palatial as virgin make out. Dirty kitchen floors, carpets worn, sofa tatty & had bits down sides, no sink soap , grass growing through the tiles round the pool is just the tip of the ice-berg! The holiday partner company is shambolic & useless had a problem with the room safe, they were no help whatsoever & then locked us out on the last day only for them to not be able to find our booking!! Virgin reps non-existent & reception staff tell you to call the dire partner company with any issues. Which is no help at all. Just avoid!!!! Florida great but never ever will we return here.

Despite the bad reviews and being open to the public with gates not being used we went here on a family holiday was actually in august last year 2023 but felt I wanted to write a review , we absolutely loved our villa backing onto one Of the lakes, there was the odd broken bit and fridge ice machine didn’t work but they were not essentials and found on the whole the villa to be perfect these are well presented and didn’t let little things like pool light and ice machine or the odd cracked tile paint it in a bad light after all they are still homes not show rooms. The staff at the club hours were friendly and welcoming and kids loved the clubhouse pool also. Not being far from Disney was great and there was still local (short drive) to shops, Walmart and some nice restaurants . We plan on revisiting 😊

Used to be wonderful….now awful - MUST READ We visited here in 2019 and had a fantastic experience, well looked after villa, maintained gardens, excellent service so we booked again for Aug 2024. After reading some of the reviews and being assured by Virgin that things weren’t that bad, we arrived. Well….On arrival we found another family in the villa that we had been allocated, as there’s no staff on reception any more this meant using the phone provided, which has a terrible line making it difficult to hear the person on the other end. We were told that Tropical had “forgotten” to send an updated email with our revised villa info on. When this came through the entry code for the villa was the same for the previous villa, so can only assume this is the same for all villa’s - surely this is a security risk? Upon entering the villa everything was grubby, we found tops of beer bottles lying around, false nails, it seemed as though the place had a quick clean and that was it. The service you receive from the phone in reception is poor at best, no physical person at the clubhouse can help as it appears they are employed by Balmoral specifically to run the clubhouse and the holiday villa’s are run by Tropical who do not have a person on site. The whole resort is now more of a residential neighbourhood, not a vacation resort like it was back in 2019. Everything that was superb about this place 5 yrs ago, now just isn’t. Gates not operating for access to the resort, clubhouse charges extra’s for everything, arcade only has a few operating machines, cars racing around, weed smell everywhere & poorly maintained gardens throughout. Save your money, look elsewhere….not worth the money. We will not be returning to Balmoral.

We stayed in Balmoral Resort in 2018, loved it so decided to go back again this year at my 11 year old sons request. Was concerned about some of the reviews so checked the reality of the situation with Virgin Holidays, they reassured us that everything would be fine, here’s my honest review: Oh how it’s changed. I last rated it a 5, this time it’s a 3, here’s why: We stayed at 213 Aidans Landing: the house, though lovely, is next to a residential property who enjoy a loud argument or two… The house backs on to the local residential area so our evenings were often filled with revving car engines, music from the local bingo hall, strong smells of weed and crackling electricity lines. And Talking of weed, I had to weed the patio area when we arrived because it didn’t look like it had been tended to in weeks. The outside chair covers were covered in stains and marks from previous tenants which was ironic considering the “resort guide” tells you not to sit in the chairs if you have suncream on because they’ll mark… The safety deposit box didn’t work and just had a sign on it saying: sorry for the inconvenience. We carried all cash, credit cards and passports around with us for days - you might think this is excessive, but not when you read that 3 days in to our trip a random man was staring into our property kitchen window where my Dad & 11 year old son were having breakfast. How can this happen in a gated community ? That because it’s not gated. In 2018 it was and there was a Security guy allowing entry, now it’s open to the General Public, it should in NO WAY be sold as a gated community. Virgin say it’s gated between 10:30pm and 7am, it isn’t, I checked. There is no shade at the clubhouse pool, the only umbrellas are fixed in to tables. The cabanas can be rented at $75/session and the large shaded area is rented out for birthday parties (which there was 2 of and a gender reveal on the 2 hours we spent there one Saturday afternoon). Where the gym used to be quite well stocked, it now isn’t, and the clubhouse doesn’t open until 11am. I’m not bothered by the train lines or the drive to the parks, we knew about that before arriving, I’m bothered by the way this place has, disappointingly, gone downhill yet is still charging the rates it did 6 years ago.