We checked out of the Omni Amelia Island seven days ago, after staying for three nights. We stayed in room 441, a Deluxe Oceanfront Room with 2 Queen Beds. This was our first hotel on our nine day vacation from the Raleigh-Durham area down to Walt Disney World.
This won’t be an exhaustive review. I feel like this Tripadvisor review captures a lot of my thoughts. I’m just going to touch on notable items and leave it at that.
- The hotel building itself was probably pretty nice 15 years ago.
- Lots of deferred maintenance. The door to our room was covered with rust marks, for example (see below). The door frame for the emergency stairs on the first floor was half rusted, with the rust on the ground not being cleaned up during our four days.
- Sliding door had a bad seal, so we could hear the pool deck as if the door was open.
- Possibly related, the room was too humid and the air sticky the whole time we were there. The AC took some of the water out of the air but not enough.
- They’ve done a good job of keeping the common areas like the lobby and pool deck looking nice, though.
- The sprawling grounds make the resort feel uncrowded.
- There are so many beautiful trees! And excellent walking paths to get around, which are well-lit at night.
- We enjoyed sitting by the fire pits on the pool deck, both during the day and at night.
- Nickel-and-diming. Self-parking is $25 a day (there are plenty of spots). You have to rent chairs and umbrellas on the beach, none are provided. Drip coffee is more than $6. There’s the customary $40/day “resort fee” that hotels love to charge these days. Mini-golf is $14pp for adults and $10pp for kids. Etc.
- Service in the Marché Burette was fast and friendly, both for lunch and dinner. Falcon’s Nest service was much more hit-and-miss.
- Speaking of Falcon’s Nest, a tip: it can get busy. They use OpenTable for queueing, so you can look at availability on that app and go ahead and get in line before you walk over from your room.
No complaints about the view from our room:
Though the door didn’t leave the best first (or last) impression:
The fire was nice, though I don’t want to think about the gas bill:
I wanted to like it more than I did. And it wasn’t bad, it just didn’t live up to expectations. Would I stay again? Possibly, if I was already heading in that direction. And I’d consider staying in the Villas instead.