Review: Storey Lake Vacation Rental Home in Kissimmee, Florida
Like many folks, I didn’t leave my home much in 2020, so when it was time to book a vacation in 2021 I wanted to go all-out. My best friend and I decided we would book a trip to Florida with our husband and boyfriend (respectively) for two weeks: a one week work-at-“home”-cation and a week at a hotel near the Disney parks. After scouring vacation rental and hotel booking sites and spending hours and hours updating an extremely detailed spreadsheet, we landed on this AirBNB listing: a 6-bedroom/5-bathroom home in Kissimmee, Florida hosted by Glasstone Vacations. Located close to Walt Disney World in the Storey Lake vacation home gated community, with a private pool and plenty of room for 4 adults to work remotely, we thought we’d found our perfect home away from home. But did we? Let’s find out.
This review is divided into 3 parts: details and pricing, an overall review, and a photo-by-photo breakdown using images from the listing. I’d apologize for the length but these kinds of details are exactly what I want in a review so I’m actually not sorry.
Home Details & Rental Pricing
Property Address: 2831 Bookmark Drive, Kissimmee, FL 34746 (inside The Cove South at Storey Lake)
Rental Property Manager: Glasstone Vacations
Dates of Stay: October 17-25, 2021 (8 nights booked in April 2021)
Rental Cost: $2,217.58
Pool Heating: $288 ($36/night)
Total Cost: $2,505.58 ($626.40/person total, $78.30/person/night)
View the listing on Glasstone’s website.
Distance from Orlando International Airport: 22.2 miles, 26 minutes
Distance to Disney Springs: 6.6 miles, 15 minutes
Distance to Universal CityWalk: 12.4 miles, 23 minutes
Distance to Disney Character Warehouse - Vineland Premium Outlets: 5.7 miles, 15 minutes
Distance to Disney Character Warehouse - International Drive Premium Outlets: 13.8 miles, 25 minutes
Closest Target: .8 miles, 4 minutes (honestly it’s more like 2 minutes and you can walk there)
Closest WalMart: 2.1 miles, 6 minutes
Closest Publix: 2.6 miles, 7 minutes
Travel times listed may be slightly longer or shorter depending on the time of day. I used Google Maps to find these distances at 8:30AM on a Wednesday, so normal commuting time. There is ALWAYS traffic around Disney and Universal in the evenings and on weekends, particularly if there is a special event happening.
Overall Review
Conveniently located in The Cove South, part of the Storey Lake vacation home community, 2831 Bookmark Drive is just a stone’s throw from shopping, dining, and entertainment. There is a strip mall within walking distance (less than one mile) but you will need to drive or Uber to most destinations. It is also close to several major highways and about an hour’s drive away from the Space Coast in case you want to catch a rocket launch or spend the day in Cocoa Beach. (If you get there early enough, there’s free parking at Lori Wilson Park.)
My experience with Glasstone Vacations was great — they are super responsive to all messages sent via the AirBNB site/app and resolved any issues I had within a matter of hours. Their website has a wide range of vacation options available, and I would book with them again.
To its credit, Glasstone did a pretty good job representing this particular rental in the photographs on AirBNB. They were obviously taken when the home was brand-new and had never been stayed in before, but it generally lived up to the hype. Aside from a few scuffs on the walls (things I would chalk up to normal wear and tear and would not complain about), everything was clean and the home smelled very good when we walked in. There is a deep closet under the stairs — truly a missed opportunity for some epic theming and a nice hideaway if you’re staying here with kids. More practically, it would be great for storing strollers, luggage, and carseats.
While The Cove South is technically a gated community, the entrance gates on both sides were open the entire length of our stay. (Don’t worry, both of the exit gates were closed and the pedestrian gates were locked.) No need to scan the QR code that was emailed to me, I guess. There was also no security posted at either gate. I think I saw one security guard drive by in a golf cart one time.
The check-in instructions state to proceed to the gate house to obtain a parking pass. I could not find a gate house, but luckily this house has a driveway. (We fit a Toyota Corolla and Chevy Malibu with no issues.) Many of the other homes do not have driveways and visitors will need to park in the unassigned spots on the street. There were a lot more cars parked on the street towards the end of the week heading into the weekend, and on Thursday we saw many cars with orange violation stickers on the window. I don’t know if any of them actually got towed, but I wouldn’t want to risk it.
The listing boasts a clubhouse with amenities such as a fitness center and pool with lazy river. What it does not note is that the amenity complex is down the street and you’ll need to drive there. This was not convenient for us so we did not utilize any of the amenities, but it looked like a popular spot in the afternoons.
As this community is currently still under construction, there is some noise. While there isn’t any banging and clanging in the immediate vicinity, large construction vehicles start using the road immediately behind the home starting around 6:30AM and don’t stop until 4:00PM. There are trucks zooming by every few minutes, sometimes honking at each other. Believe it or not, they’re large enough you can feel vibrations in the floor from the master bedroom as they pass. This mostly bothered me while I was trying to take Zoom meetings by the pool, but that’s my own fault. I’d rather truck noise than hammers and saws so this is not a complaint just an observation.
Homes here are built to rent out, with a focus on quantity over quality. Cabinets are cheap particleboard and if you’re having a bad time in one of the hallway bathrooms everyone’s going to hear. Houses seem to be spaced with whatever is the minimum legally allowed amount of distance between them so if your neighbor is out on the patio you’ll be able to converse with them from the pool. This home faces west, so the back bedrooms and pool will have nice sun in the mornings but it will be gone by late afternoon.
The pool heater wasn’t working when we checked in, but Glasstone sent a tech very quickly, resolved the issue, and refunded 2 days of the pool heating cost. If you’re staying in the fall and winter, you’ll definitely want to pay for the pool heating. I am SO glad we did — it felt like swimming in a large warm bath. In the mornings I could see steam rising from the pool. There is also a spa (remember, it’s NOT a hot tub) but it did get hot enough for me to boil myself like a hot dog. Just note that once you turn on the spa jets, the pool heating jets turn off. They’ll turn back on once the spa jets turn off. Before using the spa for the first time, I recommend pre-heating it for 30 minutes to get the cold water moving around. Otherwise you’re going to end up doing an unintentional polar plunge. But, man, what a luxury to just be able to walk outside and into the pool. Please someone build me one of these in my back yard in Massachusetts (for free, thanks).
As with most newer homes in Florida, this one is equipped with central air conditioning. The air flows freely in the common areas but circulation doesn’t seem to be as good in the bedrooms, even when set to the lowest allowed temperature. (The instructions left by Glasstone state that the thermostat should never go below 70 degrees Fahrenheit or above 80 degrees Fahrenheit.) There were a few nights when I got pretty sweaty, so if you’re comfortable leaving the door ajar while you’re sleeping I recommend doing that.
Since our week in this rental was a working vacation, we each had multiple electronic devices that needed to be connected to WiFi. That’s five iPhones, four iPads, eight computers, and two gaming consoles. We didn’t necessarily use all of them at once, but we didn’t have any issues with connectivity. With hours of video calls every day, this was great for us.
Glasstone does provide basic necessities. I mean truly basic — a couple of trash bags, two dishwasher tabs, one roll of paper towels, single ply toilet tissue, cheap bath towels. If you’re a bougie baby like me, pack a towel from home in your luggage. There is a washer and dryer so you don’t have to bring home dirty laundry. For everything else, there is a Target a walkable distance away. For some reason this Target is rated lower than other Targets in the area, but I thought it was pretty good. It had a good selection of produce and an updated beauty section, so it was good enough for me. This community is also close to multiple Publix, TJ Maxx, Ross, and Walmart locations. There is fast food aplenty just a short drive away, but you can also be lazy like us and have GrubHub deliver Taco Bell.
Lastly, this is not the rental you want if you’re looking for a quiet, relaxing vacation. Though you could say this is a family-friendly community, it wasn’t screaming children that caused the most noise. (I honestly wish it was.) It was too much late to turn back when I found out that Storey Lake has a reputation for party rentals, after several nights of neighbors blasting music and drunkenly yelling starting at midnight. The Tripadvisor reviews warning of this did not exist when I first booked this accommodation. Sound carries throughout the community, so if there’s a ruckus occurring down the street you’re gonna hear it. This can be rectified with some earplugs or a white noise machine, but I don’t want to have to do that on vacation. I just want to sleep! Between the daytime construction and the nighttime parties, there was a lot going on.
So all in all, would I stay at Storey Lake again? It’s possible. The price and the location were right, and it was great to have that much space and privacy in the home. I’ll definitely be watching for updated reviews to see if there continue to be issues with parties and construction noise.
Photos from the Listing
These photos are all courtesy of Glasstone with my commentary at the bottom.
