The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes: A Luxury and Wellness Weekend Worth the Escape

At a Glance

• Weekend stay at The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes in a King Room with Club Lounge access
• Club Lounge served food throughout the day, with a balcony view of the distant fireworks
• Wellness built around massages and red-light therapy rather than a fixed program
• Dinners at Highball & Harvest and Knife & Spoon, where the steak and service stood out
• Poolside cabana for a group of eight on Saturday

Some hotels serve as a place to sleep. Others become the destination. After a weekend at The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes, I would put this property firmly in the second category.

Debbie and I planned our visit around a health-and-wellness weekend. The scheduled wellness programming was unexpectedly canceled, but the resort encouraged us to come anyway and helped us build a more customized version of the same idea. I am glad we went.

What unfolded was a weekend of spa treatments, serious dining, poolside relaxation and one of the better Ritz-Carlton Club Lounge experiences I have had recently. More importantly, it changed my perception of Orlando. You can come to Grande Lakes and have a complete luxury resort vacation without making the theme parks the center of the trip.

The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes has the scale and architecture of a grand Florida resort, and its refreshed interiors give it a lighter, more contemporary personality. Our room felt fresh, bright and comfortable from the moment we walked in.

That balance matters. The hotel keeps the formality and level of service you expect from Ritz-Carlton without feeling overly traditional. You can spend the morning at the spa, the afternoon by the pool and the evening at a serious restaurant without leaving the grounds.

For us, absolutely. The Club Lounge became one of the biggest highlights of the weekend. We had access throughout our stay, and food service ran all day, with quality, variety and presentation that made a strong impression from the moment we arrived.

Before our room was ready, we went straight to the lounge. The presentation was through the roof. Then I spotted a fresh cinnamon bun. I refused it at first, in the spirit of our supposed health-and-wellness weekend. Eventually I gave in. It was worth every calorie. That became a recurring theme of the trip: maintaining a wellness weekend gets considerably harder when the food is this good.

One evening, Debbie and I stepped onto the lounge's outdoor balcony overlooking the pool and watched the fireworks in the distance. The resort was lit below us, fireworks overhead, and none of the crowds normally attached to an Orlando fireworks experience. It was one of those unexpectedly memorable hotel moments.

When people ask whether paying extra for Ritz-Carlton Club Level is worthwhile, my answer at Grande Lakes is yes. The combination of food, service, privacy and that balcony made the additional cost worthwhile for us.

With the original program canceled, Debbie and I still built wellness into the stay with massages and red-light therapy. What I liked was that wellness did not have to dominate the weekend. We could have a treatment, spend time by the pool, sit down to a great dinner and simply slow down. For me, that may be a more realistic definition of a wellness vacation.

Saturday became a family day when Debbie's relatives joined us, bringing our group to eight. We had a cabana directly in front of the pool with plenty of seating for everyone. The setup included fruit, chips, guacamole, queso and drinks, and it let the eight of us spend the day together without hunting for chairs or leaving the pool area.

For a group, I would do it again. It turned an ordinary pool day into a much more relaxed resort day.

We came to Grande Lakes thinking about health and wellness. We may have left talking even more about the food.

Our first dinner, at Highball & Harvest, showed how seriously the resort takes dining. Among the appetizers, the salad was my favorite. The tuna was very good, and the deviled eggs stood out for the freshness of the ingredients and the balance of flavors. The green tomatoes were my least favorite of the group. The crab itself was excellent, but the fried preparation overwhelmed such a good ingredient.

The snapper was an excellent piece of fish. I would have liked a little more sauce, but what was there complemented the fish rather than covering it. The Brussels sprouts had excellent flavor, though I would have liked them cooked a little softer. Service was quick, efficient and knowledgeable.

Then came dessert, and one of the most appealing dessert menus I can remember seeing at a restaurant: baby donuts, apple cobbler, cookies and cream, chocolate coconut pie, chocolate cake, a chocolate-and-vanilla ice cream sundae and Madagascar vanilla creme brulee. The H&H Baby Donuts and the warm Apple Cobbler made the decision no easier. So much for the wellness diet.

Knife & Spoon Was the Culinary Highlight

Knife & Spoon is where dining at Grande Lakes moved to another level. It started with the bread. The entire assortment was excellent, and I kept trying to decide on a favorite and could not. Even the butter presentation made the bread service memorable.

Then came the steak. This was the dish that made the restaurant's Michelin recognition completely understandable to me. There are plenty of expensive steakhouses. There are far fewer steaks you remember afterward. This was one of them. The mushroom mac and cheese and the vegetables were both good, though neither reached the steak's category.

Service did reach it. Three servers attended our table, and the timing impressed me most. Every course arrived when it should. Nothing felt rushed, and nothing dragged. Perfect pacing between courses is one of those details you notice only when a restaurant gets it exactly right. Knife & Spoon did.

The biggest surprise of the weekend was how complete the experience felt. This is a resort where the hotel itself can be the trip. The renovated rooms feel fresh. The pool and cabana work for couples and families. The spa gives you a legitimate wellness component. The Club Lounge adds a great deal to the stay. And Knife & Spoon gives the property a destination restaurant.

For Debbie and me, the combination worked because we could create the weekend we wanted rather than follow a rigid itinerary. We exercised. We had massages. We tried red-light therapy. We spent Saturday by the pool with family. We ate extremely well. And yes, I ate the cinnamon bun. Sometimes wellness also means enjoying yourself.

The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes earns a place among the Florida luxury resorts I would readily return to. The surprise is how many different vacations Grande Lakes can be at once: a wellness weekend, a culinary getaway, a family resort, a couples escape or simply a place to disappear for a few days without feeling the need to leave the property.

If you are debating the Club Level upgrade, I would strongly consider it. Watching the fireworks from that balcony after a day of excellent food and service captured what Grande Lakes does particularly well: it took an Orlando weekend and made it feel like a genuine luxury resort escape. Would I return? Absolutely.

RESIDENT was hosted by The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes for the purposes of this review. Opinions are the writer's own.