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Best design hotels in Orlando

Three of our ten. Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge is a thatched game lodge built in a horseshoe round a savanna; The Alfond Inn hangs more than 100 works from the Rollins Museum of Art's collection, rehung every year; and Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa has a five-storey Victorian lobby under stained-glass domes.

3 of our ten · Hand-pickedHotels cannot pay to be hereLast checked: October 2026

At a glance

  1. Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge: A giraffe on the savanna below the lodge's balconies

    Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge

    A thatched game lodge built in a horseshoe round the Arusha Savanna

    Walt Disney World, Animal Kingdom area · From about $525 a night

    Check availability
  2. The Alfond Inn: The courtyard and glass-domed conservatory at dusk

    The Alfond Inn

    More than 100 works from the Rollins Museum of Art, rehung yearly

    Winter Park · From about $290 a night

    See prices on
  3. Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa: The resort across Seven Seas Lagoon

    Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa

    A five-storey Victorian lobby under stained-glass domes

    Walt Disney World, Magic Kingdom area · From about $855 a night

    Check availability

What we looked for

In Orlando, design mostly means theming, and the hotels that do it well build a whole place rather than decorate a room. Two of these three are Disney's own: Animal Kingdom Lodge, an African game lodge in the south-west of Walt Disney World, and the Grand Floridian, a Victorian-style grand hotel on Seven Seas Lagoon, one monorail stop from Magic Kingdom. The third is the other kind of design. The Alfond Inn is Rollins College's art hotel in Winter Park, a separate city north of downtown Orlando, two blocks from the shops and restaurants of Park Avenue.

Orlando is spread out, so choose by base as well as by look: Animal Kingdom Lodge to The Alfond Inn is 44 km by road. Pick the Lodge for architecture built round a savanna, the Grand Floridian for a grand lobby close to Magic Kingdom, and The Alfond Inn for art on the walls and a town to walk on the days off from the parks.

Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge: A giraffe on the savanna below the lodge's balconiesThe view

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Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge

Walt Disney World, Animal Kingdom area, Orlando

Here the building is the theme, and it was planned round a view. Peter Dominick, who designed the lodge for Disney, bent it into a horseshoe, a shape Disney traces to the African kraal, so that its wings wrap round the Arusha Savanna, with the Sunset and Uzima savannas further out. The lobby rises under a thatched roof, with a mud fireplace and a stream running through it, and Disney counts the African art on its walls among the largest such collections in the United States.

The 2018 and 2019 room redesign carried the idea indoors: wood-look floors, headboards lit in an African style and, in most rooms, a walk-in shower. Outside, even the pool plays its part. The Uzima Springs Pool, with its 67-foot slide, faces the Uzima Savanna, and in the evening Jiko cooks dinner in twin wood-burning ovens.

Savanna View room at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge: two queen beds with carved wooden headboards, a chest of drawers, a wall-mounted television and a coffee station by the door

The room to book

Savanna View

$740 a night

The rooms share one redesign, so the step up buys what the horseshoe was built round: a patio or balcony facing one of the savannas, not rooftops or the car park.

Every room, and why

When you book, ask for the Arusha Savanna, the one inside the horseshoe; Disney treats it as a request, not a promise.

$$$From about $525 a night

Check availabilitySee hotel
The Alfond Inn: The courtyard and glass-domed conservatory at duskThe escape

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The Alfond Inn

Winter Park, Orlando

The Alfond Inn is the one hotel here where the design is art rather than theming. Rollins College opened it in August 2013, a Spanish Renaissance-style building with a glass-domed conservatory looking over a courtyard lawn, and the art on its walls belongs to a museum. More than 100 works from the Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, which the Rollins alumni Barbara and Theodore Alfond assembled and the Rollins Museum of Art now owns, fill the public spaces, and the museum's staff change the hang every year.

Winter Park carries the theme on foot. The Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Gardens is seven minutes' walk away, the Rollins Museum of Art's free galleries ten, and the Morse Museum, home to Tiffany's chapel from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, twelve, with Park Avenue two blocks away for lunch.

Parlor King Room at The Alfond Inn: the parlour sitting area, with an L-shaped sofa, a round ottoman, a floor lamp and a yellow chair at a long console below a wall-mounted television

The room to book

Parlor King Room

435 sq ft (40 m²)$355 a night

At 435 sq ft against the Classic King's 323, it adds a separate parlour with a sleeper sofa, room to sit between the museums and dinner on Park Avenue.

Every room, and why

Be in the lobby at 6pm on the first Wednesday of the month, when the museum's staff give a free hour-long tour of the art.

$$From about $290 a night

See prices onCheck availability onSee hotel
Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa: The resort across Seven Seas LagoonThe icon

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Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa

Walt Disney World, Magic Kingdom area, Orlando

Disney styles the Grand Floridian on Palm Beach's golden era and carries the Victorian look through the whole silhouette: red shingle roofs over white walls, turrets and dormers, verandas and latticework along Seven Seas Lagoon. The set piece is the lobby in the main building, five storeys high under stained-glass domes, with a grand staircase and a lift in an open cage. Its refurbishment, finished in late 2025, refreshed the stained-glass skylights, added a mural of the resort at the turn of the century above the stairs and opened The Perch, a lobby bar.

The standard rooms, in the outer lodges round the gardens, pools and beach, mix Victorian and modern with Mary Poppins motifs. For the full effect, book dinner at Victoria & Albert's, under a rotunda dome with garden-themed Victorian murals and a harpist, or afternoon tea in the Garden View Lounge.

Resort View room at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa: two queen beds with arched cream headboards in front of a painted landscape mural, with a lamp on the bedside table between them

The room to book

Resort View

$854 a night

The Victorian-meets-modern scheme is the same in all three standard views, so the entry room gets the design; pay more only if you want the lagoon or the park outside.

Every room, and why

Take a drink at The Perch in the lobby to see the refreshed stained-glass domes and the new mural above the stairs.

$$$$From about $855 a night

Check availabilitySee hotel

How to choose

Your tripBook
You want the building itself to be the showDisney's Animal Kingdom Lodge
Contemporary art and a town to walkThe Alfond Inn
A Victorian grand hotel close to Magic KingdomDisney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa
Children who love animals as much as you love interiorsDisney's Animal Kingdom Lodge

Also worth a look

Questions people ask

Good questions about Orlando

Which Orlando hotel has an art collection?

The Alfond Inn in Winter Park hangs more than 100 works from the Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, which belongs to the Rollins Museum of Art, through its public spaces. The museum's staff rehang them every year and give a free hour-long tour from the lobby at 6pm on the first Wednesday of the month, and the museum's own galleries, also free, are ten minutes' walk away. Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge has what Disney calls one of the largest collections of African art in the United States on its walls.

Who designed Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge?

Peter Dominick designed it for Disney, which opened it on 16 April 2001 near its Animal Kingdom park. His plan is a horseshoe, a shape Disney links to the African kraal, with the wings curving round the Arusha Savanna and the Sunset and Uzima savannas beyond, and a lobby under a thatched roof with a mud fireplace and a stream running through it. The Savanna View rooms face one of the three savannas, where giraffes and antelope graze.

Is the Grand Floridian's lobby open after its refurbishment?

Yes. The lobby reopened in October 2025 with refreshed stained-glass skylights and a new mural above the grand staircase, and The Perch, a bar, opened there on 10 November 2025. Disney says work continues in select areas, the covered entrance among them, into early 2027, so allow a few extra minutes when you arrive. The standard rooms, in the outer lodges, were redone by 2023 in a Victorian-meets-modern scheme with Mary Poppins motifs.

How far is Winter Park from the theme parks?

With the roads clear, The Alfond Inn is 28 to 30 minutes by car from Universal's car parks, 31 from Epic Universe and 42 to 47 from the Disney parks, and the hotel runs no park shuttle, so it works best for the days between park days. On foot it has Park Avenue and Central Park five minutes away, the Scenic Boat Tour's dock nine and the Morse Museum, with Tiffany's chapel from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, twelve.

How did you choose these hotels?

Independently, through extensive research, trusted sources and first-hand visits. Hotels cannot pay to be included, and every one of the ten has to exist for a different reason.

More ways to choose in Orlando

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Prices are a guide from our last check, not live rates.