Storey Lake Resort
Storey Lake Resort is a large gated holiday-home community in Kissimmee, central Florida, about 5 miles (8 km) from Walt Disney World. Rather than a hotel, it’s condos, townhouses and detached houses, all self-catering, spread across one gated community and let out by many separate management companies. Families come for the space and a kitchen, often with their own pool, and for the two clubhouse pools near the Orlando parks.
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Is it worth it?
Storey Lake works for families who want the space of a self-catering house near the Orlando parks, with two clubhouse pools to fill the days in between, and don’t mind driving everywhere.
Storey Lake isn’t a hotel. It’s a gated community of self-catering condos, townhouses and detached houses in Kissimmee, about 5 miles (8 km) from Walt Disney World, with two shared clubhouses and their pools at the centre of it. The draw for families is space and a kitchen, often with a private pool of your own, plus a zero-entry pool, a splash pad, lazy rivers and slides, all near the Orlando parks without on-site Disney prices. There’s no single hotel operator here. Every home is owned and let separately, so what you get and what you pay depend on which house and which company you book, and there’s no crèche or kids’ club at all.
Best for
You want the space and kitchen of a self-catering house or condo near the Orlando parks, with a water park and pools inside a gated community, and you’re happy to drive.
Maybe not for
You want a simple hotel room with daily housekeeping, a park shuttle and no car, or organised childcare for a baby or a younger toddler.
Best ages
Works across the ages, with a splash pad and a zero-entry pool for little ones and lazy rivers, slides and a pirate-ship play structure for older children. Nothing is laid on for babies.
What stands out
Two clubhouses with lazy rivers, a splash pad, a pirate-ship play structure and waterslides, and a private splash pool or full pool at the townhouses and detached homes.
What to check
Who you’re booking through. Price, fees, whether a cot and highchair come with the home and whether pool heating is included all vary by the management company, not the resort.
Where is it?
A gated holiday-home community in Kissimmee, central Florida, about 5 miles (8 km) from Walt Disney World and 20 to 30 minutes from Orlando airport.
Quick facts for families
Where Storey Lake is
It’s one large gated community built for holiday lets, so the clubhouses and their pools are shared and constant while the home you book is not.
Storey Lake sits in central Kissimmee, just off US-192, the main tourist strip most villa communities here use to reach the parks, and Osceola Parkway. It was built by Lennar, a US national homebuilder, from around 2017 and added to in phases since, in the same villa belt covered in our Orlando guide. The homes sit in named neighbourhoods: The Cove, with vacation villas and resort townhouses; The Terraces, which are condos; and Reflections, a quieter residential side of detached houses.
For distances, it’s about 5 miles (8 km) to the Disney parks, a 10 to 20 minute drive once you allow for the roads and car parks, so treat the resort’s own "five minutes" line with caution. Universal Orlando is about 15 miles (24 km), roughly 20 to 25 minutes, and Orlando International Airport (MCO) is about 20 to 22 miles (32 to 35 km), 20 to 30 minutes depending on traffic. SeaWorld sits on the same road network within easy reach.
The bit that catches families outHow booking works
There’s no single Storey Lake booking desk. The community’s own portal lets some of the homes directly, and a large number of others are let through separate companies, among them Top Villas, Global Resort Homes, FunStay Homes, Magic Vacation Homes, VR360 Homes and Vacasa. Each sets its own prices, minimum stay, cleaning fee, cancellation terms and standard of furnishing.
So booking Storey Lake really means booking one specific house through one specific company. The photos, the reviews and the terms that matter are the ones for that exact home, since a strong review of one house says little about another under a different manager. It’s also why review sites show several separate Storey Lake entries rather than one score for the place.
Fees and house rules
Clubhouse and water park access is free for any on-site guest, with no resort fee added. What you pay on top of the nightly rate is a cleaning fee and any booking fee, both set by your management company, so pin those down before you pay. Homes here also can’t be used for parties or large gatherings, with a no-tolerance noise policy that can cost the security deposit.
The homes
They run from a two-bedroom condo to a nine-bedroom house, and only the townhouses and detached homes come with a pool of their own.
There’s no hotel room at Storey Lake. The smallest thing you can book is a two-bedroom condo, and it scales up to a nine-bedroom detached house, all self-catering with a full kitchen. Because the homes are individually owned and furnished, sizes and layouts vary from one home to the next even within the same type, so treat the ranges below as the pattern rather than a fixed spec, and read that exact home’s own figures.
| Home type | Bedrooms | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Condo, in The Terraces | 2 to 4 | Apartment-style, roughly 1,100 to 1,500 sq ft (about 102 to 139 m²), with some larger penthouse layouts. No private pool, though some buildings share one, and clubhouse access comes either way |
| Townhouse, in The Cove | 4 to 5 | Two-storey, roughly 1,800 to 2,200 sq ft (about 167 to 204 m²), with a small private splash pool on a screened patio |
| Detached house or villa | 5 to 9 | Roughly 3,000 to 4,000+ sq ft (about 279 m² and up), with a full private screened pool, some with a spa and often a games room and cinema room |
The private pool is where the types really differ. Condos have no pool of their own, though some Terraces buildings share one. The townhouses come with a splash pool, a small plunge-style pool on a screened patio rather than a full swimming pool. The detached houses and villas have a proper private screened pool, some with a spa, and this is the type to look at if you want real time by your own water rather than at the clubhouse. Examples run from a five-bedroom house sleeping up to ten to a nine-bedroom sleeping into the twenties, and many of the larger homes add a games room and a home cinema, space a family wouldn’t get across several hotel rooms.
For a baby or toddler, separate bedrooms with doors make an early bedtime easier than a single hotel room allows.
The clubhouses and water park
The two clubhouses are the shared heart of Storey Lake, free to every on-site guest whichever company they booked through.
The original clubhouse and water park
The Hideaway Club is the original and larger of the two. Its water park has a zero-entry pool, a gently sloping beach entry rather than steps that a toddler can walk into, warmed when the temperature drops below 75°F (about 24°C). Alongside it sit a lazy river, two waterslides and a large spa. The best feature for a child too small to swim is the separate splash pad, a shallow play area of fountains, spray jets and a tipping bucket, away from the deeper water.
Indoors and around the pool there’s a restaurant and bar, an ice cream shop, a covered terrace over the pool, a lounge with darts and a pool table, a fitness centre and a games room with a cinema. There’s also a nine-hole mini-golf course, free for on-site guests.
The Bronson ClubThe newer clubhouse, with a pirate ship
The Bronson Club opened more recently and has its own heated pool and lazy river, with islets and a pirate-ship play structure set in the water that younger children tend to make straight for. There’s a bar and grill kitchen, an arcade and a gym with a basketball half-court, plus the Boathouse, a small shop for snacks, drinks, ice cream, sunscreen and pool floats.
It keeps its own hours: the pool and gym open at 9am, the bar and kitchen at 10am and everything closes at 9pm. You show proof of your stay, a QR code or booking confirmation, to get in, under-18s need an adult with them, and no outside food, drink or alcohol is allowed. As at any Florida pool, the outdoor water features close when lightning is detected within 10 miles, which on a summer afternoon happens often, though the indoor areas stay open.
Around the communityPlaygrounds, courts and the lake
A free van shuttle links the two clubhouses and the accommodation, though it doesn’t go outside the gates. Across the community there are two playgrounds, basketball and sand volleyball courts, walking and jogging trails, fire-pit picnic areas and a sand pit. The natural lake has kayak and canoe rental for a local charge, with herons and turtles about, and a fishing dock. Entry to the community is gated and staffed around the clock.
Eating and drinking
Eating on site means the two clubhouse grills or your own kitchen, so most families cook in and eat out a few times.
There’s no restaurant scene here on the scale of a resort hotel. Eating on site means the Hideaway Club’s restaurant and bar and its ice cream shop, the Bronson Club’s bar and grill and the Boathouse’s snacks, plus whatever you cook yourself. Every home has a full kitchen, and for a family with young children that full kitchen matters most, letting you make bottles and weaning food as at home, skip restaurant timings and kids’ menus and save on eating out for every meal. The nearest supermarket is a Publix about 4 miles (6 km) east along US-192, so it’s worth a shop on the drive from the airport rather than a walk once you’re there.
For the little onesBabies and toddlers
Storey Lake is a self-catering community, not a staffed resort. There’s no crèche, no kids’ club and no babysitting run by the resort, so plan on watching your own throughout, including at the pools, and any childcare would be a private arrangement of your own.
What suits little ones is the water rather than any programme. The Hideaway Club’s splash pad and its zero-entry pool let a child who isn’t swimming yet play in shallow water, and a private pool at your own house means water time can fit around naps. If a home has its own pool, some owners fit a pool fence or alarm only on request, so ask the management company for one if it matters for your child. Cots and highchairs are commonly provided, though by the individual management company, so confirm yours rather than assume. The wider Florida practicalities, the car-seat law, the different formula and nappy brands and the rule against swimming in fresh water because of alligators, are in our Orlando guide rather than repeated here.
Beyond the gatesThe area and days out
Storey Lake sits on the US-192 tourist strip, so it’s a workable base for the whole Orlando parks scene rather than a sealed bubble. Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld are all reachable by car in well under an hour, and how the Disney parks work with young children is covered in our Disney parks section. Closer to home, Old Town Kissimmee, a nostalgic strip of shops and family rides, is about 2 miles (3 km) west along US-192, and The Loop, an open-air shopping and dining centre, is around 5 miles (8 km) off for an evening out or a rainy afternoon. The Orlando guide covers flights, hire cars and the ESTA.
Loves and gripes
Families rate the clubhouse pools and the space of a whole house, and the recurring gripe is that no two homes here are quite the same.
What families love
- The two clubhouses and their pools, with zero-entry water, a splash pad, lazy rivers and slides for a range of ages.
- The space and privacy of a whole house, often with a private pool.
- A full kitchen and the saving of self-catering for a family of four or more.
- Kayaking and wildlife-spotting on the lake, a low-cost extra a hotel pool doesn’t have.
- Close to Disney, Universal and SeaWorld without paying on-site Disney prices.
Common gripes
- Standards vary noticeably from one home to another, since each is owned and managed separately.
- Some guests report late-night noise from nearby rental groups, despite the no-party rules.
- The "five minutes to Disney" claim is optimistic, with 10 to 20 minutes the realistic drive.
- A hire car is unavoidable, with cleaning and booking fees on top of the nightly rate.
- No crèche, kids’ club or organised childcare of any kind.
The gripes track the way Storey Lake is run. Many owners and many management companies mean the standard of a given home varies, and how quiet your stay is can come down to who’s renting next door. None of that is a mark against the community itself, it’s the nature of a holiday-home resort, so it’s worth reading recent reviews for your own home and dates before you book.
The car and the airportGetting there and around
A hire car is essential. Storey Lake runs no shuttle to the parks, the airport or the shops, and the free van inside the gates only links the two clubhouses and the homes. Fly into Orlando International Airport (MCO), about 20 to 22 miles (32 to 35 km) away and 20 to 30 minutes’ drive depending on traffic, and pick up a car there. The community sits just off US-192 and Osceola Parkway, the main Kissimmee corridor most villa communities use to reach the parks, with gated entry around the clock. Central Florida’s toll roads are cashless, and how to handle them in a hire car is in the Orlando guide.
When to goWeather
Kissimmee sits inland in central Florida, with hot, humid summers and mild, drier winters, and Storey Lake is open year-round with no seasonal closure. December to February is the driest and coolest stretch, good for park days but cool enough that an unheated private pool feels cold, so check whether heating comes with your booking. June to September is hot and wet, with short, heavy afternoon thunderstorms most days, the same storms that trigger the clubhouse pools’ lightning closures. Spring is warm and fairly dry but overlaps the Easter and spring-break crowds across the whole Orlando area. The table shows the Greater Orlando pattern through the year.
| Month | Daytime high | Overnight low | Rain | Wet days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 22° | 10.5° | 55 mm | 5 |
| February | 24° | 12.5° | 43 mm | 5 |
| March | 26.5° | 14.5° | 64 mm | 5 |
| April | 29° | 17.5° | 64 mm | 5 |
| May | 31.5° | 20.5° | 98 mm | 7 |
| June | 33° | 23° | 205 mm | 14 |
| July | 33.5° | 24° | 201 mm | 14 |
| August | 33.5° | 24.5° | 206 mm | 15 |
| September | 32° | 23.5° | 185 mm | 12 |
| October | 29.5° | 20° | 70 mm | 6 |
| November | 25.5° | 15.5° | 51 mm | 5 |
| December | 23° | 13° | 55 mm | 5 |
Typical monthly averages from weather-station records.
Questions
Is it really five minutes to Disney?
No, that’s the resort’s own marketing figure. Allow 10 to 20 minutes each way to the Disney gates when you plan a park day, not five.
Do we need a hire car?
Yes. There’s no shuttle to the parks, the airport or the shops, and the nearest supermarket is a few miles off. The free van inside the gates only links the two clubhouses and the homes, so budget for a car exactly as you would for any Kissimmee villa.
Will there be a cot and a highchair?
Often, but ask the company you book with. Many owners provide a cot, a US "pack n’ play" and a highchair free or on request, but this is set per home rather than by Storey Lake, so confirm it instead of assuming.
Is there anything for a baby or a young toddler?
Nothing organised, so any childcare is your own. The splash pad aside, what helps most for a baby is a home with its own pool, so lean towards a private-pool house over a condo if this is your main age group.
Is the water park included, or a separate ticket?
Included. Both clubhouses are free for anyone staying in an on-site home, whichever company you booked through, with no resort fee on top. Your cleaning fee and any booking fee are separate and set by that company.
Will our private pool be warm in winter?
Only if heating is included, and it often isn’t. For homes with their own pool, heating is usually an optional paid extra set by the owner, and an unheated pool feels cold from December to February, so check whether your booking includes it before you travel.
What about the reports of noise from other homes?
Some guests do report late-night noise from nearby rental groups, though most don’t. The homes sit close together and are let by many companies, so how the no-party rules land depends on who’s renting next door at the time. If quiet matters, read recent reviews for the specific home before you book.
See more Storey Lake Resort photos
Open the Storey Lake Resort photo gallery →
Useful links
- Storey Lake Resort: the community’s own rental portal, for some of the homes and what the clubhouses include.
- Storey Lake Hideaway: the community and clubhouse site, with the Bronson Club rules and hours.
- GOV.UK USA travel advice: entry rules, ESTA guidance and safety updates before you travel.
- Florida with little ones: our guide to villas, the parks, hire cars, the ESTA and the Gulf beaches.
- The Disney parks: how Walt Disney World works with young children.
Last updated 30 July 2026.
