By The Vagabond Golfer
Courtesy of WordGolf.com
I have been traveling to the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando for more than a dozen years, and never found a decent hotel room once. International Drive is not only home to the zillion-square-foot convention center where the Show is held, but also the site of hundreds of chain restaurants, gin mills, cheapo t-shirt shops and an unrelenting and depressing series of broken down, dingy and past-their-prime lodgings.
Finally, I got smart. (It only took a decade.) Just 20 minutes down I-4 towards Tampa is the sparkling, modern, thoroughly delightful Reunion Resort, which has about as much in common with the downtrodden digs on International Drive as does Rihanna with Roseanne Barr.
During Show Week, there’s precious little time to explore the 54 holes of golf (Watson, Palmer and Nicklaus as architects, no less) the Annika (as in Sorenstam) Academy, the half-dozen tennis courts, spa, pool, etc.
However there is time to have top-notch sushi in the Grande Lobby Sushi Bar (one of numerous fine options, although none quite as central as this one, just 20-odd steps from the registration desk.) There is also time to relax upstairs in beautifully appointed salons with high thread count sheets, plasma TV’s, full kitchens, comfortable couches and chairs, modern bathrooms and fixtures, sophisticated lighting, roomy closets and basically anything one could ever desire in a modern hotel room.
Reunion is ideal for all sorts of reunions – golf buddies, weddings, business trips, etc. But it is especially ideal for weary Show attendees, looking for a little peace, luxury, comfort and quiet after the wall-to-wall stimulation and cacophony of the PGA Merchandise Show.
