Kissimmee townhomes for a small group: where to start

If there are six, eight, maybe ten of you and you want a townhome in Kissimmee with its own pool, start with Stunning 4Bd near Disney @ Storey Lake Resort 2569. Four bedrooms, three baths, sleeps twelve, with a screened pool out the back and a game room inside. If your group runs larger, or you want everyone to have a door that shuts, the two five-bedroom Storey Lake homes and a six-bedroom at Solara cover the rest of the range.

One thing worth knowing before you compare anything: in this corner of Florida, "townhome" doesn't mean what it means anywhere else. A Kissimmee resort townhome is a two-story house attached on one or both sides, usually around two thousand square feet or more, with its own screened pool on the back patio and three parking spaces at the front. You're not trading down from a villa. You're trading a big yard you'd never use for a shorter walk to a lazy river.

The four-bedroom most small groups should look at first

2569 Storey Lake is a four-bedroom, three-bath townhome with a stated capacity of twelve, which suits two families or a group of friends who want a pool but not a mortgage payment. The ground floor has a queen bedroom next to a full bath, which solves the stairs question quietly. Upstairs sits the king suite and two themed rooms, one Mickey, one done up for gamers with two full beds in it.

What it has that matters: a pool table and a ping pong table, so the evening after a park day has somewhere to go, and a crib, a high chair, a stair gate and a baby monitor, which is an unusually complete set if you're travelling with a toddler and tired of hauling gear through an airport. The screened lanai backs onto conservation land rather than another house, and there's a basketball hoop at the pool.

Storey Lake sits near Osceola Parkway and SR 535, which puts you on I-4, the Turnpike or US 192 within a couple of minutes of leaving the gate. The clubhouse runs a lazy river, a lagoon-style pool, a splash park, a tiki bar and sports courts, and from most of our homes there you're walking to reach it.

Two five-bedrooms at Storey Lake, and how they differ

Both have a screened private pool, both sleep around a dozen, both sit in the same resort. The difference is where the beds are and where the extra space goes.

• Cozy 5Bd Storey Lake Home Near Disney 4851 puts two bedrooms on the ground floor, one with a king and an en-suite, one with two twins, plus a full bath and the laundry room. Five bedrooms, four baths, thirteen guests. Three generations travelling together tend to sort themselves out here without anyone negotiating about stairs.
• Spacious 5Bd w/ Pool at Storey Lake Resort 2905 gives twelve guests five bedrooms and four baths, with two queen bedrooms downstairs sharing a double-sink bath. Upstairs there's a king suite, a second king with its own bath, and a kids' room with a trundle and a bunk. The patio has a summer bed on it, which is the piece of furniture people end up fighting over.

Both have a game room; 4851 also has a pool table and ping pong. If your group skews adult and you want two proper king suites rather than one, look at 2905. If you need beds on the ground floor for grandparents and a crowd of kids upstairs, 4851 does that better.

When six bedrooms is the right answer

Solara Villa 6BR w/ FlowRider Surf & Private Pool 2154 is an end unit, six bedrooms, four and a half baths, stated for fifteen. Three of those bedrooms are themed for kids, Star Wars, Mickey and a Minnie bunk room, and three are proper suites: a king on the main floor with a double-vanity bath, a king upstairs, and a queen with a private en-suite. The half-bath opens from both the dining room and the lanai, which sounds like trivia until you have eleven wet people coming in off the pool deck.

Solara is a different proposition from Storey Lake. It's gated, off US 192 with quick access to I-4, US 27 and the 429, and its clubhouse runs a competition-level FlowRider surf simulator alongside a zero-entry pool, water slides, a splash pad and a pool bar. There's a restaurant and bar on site, an ice cream parlor, a fitness center, a teen hangout, and courts for basketball, beach volleyball and soccer. On a rainy afternoon, or a day you've decided not to buy park tickets, that's a full day inside the gates.

Solara sits about eight miles from the Disney complex. Universal is further out, up toward I-4, and runs closer to half an hour in ordinary traffic.

Count the beds, not the bedrooms

The number in the listing title is the least useful number on the page. A five-bedroom here might sleep twelve or fifteen depending entirely on how many bunks and trundles sit in the kids' rooms, and two homes with the same bedroom count can be a bath apart.

Work it the other way round. Count how many of your party need a private room with a closing door, usually the couples and anyone who wakes at five. Then count the bodies who'll happily share a themed room with a bunk in it. The first number tells you the bedrooms; the second tells you the capacity you need. A group of eight that's four couples wants a different house from a group of eight that's two parents and six cousins, though both type "8 guests" into the search box.

Bathrooms decide more than people expect, because a party of twelve getting out the door for a park opening is a plumbing problem before it's anything else. And if anyone in your group would rather not do stairs twice a day, a main-floor bedroom changes the trip more than any amenity on the list.

Why Kissimmee rather than closer in

Kissimmee is where the land was, which is why the resort communities grew here and why you can rent a whole house with a pool for the price of a couple of hotel rooms nearer the parks. Disney's main gates are a short run west along US 192 or down the Turnpike. Universal, SeaWorld and the International Drive strip sit north up I-4. Legoland is south, past Haines City, and Busch Gardens is a longer drive west toward Tampa.

The part people underrate is everything that isn't a theme park. Old Town, on US 192, is eighteen acres of open-air shops, bars and fairground rides, with a Ferris wheel built in Italy and a classic car cruise every Saturday night at half eight. Fun Spot America is next door, with a Skycoaster that's the tallest anywhere. Gatorland, on Orange Blossom Trail just north of the Kissimmee line, has been running since 1949, with a free-flight aviary, a petting zoo and the Gator Jumparoo show at half twelve, when the alligators come most of the way out of the water. Disney Springs is close enough for a dinner that doesn't need a park ticket.

And the thing a townhome gives you that a hotel can't: a full kitchen and a washer and dryer in the house. Four days into a trip with kids, the laundry matters more than the lazy river, and breakfast at the kitchen island saves you an hour and a queue.

Checking your dates

We look after a lot of Kissimmee homes, so if a date is gone on one of these, something close usually isn't. Tell us the dates, the headcount, how many of you need a room to yourselves, and whether anyone needs to avoid stairs, and we'll come back with what's genuinely open. Booking direct means no booking fees.

Worth raising at the same time: pool heating, a BBQ grill, a crib or a high chair are arranged separately from the reservation. Between December and March, a heated pool is the difference between a pool you look at and a pool you use.