Emerald Island Resort

Arrive after a nine-hour flight and the last hundred yards tell you what kind of week this will be. You drop under an underpass, then pull up at a colonnade with a dolphin fountain, and the gates are staffed 24 hours so somebody is there whatever time your flight actually landed. Trees have had decades to grow at Emerald Island, and it shows on every street: oaks and pines over the road, shade on the pavement, none of the raw look of a new estate.

Distance to Disney is the headline and it is a strong one. Animal Kingdom is under four miles away, which is about as close to a Disney park as an Orlando villa community gets. Hollywood Studios and EPCOT are both around seven miles. Very little else in this price bracket sits that close, and the payoff arrives at one in the afternoon, when a melting three-year-old can be asleep at the villa in minutes rather than in a car park queue.

Scale is compact by central Florida standards, and that is part of the appeal. Streets are short, the clubhouse and the two communal pools are a few minutes on foot from most of the resort rather than a drive, and mature oaks and pines shade the roads in a way the new estates out on US-27 will not manage for another twenty years. Permanent residents live here alongside the holiday lets, which keeps the evenings quieter than at a purpose-built rental resort and makes the noise and parking rules worth reading.

Be clear-eyed about what is not here. There is no water park, no lazy river, no slides and no splash pad. Two outdoor pools serve the community, one heated and with a spa, and neither is lifeguarded. Families who want a resort with a wristband and a river to float down should look at Windsor Hills or a Reunion-style resort instead. What Emerald Island offers in exchange is space, shade, quiet and a very short drive to the parks.

Finding it takes one turn more than you expect on the first night. The clubhouse sits at 2751 Emerald Island Boulevard, with the entrance off Funie Steed Road and Oak Island Road, and the underpass is the landmark to watch for.

Range is the useful thing about the housing at Emerald Island. Modest three and four bedroom houses stand on the same streets as much larger ones, which is not true of the newer estates further out where everything was built to a single brief. A family of four and a large multi-generational group can both find something that fits, and they can find it inside the same gates, on the same short walk to the same Tiki Bar.

Screened pool decks are the standard arrangement at the back of a house, and on a wooded site they earn their keep. Mosquitoes take mature trees and still water as an invitation, so the screen cage is what makes an evening outside possible at all, and the covered lanai at the house end gives shade while the open deck beyond it gives sun. Ask whether a particular deck is screened and which way it faces, because a north facing deck loses the sun by mid-afternoon in December.

Private pools are common here without being the rule, and that is the detail most likely to catch a UK family out. A listing photograph of a pool is not proof that the pool belongs to the house, and homes without their own water use the two communal pools instead. Confirm private or communal water for a specific villa before you pay a deposit, particularly if you are travelling with toddlers or in winter. Heating, where a pool is private, is a nightly charge rather than an inclusion, and between roughly November and March it is the difference between a pool you swim in and a pool you look at.

Games rooms follow the Florida convention of a converted garage holding a pool table or an arcade machine, and they turn up in some houses and not in others rather than being close to standard. Laundry is the same story. Neither is guaranteed by the community, so both are worth confirming property by property if a fortnight with children depends on them, and neither should be assumed from a general description of the resort.

Kit differs from a UK holiday cottage in ways that take a day to get used to. Air conditioning runs throughout rather than in one room, the fridge freezer is large enough to make a weekly shop worth doing, kitchens carry a dishwasher, a cooker and a microwave as standard, and hot tubs sit on the larger decks rather than on all of them. Outlooks vary far more than on a flat new estate, so a conservation view onto trees rather than onto a neighbour's fence is a genuine possibility here.

Clubhouse facilities run to around 4,000 square feet and open daily from 8am to 10pm. Inside there is a free internet cafe, known as the CyberCafe, an exercise room with cardio equipment and benches, a sauna, and a games arcade running on tokens. It is a sensible, human-sized building rather than a leisure complex, and it does not try to be anything else.

Tiki Bar is where the resort earns its personality. Open daily from 11am to 10pm, licensed for beer and wine-based liquors, serving hot food and snacks, with music through the week and karaoke every Sunday. Very few communities of this size run a bar with that many hours on it, and it is the reason people who have stayed here once tend to come back.

Sport is free and floodlit. Two tennis courts sit inside the resort with equipment available to hire, and a full-size basketball court runs alongside them. A sand volleyball court is set near the main gate. Three separate children's play areas are spread across the community, so you are rarely far from one.

Green space is the thing that genuinely sets this address apart from the newer estates on US-27. An 11-acre woodland nature trail loops through the resort on a concrete path, which means pushchairs and older knees manage it comfortably, and there is a dog park at its centre. Walking it in the early morning before a park day is one of the better habits you can pick up on a Florida holiday.

Missing from the list, and worth stating rather than glossing over: there is no water park, no lazy river, no slide, no splash pad, no restaurant beyond the Tiki Bar, no spa treatments and no golf. There is also no complimentary theme park shuttle, so a hire car is not optional here.

Two outdoor pools serve the community, one of them heated and paired with a spa. Neither is lifeguarded, which is standard for Florida villa communities and still worth knowing if you are used to British leisure centres. Loungers, shade and the walk back to your own villa are all measured in a couple of minutes rather than a shuttle ride, because this is a compact resort by central Florida standards.

Nothing about the water here is a theme park in miniature. There are no slides, no lazy river and no splash pad. Children who need a water park in the resort itself will be happier at a community built around one. Children who are content with a pool, a hot tub, a tennis ball and a bicycle will be perfectly happy, and you will have saved money that goes into park tickets instead.

Private pools belong to a good share of the houses here, each with its own screened deck and lanai. Those decks are where a Florida holiday actually happens: breakfast outside, a swim before the drive to a park, and a long evening in the water once the temperature drops. Heating is offered as a nightly extra rather than an inclusion, and it genuinely matters from November through to March.

Outdoor space beyond the pools is what most guests remember. Mature oaks and pines shade the streets, the 11-acre nature trail runs on a concrete path through the middle of the resort, and a dog park sits at the heart of it. Three children's play areas, two floodlit tennis courts with equipment hire, a full-size basketball court and a sand volleyball court near the main gate fill in the rest. It suits families who want to send children out on scooters more than families who want a wristband.

Kissimmee, in Osceola County, is the address on your booking confirmation rather than Orlando, and that is worth knowing before you land rather than at the gate. Letting an entire house by the week is not permitted in the City of Orlando's residential neighbourhoods, and Osceola County zoned for exactly that use, which is why the villa communities cluster on this side of the county line. Being outside the city costs you nothing here, since Animal Kingdom is under four miles away.

Animal Kingdom is under four miles from the gate, roughly 9 minutes with clear roads, and that single figure is the strongest argument for booking here. EPCOT and Hollywood Studios are both around seven miles, about 15 and 19 minutes. Magic Kingdom is a little over nine miles at about 15 minutes. Disney Springs is under 10 miles at around 19 minutes.

Universal Orlando sits about 17 miles out, roughly 26 minutes, and SeaWorld just under 14 miles at about 27. Orlando International Airport is around 25 miles and near enough 33 minutes on a clean run. Treat all of those as free-flowing figures. I-4 at peak, broadly 7am to 9:30am and 4pm to 7pm, stretches anything that touches the motorway, and park closing has the same effect on the roads around Disney.

Reaching the resort is easy once you know the sequence. Coming off US-192, you turn onto Formosa Gardens Boulevard for about nine tenths of a mile, then right for a further six tenths of a mile, through the underpass and up to the colonnade and dolphin fountain at the entrance. SR-429, the Western Beltway, runs roughly 200 yards to the west, which is handy for the northern parks and is a toll road. Access from I-4 and Osceola Parkway also works.

Hire a car, without exception. There is no complimentary theme park shuttle from Emerald Island, and no dependable public transport to any park. Accept the hire company's toll package at the desk rather than trying to dodge gantries, because SR-429 and the other beltways charge and several sections no longer handle cash from a visitor's vehicle. Being this close to Animal Kingdom pays off most at lunchtime, when going home for two hours and a nap costs you nine minutes each way rather than forty.

Tiki Bar is the whole of the on-site catering, and it does more than the description suggests. Open daily 11am to 10pm, licensed for beer and wine-based liquors, serving hot food and snacks, with music through the week and karaoke every Sunday night. A poolside lunch and a couple of drinks without moving the car is exactly what most people want on the day between park visits, and the Sunday karaoke has a following among returning guests.

Everything else means driving, which is true of almost every villa community in the area. US-192 is your artery, reached via Formosa Gardens Boulevard, and it carries the full range of American chain restaurants, pancake houses, steak buffets and takeaways along its length. Portions are large, prices are lower than Disney property by a wide margin, and most places will happily feed a family of six for the cost of two park lunches.

Your weekly food shop should happen on day one. Publix is the supermarket British families usually settle on, with a deli counter making subs to order that comes in cheaper and better than any drive-through, and branches sit along US-192 within a short drive. Larger stores along the same road handle bulk buying, beach towels, sun cream, a cool box and the paddling-pool toys that get abandoned at the end of the fortnight.

Shopping of any ambition means going a little further. Disney Springs is under 10 miles and about 19 minutes, and covers clothes, a cinema and dinner without needing a park ticket. Outlet malls and the bigger centres sit north towards International Drive, so allow a half day rather than an hour. Remember Florida sales tax lands on top of the shelf price and is not shown on the label, and that table service expects a tip of 18 to 20 per cent.

Families doing Disney properly are the natural fit. Being under four miles from Animal Kingdom, and around seven from EPCOT and Hollywood Studios, changes the shape of a fortnight. You can do a morning at a park, come back for a swim and a nap, and return for the evening show without treating the drive as an event. Parents of toddlers feel that benefit more than anyone.

Smaller groups are well served, which is not always true in this part of Florida. Three and four bedroom houses sit on the same streets as the big ones, so a single family of four to eight is not forced to rent and heat a house built for sixteen. At the other end, the larger properties here take a full multi-generational trip without anybody sleeping on a sofa.

Walkers, runners and dog owners get something here that money cannot easily buy elsewhere. An 11-acre woodland nature trail on a concrete path, with a dog park at its centre, mature trees over the streets and three children's play areas, adds up to a community you can actually spend time in rather than one you drive out of every morning.

Anyone whose children have set their heart on a resort water park should book elsewhere. There is no water park, no lazy river, no slide and no splash pad at Emerald Island, and no amount of tennis and nature trail will substitute for that if a ten-year-old has been promised one. Windsor Hills, Reunion and the bigger US-27 resorts exist for exactly that reason.

Groups on a strict budget should still check the pool question carefully. Homes that use the communal water rather than a private pool cost less and suit some parties perfectly well in July, when nobody is indoors anyway. In January it is a different proposition, so match the villa to the month rather than to the headline rate.

Vehicle registration on arrival is the first thing to sort out. Every car has to be registered at the gate for a parking permit, so keep the hire agreement to hand rather than buried in a suitcase. Street parking then runs on an odd and even month rotation, meaning the side of the road you may leave a car on changes with the calendar. That rotation catches out more British guests than anything else at this resort, so read the notice you are given and check it again if your stay straddles the end of a month.

Private pool or communal pool is the other question to settle in writing. Some houses here have water of their own and some do not, and photographs on a listing site can be ambiguous about which is which. Pool heating is a nightly charge rather than an inclusion, confirmed at the time of booking, and it is close to essential between November and March.

Gates are staffed around the clock and the resort is genuinely quiet by design, with mature trees and permanent residents alongside holiday lets. Noise and parking rules are enforced accordingly. Neither pool is lifeguarded, which is normal in Florida and still worth repeating to children who are used to a pool attendant at home.

Driving and paperwork need a little planning. A hire car is essential, since no complimentary theme park shuttle runs from here. British passport holders need an approved ESTA before departure, a full UK photocard licence is accepted without an international permit, and a credit card rather than a debit card makes the hire deposit far simpler. Take the toll package at the rental desk, because SR-429 runs 200 yards away and several toll sections no longer accept cash.

Weather and cover round it off. Hurricane season runs 1 June to 30 November, with risk concentrated in August, September and October, so buy insurance valid in the United States and declare existing conditions honestly rather than avoiding those months. Summer afternoons bring thunderstorms that usually clear within the hour, which is a good moment for the arcade, the CyberCafe or a quiet drink at the bar.