Well, maybe Low is the wrong word. Middle Of The Road, perhaps. This is the Disney World equivalent of a Motel 6. Which can, in certain circumstances, be perfectly acceptable.

My wife and I had one night to stay in Orlando before our condo opened up in Fernandina Beach. I vaguely recalled there being a military resort in the area and was delighted to learn about SOG.

Booking/Website:
The SOG site is fairly simple and informative. I was quickly able to answer many of my questions (where it was, rates, eligibility, check-in/out times, etc). And since I always like to see where I'm staying beforehand, I checked out all of the pictures (there's a bunch of the exterior grounds, plus a bunch of the standard room). I then proceeded to the reservations section. I was worried that my timeline was going to ambush me, in that I was making reservations about two weeks out for Spring Break. I was sure it would be sold out. But for some odd reason, there was plenty of room. When you get to the reservations page (after a page of rules), there's a simple and handy color-coded calendar display that tells you in a glance what days are open that month. DO NOT TRUST THIS CALENDAR. If the dates you want are green (available), then you're good to go. Go ahead and make the reservations. If the dates you want are red (sold out), don't despair (yet). My guess is that, since the rates are categorized based on rank, that as soon as one category (say, E1-E5) fills up, the color turns to gold (limited availability) or red (sold out). Maybe it takes two groups selling out to make it red, or something like that. The bottom line is that there may still be rooms available if your desired date is red.

The idea of this calendar is to simply click on the date you want to arrive, and it will bring you to the booking section. However, if the date you want is red, nothing will happen when you click on it. No problem. Simply find a date that's green or gold and click on it. You'll get to the booking section, where you'll have to fill in your check-in/out dates, # adults/children, and rank. All you need to do is fill in the original date you want instead of the available date you clicked on. For example, March 24th through the end of the month is solid red. The 23rd, however, is green. If I wanted to stay a night on the 26th, I will get nothing if I cilck on the 26th. But clicking on the 23rd will get me to the booking section, where, for the dates, I fill in the 26th/27th for check-in/out and presto, it tells me there are a few rooms available. If I select other dates, it'll tell me there are indeed no more rooms, but the point is that you won't know for sure until you get into the booking section, beyond that calendar. Now, it may be that you have to pay another rate for the room (say you're an E-2 but there are only O4-O6 rates left). I'm not sure about this, but even if it's true, paying the extra 30 or so bucks for the rooms is still an outstanding rate for a resort on WDW grounds.

The Good: The booking process is easy, the website is, overall, intuitive and easy to navigate, and the pictures are accurate (for the most part).
The Bad: The misleading "Sold Out" blocks on the calendar (see above). Also, the cancellation window (over 30 days) is bit excessive. Since I booked two weeks out, I was automatically inside that window and so had no chance to cancel my reservation had my plans changed.

Arrival:
The first thing I ran into is that I should have checked out the directions on the SOG website. I simply googled the hotel and got google's route coming off I-4. Google, of course, knows nothing about the maze of roads on WDW grounds. Fortunately, there are signs. You eventually get to the toll booth, which the website has you going through the far right booth, for guests at lodging (no parking fee). Having not checked that part of the website, I cruised into a random open booth, where the politely asked what our destination was, and upon hearing SOG, they happily provided us quick directions and let us be on our way, never bothering us about money. So, any tollbooth will let you in without forcing you to pay.

The next thing we ran into was the guard shack at the entrance to the SOG resort. I really like this. Is it unnecessary? Maybe, but there's nothing wrong with that extra bit of added security. The guard checked our IDs and took my booking confirmation letter (which came in the mail the week prior), confirmed we were on some Go Through List somewhere, and let us go. Up we drove to the entrance (the short drive up is quite scenic, and seems to promise a little more than the hotel actually delivers). I began to park behind a line of cars, but one of the valets saw us and waved us up front to the entrance. Nice. He nicely told us to leave the keys in the car and head into the hotel, to the right, and check in (and to make sure I knew my license plate #, because I'd need it--also nice, because it saved me a trip back out to glance at it).

Checking in was a snap. The agent that took care of me was very friendly and informative. This was one of those situations where there was no line, although there were two separate parties at the counter checking in, tying up two agents. There were two other agents behind the counter going over something or other with each other (one may have been a manager), and I stood there for about five seconds taking the scene in, and had just finished formulating the thought "Why am I standing here waiting when there are agents behind the counter NOT checking people in but NOT helping me?" As soon as that thought finished, one of those two agents saw me and broke off what he was doing to check me in. Again, Nice.

The hotel is almost Euro-style, in that there are these two wings and if you're unlucky, you may wind up hiking to your room. That was us. The agent very nicely pulled out a map of the hotel and told us how to get to the garage, recommended where to park, and told us how to get to our room from there. The parking garage has numbered spaces (no mention of this while checking in), so when we got there we didn't want to get towed, so we found our room # space and I quickly determined it was impossible to park there. Well, maybe not impossible, but not worth the risk. It was right in between two support columns and required much back-and-forth maneuvering of my SUV to squeeze in it. After two back-and-forths I realized I was tempting fate and my $1000 deductible, so I parked in the next spot over. Once I got to our room I called the front desk just to let them know, and they informed me the numbers didn't really mean anything and not to worry. As long as you have the tag they give you on check-in on your rearview mirror, you won't get towed.

So getting from the garage to the room was a bit of a hike. I had to go into the hotel, down an elevator, across the large lobby, down a hall, down another bridging walkway to the other wing, down a hall to an elevator, up a floor, down another hallway to my room. Wow. Will the bellhops take your stuff to your room? Sure, but I didn't want to bother with that, so I was wheeling everything myself, and it's a long way. If you get lucky you'll be in the wing you enter right from the parking garage. You may want to check on that while checking in, and maybe try to change your room.

Parking, by the way, will run you 5 bucks (not sure if that's a daily rate or for the entire duration of your stay). Ten if you use the valet. This is still a good deal, though, since you don't have to pay for parking at the parks.

The Good: Very friendly, reasonably quick check-in process.
The Bad: Getting to your room from the garage is a pain. Not forcing customers to park in their assigned spot is a plus, but not mentioning that during check-in pretty much ruins that advantage!

The Room:
This is where SOG enters the standard military quality arena. The first thing I noticed when I entered the room was the size. It's a bit larger than a standard hotel room. Roomy. You enter in a hallway bordered on each side by the bathroom and a long closet. Then it opens up into the sleeping area, with a Queen bed on one side and bureaus/TV/mini fridge on the other. Then there's a surprisingly tasteful division into an eating area--table on one side and a small sleeper couch on the other. All of the furniture is decent quality, solid wood stuff. The room is sparsely decorated, but decently so.

Then I noticed the carpet and the bed. For one thing, I don't know why any hotel these days offers a Queen bed. King seems to be the standard, at least in the places I frequent. At a resort on WDW grounds, I would think a Queen would be substandard. Not so here, though. I would also think that because of this, they would at least try to gussy the bed up. They don't. Cheap ugly comforter, cheap sheets, cheap pillows, and only two of them. The bed itself was stiff and not comfortable. And why was there just one bed? The standard room is supposed to have two Queens. I was paying the standard room rate.

The carpet, too, was thin and cheap. Then there was the bathroom, which looked nothing at all like the pictures. This was the only place the pictures at the website lied. The bathroom had only one sink and was a bit Motel 6-ish. The commode is half-separated from the sink/shower by a wall. Over the commode is the towel rack. To reach the towels from the shower is impossible. Not so nice. The shower had decent tile with a caulk job that was clearly showing its age. The shower nozzle was cheap and did not give a good, full shower. It went either to needle spray or to a thin shower--one of those sprays that gets more narrow as it gets farther away from the nozzle instead of broadening out like I'm used to.

Other than that, you have the standard amenities in the room. Mini fridge, TV with a decent cable lineup (not family-friendly! I saw a decent amount of nudity). The phone will pretty much cost you two quarters every time you use it, and for 800 numbers it'll cost an extra three quarters if you go beyond 30 minutes. The balcony was pretty private and had the view promised in the website, facing the back grounds. Pretty. We kept the porch door open for a bit because the fresh air was nice, but it will automatically kick the a/c off until the door shuts. Hair drier (ours broke! Not Good), safe, ironing board/iron.

One notable absentee was any sort of hotel guide. I've been in tons of military lodging rooms, and almost all of them have some sort of base or hotel guide. You know, the one that tells you when check out is, how to connect to the WiFi, where the ice machine is, how to get out in case of a fire, etc. This place is in dire need of such a thing (and maybe other rooms have them? Not sure). We didn't even know where to eat! Easy enough to find, sure, but isn't it nice to crack open a guide and see where the restaurant is, what time it opens, what the cost is, etc? We had a bunch of questions, all of which had to be answered by leaving the room and asking people or exploring hotel. How a place like SOG can get by without such a guide is beyond me. And if they do exist, then an extra ding on the housekeeping staff for not making sure our room was properly equipped.

WiFi costs around 6 bucks for 12 hours. I elected not to partake, so I don't know how easy it is to log on and how fast the speeds are.

The Good: Roomy. Nice Balcony.
The Bad: Bathroom not so hot; phone charges, WiFi pretty expensive, cheap carpet and horrible bed.

Outside the Room....
On the hike to our room we passed the lobby, outside of which was a cool-looking tropical waterfall display. We wanted to see more. We also passed a small shopette and a ticket counter (we needed to purchase Magic Kingdom Tickets). So, once we were settled in our room, we went to check these things out. The waterfall was pretty cool, and engaged our 2-year old for a bit. Then we were off to buy tickets. There was a small line at the tickets counter. THIS SERVICE IS HORRIBLE. Really. We knew we wanted MK tickets, but didn't know several other things. What time did the park open? I'd heard about early opening for folks staying on WDW resorts. We didn't know how to get there (drive? shuttle? fees?). None of these questions were answered by looking around as we waited in line. All of them could have been with some simple signage. None of them were answered by the woman who helped us. We said we wanted MK tickets and that we were FL residents. We got the discount tickets and were told we'd have to show proof of residency at the park to get the proper tickets.

Why, you may ask, can't they take care of that at this counter? This silliness forces us to WAIT IN LINE at the park. Why use this SOG service to get tickets in advance when I have to wait in line at the park? If they can't take care of this process, then at least put a sign up telling us that they can't accommodate discount tickets. Then we wouldn't have bothered waiting in their line and using their (useless) service. In addition, nothing else was explained to us about park hours or transportation. We had to ask about all of that. Turns out a shuttle is available and that we could leave our car in the SOG garage for the day (even though we were checking out in the morning. But, the shuttle is 10 bucks per adult, and an extra 5 for kids over 2. Wow. No, thanks.

The shopette was good. Typical cheap AAFES prices, which was refreshing to see at a resort-like hotel.

The breakfast buffet was decent. Not great, but good enough to give you some variety, and a few hot choices (eggs, bacon, sausage, belgian waffles). About ten bucks per head, which is a bit overpriced, but not much. Drinks, of course, cost extra.

Since we got there a bit late we decided not to go to the pool, but from what we saw of it, it was pretty big and lots of folks were having fun in it. And according to the website, there was another pool which I didn't see.

There were other things I didn't take advantage of--pictures with Disney statues, an ice cream cafe, a shop or two, golfing.

The Good:Shopette, pools.
The Bad: The ticket service, shuttle fees.

While I had some problems with some of the above Bad Things, my wife, for what it's worth, thought the hotel was perfectly fine.

Recommended: Yes