Inside Orlando's only Five Diamond hotel, with a $15,000-a-night suite

The 16th-floor balcony of the $15,000-a-night suite at the Four Seasons Resort Orlando gives guests a bird's-eye view of the features that help make the hotel a destination for the super-rich and powerful.

Guests can see the clubhouse of the resort's 18-hole Tranquilo Golf Course. They can watch the winding path of the lazy river, where they can lounge and relax while sipping margaritas.

Or, off in the distance, basketball courts for those staying at the 443-room resort who want to be more active at the complex just southeast of Disney World's Magic Kingdom.

In short, amenities abound at the Four Seasons, Orlando's only AAA Five Diamond-rated hotel, a prestigious and rare rating that the resort won when it opened in 2014 and still holds.

The travel club AAA sends thousands of inspectors — which include former hotel managers and food and beverage professionals — to the 27,000 hotels rated by the agency each year.

Of those properties, 121, or about 0.4%, were awarded the top rating after the unannounced visits last year. AAA, which has rated hotels and restaurants since 1937, plans to release this year's rankings early next month.

"For some hotels, it's all they want," said tourism professor Deborah Breiter of University of Central Florida's Rosen College of Hospitality Management. "It's the cachet. It costs a lot of money to be a Five Diamond property because you're talking about things like 24-hour room service, certain specific amenities."

Last year in Central Florida, Hard Rock Hotel in Daytona Beach, Copper Creek Villas and Cabins in Lake Buena Vista and Walt Disney World Dolphin in Lake Buena Vista received AAA's Four Diamond Award for the first time. But the Four Seasons remains the only Five Diamond hotel.

The 3,300-square-foot Royal Suite, which costs $15,000 a night and includes a master bedroom, media room, private office and a kitchen, set with granite and limestone floors and crystal lighting, can expand to become a nine-bedroom residence.

At 2,750 square feet, the $14,000-a-night Presidential Suite's American walnut flooring runs throughout the suite, which can become a four-bedroom residence.

The least expensive rooms at Four Seasons could be rented for $995 per night over the weekend, nearly eight times the average hotel room in Orlando last year, according to industry tracker STR.

Four Seasons draws a clientele that expects the best: celebrities. GM and Regional Vice President Thomas Steinhauer would not specify who had stayed at the hotel for privacy reasons but said it wouldn't be difficult to connect the dots.