Orlando runs a lot of internships. The theme parks, the hospitals, a video-game studio, an aerospace giant, a simulation cluster, headquarters companies and two large colleges all bring students to the city for a summer or a semester. The programs are well organized; the housing is usually left to you. Here is how to handle it.
Where the programs are
- The parks. Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld all run internship and professional-program tracks. Disney's college program provides its own housing; most other park programs do not.
- Downtown. Electronic Arts' studio at Creative Village, the UCF and Valencia downtown campus, the law and finance offices, and Orlando Health's campus just south. The Amelia House is about seven minutes from Creative Village.
- The hospitals. AdventHealth and Orlando Health host clinical rotations, residencies and administrative internships across the year.
- Defense and engineering. Lockheed Martin, Siemens Energy and the simulation companies in the Central Florida Research Park run summer engineering programs, mostly on the south and east sides of the city.
- Headquarters companies. Darden, Hilton Grand Vacations, Westgate, Travel + Leisure Co. and others have corporate internships around the city.
Our employer pages list the drive time from every one of our homes to each of these, which is the first thing to check.
The math of a shared house
A three-month apartment lease in Orlando usually means a longer minimum term, a deposit, utility setup, and an empty room you have to furnish. A furnished house shared by three or four interns on one monthly agreement skips all of that: beds, kitchen, laundry and Wi-Fi are in place, the rate is split, and the agreement ends when the program does. The Cozy House (three bedrooms), the Meet & Play House (three bedrooms with two desks) and the Londonderry House (three bedrooms) are the natural shares. A program or an employer can be the party on the agreement if it pays.
You will want a car
Orlando is a driving city, and our homes are in residential neighborhoods. There is a regional bus network, and a commuter rail line runs north to south on weekdays, but neither reaches the parks or the research park conveniently. Interns who share a house usually share a car or two as well. Every home has a private driveway, so parking is not the problem it is in a downtown apartment.
The summer itself
June through August is hot, humid and stormy in the afternoons. Plan the outdoor hours for the morning and the evening. Wekiwa Springs, the lakes downtown, Winter Park and the coast an hour away are how locals spend a summer weekend. Hurricane season runs through November; the house has a plan if a storm approaches, and we will walk you through it.
Before you arrive
- Confirm the dates with your program, then book; three-month stays are easy to arrange and to extend by a few weeks if the program does.
- Tell us who is sharing and how many bedrooms you need; the booking guest must be an adult.
- Ask about Wi-Fi if you will work from the house.
- Bring a suitcase and a laptop. Linens, cookware and the washer are already there.
The student and intern page has the homes and the terms.
How the drive works out by program
The rundown above tells you where the programs are. What actually decides which of our thirteen homes fits you is the drive, and since the portfolio sits on the west, northwest and downtown edges of Orlando rather than inside any single district, that drive is not the same from every house. Downtown and Creative Village, where the EA Orlando studio and the UCF and Valencia downtown campuses sit, are reachable from every one of our thirteen homes in 6 to 17 minutes by road, without traffic. The chart below breaks that figure out home by home, and the spoke map beneath it shows the compass direction and distance from Creative Village to each house, useful if your placement changes partway through the summer and you are weighing whether to move.
- 1 Fruit Tree Home 6 min
- 2 City and Stadium Sanctuary Vibes 7 min
- 3 Amelia’s Arena Retreat 7 min
- 4 Game Day Getaway-Downtown Orlando 8 min
- 5 Entertainment Home 10 min
- 6 The Clue House 10 min
- 7 Cozy Home 10 min
- 8 Meet. Play. Stay. 10 min
- 9 Piedmont 11 min
- 10 WinterPark Home 12 min
- 11 Downtown & Stadium Cozy Retreat 13 min
- 12 BlueEarth 15 min
- 13 Wekiwa Home 17 min
Creative Village itself is a compact, built-from-scratch campus: UCF's downtown presence, Valencia College's downtown classrooms and EA Orlando's studio sit inside the same development.
UCF Center for Emerging Media · Dclemens1971 · CC BY 4.0 · resized from 4032x3024
The engineering and simulation programs sit farther out, and it is worth knowing the real numbers before you commit to a house. Central Florida Research Park, where Team Orlando's simulation and training companies cluster, and UCF's main campus each run 26 to 36 minutes from our homes, and Lockheed Martin on Sand Lake Road runs 11 to 24 minutes depending on which house you start from. None of that is a short hop. If your placement is at the research park, at UCF, or at Lockheed, tell us when you inquire and we will point you toward whichever of the thirteen homes shortens that particular drive. For a hospital-based rotation the picture looks different again: Orlando Health and ORMC run 5 to 18 minutes from our homes, and AdventHealth Orlando runs 8 to 16 minutes, both comfortably inside the same close-in cluster as Creative Village.
Inside the three roommate houses
The Cozy House, the Meet & Play House and the Londonderry House are the three we usually point interns toward, and each handles a group a little differently.
Cozy Home
A three-bedroom bungalow in Pine Hills with a king room, a room with two full beds, and a third full bedroom, sleeping up to eight and sharing one bathroom with a tub and shower and a lighted round mirror. It is the simplest of the three, and the one where three or four roommates need to settle a bathroom schedule before day one. The kitchen has white cabinets, stainless appliances, a breakfast bar with stools, and a dining table for four, wood-look plank floors run through the house, and a full-size washer and dryer are already installed.
Meet. Play. Stay.
The newest-built home in the portfolio, in Malibu Groves, sleeps up to nine, the most of the three houses in this section, and is the one set up for actually working from a bedroom: two of its three bedrooms have a desk and an office chair, both bathrooms have a walk-in tile shower so two people are not queuing before an early shift, and there is a separate laundry room rather than a closet unit. The open living room has a fireplace TV wall and a large sectional, the kitchen has an island with seating and a dining table for six nearby, and a game room off to the side holds a pool table, a dart board and a second table. A covered back patio with wicker seating and cornhole in the fenced yard covers the evenings nobody wants to look at a screen.
Downtown & Stadium Cozy Retreat
In Pine Hills, this one sleeps up to eight: a king bedroom, a queen bedroom, and a bunk room with two sets of bunk beds. It trades a second full bathroom for that bunk room, with one full bath that has a marble-look walk-in shower, plus a half bath, for all eight. A glass dining table seats six, the kitchen has stainless appliances and a breakfast counter, wood-look plank floors and ceiling fans run throughout, and blackout curtains are in every bedroom, useful if one roommate's schedule runs later than the others.
A solo stay near downtown and Orlando Health
Not every intern is sharing a house. If you are on your own for a summer, or on a clinical rotation with hospital hours that will not match a roommate's schedule, the Amelia House on the Parramore edge of downtown is the one home in the portfolio already set up as a students-and-interns pick. It has four bedrooms and two bathrooms, one bedroom with its own attached bathroom for extra privacy, wood-look plank floors, and a freshly renovated white-cabinet kitchen with stainless appliances. It sits close to Orlando Health and ORMC, within walking distance of the Kia Center, and inside the same six-to-seventeen-minute band to Creative Village covered above.
Jim, who rented Amelia’s Arena Retreat in April 2026, wrote a review that fits this exact use case: 'Rented the place for my workers, really good location for work purposes!' The house does have a plain side worth knowing before you book: the exterior stucco shows some patching, the yard is grassy but a little overgrown, and one bedroom is furnished simply with an exposed bed foundation. None of that is unusual for a modest, working single-family home, and it comes with a private fenced backyard and a concrete driveway.
For groceries, the Publix at The Paramount on Lake Eola is the downtown option, and Lake Eola Park's roughly one-mile sidewalk loop is a quick study break between classes or shifts. It is also the one home in this guide within reach of transit: the LYNX Central and Church Street SunRail stations and the free LYMMO bus sit a short drive away, useful on days you would rather not add parking to the list.
What's already in the house when you move in
Whatever mix of names ends up on the lease, the practical setup is already sitting in the house before any of you arrive: furniture, made beds and linens, a stocked kitchen, a washer and dryer, Wi-Fi, and private parking, all confirmed in writing when you book.
Exact inclusions vary a little by home and are confirmed in writing when you book.
For a summer of eating on an intern's stipend, the kitchen matters more than people expect. A real stove and a full-size refrigerator, stocked with cookware and dishes at every home, mean groceries and leftovers replace a drive-through most nights, which adds up over ten or twelve weeks. Wi-Fi is on from the day you arrive, which covers a video interview for a fall job as easily as a Friday movie night, and having the washer and dryer inside the house rather than down a hallway means laundry happens in the gaps between shifts or classes instead of eating up a whole Saturday.
Paying for the house as a group
Most interns pay for the house themselves and split it, which is straightforward: we write one monthly agreement for the whole house at one rate, confirmed in writing before you commit, and one adult signs as the booking guest. From there, how you divide the cost, or whether you want an itemized receipt broken out by person for a parent or a program to see, is between you and your roommates, and we are glad to provide one either way. Nightly and weekly stays, useful for a short orientation visit before the internship starts, run through each home's Airbnb and Vrbo listing instead of the monthly agreement.
If an employer wants to cover the housing for its own interns rather than leaving it to the students, we can write the agreement in the company's name with the interns listed as occupants, invoice monthly, and provide a W-9 and a certificate of insurance on request, since Libema carries a commercial landlord liability policy. Established companies can be billed on net-30 terms under a signed agreement, with the first booking paid up front. We do not publish rates on the site because they vary by home and season; the monthly rate, the deposit and the pet policy are confirmed in writing once we know your dates, your headcount and which house you want.
Groceries, food and errands near the share houses
Cozy Home and Downtown & Stadium Cozy Retreat both sit in Pine Hills, near the corner of Pine Hills Road and West Colonial Drive, which happens to be one of the most useful grocery corners in the city for cooking on a budget. Presidente Supermarket, a Latin grocer at 2722 North Pine Hills Road, and Caribbean Supercenter at 5111 West Colonial Drive cover produce, meat and pantry basics a short drive from either house, and Enson Market, an Asian supermarket in the same stretch, rounds it out. For a full-line American supermarket, the Walmart Supercenter on West Princeton Street is the closest big box. Barnett Park, a 159-acre county park with a free splash pad, walking trails, and basketball and volleyball courts, sits close to both homes and costs nothing to use on an afternoon off between shifts.
Meet. Play. Stay. sits a little west in Malibu Groves, near Kirkman Road, where the Publix at Metro West Village on South Hiawassee Road is the everyday grocery run. The Hiawassee Road restaurant corridor nearby covers the nights nobody wants to cook: Tacos Don Andres for birria, Habibi Lebanese Grill for shawarma, and Marco's Pizza and a sushi spot within the same run of plazas. Valencia College's West Campus sits a few minutes south on Kirkman Road, useful if your internship pairs with summer coursework there, and Mecatos Bakery & Cafe on South Hiawassee is the closest sit-down coffee shop for grading papers or prepping for a shift.
What guests who stayed a month said
Meet. Play. Stay. carries the highest rating in the portfolio, a perfect 5.0 across 34 reviews on Airbnb, and several of those stays ran a month or longer, close to the length of most internships.
"Very new home with everything you could need. We came in to see a concert and this was very close to the Amphitheater. It was clean, easy in and out with clear instructions. We would stay again if we were in the area again."
"We absolutely loved this Airbnb! It was so cute and CLEAN! It was perfect for the event we attended at the Amphitheater. The beds were comfy and we enjoyed the backyard area as well! :)"
"My stay at pearlwood is really wonderful, it’s home away from home, very comfortable and cosy."
Cristina, who stayed in July 2026, put it plainly: 'Absolute great stay. The place was clean. I had everything I needed to make it a long-term stay. I was in this Airbnb for 30 days.' Thirty days is close to a third of a typical summer internship, and it is the same house either way.
A few things to settle before you book
A few practical points are worth settling with your roommates before anyone books, on top of confirming your dates and telling us who is sharing.
- Bedrooms versus roommates. Cozy Home and Downtown & Stadium Cozy Retreat both have three bedrooms; if there are four of you, someone doubles up in the largest room, which is normal here but worth agreeing on ahead of time.
- The exact address comes at booking. None of the three roommate houses publish a street address online; once your dates and headcount are confirmed, we send the neighborhood, the zip and the exact address together.
- Pets, if one of you is bringing one. Several of our homes accept pets, and the policy and any deposit are confirmed in writing before you commit, so ask early if a roommate's dog or cat is coming along.
- Who books it. One adult signs the agreement as the guest of record; however your group splits the deposit or the monthly rate, sort it out among yourselves first, since the paperwork only names the one person.
- A workspace, if you need one. Meet. Play. Stay. has desks in two bedrooms and The Clue House has an in-home workspace; Cozy Home and Downtown & Stadium Cozy Retreat do not have a dedicated desk, so bring a lap desk or plan to work at the dining table.
More reading before your internship starts
Three more of our guides go deeper on pieces of this same move: what a furnished monthly rental actually includes room by room, a first-week checklist for settling into a new city, and a plain orientation to getting around metro Orlando for work. None of them is written specifically for interns, but the Wi-Fi setup, the grocery run and the first week's errands work the same no matter how long the placement runs.
Monthly Furnished Rentals: What's Usually Included
A plain rundown of the furniture, kitchen, linens, utilities, and internet you can usually expect in a furnished monthly home, and the questions worth asking before you book.
Read →
Your First Week in a Furnished Home in a New City
A practical, day-by-day checklist for getting comfortable in a furnished monthly home when you move to a new city for work.
Read →
Getting Around Orlando for Work
A plain orientation to moving around metro Orlando for a job: the main highways, the commuter train, and how to pick housing that keeps your daily drive short.
Read →
