The Peabody Orlando sounds like fun.

Where can you hear these three disparate sounds: the tinkle of a silver teaspoon on a china cup, the cascades of a waterfall, and the crescendo of ducks quacking? At the Peabody Orlando, of course.

"At The Peabody Orlando, every meeting and convention delegate is treated as an important welcome guest," says Barry Anderson, vice president of marketing. "The level of service and the quality of our meeting facilities are uniformly of the same high standard, no matter what the size of the group."

With one front desk for small groups and another for medium-to-large meetings, The Peabody Orlando is designed to accommodate groups of every size. "A second front desk was planned .so we could have two hotels in one," Anderson explains. "We have the best of both worlds, a relaxed, resort-like reception for leisure guests and small meeting groups, and a streamlined, high-tech front desk handling large .group arrivals. This ensures smooth, efficient check-in procedures of all of our guests and enables us to welcome them in a calm, orderly manner, speeding them to their rooms with minimum delay."

Walk to Convention Center

Directly across the street from the 1.5-million-square-foot Orange County Convention Center, the property is within 5 to 15 minutes of championship golf, major attractions, arts and culture, downtown Orlando, and the Orlando International Airport.

The facility features 891 guest rooms, 11 international hospitality suites, two presidential suites, four VIP suites, and 41 executive suites. The Peabody Club, with private key access, offers exclusive concierge service, a club lounge with complimentary continental breakfast, complimentary hors d'oeuvres, and an honor bar for the cocktail hours. Nonsmoking, fragrance-free, allergen-free, and handicapped-equipped rooms are available.

The mezzanine level offers 16 separate meeting rooms. The convention level has 45,000 square feet of meeting space and an additional 35,000 square feet of convention space. The area is designed to facilitate movement of meeting delegates from meetings to meals in minutes, for group of up to 4,000. The 27,000-square-foot Plaza International Ballroom and the two 8,600-square-foot junior ballrooms divide into 14 individual rooms or any configuration up to that number. Each surrounding foyer is also a reception and breakout area.

"We understand and know how to cater to the unique requirements of association group meetings," says Anderson. Association groups represent about 50 percent of all total room nights sold. In addition, association meetings represent 70 percent of all group room nights sold.

When It's Time to Relax

At the indoor-outdoor Coconuts, a popular party place, you can stage a swamp night for delegates with displays featuring sauteed alligator tail, rattlesnake, and frog leg cuisine or an underwater fantasy with tropical fish displays and delicacies such as shrimp, prawns, scallops, lobster, and sashimi.

When it's time to relax, your meeting delegates will gravitate toward the Peabody Athletic Club, a certified nautilus training center, named by Men's Health & Fitness Magazine as one of the top 10 hotel health clubs in the country.

You'll no doubt want to schedule meeting breaks around the famous "March of The Peabody Ducks," which takes place daily at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. when the royal red carpet rolls out on the shining marble floors of the lobby for the mallards - four females and a drake. The feathered entourage is shepherded by a uniformed Duck Master.

Getting Physical

Doctors from the Orlando Regional Healthcare System and Institute for Corporate Wellness are making house calls to executives who attend meetings at The Peabody Orlando.

"This program is not a cosmetic, feel-good-for-one-day spa treatment," says Barry Anderson, vice president of marketing. "Rather, the program provides meeting planners and their clients the alpha to omega of the most up-to-date medical evaluations and diagnostics."

The Peabody Orlando Executive Health Program allows your members to get checkups before, during, or after their convention business.

"This is an outstanding amenity for our groups, a life-enhancing, perhaps a life-saving opportunity delivered with maximum efficiency, conveniently slotted into meeting and convention schedules," Anderson continues. "The frenetic work life of today's executives leaves little time or opportunity for in-depth, quality, physical health assessment and diagnostics. Here's an ideal program to enable CEOs to invest in the physical health and longevity of their key executives...to protect and prolong the organization's fiscal health well into the third millennium."