Gaylord Entertainment, a diversified hospitality and entertainment business, ceremoniously opened Gaylord Palms, a landmark new $450 million resort and convention center in the Kissimmee-St. Cloud resort area of central Florida. Gaylord Palms features massive convention facilities, innovative restaurants, a Canon Ranch SpaClub and colorful Florida themes that carry throughout an expansive 4.5-acre glass-topped atrium as well as into each of the 1,406 guest rooms. The glass-covered atriums reflect three different Florida locales, Key West, St. Augustine and the Everglades, through architecture, beauty and personality of the destination. The 2.1 million square-foot resort, located five minutes from the gates of Walt Disney World, is designed in the tradition of the grand 19th century Florida seaside resorts. With 400,000 square feet of meeting and convention space, Gaylord Palms is the first resort in Central Florida to focus entirely on the meetings and convention market. In January, Gaylord announced that more than a million room nights had been pre-sold to meeting and convention groups, breaking an industry record for pre-opening sales. Meetings and conventions are served in grand style for groups from 10 to 10,000 with 61 breakout rooms in the resort's Convention Center. Conveniently, the three ballrooms and meeting rooms are located on two levels and connected to the hotel by an enclosed walkway. The 28,690-square-foot Sun Ballroom can be divided into separate meeting rooms and the 46,650-square-foot Osceola Ballroom includes a 40' x 100' stage complete with lighting, sound and satellite feed capabilities. A third ballroom offers an additional 3,600 square feet of intimate function space. Gaylord Palms is the most technologically sophisticated convention resort in the world. In the convention center, nearly 400 miles of cabling forms the backbone for the most flexible and sophisticated menu of technology offerings ever available to meeting and convention groups. Guest rooms include free high-speed Internet access, secure E-mail access, alarm clocks with CD players, cordless dual-line telephones, dual-line speaker phones and guestroom doorbells with electronic "do not disturb" indicators. Other Gaylord Hotels include Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville; Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in Kissimmee, FL; and Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Grapevine, TX.