The Four Seasons Orlando Baby Speaks (Kind Of)
“I have a question for everyone,” the woman behind the camera asks her 4-year-old daughter, her almost-13-month-old baby, and her husband. “Who wants to go to the Four Seasons Orlando?”
The baby’s hand shoots up, a split second before her sister and dad. “Meeeeee!” they all chime in.
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That’s all that happens in the TikTok video, which lasts a grand total of about five seconds. But the so-called “Four Seasons Orlando Baby” has captured the internet’s heart with her precocity and predilection for luxury travel, spawning thousands of memes and racking up more than 34 million views.
“How does she know what the Four Seasons Orlando is?” one comment reads. “I don’t even know what it looks like.” A number of TikTokers have stitched the videos with their own AI renderings of the Four Seasons Orlando baby, speaking eloquently about her desire to travel there: “Oh, how the heart yearns to impart on thee the splendor and magnificence that is the Four Seasons in Orlando,” one AI-generated video shows the baby saying.
The immense popularity of the video has been a whirlwind for the baby’s parents, Bailey and Will Wise, a pharmacist and portfolio manager based in the Tampa, Florida area; it’s also been a chaotic 24 hours for her aunt, Stefanie O’Brien, who posted the video on late Thursday night with the caption: “If the @Four Seasons Hotels is looking for a baby ambassador my niece got you.” (The baby’s name, by the way, is Kate, and she is almost 13 months old; her sister, the adorable toddler in the video, is named Madelyn.)
“We don’t post much on social media,” Bailey told Rolling Stone via phone on Monday evening, as Kate adorably cooed in the background. “My husband came downstairs Saturday morning saying, ‘I just got a text. Did you know we’re viral and trending?’ It was a whirlwind. First it was a couple thousand, then a couple million views. And it’s just been out of control the last 24, 48 hours.”
According to Bailey, the video started out as a private family group chat message sent last Wednesday, meant to convince her parents, who also live in Florida, to join them for a weekend jaunt at the Four Seasons Orlando. (“They hang out with the kids, and we get to relax a little,” she says. “It’s a win-win.”) She sent them the video, hoping the “cuteness would hit,” and her mother forwarded it to her sister Stefanie, who lives in New York City and works as the head of business development for Belgian footballer Thibaut Courtois. She, too, found it hilarious, and sent it to a bunch of her friends before posting it on TikTok.
“Everyone thinks their own kids or their own nieces and nephews are the cutest,” Stefanie says. “But my nieces are really cute. I was watching the video and I was like, ‘Maybe it’s not just our family group chat who would think this is funny.'” Bailey was not aware Stefanie had posted the video until her husband told her that a friend had seen it.” “I got a text at 7:30 a.m. from Bailey in the group chat being like, why are Will and my kids going viral,’ with the eye scrunch emoji,” Stefanie says.
The reaction, Bailey and Stefanie say, has been largely positive, and they’ve been texting each other the resulting comments and memes. “My favorite is, ‘This baby hasn’t even been alive for four seasons,'” Stefanie says, laughing. The Four Seasons Orlando hotel even joined in on the fun, stitching the original video on their TikTok page. (“Our Orlando property has seen a healthy increase in engagement and growth on their social channels and we have our smallest fan to thank!” a spokesperson for the brand told Rolling Stone via email.)
Located on Walt Disney World property in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, the Four Seasons Orlando is one of the most luxurious and high-end hotels in not only Disney World, but in the Orlando area at large, with a lake-view suite fitting two adults and two children costing up to $1,860 per night.
Which begs the question: How, exactly, does this not-even-13-month-old baby know about the Four Seasons Orlando? There is (kind of) a logical explanation: Last year, Bailey says, the family was building a house in the Tampa area, and got in the habit of taking their kids to a hotel as a way to get out of the small space they were living in. “My husband and I have the mentality of work hard, and play hard,” she says. “And there were some fun Florida resident rates. So we thought, why not?”
The family visited for the first time when Kate was about six months old. Apparently, it made quite an impression. “It’s funny because she is only one. But we show her pictures when we’re getting ready to go somewhere and we try to engage our kids, to see what their reaction is,” she says. “When Kate sees her sister excited, she picks up on it. But she has her own opinions too. So I believe she knew exactly what we were talking about.” (The girls’ favorite amenity of the hotel? The pool and the lazy river.)
Though many of the comments have focused on Kate’s impressive language ability at just a year old, Bailey says it never particularly occurred to her that Kate was advanced until she saw the reaction to the video. “She says no, she says yes. She has some words. You can carry a conversation with her to some degree.” (Most babies typically start using words somewhere between 12 and 18 months.) As to whether or not she would have had such a positive reaction to any other stimulus favorable to her, or if it’s specific to the Four Seasons Orlando, Bailey swears it’s the latter. “We have tested it on certain things and when we say the Four Seasons, she always says ‘Me,'” she says. “I think she knows [what she’s saying], but we can’t be too certain.”
In the interim, the family is currently in contact with the Four Seasons Orlando to schedule their next trip on an upcoming weekend (though the spokesperson would not confirm whether they’ve comped the family with a free stay: “Right now, we’re focused on making their upcoming stay unforgettable,” they said.) The kids, too, are enjoying their viral fame.
“Kate loves watching videos of herself,” Bailey says. “She’ll say ‘more, more’ or touch the screen to scroll through. She’ll also hit the X button on FaceTime when she’s done.” A discerning luxury traveler and tech-savvy? That’s a certified baby genius right there.
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