We travelled in August and looking back we did have a great time. It is a very relaxing resort - beautifully landscaped, great pool area and some attentive staff. As it was so hot all we could manage to do was collapse by the pool all day and it was perfect for that.
As someone else has mentioned they just cannot do enough for children. My son was given a cuddly horse and cookies with his name piped on them when he arrived - that is enough to get his loyalty forever!
However we did have problems. Our room was supposed to be some form of upgraded room but it was the same as the normal room - just 3 flights of stairs up and facing a rockface. I would prefer a lower floor and a nice view over Scottsdale - but maybe that's just me. It was not worth the extra.
We had also booked 2 rooms well in advance, the resort was not full but our rooms were a fair way apart. I spent a lot of time running between the two as we had shared bags and it was not convenient. They must have initially been even further apart as they were changed when we arrived. I'm sure we could have been in the same block if they had tried harder.
One room was a disabled room for some reason and it wasn't very nice - the bathroom was open plan with an old-fashioned shower curtain round the shower and the toilet was not partitioned off. There were also emergency pulls everywhere - nice if you need help but a bit off-putting if you don't.
There was also a faulty metal inspection hatch in the dressing room ceiling that fell out when the doors were opened. It had been repaired before badly. We called reception and they sent someone to repair it. It was bodged again and fell out again. By this time we were getting upset and angry - it was really dangerous and it was only luck it hadn't hit someone as they would have been badly injured. It was only on the next attempt did they do it properly - not what I expected from a 5* hotel. I would have thought it would have been checked regularly and certainly not repaired in the bad way it had been.
In addition we arrived back one night and found a scorpion on our bathroom floor. Not their fault and they sent someone up to deal with it but it had obviously hitched a ride up on the towels. They said they would change all our towels and mats that night - but no one came back to do this despite us waiting up just in case.
The turndown service was again intermittent - some days one room had it and the other didn't. Some days neither. The parking was a joke - the valet was expensive but the self-park was a walk away. As it was so hot and there was so much space I wouldn't have though some free nearby parking would have hurt when they designed the resort. Also the internet access was expensive - the last Four Seasons we went to it was free. Not very consistent.
All in all I was getting pretty unhappy with it all and spoke to the customer manager lady the day before we left. She was very good and made some adjustments to our bill for us. But it didn't really compensate for the stress it had all caused.
Oh and one final point - it was our honeymoon, they knew this and we got no free upgrade, presents, champagne - NOTHING - despite what other reviews have said. It was never mentioned to us and they certainly did not make us feel special.
