The villas are a Marriott Vacations Club property which can take reservations from owners and renters (we were the latter - trying it out). All villas are 2 bedrooms and the units are spacious (queen bed with sleeper sofa in the unit closer to the entrance, a king bed with a large bathroom area in the bedroom in the back, a kitchen with microwave/refrigerator/dishwasher, a washer/dryer, and plenty of utensils and plates/bowls/cups.
I sent a message to Ali about 45 days before the trip asking some questions and asking about preferences but never heard back (99% of the time I get responses from the CS manager or someone from the hotel - even if it's just a pleasant greeting and a confirmation of receipt [in cases where they can't enter my requests], so I was surprised not to hear back) --- this might be policy since about 30 days before I got a form letter saying "give us your preferences". The process with that went okay - I just wanted a non-ground floor room with the hope of a view. They said they could honor the former but not the latter, which is fine. I will add that it's not clear how they prioritize who gets what room - I asked the salesperson and the answer was vague (all units are the same, and when I go online to reserve, I can't pay more for a better room). I made...The villas are a Marriott Vacations Club property which can take reservations from owners and renters (we were the latter - trying it out). All villas are 2 bedrooms and the units are spacious (queen bed with sleeper sofa in the unit closer to the entrance, a king bed with a large bathroom area in the bedroom in the back, a kitchen with microwave/refrigerator/dishwasher, a washer/dryer, and plenty of utensils and plates/bowls/cups.
I sent a message to Ali about 45 days before the trip asking some questions and asking about preferences but never heard back (99% of the time I get responses from the CS manager or someone from the hotel - even if it's just a pleasant greeting and a confirmation of receipt [in cases where they can't enter my requests], so I was surprised not to hear back) --- this might be policy since about 30 days before I got a form letter saying "give us your preferences". The process with that went okay - I just wanted a non-ground floor room with the hope of a view. They said they could honor the former but not the latter, which is fine. I will add that it's not clear how they prioritize who gets what room - I asked the salesperson and the answer was vague (all units are the same, and when I go online to reserve, I can't pay more for a better room). I made my reservations early April and paid a decent amount as a renter but I can only assume that I was behind the owners.
Maleny processed our check-in but seemed very unhappy that I had questions to ask (there really wasn't much of a line so I was a bit surprised how unfriendly she was). I hadn't seen much information about the hotel so I asked about Wifi (free, unlimited devices), the parking (next paragraph), and fitness/pool facilities ... she basically told us to take it up with the 'concierge' which at Vacation Clubs are basically there to sell you a time share.
Parking was free but you could put 1 car outside your building and up to 2 more underground. We only needed 1 so that was fine but we were going to have a guest come by for an hour...when I asked, the front desk sternly said "if you have someone else park nearby for any amount of time, we'll stick a ticket on their car" so we didn't have the person come and visit. I would have preferred they ask us to register our car as it was hard to remember to put the 'V' visitor ticket on the dashboard every time I parked. Again, I assume this was more for policy - I don't think they actually did any ticketing but we wanted to honor their request so we didn't have any guests visit (seems all the more silly because during the daytime most of the parking spaces were empty).
Facilities were okay - 3 pools spaced out and 3 gyms...the one we had nearby was really small, about the size of a large bedroom. I tried that the first day and decided to just use the pool for swimming exercise since it got quite cramped there.
In the main building, they had a pool table downstairs but it was pay only, which seemed peculiar given that was the only 'pay item' in that area.
The hotel doesn't have a restaurant except for a "pool bar and grill" - we tried it once but the attendant was very slow, even chatting up a co-worker while in the process of placing our order, taking up maybe another 5 minutes before getting it into the system (seemed very unusual).
We were offered one night off (out of a week) if we listened to their 'obligation-free' presentation. Since our rate was pretty high, we thought it would be worth hearing them out. The presentation was informative but the pricing didn't match our value, so we declined, but we were pressed multiples times for why we wouldn't want to get in on such a good deal. We did the numbers and it didn't match given how much we normally spend on vacations and the type of vacations we had. I guess they are trying to do their jobs but there was a little more pressure with them than another time share presentation we listened to some time ago. Salesperson told us we should get a renovated room next time but didn't know how rooms were assigned (says (a) you got a bad room & (b) even if I ask for a renovated one, who knows if I'll get one).
For owners, housekeeping is $79 per visit...it was included in our stay but they came once and didn't refill our toiletries (toilet paper fold was not done and not refilled) so we took up the 'get points instead of daily tidy' which was 5k points (a lot less than the $79 they charge).
Decent hotel - not clear how they do room assignments so if you can get a view room or a renovated one, it's probably worth it...we did not have either although we did get a non-ground floor unit. Staff was okay - maybe worth going if you have a timeshare deal but just booking directly was so-so in terms of value.More
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