This resort has a good website "sell", but is in no way a four star. A group of us went for a girls weekend and were extremely diappointed. We all travel quite a bit and have stayed in great spots. This is not one of them. The service was non-existant at the pools, the restaurants, the front desk and the lounge. If you are going to charge $15 for a martini, you had better have a waitress in the lounge that appears within, oh, say, less than 20 minutes and doesn't have attitude (just as an example). Our room was nothing special, the pools were overcrowded and filled with partiers and kids. Not our idea of a $400+/night resort.

Recently returned from a 7 night stay (4/12-19) using Marriot Rewards points. This is my second stay at this hotel, last was 2 years ago for 3 nights.

First, let me say I am a Gold Member of the Rewards program and am a loyal patron. That being said, I was dissapointed not to be treated like one. One week before check-in I requested a room overlooking the Desert Botanical Garden. I did this knowing that the rooms facing the pool are quite loud at times. I was told I had an "upgraded view room".

Upon check-in I was given a room with "two over-sized Queens" according to the front desk. Queens?? These are full beds and I am with my wife of nearly 15 years on vacation. Possibly we could have a King bed? Oh yes, and the room is on the 2nd floor overlooking...the pool. I called front desk immediately to let them know this was not satisfactory. They took my cell number and told me they would call when they had another room available.

The time marched on until about 3:30. At this point, I was concerned they would have filled their rooms. I went to the front desk and found they only had 2 rooms left in the hotel. Unreal. They were a King on ground floor (I always request high floors, but apparently having that information in your Elite reservation status is just for one's own personal information) and another double/double room overlooking the Botanical Garden.

I took the double/double begrudgingly as it least it had a decent view. By the way, no offer to help move my luggage...nice touch.

Room we finally setlled in was standard for the resort. Nice view of mountains, botanical garden and....720 people from Bacardi on two mornings having breakfast. Now I dont begrudge the hotel for making money on corporate events, but they need a better system to make those on vacation not feel inconvenienced by these events. My inconvenience came at 3:30 AM on my 2nd night there when the staff started setting up the buffets, etc. Having come to AZ for the weather, I had my sliding glass door open. Ahhhh, the relaxing sounds of golf carts backing up (beep, beep, beeep) and rattling dishes, clanking glasses.

Now, every day you get a sheet in your room with activities for the resort. Basically, this doesn't change form day to day. My suggestion? Put the events and location of events on their as a "heads-up" to the vacationing resort guests so they know if they should keep their door shut so as not to be awoken at 3:30 AM. Another thought, work it out with the corporation to give those in rooms overlooking their event a small gift. It would go a long way.

Lastly, let's talk about litter. The grounds are mainly immaculate. This ends in the common areas outside, especially at the pools (SPA pool is worth the money). I know there are a huge number of people that traffic these areas, but the resort doesn't seem to know this. They need many more staff to clean up througout the day. Cups, straws, etc were everywhere. Part of the blame lay on the guests. Some of whom didn't make any effort to clean up after themselves. On the other hand, I shouldn't be swimming in a pool with empty cups at the bottom (at least 1 every day I was there). Also, as I was walking back to my room after a day at the pool and I noticed something striking. There was a sugar packet on the lawn as well as a piece of plastic. I saw 2 Marriott employees, one was dressed as a manager. I thought this will be interesting to see if they stop to pick up this trash. The answer? They walked right by. Marriott, train your employees to have pride in the resort surroundings. This is unacceptable.

One last piece of advice: get some new chaise lounges out at the main pool. A number of them look like you got them from a garage sale. People are paying over $500 a night at this time of year for chairs like this? The lounges at the Spa should be standard for this kind of high-end resort.

We stayed at the JW Marriott for three nights in April - it is a fairly new site and you could definately tell. The hotel and grounds seem impressive when you pull up to the place, but we found the rooms to be fairly average with nothing special to really speak of. There are three swimming pools and a "lazy" river you can float around in, which my four year old enjoyed - at first. The problem with this hotel is with the employees - most of the employees we came into contact with were standoffish and rude. An employee working at the top of the waterslide at the pool was verbally abusive to the kids - letting some go down the slide and telling others to "take a break." Although my son met the height requirements, she scolded him for being up there without me (I was waiting at the bottom of the slide in the pool for him.) This upset him and he refused to go on the slide again with "the mean lady" working there. I talked to the manager of the pool area and he said he would address it. The overall feel of the employees there was cold and, well, just plain rude. We were able to get a cheap rate - $125 per night - so we didn't feel to taken - but if you have to pay $300 or $400 for this place, look around somewhere else.

Stayed at the Desert Inn for 4 nights in January. The rooms are large but not in the very best condition. The first room I was given had mold in the shower. They changed me to another room which was much better. The best thing about this hotel was the Tennis Center. Excellent instruction and reasonably priced. The restaurants are very mediocre and close early. The outside fire pits are really nice. Too cold in January to use the pool.