TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

The rooms were beautifully remodeled. The kitchen is spacious and we loved that we were located directly across the main pool. IMO the main pools are perfect for kids while the Enclave pool (with projection TV, 0-entry) would be better suited for young adults. We visited during the summer heat wave and temperatures were well over 100 daily. The pools were packed from open to close, with people swimming well into the night (temp remained above 80F). The highlight of our trip was the magic show hosted by the resort, which offered a lot of fun and laughs for everyone. I would definitely recommend the resort to anyone wanting to spend time in Palm Desert.

From the outside and the grounds - this place looks pretty nice - but it's an illusion! 1. Upon arrival we checked in and drove to our building assigned. It was an old style motel -like building - entry doors on the front - 3 stories high. We were put on the ground floor - room was right next to stairwell entrance so not the greatest location. The ground floor cement patio with two very dirty chairs and table faced a swamp with bugs all around it 100 feet away, so you could not sit outside. Upon opening the door - we were surprised that the room was soooo small - come to find out later - it was a studio style room/lock off from another room. The whole room was very dated - old tile, pictures on walls that were water damaged. One sink in bathroom that had a cabinet under it with dirty selves and a lotion bottle on the sink area that was used and crusty - left probably from previous guest rather than replacing with a new one. The ironic part of this room location and size was that Marriott had a promo to get new members - credit card holders - to hopefully join their Marriott Vacation Club. They offered a 4 night stay at a discounted price - off season to "experience" their vacation club. Clearly, if their goal was to be as impressive as possible - the reality achieved was that we were as unimpressive as possible - as this whole experience was totally underwhelming! 2. On site restaurant - nope - the ONLY restaurant on the property was closed for renovations and they also do not provide room service. The lobby did not have coffee or water - they had a small marketplace little closet store that had a few items you could purchase from - but it had extremely limited hours and was basically closed more than open. 3. There was an "Activity" Center that was dominated by screaming kids that was available to get coffee or juice a few hours a day in the morning - but it was so loud - you could not stand to be in there for more than a minute or two. The staff said they could not ask the patrons to be quieter - the kids were all screaming at the top of their lungs - this wasn't fun play or laughing - it was screaming. There was an area outside of the activity center you could go and sit but the cushions on the chairs were so filthy that your clothes would be dirty if you sat on them and some of the dirtiness seems liquified into the cushions. 4. The two pools - one was to be a family pool - the other an adult only pool but both pools were filled with kids and the staff said they could not ask the kids to not go to the adult pool even though this was a designated adult only pool, so we did not have the ability to go to a pool just to relax. 5. The mandatory presentation for offer was to be 90 minutes in duration. The staff picked the time and selected Sunday at 9:45am out of the 5 days /4 nights we were there so we had to cancel brunch - we asked if there were any other times between Friday arrival and Tuesday departure and they said the time could not be changed. Of all the days and times - we had the worst time/date selected. When we arrived at "sales office" - after we had to inquire where this presentation was as we had no other communications other than time/date sent to us - we were offered a bottle of water from a fridge on the counter and told to take a seat in the room to our left. The salesperson assigned to us, Lisa came up to us - she was friendly but noted that we looked like we were not interested in being there because we were quietly sitting there. I stated I was not happy being there on an early Sunday morning but we could not get our date or time changed - she responded she had to work on Sundays so I get it. Anyway - she walked us around - shared so info with us and then we were escorted into her office. She tried to get her computer to work to show us a presentation but could not, so she walked us to two models of new renovated rooms and had the IT person come in while we were gone. No luck in getting the computer fixed so she just went on to tell us about points and cost of points and use of points and dollars associated to points - then someone else came in to go over final numbers of point packages and then said the pricing was good for that day and up to the time we would be checking out. It was really a very odd morning. We did share with Lisa our underwhelming impression of things as a whole and our experiences with Activity Center, Pools, small room and uncleanliness of room/patio - she listened and made notes. Bottom line - why would we ever sign up to spend $25k-30K plus for points to use at a place we didn't already like or any other venue if this is our experience at the Marriott Vacation Club we were already at??? Made no sense. Then Lisa's boss came in to offer us another offer for Shadow Ridge 4X more than we paid this trip - we declined. We were happy to check out and do not ever plan on revisiting again.

Best Marriott we have stayed in so far. We were on top floor of block 1200. Room looked like it was recently updated and was amazing. Spotlessly clean, new flooring, new kitchen. great view from the balcony. Resort is looking great with all areas well looked after. We used Chuckwalla pool and bar staff were amazing. We loved our week here and will be back (All the way from the UK!)

Nightmare vacation by the manager who followed us making unprofessional and unnecessary comments about us . October was the dream come true coming to the desert at the west cost , but we ever expected it.. the security guard make a nightmare every single day in our stay at the villas. Sad experience by this guy.

Unprofessional behavior!! I wish I can give zero stars but this experience we had at this place October 2024 , a man who claimed to be the manager of this hotel it was a daily persecution of this man towards us, even outside the property, his intimidating and aggressive manner ruined our vacation, We Never has a person pointed a finger at us making serious accusations about us without this man knowing who we are. This man followed us even outside the hotel so obsessed and rude , I wanted to call the police but we were late for ours itinerary. Very sad experience just in this place because of this human being. He think is better than anyone because his job ! No way !!! Very sad experience.