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| - We stayed here last night with the groupon special. The wife and I were going to book somewhere else for a one night staycation but decided to book this special. I worked at this resort for several years in the late 1980s as a banquet manager. I absolutely loved that job and loved this resort; a lot of good times, and that lots of great people. Anyhow, I felt that it would be a good vacation, really affordable, and a trip down memory lane with nostalgia. When we arrived it was as if nothing had ever changed. Literally! Literally nothing is changed since the late 1980s and the resort shows it. I really found it sad disconcerting to see that they've let this amazing resort property in Paradise Valley that overlooks incredible scenic views of Camelback Mountain fall into such poor shape and disrepair. Notwithstanding the rooms have never been updated and still have circa 1980s or 1990s televisions, and decor. But the most maddening part of this entire experience to me is just plain and simple laziness. 85% of the problems with this resort, in my opinion, were just total neglect for upkeep and cleanliness. I mean just simple things that need to be done on a regular basis to keep things clean and good curb appeal. Things like wood railings that it just rotted and not been painted in the same railings are coated with bird crap. For Christ sake get the maintenance department to just clean the bird poop. The rooms have a musty dusty smell to them and need a deep cleaning. The tub filled up with water when taking a shower. The shower head was broken. Worst of all was the extremely wafer thin tissue type toilet paper. Unbelievable to skimp on something like this.
The pool was in awful shape. Again everything seems to be in disrepair, but moreover, just short staff laziness again. The trash was overflowing and never emptied either day we were there. Towels are in short demand and the towels are rarely ever picked up off of the lawn chairs. Trash, debris and cigarette butts littered all over the cool deck. Furniture and tables dirty and sticky with gunk and debris.
Of course there was no bartender attending the oasis pool bar. That was okay as I brought my own cooler and saved probably $150.00 in a bar tab for the two days. There were other people that wanted pool bar service too. I was gracious enough to share my ice cold bounty of Miller Lite's with some of them. Maintenance guys ogling my wife in her bikini wasn't really cool either especially when they weren't even cleaning the filthy pool area. Three o'clock in the afternoon guy goes through the pool area with a blower putting a ton of dust in the air ... just stupid.
My wife walks 10 to 15 miles every day so the track around the entire resort was the one nice thing about it; however, the workout stations that they have along the path again are all in disrepair and there was a tree that had fallen over, a palo verde that was blocking the path. We saw several quail that had baby quail following behind them which my wife thought was pretty cool.
The only reason I didn't give this place one star out of five is basically because I worked there like 28 years ago and remember what a gem of resort it used to be.
With all that said, we were told by the staff that the hotel had recently been sold and slated to be closed within a month. The Borgata shopping mall that used to center the resort has been completely leveled demolished. What a shame because it was a beautiful mall. I fear that this resort is also going to come down to the wrecking ball and I really hope it doesn't because as mentioned it really is a gem of a resort and with some proper maintenance and updating, along with its old-growth trees could really gleam once again. A good reference point would be the wigwam resort across town and how successful their renovations have been.
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