My husband had a conference here, so I decided to tag along. The online rates were actually cheaper than the negotiated group rate, but the Arizona Grand was waving the $30/day resort fee for conference goers, which made it a slightly better deal. Upon arrival at the resort, we quickly found out that when they said the resort fee would be waived, what they really meant is that it wasn't mandatory... but if you wanted to use the facilities (water park, fitness center, etc.) you would have to pay it... so we paid the higher rate for the room, and then had to pay the resort fee on top of that to use the waterpark. (Note to families: the $30/day resort fee includes 4 wristbands for the waterpark... if you have more than 4 people in your family, it is an extra $30/child/day... outrageous.)
So sure, we felt a little tricked with the "we'll waive your resort fee" thing, but the resort grounds were kept nicely and our room was decent... so whatever. My husband had to go to his conference in the morning and told me to order breakfast when I woke up... so the next morning I looked at the menu and was completely shocked to see the food prices: $8 for a small pot of coffee! $5 for a yogurt! $16 for an omelet! I've stayed in much more expensive resorts before and have never seen such ridiculously overpriced breakfast food in all my life. Needless to say, I did not order breakfast. Good thing we had leftovers from the previous night's dinner.... except....
There is no microwave in their "suites." In fact, there's not even a fridge other than the minibar, which you have to empty just to put anything else in. They pretty much make it impossible to save leftovers b/c they want you buy their $17 salads and $15 sandwiches. Luckily, there was a coffee maker in the room, so I was able to make a pot of coffee. Unfortunately, the coffee maker was like 10 years old and there was absolutely no way to poor your coffee into a mug without it spilling all over the counter. (This became a running joke amongst other conference-goers because everyone had the same crappy coffee makers in their room.)
The one other thing that was annoying about this resort was the TVs in the room. Mind you, this wasn’t a huge deal because I didn’t go on vacation to watch TV… but STILL. You are trying to act like a 5-star resort and you have 20 year old tube televisions with broken remotes in your recently renovated rooms. I tried to watch the news in the morning on the bedroom TV, and I couldn’t even read the titles across the bottom because the screen was so small and fuzzy.
Overall, this resort was nice. Would I go back again? Probably not. It was a pretty resort, the beds were comfortable and we enjoyed our day spent at the waterpark, but I just couldn’t get over the feeling that the resort was constantly trying to rip us off.
My advice to the management: Raise your nightly prices by $30, but get rid of the resort fee. Buy new coffee makers and TVs for the rooms. And stop charging $5 for a single serving of yogurt!
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