Marriott's Shadow Ridge I-The Villages

The hotel is trying to save money and it shows. If you use the pool towels in the morning and say you want to swim again in the afternoon but your towels are still wet, you have to either (depending how far away your room is) make the trek to the front desk or wait an hour until housekeeping brings you dry towels. There are NO TOWELS at the pool area. IN addition, if you request new shower towels within 2 days of arrival you are CHARGED $15! Heaven forbid you spill something in the kitchen area, they will charge you to use their towels. They also don't provide any lifeguards at the pool. Considering the number of children and families that were there, god forbid anything happens. I called Marriott corporate who said these policies were the local hotels so I'm not giving up on Marriott but I don't think I will stay here again as they are trying to cheap out and it shows.....

Overall the resort is lovely and many amenities including 4 pools. The resort is clean and quiet and in the best location, central to everything. We were in building 17 it’s a little dated , especially the bathroom. Also the sheets do not fit the bed, every night we wake up with the fitted sheet coming off the bed and all tangled up, it’s super frustrating. Picture included of how small the sheets are on the mattress.

We had a wonderful time staying in a two bedroom unit with my family. The villa was spacious and had everything we needed. There were not quite enough towels so we had to request more, which took a full day to finally arrive, but eventually we received them. We stayed by the chuckwalla pool and enjoyed the family friendly atmosphere with lots of seating. We found that you could go to the pools anytime of day and still find some chairs somewhere. The pool bar was nice, but could have used a few more waiters walking around for faster service. The drinks were tasty and refreshing and the staff was always friendly and accommodating at the pool bar and restaurant. One downside for us was that we had been talking up the pool slide to our 4 year old for weeks before this vacation. She's an avid swimmer, been in swim lessons weekly since she was 2, and loves slides. I did my research and found no height or age requirements online. Some older reviews here had mentioned that their two year olds went down the slide and loved it, so I figured we were good to go. She has been on pool slides at a Disney hotel in Florida as well as the Marriott Ko Olina in Hawaii and loved them. Unfortunately when we arrived we learned that the pool slide has a 48" height requirement. My daughter is only 43" so they were very strict and did not let her ride it. i asked the guard if she could take a swim test to show that she's an independent swimmer (they offered this for us in Ko Olina) but he said they don't offer that and it's only done by height. i wish they made this more clear on the website and offered other ways for shorter kids to also enjoy the water slide if they are able to swim without an issue. my daughter handled the disappointment like a champ, but did bring up being sad about it several times throughout our stay. Overall we had a lovely time at Shadow Ridge and would love to return, maybe just once my daughter has a few more growth spurts.

The front desk did not advise us that the mail pool heater not working nor was the pool bar food not working so every limited menu. Wasted the first day at this pool. We decided to use the enclave pool and bar which are excellent. 5 stars to bartenders Guillamo and Alex who make everyone feel welcome.