Marriott's Newport Coast Villas - Review

 

My family and I recently completed a week stay at Marriott's Newport Coast Villas (http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/laxnc-marriotts-newport-coast-villas/) and I can sum the entire stay up in one word – underwhelmed.  To elaborate, almost nothing stood out as great about our stay, but many things were subpar.   This was our first “real” family vacation since our daughter was born a year ago, so we spent a considerable amount of time looking for a family friendly resort in the Newport Beach area.   My husband travels extensively for work and has previously given all his loyalty to the Marriott brand, which is why he has platinum status with them and we were also very interested in becoming Marriott Vacation Club members. 

To start, weeks in advance my husband notified the resort that we were requesting a room in a specific block (4100-5000) on the top floor and that we needed a high chair. He was assured all items were reasonable and would be taken care of.  Fast forward to the day of our arrival.  Our flight from the east coast miraculously arrived on time, our rental car was ready and we were on our way to the resort we spent a lot of time researching and we were excited for a spectacular week!  We arrived at the hotel at 1pm.  Yes, we knew check in was 4pm, but we were told an early check in shouldn’t be an issue since it wasn’t peak season.  Anyway, we were told at check in that our room wasn’t available and most likely wouldn’t be ready until AFTER 4pm and they would be happy to call us.  They didn’t offer to hold our luggage and suggest somewhere we could go during this time, even though they knew we were traveling with a child.  My husband (who has been platinum with Marriott for years) asked if we could possibly have a room OUTSIDE of our requested room block sooner than 4pm.  We were informed that the room we were waiting for WAS NOT in our requested block of rooms but was right outside the main pool on the bottom floor.  My husband informed the man checking us in that room was not acceptable and asked why our request for a room location wasn’t honored and we were informed this must have been missed and all rooms in that section have already been assigned and people have checked in, but he did see the note on our reservation. Gee, thanks.  So we ended up in the 1400 block and we were assured we were on the top floor so we wouldn’t have to drag all of our luggage to the nearest elevator or up and down stairs.  Even though we had requested a room with a view of the ocean, we had a view of trees.  Wasn’t exactly what we were hoping for, but as long as it was quiet we could deal without the view.  Our room was nice and clean; I honestly have no complaints about that.  We did learn that if you shut the room to the master bedroom, the air conditioner wasn’t strong enough to keep the room cool.  So we thought it would be nice to sleep with our windows open.  Big mistake.

Since our windows were open, the first morning we were woken up promptly at 5:30am to what sounded like a lawn mower, thanks to our room being on the opposite side of trees from the golf course.  We hoped it would be a one-time thing, but we were wrong.  Every morning by 6am the same sound of golf course machinery could be heard loudly enough to wake all of us up.  Even after leaving the windows shut and making the air conditioner cooler than necessary, the sound was still loud enough to wake us every morning well before we would have liked to be awake.  After golfing at Pelican Hill, we learned that the culprit is hole #2.   If the early morning noise isn’t enough to leave you yearning for more sleep, about half way through our stay a rowdy group of people were put in the room right next to us.  While they were always louder than we would have liked, it got to the point one night where we could no longer take it.  The loud music and even louder singing and dancing on the deck past 1am was too much, so my husband called security.  Security must have showed up because things got quiet for a little while, then the noise returned with a vengeance. We should have called security again or the police, but at this point we didn’t want to anger them anymore so we dealt with it for the night and made the decision to speak with a manager in the morning.  Upon speaking with the manager, we learned that our neighbors were vacation club owners and resented us for calling on their noise.  In their mind, they “own” the property and they should be able to behave as they wish.  I don't know how much control Marriott has over who rents or “owns” their villas, but they do have the ability to enforce rules once these people get on their property.  In my opinion, that is extremely disrespectful for others who are not up in the middle of the night.  I’m sure they wouldn’t have appreciated us being loud at 6am when they had only been asleep for approximately 2 hours.  There’s the difference, we are considerate; these people were not.  When we explained our other issues with the manager (room location and air conditioning) little was done except he was given points in his Marriott account.  We were told my husband should have replied to a pre-arrival email questionnaire that he had received.  When he asked why that was any different than the phone call he made which resulted in a note being on our reservation, the only reply was that they had success with the emails.  I don’t buy it.

Since our vacation was meant to be restful, but resulted in too much stress we will never return to the property.  My husband is seriously reconsidering his loyalty to the Marriott brand and we have decided NOT to purchase their time share.