Margaritaville Resort Orlando

I really want to like this place. The pools are great. Very clean. The rooms were clean. AC worked great. The people are nice. Jimmy Buffett is one of my favorites. RIP buddy. But it is under staffed. I can’t help but think the mandatory 20% tip included has something to do with it. I believe in tipping service personnel and I believe in tipping generously. But when you remove that decision from the customer then it just becomes a tax. Also, I believe that you are taxed on top of the gratuity…adding tax to tax. The waitress at Euphoria was overwhelmed by the number of tables she had. Wine glasses were sticky and heavily water spotted and no one offered to get clean ones when we brought it up. Not even the separate server who came out just to open the wine. Although she didn’t help with anything else. Half of the deserts and one appetizer never made it. As in they weren’t late but rather they never came out. The prime rib special and most expensive meal came out late and cold. I don’t even blame the waitress. She was very nice. One of our rooms didn’t get cleaned or even new towels the first two days even after repeatedly asking. It had ants in the bathroom that no one came to help with even after asking for three days straight. When your ex wife calls you to ask what to do about ants in her room you know she’s exhausted all other resources for help. Mid week with nearly no visitors in the place I asked to check out one hour later at noon and was told no because it was too busy. Strange because no one seemed to be in the lobby or at the pools. Conference rooms were empty too. But I was approached for their time share several times. It’s the first desk as you walk in the place. They don’t let you miss it. Something else that seems off is that nearly all the close parking spots seemed to be employees. They don’t have their own lot? The closest spots are reserved for 35$ a day valet parking. After that it’s a walk up hill and up stairs to get from a parking lot to the front. In the flattest State I know of down south they managed to put the lobby up an incline that is difficult for anyone on heart meds to climb in the heat from two parking lots away. Good thing there aren’t any old people in Florida on vacation with their grandkids. No one is in the gym to monitor it. There were several little kids with their parents that ran and I do mean ran all over the place wildly. I’d say the youngest was about 7 then maybe 10 or 11 for a few more. I have no problem with kids in the gym but they left everything out, a mess, did not wipe down a thing. Stuff was everywhere. They ran and jumped from machine to machine like it was a cross fit competition. I was surprise they didn’t get hurt running and jumping up the stacked boxes next to the bench press. Seemed like a liability to me. The pool that has the kids water stuff at it was great and the big tiki bar was really good (food and drinks were great) but when you have to go get your own food and return your own trash and get up to get drinks yourself each and every time the 20% gratuity tax seems more than ridiculous. I mean seriously, no one brought us anything and that is totally okay but it’s hard to justify the 20% service charge when there is no service provided. All in all, I desperately want to love Margaritaville and it did have its moments but I don’t think I’d return. And anyone that values service on a vacation would certainly be disappointed.

Very dissapointed in our 5 night stay. I will start with the positives.. booked a 1 bedroom suite for a family of 5 and the room was great. Housekeeping did a great job and all requests for extra pillows and bedding were met quickly. Food on premise was decent enough and a few employees are pretty good. Rob at the pool and Maria at the desk are helpful and assertive. The location is pretty good and sunset walk is a nice option for getting out for a walk and bite close by. Seems perfect enough but it falls short in other areas that limit this hotel to a 2 star rating. I came with my wife and kids for a Disney trip and usually we stay on property but decided to stay here as it looked like a nice vacation option and boasts shuttle service to and from the parks. The park shuttle which is a 3rd party shuttle is fine in the morning going but on the way home at night is nothing short of a disaster. A 20 minute ride takes over an hour with atleast 5-7 stops at other hotels. The bus ride was so sickening that kids were vomiting( not mine thankfully) and adults dry heaving while we all were stuck on this ride from hell. I feel the hotel should not boast about its convenience and shuttle service when it’s in fact not a dediicated service. They misrepresent that fact and because of that i booked this hotel. Then when you get back from the parks at 10pm the whole hotel is shut down. Not even a quick service burger or sandwich for the kids. Between these to factors i spend more on uber this trip then i did on room cost. Complete absurdity that i had to take the monorail to the grand floridian then uber from there because they had food. Not enjoyable to say the least! Lastly we checked in on Easter sunday. 2 rooms 4 adults and 3 kids. We had the early flight so we knew our room wouldn’t be ready so we changed and head to the pool to relax. On arrival to the towel hut on the right side we were told there were no towels and we needed to head to the other hut near the salty rim. It was fine because i rented some chairs in the sand so it was right there. Upon arrival i saw a man walking away with about 7-8 towels and said oh no i hope there is some towels left. The young man behind the counter looks at me and turns his back and grabs 2 towels and slaps them on the counter and gives me an eye roll. I then told him i hope you have more because i have 7 people in my group, he then turns gets 5 towels and says” thats not how you ask but here you go anyway” and rolls his eyes again. I said “excuse me” his response again was “ thats not how you ask” i told him how about greeting someone when they come over and ask them How many towels they need or how many people they are with and maybe say hello not just turn your back on someone as they are walking over. His response was “ whatever”.. I have to say as a business owner in the hospitality business in NYC if my employee acted like this to anyone he would be fired on the spot. This place lacks management and clearly shouldn’t be hiring what appeared to be a teenager to deal with adults. Safe to say i will never come back to this place and i reccomend you don’t either. The few bright spots cannot overcome the shortfalls! Oh i and i almost forgot for 3 days they kept telling us they were out of corona but the tiki bar had corona so my wife would walk and get it because the servers couldnnt work it out. Just unnacceptable

Check in was the most absurd. Beyond the insanely long wait time and to find out my reservation was cancelled to falsely accused 3rd travel agency, turns out someone at the resort cancelled my rez. Almost 2 hours later, they admitted fault and reinstated my rez. No apology no nothing and so I asked to speak to a manager who to my shock responded the same. Zero customer service and hospitality. I then go to my room to find my 2 double room outfitted for a single person- one chair on balcony, one robe. The drinking glasses were dirty. Dialing service from room was a fail so I waited in line once again at the front desk for help. That was my day 1.

I originally booked the cottages, but after reading too many really bad reviews we decided to cancel that and booked our stay at the hotel instead. The hotel is in a great location with the Sunset walk being so close for restaurants and bars. The lobby is beautiful. Upon arrival for check-in everyone was very friendly. We received a welcome drink. We probably waited in line maybe 10 minutes, but that was to be expected during Easter week. They were able to put our rooms next to each other so we really appreciated that. The pool area is beautiful. They have service at the pool. I read online that they’ll search your bags to make sure you don’t bring anything in the pool area, but they never did that to us. Provisions store/restaurant has really good breakfast sandwiches, the workers were really friendly however, their computer system went down when we were trying to check out. One evening when my husband and I returned to our room our card reader wouldn’t work at all. I went to the front desk and they sent maintenance up immediately so I was very thankful for their quick response- They had to replace the batteries. Like other reviews have mentioned- I did try and call the front desk for questions and once for toilet paper and no one answers the phone which is extremely frustrating. We ate at the Euphoria restaurant on site and it was really good. I believe her name was Wendy but she was a great server, I think she said she was new. Eating and drinking at the resort is pricey and they do add a 20% gratuity to almost everything but we had resort credits with our package so that helped. We also had food and drinks at the salty rim- No complaints there. Our room was mostly clean. The floors could’ve been a little cleaner and unfortunately, we only had one chair on our balcony. I did bring this to the front desks attention, and they told me they would put a work order in, but no chair ever arrived for our four night stay so that was a little disappointing. Overall it does feel like the resort is somewhat shortstaffed and if you need anything there can be issues. I would probably stay again but they need to improve a few things.

(Long review) Upon arrival the ambience was amazingly beautiful. We checked into our cottage around 2:15/2:30 pm for a 5-night 4 day stay with Maria who is one of the front desks' personnel. Check in was a breeze. OK! Here is where it starts to get weird. Day 1 as a normal guest would do is check out the whole Cottage/ Hotel, which was done, and we found it to be pretty cool. My family and I changed and headed down into the main pool area. upon arriving at the pool, I notice that you couldn't have any food or drinks which is understanding. BUT I'm a diabetic so sometimes I need a piece of chocolate to keep me having an attack. I express that to the guy at the gate which he still insisted that I couldn't take it into the pool area (strike 1). Ok no worries I should be fine. Get inside of the pool area it seemed pretty cool until I got into the water and realize that two big grown men decided that they wanted to throw a football from the walkway bridge to the middle of the pool where another guest and I were talking. First throw hit me in the arm, ok I let that one go. Second throw I went in between she and I we both look at them. Third throw it hits her she says something, and the guy felt they weren't being rude. So, I decided to get out of the pool and go and lay out and observe the behavior The one guy was very intoxicate which is fine you on vacation. However it started getting a little later in the day, so we headed back to our cottage decided were going to shower and head out to the Sunset Walk. But before we could do any of that WE HAD NO FACE or BODY TOWELS in our master bathroom called the front desk no answer. I use my beach towel to dry off got dressed and went to the front desk spoke with Maria again she handed me 3 face towels and 3 body towels which wasn't enough considering our long stay. We use one for face and one for body. She told me she will have Maintenace bring more. She asked me was it ok if they entered while we are gone, I told her NO, she said how about the end of the day I said that would be perfectly fine I should be back. Something told me not to leave yet we waited an hour and (ding dong) the doorbell Its Maintenace entering while we are sitting in the kitchen WOW. He brings a clear bag with what we thought was some towels didn't check until we came back, after we came back, I looked into the bag, and it was a COMFORTER. NO ONE ORDERE THIS. Day 2 Called front desk about the Comforter that was supposed to have been towels NO ONE picked up the phone. Ok NOW This is even worse. We didn't have any extra toilet paper under the sinks the toilet paper that was present was a little roll of the holder. My husband went down to the front desk and the manager gave him a box of facial tissue and said he will put in a work order for the tissue to be distributed. WE NEVER GOT THE TOLET PAPER for the rest of our trip. We went bought our own. which we should have to do so. We didn't have a broom; we didn't have paper towel for the kitchen it was just a disaster. For the remaining of our trip, we pretty much didn't hang around the resort because it was just a disappointment and lack of service, we didn't want to let anything else hinder our vacation. The only good thing I can say about the cottage is the bed slept really nice. I will not recommend Margaritaville Resort. It's so many beautiful resorts in Florida. This one just didn't make the return cut for my family and me.