Marriott’s Crystal Shores Timeshare

Our welcome to Marriott’s Crystal Shores was not great. We encountered Lea who kept repeating that we would be looking at a parking lot and a building–she was WRONG! We were not aware at the time of Booking that this Resort has a lot of View Types.

Apparently, Lea thought we had selected the worse view but our view was not that bad. We could see the Gulf from our Balcony to the left. We heard that this was a great Resort, it is not.

There is not a lot to do here and it kind of reminds you of something that would be built inside a large busy city. The rooms are nice but not very large. We have been to many Resorts and I would say this is our least favorite.

They have a flood in the lower garage that does not go away, two elevators are broken so the one working elevator is slow and to top it off, the Espresso Machine is broken. I was frustrated with all of these inconveniences after encountering Lea (Front Desk) so I called Danielle, a Manager who completely blew me off.

Danielle merely respond, thanks and hung up. Not appreciating these two (Lea and Danielle), several days later, I went to the Guest Relations Desk to assure that this did not happen to another Guest, especially one that had high Marriott Status. At Guest Relations, I met Natalie and Kerri who listened to my concerns, all of the concerns and later that day, they called and asked to drop by my Villa.

I was so happy to hear that they had escalated my complaints. And, they presented me with a very nice gift basket, points and cards to contact them if we return in the future. Natalie and Kerri, truly changed our view of the customer service expectations at this Resort.

The entire Concierge Staff and the Stilts Bartender from New York are great.

We are so incredibly disappointed in our trip to Crystal Shores Marriott.

To be fair, the rooms were large and the pool was nice. However, the cleaning staff never came before 4pm and only ended up cleaning our unit 1.5 times in a 6 day stay, unacceptable. With the exception of our last day when they were outside our door impatiently waiting half an hour before our checkout time. There was little to no pool service. I saw one waitress walk through quickly twice and she avoided all eye contact and only came if you called to her.

If you wanted a drink or food you had to walk to one of the two bars that had long lines and slow service. In addition there was no pool valet taking care of used towels or cleaning up chairs that had been left.

It was difficult to tell which chairs might be open with no one cleaning up used towels. The pool gets extremely crowded as a result and is difficult to find open chairs. We also found out the day we checked in that if you wanted a chair on the beach you had to pay to rent both chairs and umbrellas. Not worth the cost unless you planned to sit at the beach for more than half the day. In addition there is no bar or food service at the beach.

You would have to walk all the way back to the hotel bars for any service. This made going to the beach require effort, planning and an extra cost on top of the resort fee that you are already paying. There is also no restaurant on property that serves breakfast.

If you are considering renting a cabana, be sure to call ahead as there are only 3 good ones and they book quickly. Also know that the cabanas have no option for sitting in the sun and are in a poor location.

Also be aware that if you are a bonvoy member you will receive no benefits as a result of your status.

We have titanium status as it was useless.

The hotel as a whole was clean and spacious however the lack of services and poor service where available was extremely disappointing.

We have been owners at Crystal Shores since before they were even open. For years our visits to CS were always peaceful and relaxing. That peace was SHATTERED this year with the completion of the two new towers. What was once a quaint family-centered haven has turned into a over-sized, over-crowded complex. We used to know so many of the people that worked there, and stayed in touch with them even after they left, but now we’re lucky to know ONE person there, and good luck finding them!

While I can’t complain about the units and the beautiful gulf views the pools leave MUCH to be desired. One of the WORST parts about this resort now is trying to find a seat at the pool. What was always an easy thing to do, walk down to the pool and sit in a chair, has turned into an uncivilized free for all! The resort leaves towels on the chairs so people will just unroll six towels on six seats in order to “reserve” the seats, however they may not come back for hours, or not at all! I watched a large group one day, they saved eight chairs. In the 4-5 hours the seats were saved only TWO people ever sat in any of the EIGHT chairs!!!!

What makes it worse is that NO ONE comes to clean up ANYTHING until the end of the day. I saw people leave the pool and they just left their towels, so for hours chairs appeared to be “reserved” but weren’t. CS claimed they were getting more seats, which there is plenty of room for, but from what I’ve heard, to this day (March, we were there in August) there are still no new seats and the situation has only worsened. If I want to have to fight for a chair I’ll go to Vegas.

Aside from cleaning up towels there is also no cleaning up any of the garbage that might be in and around the pool throughout the day. Even at the end/beginning of the day there is no cleanup other than blowing things around. I saw garbage in the bushes and trees for the entire week I was there, never once did it move or get picked up. Not to mention scuzzy stuff in the pools and filters.

This place has really lost it’s luster, and so has Marco Island really. What was once a beautiful gem of an island has been overrun with way too many tourists and people that only care about THEIR vacation, not that there are actually others around them. This trip may have been our last to CS and may also be the end of owning with MVC.

Messy from the start’ve written a number of reviews in the past, mostly favorable and complimentary of the property. However, this is far from what we encountered at the Marriott Crystal Shares.

As a preface to this review, I travel extensively for work, and pleasure, and am a lifetime Platinum Premier member with 1,000+ nights. We made this reservation as a last hoorah before the birth of our daughter due December 6th, as a quick long weekend trip. We received a call 24 hours after, seemingly excited to have us at the property, with a promise of a top 15th floor suite.

The night before any travel, I’ve learnt this the hard way, I double check all reservations. My wife and I were super surprised to see our reservation had been cancelled, less then 24 hours before our arrival.

We immediately called the Marriott Platinum Support line to report the issue. After an 30 minutes back and forth with the hotel and support, our reservation was back in the system.

When arriving on Thursday evening, they had downgraded us to a low floor room, with no view, and were quite evasive during us inquiring as to why. They finally upgraded us, after an hour of waiting and frustration.

Amanda was the late night manager, and was at first a little belligerent, but eventually offered my 7.5 month pregnant wife, and 4 exhausted boys some dinner (pizza), until the room was ready 30 minutes later. We requested a late checkout, which was promised for noon. The day before checkout, we always again double check everything to make sure.

Again, to our surprise, this time the manager was Ali, was extremely rude, and denied our late checkout, that was again promised. He demanded our 4 boys, and again 7.5 month pregnant wife l, all be out by the latest 10AM, or we would be changed an extra night. After again being on the phone with support, which they reported Ali being extremely rude as well, my wife went down to talk to him directly.

After an exhausting 10 minute conversation, which we had to argue to a 15 minute increase in checkout (15 minutes mind you), he finally agreed. The following morning, he had housekeeping knocking on the door from 9:30, every 15 minutes, until we finally checked out at 10:45AM.

This hotel tried to recuperate, but seemingly their hotel staff has a superiority complex, and does not communicate between one another. I would certainly not recommend this property in the least. I would recommend they send their staff to sensitivity and customer support training as soon as possible. We certainly will not be visiting again.