Marriott’s Imperial Palms Villas Timeshare

Our family (4 adults and 2 children) stayed at Imperial Palms for 2 weeks in February 2017.

Property was nice, especially being able to go to the hotel for food and swimming. 3-bedroom villa was great for our size family. Loved the screened in porch and used it many times. Convenient location and easy to get to area restaurants.

However, we did have several issues with the staff during our stay. Since we were there for 2 weeks we asked for additional shampoo, dishwasher soap and toilet tissue but we were told that if we used what we were given we had to go out and buy our own. Based on our stay at many other Marriott timeshare properties we have never run in to an issue like this.

Also, when they changed our bed linens after the first week the sheets they put on the king-sized bed were “pilled.” We waited more than 6 hours and had to call again before they finally came to replace them. (I understand this is a staff issue and not a property issue.)

Staff at other Marriott properties have always gone over and above our needs and we certainly are not a demanding family by any means. The staff at Marriott Villas at Doral and Grande Vista far outshine the issues we had with the staff at Imperial Palms.

My family goes to Orlando every summer.

This was our first time staying at the Marriott Imperial Palms.

The villa was spacious and beautiful. I would give the villa a 5+++ rating. The staff was OK. They weren’t as welcoming as I thought they should be. I was also surprised by the $250 hold that was put on my credit card.

Check in is at 4 pm. We arrived at approximately 3:45 and we were told that our room wasn’t ready. That was a huge disappointment considering that we were only about 15 minutes early. While we were waiting for the check in process to be completed, our children wanted to check out the pool. Well, they couldn’t because it was closed due to an approaching storm. It was sunny and you could see storm clouds far off in the distance.

This happened everyday throughout our trip. We were told that if a lightning storm was within 5 miles then they had to close the pool and it’s deck. So no swimming and no tanning. It rains almost everyday in Orlando.

We were there for a week and did not get to enjoy the pools that often. We took the shuttle over to the World Center one day and everything was locked including the indoor pool, basketball courts, and tennis courts.

Pool time is a buffer when you have children on vacation. It seems that Marriott is the only property that has this rule. My brother stayed at another Marriott property and they had the same pool rules. I was very disappointed.

I called the property next door where is usually stay and their pools were open. I loved the villa but we will never stay at a Marriott property while on vacation. So if you plan on swimming a lot on your vacation in Orlando, do not stay at a Marriott property

I’ve stayed at plenty of Marriott Vacation Resorts and this has to be the worst.

The pools are ice cold, the villas are poorly equipped and the activities are non existent.

We stayed her to spend most of our time at Universal Studies. The location is ok for that however the units are in desperate need of upkeep. The second bedroom is tiny with only one bed, no sofa, the living room furniture is old and uncomfortable and the kitchen is barely stocked with minimal items.

The market place is small and poorly stocked and the staff seems barely knowledgeable about the facility, let alone the surrounding area. Rooms have DVD players yet no DVD’s available for check out at the front desk. Concierge desk has short hours.

On the plus side, we had a maintenance issue in our room which was fixed immediately.

While our stay was pleasant, all these little issues are irritants that I should net expect from a Marriott. This property is in desperate need of refurbishment.

After staying at numerous Marriott resorts my wife and I both feel that this was perhaps the worst resort we’ve ever stayed at. The logistics of having to take a shuttle to the Marriott world resort pool and having to walk through a lobby of a hotel with my family in swimsuits and carrying toys while business convention attendees were everywhere should’ve been embarrassing to Marriott.

Furthermore, the activities that were offered by Marriott Imperial Palm Villas were a very big disappointment. Most of the programs for kids charged a fee that was as much as if parents were to take their kids off-site to participate in the same activity.

While checking in, I arrived at the resort at 12:00pm hoping to check in early if possible seeing as though I had three children anxious to go swimming and start their vacation. I can understand the room not being ready right away but after I checked back in at 2:00pm and then again at 3:00pm the room still wasn’t ready. I was awaiting a phone call all afternoon to inform me that the room was ready and then all of a sudden at 4:00pm which is the official check in time, the room was miraculously ready.

Furthermore the websites for these resorts advertise access to the Marriott World Center pools with a slide.

Nowhere does it mention limited hours of the slide because it needs to be staffed by two Marriott employees. This brings me to another concern, on two occasions during our one week stay children needed be assisted by adults who were not even in the pool after a child went down the slide.

Both times a child was having difficultly swimming after landing in the pool and the slide attendant who was poolside say there and watched. They’re quick to say they’re not lifeguards so what’s the point of them sitting there? I also witnessed a poolside attendant sleep for a straight 30 mins which was noticed by multiple parents. The attendant who was at the top of the slide even noticed the poolside attendant sleeping and made mention to another employee, however, nothing was ever done about this. The pool area was filthy and not up to Marriott standards at all.

We have never complained about a Marriott property in all the years we’ve stayed however we will not be recommending this any of the three resorts to located in this complex to anyone we come in contact with. We will stay at the Horizons resort from now on where we thoroughly enjoyed our stay in the past!