Marriott's Grande Ocean

First time to Hilton Head and absolutely loved this hotel. We got a 2nd floor villa overlooking the dolphin pool which was awesome. Even though this resort is busy and full of young families we never felt like it was too loud and always slept well. Comfortable beds, clean villa, etc. We loved the dolphin pool area and spent most of our time there. Really enjoyed rhe sharing shack where you can use anyone’s floats or pool noodles who leave them after their trip. We did purchase two floats at the front desk and were happy to leave them for new guests after we left. Bartenders at the pool bar were always nice and made great pina coladas!! The walk to the beach from our room was literally one minute. Beach is incredible especially as sunset. I enjoyed going to the pool every morning before my family woke up and reading my book quietly. I will also miss sitting on the balcony watching a storm pass by. We truly had a wonderful vacation and already miss this amazing place!!

Last year I wrote a stellar review for this property, based largely on the kindness and helpfulness of the staff. What a difference a year makes! If you are dealing with the front desk, try to avoid Patricia...incredibly condescending and unhelpful. Apparently, the preferences they solicit in advance of your stay REALLY MATTER, because there is no changing of rooms once you check in unless you are a timeshare owner. Try to be as SPECIFIC as possible. If you don't want to hear children screaming at incredibly high volumes and activities staff screaming energetically into a PA system, request a room as far away as possible from the Dolphin pool. (Sadly, they also occasionally appear on the beach for other loud activities...so much for a peaceful vacation). So, if you're a family with young children, great...you'll have a blast. If not, good luck. If you've purchased ocean front and actually want to SEE the ocean, request a room DIRECTLY FACING the ocean on the 4th or 5th floors. The pools are less maintained than in the past; lots of brush, leaves, etc. floating everywhere. I've loved my massages at the spa in the past, but they've raised the prices significantly, and I'm out. At a certain price, it stops being enjoyable. As an experiment, I stayed at an AirBnb on the island last Aug. and it was fantastic. That's my new plan.

We spent a week at Grand Ocean beginning Easter Sunday. This is a great property that will well maintained, shout out to the Engineering Team for keeping the place in great shape. The check in process is rough with the very pushy and borderline bullying tactics to schedule the sales meeting across the street, no means no. Our room wasn’t located where we expected but was very clean and comfortable. Longboard has so much potential, there were many times with long and slow lines due to high volume, waiting 15ish minutes to place order is frustrating, there is opportunity for improved efficiency and guest experience. There are some great restaurants nearby, support local businesses. Grilling with the Guys was a fun event and well worth attending, great food, fun interaction with their team, and fund raising for Children’s Hospital. Will from Activities was very cool. Love this property! One weird comment, the location of our room to replaces elevators allowed us to hear an electric elevator noise all day and night, mentioned to desk as checkout, she said “I’ve never heard that comment before, I will have someone call you” it’s been 4 weeks, not heard from anyone, I’m sure she didn’t pass our comment to appropriate party. Great place and looking to visiting again. Thanks for a great week.

We booked a "2 bedroom villa" which was listed on my confirmation as having: "Bedroom 1: 1 King, Bedroom 2: 2 Queen, Sofa bed." Since this was a multi-generational trip with grandparents, the 1 king + 2 queen setup was important to us. However, upon check in, we saw that bedroom 2 actually only contained ONE queen bed, along with a 2 seat couch that apparently pulled out to a sofa bed. The front desk acknowledged the problem, and indicated that some rooms at this property only have a single queen in bedroom 2, while others have the (listed) 2 queen beds. The manager I spoke tried to tell me that the 2nd bedroom "technically" met the description. When I responded that the bedroom in fact did not meet the description, he resorted to telling me that I should have called in earlier to check about the room configuration. (First -- how was I supposed to know that the hotel (a Marriott, which is supposedly a reputable company) would represent that their 2 bedroom villas have a certain number of beds, when, in fact, they did not? Second, I did call in advance to ask about the elevator situation -- after seeing a message about elevator renovations in some buildings, I called to check that we would have a working elevator, since we were traveling with elderly parents. There was no mention during this call that some villas did not have the described 2 queen beds.) Ultimately, the manager told me that there was nothing at all he could do, and was recalcitrant when I asked if there was anyone I could speak to about this situation. He did commit to checking in with higher ups and getting back to me the next day. The next day passed without any communication from this manager, or anyone else, EXCEPT... I still received multiple calls (after receiving communications prior to our arrival) about attending a 90-minute presentation (time-share sales), in exchange for which we would receive 1 night free along with an approx. $200 credit. Since we were paying over $700/night for the villa, this was a significant offer. Still, we declined to attend. And even these calls were shady -- the callers (while friendly) represented that they had limited spots for presentations, etc. I found it extremely off putting that I would receive multiple timeshare presentation offers while absolutely no compensation -- or even the promised return phone call -- was offered for the room situation. (Ultimately, a different person contacted me, and provided me with 15,000 Bonvoy points for the inconvenience, along with an apology, which was the bare minimum they could do.) After our trip -- I noticed daily charges in the range of approximately $45-$50 on my credit card. These charges were NOT on the final statement I received at check-out. I ended up having to call Marriott (which involved a significant investment in time since this involves getting routed through their AI operated phone system, before eventually getting to the "loyalty department"). These charges were refunded. HOWEVER, I should never have had to invest the time in getting this situation corrected. These are all shady business practices that are shocking from a Marriott, which I previously considered to be a reputable brand. Some minimal research shows that Marriott time share owners have brought class action litigation about their time share agreements, and the DC Attorney General brought a lawsuit against Marriott in 2019 for "deceptive resort fees." In light of all this, I will be extremely hesitant to return to another Marriott in the future. (On this same trip, I had reserved rooms at a Hyatt and Hilton, and both stays passed uneventfully and with no billing issues.) The pools and property itself -- especially the location on the beach and near the Coligny shopping area -- are lovely and would normally merit a 4-star review. However, in light of the problems we experienced, I have lost confidence in the Marriott brand entirely and cannot recommend this resort.