JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa — Attraction in Phoenix

WARNING: LONG REVIEW||Our family traveled to the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa this year for four nights to celebrate Easter. A few days before arrival, we were assisted by Evynn at the front desk to answer last-minute questions and requests – she was extremely helpful. The property itself is big (950 guestrooms, including 81 suites) on 300+ acres in the Sonoran Desert, making it Arizona’s largest resort. It’s an easy 15-20 minute drive from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. Even though it opened in 2002, the resort and its grounds have been adequately maintained with renovations over the years. We’re sticklers for cleanliness and it delivered.||Prior to arriving, we were given the option to pay $50 for an early check-in (12pm) which we did and were graciously checked-in by Hitomi with two connecting rooms on the fourth floor with resort views, overlooking the gardens (resort has six floors total). Ideally, we would have liked to been on the other side of the hallway (Mountain View) facing the “Isle of Capri” and Koi Pond. Additionally, there is a $55 Resort Fee that includes daily WaterPark access; Pickleball/Tennis equipment and court times; daily driving range access at their golf club and two-hour bike rentals.||Also on the fourth floor is where the Griffin Club Lounge is located. We paid $150 per adult and $50 per child (ages 3-12) to have daily access to the Club Lounge which had sufficient food and beverage offerings from 7am-9pm with limited alcohol. This allowed our family flexibility to eat when hungry, graze when needed and unlimited water/sodas throughout the day. Club access also grants guests daily access to the Revive Spa & Pool amenities, fitness center and fitness classes. We experienced excellent service in the lounge from Andrew during our stay. ||Other food options on property include:|• Kembara (Asian) – Open Tue-Sat 4pm-9pm, closed Sunday/Monday|• Tia Carmen (Southwestern) – Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner – 6:30am-1pm; 5pm-9pm|• Just a Splash Pool Bar & Grill – 11am-4pm|• Starbucks – 6am-5pm|• Desert Ridge Taqueria – located in water park; open for lunch on wknds|• Copper Alley Games + Bar + Bites (food available on Fri/Sat evenings) – 8:30am-9pm||The resort activities offered during Easter weekend were endless. We weren’t able to do everything but enjoyed: Koi Fish & Turtle Feeding; Bubble Bash Foam Party on the Lawn; and ALL of the offerings on Easter itself as the weather was perfect. We thoroughly enjoyed their annual Easter Sunday Religious Service outside (30min) followed by a petting zoo on the Sunset Lawn. There were also activities with the Easter Bunny and an egg hunt. A few weeks prior to our stay, we made reservations for their Grand Easter Brunch Buffet at Tia Carmen restaurant ($169 per adult/$49 per child – ages 5-12yrs…..NOTE: Buffet price does NOT include any alcohol/wine/mimosas) but was a huge display of Southwestern and Asian Cuisines: a highlight was fresh Sushi being rolled to order as well as traditional breakfast items and desserts – we spent 2 hours eating our money’s worth!!!!||And for the entire duration of our stay, we enjoyed their on-site AquaRidge Water Park with a lazy river; 2 splash pads; Wildfire Grove main pool; waterfall tower; activity pool ; three large water slides (Waterpark Hours: Mon-Fri 10-5; Sat/Sun 9-5). Resort pools are open from 8am-10pm.||We are very well traveled and are typically hyper-observant and hyper-critical of every resort we stay at – and for the most part, we were super pleased and only noted trivial details which says a lot!|• No makeup mirrors in the bathroom made it challenging to insert contact lenses!|• Resort offers Pepsi products as opposed to Coca-Cola products|• In-Room Dining options were super limited and not great|• This property is part of ResortPass so large numbers of families infiltrated the resort using DayPasses during our stay which made competition for pool loungers challenging – we ended up getting one or two side-by-side loungers which was okay since we did the Water Park and Lazy River mostly but witnessed many frustrated resort guests wandering to claim a chair or two.||PRO TIPS:|• Self-parking at the resort is super easy to come and go |• Anything you need is merely a half-mile down the street from the resort at Desert Ridge Marketplace (Target; Huge Albertson’s grocery store with liquor store attached; Smoothie King; Sub shop; Nail salon; Einstein Bagels; CVS; BJs Restaurant; AMC movie theater; Old Navy; Fly Bye Pizza; In N Out Burger)|• A MUST SEE: Go to the OdySea Aquarium in Scottsdale (15-20min away from resort) – it’s the largest aquarium in the Southwest and has the world’s only rotating aquarium experience (the Voyager)….and there’s even a shark tank in the lower-level bathrooms! It’s home to 6,000 animals/300 species and it’s super clean – nearly all of the tanks were spotless.||In closing, the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge was a wonderful family vacation over Easter where many memories were made. This property is a mirror image of the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa in its size and in being family-friendly with the water slides and lazy river. Having been to both properties, we prefer Desert Ridge far more than San Antonio for many reasons – the Griffin Club Lounge and Moutain View Backdrops. We highly recommend considering this Arizona resort for an Easter getaway – the climate is perfect that time of year and all of the activities offered for kids cannot be beat – and we had zero service issues during our stay. We look forward to returning to the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa again soon - a job well done to...

Here’s everything you need to know as you plan your stay in a three-minute read. Our experience was a mixed bag and hopefully this review will assist your planning and expectations for your future stay. |Staycations are a lot about hanging out and enjoying the hotel property. It’s been 10 years since our last staycation at the Marriott Desert Ridge and a lot has changed. The hotel completed a major renovation project a few years back with noticeable upgrades to their pool area, specifically a new waterpark that is great for kids say 9 and up. Other changes: the conspicuous presence of lifeguards (a good thing) and security checking wristbands, bags & backpacks for alcohol at every entrance. If you are a fan of the “stealth beer” to avoid the $12 beer ($10 plus a mandatory 20% service change for all food and beverage at the pool) you’ll need to get creative. There was even a Scottsdale uniformed police officer there on the fourth of July weekend. Recommended that one avoids holiday weekends as the pool area was inundated with day trippers on the 4th of July.|The very cleaver folks in the Marriott marketing department have found creative ways to monetize your Marriott experience at seemingly every turn. Gone are the days when you simply picked any spot to lay out your towel and pool survival kit. Now, more than 50% of the seating is reserved; chairs start at $150 with more expensive cabana options extending into several hundred dollars. This situation has led to a long line of guests (I estimated over 150 the morning of 7/4) queuing up for the 8AM “Battle Royale” of free seat wars. Within 45 minutes everyone had completed the “towel and book” claim on their real estate then left the pool area for breakfast. Unless you want to enter the arena and play the Hunger Games for seats, you’ll just have to buck up. So, we did; choosing paid seats in the adults only pool area where we anticipated some serenity from the zoo of a scene at the other pools overrun with 3–15-year-olds. This was where this service/experience went off the rails. A DJ showed up playing music that was defining. All 14 guests at the adult pool banded together to complain and asked that the volume be turned down only to be met with literal tone def “supervisors”, two of them who refused to comply siting some type of “summer fiesta” that hotel was sponsoring. Stunning that when 100% of guests ask respectfully to lower the volume a tad that somehow these pin head supervisors just did not get it; some serious managerial counseling is in order. All that said, our pool server, Tori, was one of the most attentive and friendly we’ve experienced – high marks! |Another recommendation concerns the check-in process – recommend that you bring a copy of your reservation confirmation. Marriott offers several promotional offers and somehow not all of our promotional details flowed through to the front desk team. This created an awkward situation as I was forced to rifle through my phone looking for our reservation confirmation during check in. I detest being put into a position of having to be confrontational with hotel staff but it was only when I produced my documentation that they honored all the terms of the promotion which included a paid upgrade for the Griffin Lounge experience. Both the check in agent and on duty supervisor fumbled this. ||The Griffin Lounge Experience offers a members only access with a robust breakfast that includes an omelette chef. Lunch includes two kinds of soup, sandwich and salad; dinner is light finger food all accompanied by top-shelf beer, wine and spirits. I am compelled to call attention to the excellent staff working in the lounge on the fourth of July weekend. There were two young chaps in the evening and two ladies that worked the days; all of them were exceptional models of hospitality – thank you for making our experience memorable. Worth it the $300 per day per couple? Given the heat, cost of drinks & food at the pool bars, we chose to hydrate at the pool and consume our food and alcohol in the lounge; a good choice for us. ||Finally, it’s notable that the Marriott Brand in general, at least domestically, has quietly moved away from free club lounges for guests with elite status – this is in bad form as it literally bites the hand that feeds. The introduction of only pay for lounges pushes the bounds of reasonableness. Want to create that elite lounge experience? Fine, I get it but when your members drink all of the Marriott Kool-Aid (credit card, 500+ nights in the last 15 years enough to make you lifetime platinum) one question will ALWAYS be asked by elite guests…..how is my loyalty being rewarded? At this hotel, it looks to be all pay to play. ...

I am a Phoenix local with a Marriott Bonvoy benefit of one annual complementary night at a high value property. This year, we decided to redeem it at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge so that our two kids could enjoy the water park.

I've had the privilege of staying at a handful of other 5 star resorts in Phoenix, Southern California, and Hawaii and the JW Marriott Desert Ridge is in a class of its own.

The hotel common areas, the rooms, and the grounds are all impeccable and flawless. All of the staff members we encountered, including valets, housekeeping team members, front desk associates, restaurant workers, pool attendants, and life guards, were kind, hospitable, generous, and accommodating. The front desk gave us early admission to our room and a generously late checkout so that we could enjoy the water park fully. Though our stay was complementary, we were welcomed and lavished upon like any other guests.

Tia Carmen's breakfast buffet is out of this world. It was so, so delicious, creative, and robust. My only complaint was that they offered feta cheese with Mexican food (what?). But I'm still dreaming about that breakfast.

The room was comfortable, impossibly quiet, well appointed, and generously sized, though we just elected for what I believe was their smallest configuration.

We happened to be there during some sort of retreat or convention for families with children who have Downs' Syndrome. Watching the staff interact with these precious children and their families without a hint of prejudice or ableism was a pure delight to behold. As a parent of a differently-abled child, I was truly touched.

The water park is very clean. The food service prices were not exorbitant. They offer towels and are very intentional about making sure cold drinking water is always at the ready. We appreciated all of these things.

My only complaint was about the water park itself. They were pretty short sighted in failing to provide some design elements that could have really aided in the comfort. There is no shade at all on the water in any of the attractions. None at all. They do offer umbrellas over all of the lounge chairs, if you can be lucky enough to get one.

But the lazy river and both family pools are completely exposed to the sun. As such, it's very easy to get sunburned and the water temperature was downright unpleasant at times. The water park is also only open during the very hottest part of the day, so you can't even go in the morning before it's overly hot or after the sun has set.

On our first day there, the outside temp was around 108 and the water was easily 95-98 degrees (my own pool at home measures 93 degrees and this was considerably warmer). If the weather had been any warmer at all, the waterpark would have been unusable. The water features really need some aerators, shade sails, misters, waterfalls, and trees.

They could add a waterfalls or mist feature to the bridges on the lazy river, plant trees that actually provide shade instead of just palm trees, suspend shade sails in places, and open the park during cooler hours to make the experience more enjoyable. If you're a local coming here just for the water park, don't. The city waterparks throughout the valley offer the same features at a fraction of the cost, and without cooking you. If you're coming for all the rest of what the resort has to offer, do!

Despite the water park disappointment, I still rate our experience 5 stars because we were so tremendously impressed with everything and everyone else. We did not even get to enjoy the other amenities because our stay was so short, but we loved everything we did get to experience. I just wish the water park had been designed with more sensitivity to the extreme heat.

I would really love the chance to be able to return again. It makes a great family getaway and my husband and I also envisioned it being a wonderfully romantic stay, too. It's luxurious without being snooty, which makes it so easy to relax in. I do hope we get to come back some day. Thank you for a positively...