ICONA Avalon — Hotel in Avalon

Year after year we have enjoyed an extended stay vacation at Icona Avalon, since it was the Golden Inn. We would not consider going anywhere else. Icona Avalon has become our home away from home. The hotel and its management provide an outstanding vacation experience and it seems to get better with each passing year. ||We are always warmly welcomed on arrival as well as greeted daily by the front desk staff who recognize us a returning guests. From the moment we step on the property we continue to be impressed by the friendly, personable and professional staff starting with the valet team and front desk staff. Our room was beautifully decorated and so comfortable. AC worked well keeping the room cool and comfortable on even the hottest and most humid days. The ocean view was awesome! Public areas such as lobby and halls were well maintained and always very clean. ||Our room was spotless on check-in and room amenities plentiful including bath products and white fluffy towels. Housekeeping provided daily service with no detail overlooked in their daily visits. Our room was always fresh and clean as it was on the day we arrived. Amenities were replenished daily, as needed. The kitchenette area was more than adequate and fully stocked with plates, dishes, flatware, cookware, cups, water and wine glasses. There also is a small microwave, electric cooktop and small refrigerator. ||Randel Davis, the GM, is so hardworking we saw him everywhere around the hotel, doing every kind of job from refilling the water jugs, adjusting the fresh flowers, checking on the pool and Sand Bar, as well as checking on the beach team. He should be paid by the number of steps he takes each day. Randel goes out of his way to ensure the comfort of guests. We never had any concerns or problems during our extended stay.||Providing beach umbrellas and chairs was a great amenity and much appreciated. Island- wide shuttle service was a great convenience . The laundry room was kept clean with all 4 washers and dryers always in working order. Quarters for the machines were available at the front desk as was complimentary clothes detergent. Gym was small but certainly more than adequate for a quick workout.||Food at the Brew Pub and Sand Bar was very good and certainly not “bar food”. Sue in the Brew Pub recognizes us from year to year and always warmly greets us. This year, the Brew Pub provided delivery to your room of your order- a nice amenity. The live entertainment at the Sand Bar was exceptionally good with Sean Loosh and Raggamuffins as two of the outstanding entertainers. The addition of Avalon Prime was welcomed addition to the Icona restaurants. The space, located in the Windrift, was beautiful. The food, wine list and service were all exceptional. We ate there twice and were impressed by the attentive and professional service provided by the wait staff as well as the high quality of the food.||We look forward to returning to Icona Avalon next summer. We highly recommend a stay at...

Overall, I give the resort 3/5. And I'll do my best to be as objective as possible. I traveled here with family and booked a room months in advance. Ordered some food to the room and a child accomodation to the room. A few days before, I called for a possible early check in and was told to call on the day of, to make sure it happened. Called the day off and was told that there was no such thing as early check in. Fine, no big deal.

We arrive and do a 'soft check in' where we get tags, etc. Eventually get in our room. Bus boy/ valet guy was super friendly and hardworking. Helped pack car and took trolley to our room. Hallway leading to room had a musty smell and was super humid. Room had a musty smell but overall ok. Room was found to have some dirty areas that weren't cleaned but no big deal. Accomodations ordered from initial booking were not there in room. Food trays were not there. Called the front desk from the in room phone. No one picked up. Called local restaurant, no one picked, so had to make several trips to front desk to request things. They were super friendly and professional at all times.

I think rooms are very outdated. They need to renovate rooms to more modern designs because it's hard to justify the price for a motel like room. Beds were ok. Floor plan not the greatest. Tvs are probably 10-15 years old. No app access possibilities. Internet service is poor in hotel and in room. For the price I paid for the room, would expect more modern room amenities.

Other things: coffee bar by front desk gets crowded with a super long line. One person makes coffee and use super busy/flustered. I think having 2 people or having a bigger space would help. Housekeeping team is excellent. Great people and they work super hard. Much respect and I'm grateful for their efforts. The pool seemed crowded at peak hours but NBD. Beach experience was good. Nothing bad to say. The guys setting up umbrellas and chairs were nice. Sometimes played favorites but mostly when someone whined about not having a certain number of recliner chairs for their family of 5. I think there's a max of 2-3 chairs per room. I also think they need to renovate their laundry. There's only one place on the third floor. And I had to go from one end of the hotel, to the other, to do laundry. Probably 5 minute walk. Lastly, the elevators are the worst I've ever seen in my life. They are slow and the space is 6x4 feet so if you have a cart of stuff, it can probably fit your cart and you only. So I did a lot of stairs which is fine. But for older people and moms with strollers, I imagine it's a nightmare. At the very least, they need to upgrade the width of the elevators.

Overall, this is an ok hotel. Very dated. Renovations needed to justify price. Front desk could be better designed with better work flow/ logistics. 3/5. Wish I knew a lot of this stuff before. Probably would've splurged on a single house...

When checking in we were not welcomed when we walked through the door. We had to Stand at the front desk counter for 15mins while the only employee was taking a call. The employee finally put the person on hold, looked at us shoved 1 finger up in the air, then said "Hold on" and walked away. 2 mins later he came back with someone that had a front desk manager name tag on.. he looked at us in an unfriendly and unwelcoming tone said "what's the problem?" When I told him we are trying to just check in, the said "Oh well I don't know why I was brought out here then". Again, not what I was as a first impression at all! Then to name just a few issues we experienced after the first night was... We were promised a room upgrade on Saturday by the front desk manager on check in night , when Saturday rolled around no shock to us, the front desk claimed they have no idea what we are talking about! How unprofessional? No communication clearly! Our room had the following issues- every time the a.c. kicked on, there was a very loud annoying bass sound coming from the roof, our shower door didn't close so every shower resulted in the entire bathroom floor getting soaked and very slippery, the bathroom sliding door didn't shut the whole way so there was no privacy at all!, free WiFi only worked half the time were stayed, the a.c. only went as low as 69 and in the dead of summer that is not comfortable enough The pool hours were only 10am to 8pm, what kind of pool is only open till 8! The pool was beautiful at night with pretty lights under the water, but no why would they want to let their guests use the pool or hot tub at night? Had to complain to the front desk yet again because when sitting in the got tub in the morning, all you smelled was rotten garbage coming from the bar behind us... then since couldn't stand the smell of that any longer, we went to go into the pool but that was a no too because the pool water was so cloudy you couldn't see the bottom! Why would we swim in that, the ocean was clearer than their pool! The elevator we had to use to get to our 3rd floor room was so tiny that it barely fit my husband and the luggage cart. I also want to add that we had to reduce the load on our luggage cart because it wouldn't fit in the elevator so I had to wait downstairs for my husband to go upstairs, unload the cart then come back down the elevator to pick the rest of the stuff I was waiting with... then he took a second trip to the third floor via this elevator while I had to walk the stairs because the elevator didn't for 2 people plus a luggage cart! BS!

I would say it is safe to assume after paying $500 per night that Icona will not be taking another penny from us! They don't deserve our business and especially no more of our hard...