JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa — Hotel in Bulverde

What a trip! We've heard about the JW for years & this year we made it & had the most amazing family vacay!

Arrival + Check-in/Check-out + Room Arrived on a Thurs & checked out Sun. We booked a Signature View, Guest room, 1 King, Sofa bed, Walk Out Balcony room. The main entry is a mess. There are 3 lanes but it's unclear what each lane is for and there's only 1 lane if you're checking in, so it gets backed up quick. The self parking is a hike so we suggest dropping baggage & kiddos at the door & one person goes to park the car & return. Check-in was fairly smooth, same with check-out. The room was a disappointment. Even when booking I was SHOCKED to find for a resort that's clearly marketed as a family destination there are NO true suites as basic rooms, the only suites they offer are Luxury/Presidential Suites. Your ONLY option as a family is a king bed w/sleeper sofa or 2 queen beds w/ sleeper sofa. And the sleeper sofa is NOT a sofa, it's a love seat, so if it is a tight fit for 2 children led alone larger kids or even teenagers. We were offered a rollaway & are so glad we said no, there was literally no place in our room they could've fit it. There is far too much furniture in this room. Literally 2 desks and 3 different tables are in the small room - why?! We almost had to move furniture onto the patio to have space in the room. Also, the bathrooms offer zero privacy for a family - the shower is glass & next to the toilet & sink - literally!

Pool + Reserved Seating + Poolside food + Water slides If you have young kids who you need to have an eye on while they swim, Reserved Seating is a MUST! On a whim I booked us reserved seating for our 1st full day poolside just thinking it would allow us the ability to take our time getting to the pool rather than rush to get a spot. Having a seat on the edge of the main pool was incredible! We had unobstructed views of our kids playing in any part of the main pool. On Sat, when we didn't have reserved seating we were at the pool by 7:45am to get a 2nd row back from the pool seat & they were going fast! The view is of the pool is obstructed so we had to be in the pool to have an eye on our kids. Next time we'll reserve poolside seating each day - the extra cost is a splurge that's worth it. Poolside food & drinks were great, huge portions & decently priced. The staff was attentive, easy to find & friendly. From salads, to fish tacos, burgers, chicken strips, & hummus, everything was fresh & tasty. The water slides, both with & w/out tubes were a blast. One of our kiddos couldn't get enough of the tall slides. He would wait in line, go down the slide & get back in line, over & over for hours! The lazy river was my favorite. The part that goes around actually moves & you can kick back & float. Our kids swam the lazy river alongside of my hubby & I floating - it was glorious!

Restaurants MAKE SURE you look at the website. If the buffet at Cibola Moon is offered, their regular menu is not(not even for kids, they must do kid's buffet). Their breakfast buffet is no offered on Sunday (which is stupid!) Crooked Branch/lobby offers hot & take-away breakfast but not until later in the morning. Starbucks is really the ONLY quick breakfast option in the ENTIRE place AND the wait on weekends for a mobile or in-person order will be 45min-1hr. NOT JOKING! My Sun. morning 7:30am mobile order took 1hr to get my oatmeal & plain late. Everyone around me had the same wait. It was infuriating. High Velocity is your typical bar food, but the portions are really large, even for the kids menu. Cibola Moon's dinner buffet was a good treat for us & the kid's liked what they offered too. FIAMMÉ Pizzeria offered yummy pizzas, but they're PRICEY! The pizzas are more like a Dominos medium not a personal pizza. You can order to-go & take it to the pool or room. Rivertop Grill is what you get poolside or you can order at the counter. They offer a lot! The portions are really hearty & the food is actually good. Room Service was actually pretty comparable to eating in the...

Another Family vacation, another JW resort! This time we went with my wife’s parents + young cousin staying at the JW Marriott SA, so 4 adults and 4 kids, and thankfully this resort is setup for families. This was our first, US based JW stay, and despite some unexpected issues, overall, we had a wonderful time. The resort is massive, clean, picturesque, and distinctly Texan, all things we immensely enjoyed. Some others have pointed out the parking lot/ drop off situation is less than ideal. Suggest to pull up, unload in the front area, then circle back to park. It is a bit of a small hill to walk up back to the lobby so travelling light is key. Both times I managed to get a ride from a golf kart so no issues there. Room was spacious, and clean. Being platinum members we did get an upgrade to full balcony overlooking the back of the property and it was superb. The couch folded out to a full size bed so kiddos were set, and the king size main bed was plenty big for us (plush too!) We received two local honey bee beers and chips and salsa as a welcome gift which was an awesome touch! The breakfast situation is one of the lowlights of our stay sadly. First off, there didn’t seem to be enough space for the amount of people in the hotel. We luckily dodged the giant que that would form around after 8 AM. It’s a bit strange the resort is so massive, yet the breakfast buffet space is somewhat small. The other, bigger issue in my opinion is the 2-tiered breakfast system they have, for our platinum membership, the “continental” breakfast was included which is “only the cold items”. If you want to upgrade to “hot items” then you are charged $13 a person. This was pretty ridiculous, either include the breakfast as a perk, or don’t. The fact that if I take 1 piece of bacon all the sudden, I’m charged $13 for the “upgrade” is nonsensical. Also, to be honest, even with the “upgrade” the breakfast buffet is good but not super amazing, there were the basic breakfast options with some pastries, but it doesn’t hold a candle to other JW properties we’ve visited overseas, and those were all included in our platinum membership, hence the disappointment. Also, for some reason 3+ yr. old kids breakfast is $17…? Why is this more than the member upgrade of $13? Back to the positive, the water park on this resort is outstanding, they have 6 or 7 pools, 4-5 water slides, even a sandy beach area connected to one of the pools which was an absolute hit with the kids. They don’t have QR codes from some reason, so service mileage could vary depending on what area you are in and who is coming around, fortunately we had an excellent server who was constantly checking in with us. Be aware, there doesn’t seem to be an actual bar out in the pool area, so any mixed drink you order will be coming from a slushy machine. Sorry, but for $19 a pop, I’m expecting more than your New Orleans Bourbon street pre-mixed slushy special. On the hand, the buckets of beer were around $40 for 6 which was a decent deal, with a good selection to pick from. Lastly, the food options onsite are somewhat limited. The sports bar is good bar food, and the steakhouse was very delicious (also pricey $$+) but between those two options, there wasn’t really a lot for families. The other restaurant “Cibolo Moon” is billed as Mexican, but had some odd entrees (are lots of families ordering the bison meatloaf?) The room service menu was downright small. There was maybe 5-6 choices and 2-3 appetizers. Unless a burger or turkey sandwich is what you are looking for, you’re going to be out of luck. Out of all the resorts we have stayed, we have never seen such a small room-service menu and it wasn’t even close. Strangely, there was also no pizza option anywhere offered. We saw they were opening a new wood-oven pizza place soon, but you’d like they would have some other option until that happens, being a 5-star resort and the huge number...

I haven't written a review for a while, but I wish someone else had written a recent review about this property so I wanted to fill in the information gap. ||First the positives however, because the property does have a lot. First, as Titanium Elite members, we were treated very well. Carter worked with me to find a workable upgrade for my family to have a bit more space. Additionally, the free continental breakfast at Cibolo Moon for two of us was VERY good. Second, the property is very peaceful. Even though occupancy was very high, it never really seemed that busy (except for breakfast and the pool which I'll comment on later). Finally, the room and grounds were very nice and well maintained. ||Now to the reason I needed to make this post. ||The main message is that the resort is not currently as advertised. We booked this property because of the pictures and reviews of the grounds which includes the pools, waterslides and lazy river. Imagine getting all the way there and finding out that the lazy river is under construction until March and that on the hottest day we were there, only one of the four slides would be open part of the day. While I understand that renovations occur to keep the property up to date, other properties are typically very clear in advertising upon booking that construction is in progress, but not this place. Upon asking whether some of the resort fee could be waived because the amenities were not as advertised, of course the answer was no. The other problem this creates is that when occupancy is high and both the lazy river and waterslides are closed down, it brings everyone into the pool and hot tubs. Thus the pool and hot tubs were very crowded on the days we were there which was took away from the relaxation component.||The other issue is what I believe to be one of staffing constraints which I know is affecting many businesses currently. The first day at the pool, there was one waitress who only focused on the rented Cabana. Everyone else had to go to the Rivertop Bar where there was only one bartender who was working SO hard, but just couldn't keep up. I ordered the 6 piece chicken tenders and a drink after waiting about 20 minutes in line to place my order. The food came out quickly but upon getting back to my family with it, found out that I only had the 4 piece kids chicken tenders, so back in the line I went for another 20 minutes to ask for an additional 2 chicken tenders. By this time, finally another person came to help at the bar, but the wait was still a good 10 minutes anytime you wanted to place an order.||Relatedly, while the buffet breakfast in Cibolo Moon was incredibly good, the wait time was not. Most mornings we had to wait 10 minutes just to put our name in and then another 30-45 minutes to get seated. Finally by the end of the stay I learned to put my name in much earlier than when we planned to eat. Finally, again while the staff were working incredibly hard, some detailed were missed. Two of the four days, when we got to our table, though the table was clean, the seats were filthy and my son even sat in maple syrup that was left on the chairs. ||Overall, we had a beautiful spacious room and the grounds were impeccable. The staff works incredibly hard, but I just don't think they have enough people. Thus, I'd at least wait until the Lazy River is complete to stay here and plan accordingly for daytime food by maybe bringing in your own drinks so you don't spend your entire...