Hilton Vacation Club Rancho Manana Phoenix/Cave Creek — Hotel in Cave Creek

Location is great. Front office staff is amazing. Property is what you would expect in this area, although it is definitely old and tired. Rooms/suites are not indicative of a resort type time share that rents nightly to the public.

First the good: super friendly and attentive front office staff, great location, nice pool. Restaurant, when open, has appealing menu. Beds are very comfortable.

Not so good: Front desk says restaurant open 11-8, sign at restaurant door says 11-830, media in room says 11-9p (it’s 11-8p). No breakfast. No gift shop or store or anyplace to get breakfast onsite, you have to drive for that (or snacks, or water, unless you want to pay $5 a bottle between 11-8p from the restaurant). Stop and shop before you get here - if you forget ANYTHING, you have to drive into town - coffee, water, two-ply, you name it. It’s not available onsite. This place is OLD and TIRED and is going through a major renovation...at least 15% of the rooms were inaccessible/under remodel. Rooms must turn quick, they aren’t incredibly clean for the price. Paint peeling on the outdoor floors and railings - don’t go out without your shoes and don’t set anything on the railings. Paper towels provided are junk - literally the same towel you would pull from the windshield wiping bucket at your favorite Circle K. The one ply towels in a C-store sh!tter are more durable. Same goes for the TP. Single ply, super thin cardboard - wear gloves if you don’t want to bust through and surprise your dumper with an unfriendly greeting from your pinky (or so I heard). Or use one of the wash cloths, as the single ply in the bathroom isn’t even good to wipe steam off the mirror. Yep, that thin. Imagine a catholic wafer shaved in thirds to wipe your crapper. Not a good scene. In room entertainment/media is about 10 years out of date. Still running directv and no ports to charge electronics from home. Half the property is fenced off for repairs so be prepared to take the LONG way everywhere. Parking is very scarce, as the rooms share parking with the golf course. Odds of parking right in front of your room if you are in the first 3 buildings is exactly 1: 1 million. And don’t drive anything bigger than a Prius if you don’t have a shoe horn to get in and out of it - even though this is the desert, the property assumes no one drives a vehicle that seats more than 4 with it’s narrow spaces.

Other than...

This resort that was formerly a timeshare community is worth 5 out of 5 stars in my opinion. How so? Let me count the ways for you!

It's located off the "beaten path" near Cave Creek, AZ. It's a quiet area. As an Arizona resident I'd thought snakes, scorpions and tarantulas would be aplenty out here but they were replaced with bunnies, small frogs and a few families of Quails.

We had the 2-bedroom, 2 bath, full kitchen and Murphy Bed setup. It was amazing; the bathrooms, family/dining and patio areas weren't too shabby either. The grilling area was nice, especially when after calling for assistance (ever since that "grilling scene" in that Final Destination movie I've been wary using gas grills), and the assistance came in less than five minutes. Oh yeah, we found the customer service resort-wide a big help.

And the pool/jacuzzi area was found to be incredibly welcoming. One pet peeve; the first night we were poolside either a co-workers family or some gate crashers were there smoking away. Wanting to avoid any confrontation or fallout, we didn't report it and they left the property after an hour.

There are resorts that are more activity related, we picked this one because this resort is more kick back and relaxing. There's a golf course but I can't comment on it since I don't play. It's minutes from "in town" and there's plenty to see there, from thrift stores to places to eat and the like. We went during off-season; it's probably a different story during peak times. I could see coming here annually for vacation;...

We were traveling To Rancho Manana for a short vacation, we had stayed at this resort many times over the last 4 years. Spent a lot of money there. We had our credit cards stolen on our way to town on 8/12. I contacted the resort to let the hotel manager know that our credit cards had been stolen and may need to cancel because you must have a credit card at check in. She was completely rude to me and told me off. after all of the time and money spent at Rancho Manana over the years, I was very upset. After hanging up with Petra the manager, I tried to figure out what to do as she was not helpful. Later that night I called to let the night manager know that our credit card had been cancelled , so now we had no way to check in, so he cancelled our reservation. We had to sleep on a friends sofa in town because we had nowhere else to go. The next day the day manager, Petra messaged me that she was charging me for a full day plus tax for cancelling. I'm very upset with how I was treated after all the time and money spent at Rancho Manana. There's no reason that these managers there treat people the way they do. There is zero hospitality, makes you feel uncomfortable just being there. We enjoyed the rooms there but other than that, very disappointed in the management staff. They are very rude. Will never stay there again, very unfortunate because with better management it could be a beautiful...