Marriott's OceanWatch Villas at Grande Dunes — Hotel in Myrtle Beach

I RARELY ever write a bad review but when I do it is as honest and fair to my experience as my best reviews so to the regular employees of this establishment such as housekeeping, front desk, staff at Oceans on 82nd & the children center, this does not apply to you. You were truly fantastic. This review is for the Sales Sharks and booking coordinators mostly. Just stay at Marriott Hotel! No sales pressure. Same view, better amenities. We made the best of the ONE sunny day we got in an 8 Day vacation. Great photos.

Honestly, I'm still so frustrated with this Grande Dunes trip I've been avoiding writing a review because I want to make sure that I say what is on my mind from a place that will help people & not just complain. The weather can't be helped but our family situation ( high risk pregnancy & then couldn't travel with my newborn) put us in a position to where we couldn't travel during the the tips weather seasons we had originally planned. In order to not lose the $1500 that we had invested in this vacation they forced us to move it to what has to be the most inconvenient week of the year. Both of my daughter's birthdays are in the same week and the week that we were forced to go on this vacation was during the week that I would have been planning their birthday parties. I managed to get the parties both completed in 3 days but it was extremely stressful.

The Villa was very nice but much older the other building that we stayed in. It just felt more run down. All of the automatic doors were broken and kept slamming into my baby's stroller and almost caught my little 5 year old girl several different occasions. Getting a stroller in and out of the building and then having to walk to different buildings to access food was incredibly inconvenient. I would never suggest that anybody who has a baby stroller stay in the grand dunes. It was basically a complicated, irritating labyrinth to get from one place to the other in this building with a stroller. Being in the Grande Dunes & having direct access to the beach is very nice but it was raining the entire week. We couldn't get out to the beach. It's incredibly overpriced, Dining was an extremely lack luster experience. It was creepy dead, no ambience. It's VERYoverpriced ($40 for the Korean Bowl that wasn't much food or as quality a food as I've had in much nicer restaurants at half the price it should be). When you're stuck inside for 6 days bc it's raining heavily it's just a $750/ night view of the storm. No room service to your room either. Even on a week with perfect weather I wouldn't stay at the Grand Dunes again simply due to all of the other inconveniences combined. The amenities are great but I would choose a different type of vacation than what the vacation club. It's not our style. Maybe consider not forcing people to visit this location during offseason when the weather is horrendous if you want to actually make the sale next We HAVE money but I wasn't giving anymore to them.

As far as the mandatory sales meeting goes, I don't know how many diplomatic ways one can say "thank you but no thank you" and "It's just not for us" at all not to completely spill our frustrations out onto them but we had to say no about 50 times before they understood that this vacation was a total DISASTER and we would not be buying into the vacation club no matter how many ways they spell out how much it costs how much it saves & giving me a  history lesson of the resort like we give a damn at that point. They could have sent in every salesperson on that floor and the answer would have still been an unequivocal no but we sat there and nicely said no over and over again so kudos to them for being persistent but there was nothing that was going to change our answer because our stay was that atrocious.

We ended up leaving a day early bc I didn't want to spend another night in that room so we packed up the truck before we even went to the sales meeting knowing that we were leaving right after. It was with losing the money on that last 2 days/1 night just to be...

I am extremely disappointed with our stay so far. Since check-in, we’ve encountered issue after issue with our villas. We have three villas—two of which we already own, and one we were considering purchasing as part of the Marriott family. We also own other timeshares with Disney and other companies, and have never experienced such poor service, particularly in customer care and addressing maintenance issues.

We’ve reported these issues for several days now, yet until today they remained unresolved for three days. It’s disheartening to see how far the Marriott brand has fallen in terms of maintenance, customer service, and the overall urgency to address concerns. This is not the Marriott we once loved and trusted in the hospitality industry. Watching the decline in both maintenance and customer service at this resort is truly disheartening.

This was one of the most disappointing stays I’ve ever experienced at a Marriott-branded location. Given that I was on a marketing package, I expected them to go above and beyond to impress me, but instead, I was placed in a handicap-accessible room that was missing essential items like pool towels, garbage bags, and the standard kitchen supplies. To make matters worse, the room, along with both of the rooms next to ours that our family was staying in, had roaches. The balcony looked as if it hadn't been painted in over a decade, with chipped paint and discoloration, which was noticeably different from the other balconies I saw during the sales presentation. Not one other balcony looked as poorly maintained as ours.

I raised these concerns with both the front desk and later during the sales presentation. Unfortunately, I also had a negative experience with a nighttime employee upon arrival, which added to the frustration. During the presentation, we had long waits and struggled to locate our sales representative multiple times. At one point, I was told we were waiting to be checked out, but we sat there for another hour. Eventually, I had to take matters into my own hands and walk to the front desk to find out why we were still waiting in the office alone. It felt as though they were stalling for one last sales pitch, which was extremely frustrating. This experience did not align with the high standards I’ve come to expect from Marriott, a brand that prides itself on hospitality.

The nighttime employee, Christoph, was extremely rude, unprofessional, and argumentative. When I expressed my concern about the lack of a garden tub in our handicap-accessible room, he immediately became confrontational. Instead of addressing my issue respectfully, he argued with me, both over the phone and in person, claiming he didn’t know what a garden tub was and insisting that I was mistaken. I’ve stayed at this Marriott property for over a decade and am fully aware that the rooms are typically equipped with tubs. When I realized our room only had a long shower, rather than engaging in a polite conversation, Christoph continued to argue over whether or not it was a tub or a garden tub, completely missing the point of my concern. His behavior was incredibly unprofessional and not at all reflective of the hospitality Marriott is known for.

My stay was definitely unforgettable, but for all the wrong reasons. I had to go down to the front desk myself to get pool towels and called multiple times for garbage bags, despite housekeeping only bringing up a single one. When I called back to request more, Christoph told me it wasn’t his problem, displaying an alarming lack of care. To top it off, all of our family's rooms had roaches, making an already frustrating situation even worse. This experience was far from the level of service I expected from a...

My wife and I booked a stay at the Marriot OceanWatch in Myrtle Beach in February 2024 through Hotels.com Had a wonderful experience, top notch resort. The day of checkout there was a card left for us offering a return 4 day 3 night stay at a discounted rate provided we participate in a 90 minute time share sales with Marriott. We checked out and went to the business center on-site and inquired about the deal. I am close to retirement, and we had an interest in hearing about the time share, we signed up that day and paid a $99 deposit. The offer total was $199 and we would pay the final $100 upon finalizing reservation dates later. I received a call from Marriott wanting to schedule the dates in late May. I called them back on June 10th (see attached pic confirming the call). On that call I discussed date options with the lady ( I did not get her name) and we settled on September 13th - 16th. This date was still in the "premium vacation period" and I agreed to pay an extra $100, so my payment that day was $199, bringing my total paid to $298 for the 4 day 3 night package. When my wife and I arrived back at the resort on September 13th, I gave my id to the host and she could not find us in the system.. I checked and had not received an email confirmation number on June 10th when I made the reservation. The host called over a manager who took our name and went to check on the situation... He returned and had indeed found us in the system, but the reservation had been made at a local Sheraton Inn and not back at the resort we stayed and ASSUMED we would be staying. Turns out we had unknowingly been booked at another hotel that was nowhere near the quality nor location of the resort we intended to stay. We ask to have it changed back and was told that was not possible. A full refund was offered and given, We ended up paying $984.68 at another place. We should be reimbursed the difference. The card left that day specifically said the package was for this resort! No one even attempted to help us find another place to stay! We were literally left sitting in the lobby 6 hours from home with no place to stay.. Have filled a complaint with the Better Business Bureau....