Omni Tucson National Resort & Spa — Hotel in Oro Valley

My wife, 11-month-old son, and I spent a weekend at the resort. We didn't play golf so I can't speak to the golf amenities. We stayed in room close to the pool. We checked in at 3PMish and went to a wedding. We returned later that evening to settle into our room. The rooms are very spacious and very nice. After a couple minutes of being in the room we noticed a bat was flying around in our room. All the windows and doors were closed. It was over 100 degrees out so I can't imagine anyone would have left windows or doors open before our arrival. The bat did about six flybys in the room until he finally landed on one of the exposed rafters, which were 9ft off the floor. The bat disappeared into a gap between the rafter and ceiling. Every so often the bat would peak out, staring at us from the gap (I have pictures). I went up to the front desk and spoke to the clerk. I told him we had a bat in our room and showed him the pictures. I told him I was concerned because we had an infant staying in the room with us. The desk clerk did not seemed surprised that we were reporting a bat in our room, acting as if it was a common complaint. Given the bat was holed-up in gap that was 9ft off the floor, I surmised the bat would be difficult to catch so the most logical recourse would be to relocate us to a different room. He said they would send "engineering" to take care of it. A short time later, two engineers, armed with a pool cleaning net, arrived to survey the situation. They were super nice and personable. They quickly realized they weren't going to be able to evict the bat from the gap and told us the front desk would be contacting us about a solution. During our conversation, they explained they routinely deal with bats in the rooms and further explained the bats are able to gain access to the rooms from the attic space. They are able to squeeze through the gaps between the ceilings and exposed rafters. As the engineers left they again stated we would be hearing from the front desk. We waited patiently, but no one ever contacted us. At this point it was about 10PM and our infant was sleeping and the bat was still holed-up in the gap, out of view. At least one time during the middle of the night I woke up and the bat was flying around in the room. When we got up in the morning, at about 6AM, the bat again flew down from the ceiling, but this time he landed on a curtain. Realizing this was the perfect opportunity for them to catch the bat, I called the front desk. They said they would send engineering right away. Thirty minutes passed and no one had showed up. I called the front desk again. She told me she mistakenly thought that engineering was on duty, but that they actually didn't come on duty until 7:30AM. I'm not sure why she didn't call me back right away and tell me that. I waited patiently for them to arrive so I could show them were the bat was hiding in the curtains. At about 7:40AM, two engineers arrived. I greeted them at the door and explained what had happened the previous night and how that bat was now hanging on the curtain. One of the engineers, appeared shaken at the thought of being in a room with a bat, quickly exited the room to left the other engineer to fend for himself. I showed the remaining engineer where the bat was hanging. He donned two rubber gloves on his right hand and reached up and grabbed the bat as it hung upside down. He carefully took it outside and released it. He also confirmed they routinely get bat calls. My only complaint is that no effort was made by the desk clerk or management to relocate us to a different room and they didn't even follow up with us about the issue. It was a bizarre situation that put a huge damper on our weekend staying at the...

My sister had her wedding here, and the hotel staff did such a terrible job with the event. I would recommend that if you wanted to get married or have any other event here to look somewhere else. They make for a TERRIBLE wedding venue. As bad as it was, my sister tried to make the best of a bad situation so as not to have the incompetent service completely ruin her special day. Here is a list of all of the things that happened that made the staff seem completely incompetent to handle this type of an event. When the videographer showed up, staff sent them to another resort so they ended up being late. We brought an arch for the ceremony decoration, they changed the time of when it could be dropped off several times, making it difficult to coordinate. Hotel staff told my sister that we would be able to have the getting ready room that she checked out available until 10pm. At about 3pm, when all the bridal party was taking photos, they then informed us that they we had to clear the room by 4pm. This normally wouldn't have been a problem except they didnt tell us in advance so the bridal party's things were all over the hotel room. Hotel staff just threw all our things onto a cart and took it to some location. They told us they would move it all to my sisters bridal suite. At the end of the night, we asked the front desk where our stuff was, and they told us they moved it to the bridal suite. We get there and our stuff is not there so we have to call the front desk back to try to figure out where our things were. They wanted us to walk back to the front desk to talk with them, but at that point I was exhausted and told them that I would wait on hold until they found our things as I was not going to be running around the entire resort to find our stuff. It took them a good half hour to locate it and bring it to us. The event coordinator did not seem to know how to line up a bridal procession. The directions on who needed to be where were very unclear. It seemed like chaos. The resort didnt tell us that there would be a golf tournament that same weekend when the event was booked so it was difficult for guests to find parking. There was absolutely no signage directing guests on where to go, and when guests asked, hotel staff didnt seem to even know that there was a wedding happening. The event coordinator kept disappearing throughout the day. We had to keep trying to find her to get things coordinated. And to top it off, we didnt find out that her shift ended at 7pm and that she was leaving until we tried to find her at about 6:50 pm. The wedding event was to go from 4:30 to about 10pm at night, with the reception starting at 7pm. There was no other event coordinator to hand things over to and we were expecting her to be there for the duration of the event. The event coordinator had the bride waiting in the main hotel lobby before the ceremony, which means all the guests saw the bride before the wedding. The hotel messed up on the food service order, serving salads with walnuts and fruit in it when the bride had specifically asked for no nuts or fruit in the salad because there are several people...

This is a coming-of-age story about how our stay transitioned from HATED IT to IT'S OKAY.

The resort was pretty. It opened it's doors in 1986, and you can feel that still in the lobby. Lots of gold fixtures that feel out-dated, tired-looking carpet on the floor below. Still, it was well-maintained and clean.

That out-dated, shabby ambiance also applied to the room, however. Our room was located by the tennis courts, which were difficult to navigate to. It certainly wasn't anything you could walk to with a bunch of luggage, and I think that's important for customers on vacation to know, especially with the prevalence and affordability of Uber and Lyft - plenty of people don't rent cars anymore. The room concepts were neat. There appeared to be four rooms to each building, and a bunch of little buildings near each other in a cul-de-sac. Clever way to provide more privacy and less noise than standard hotel rooms, in my opinion. The room itself was large but incredibly dingy - huge stains on the carpet, mildewy smells emanating from the bathroom, a poorly-lit restroom with a rusting window. At over $200 a night, it was absolutely unacceptable.

We complained and they gave us another room, one that had been completely updated and was like staying at a completely different hotel. It was also difficult to navigate to with our luggage - there were several sets of stairs and only one set of stairs was accompanied by an elevator - the others were short enough that we could just tough bringing our luggage up, but for someone with mobility issues this would be a big problem. It also rained a bit while we were there, and there were some very deep puddles - my toddler's shoes were absolutely soaked. The shower had poor pressure but the room and bathroom were otherwise very nice, backing right up to the golf course, with beautiful mountain views. We spoke with the staff who advised us that people often complain about the outdated rooms, and that made me feel a bit better about complaining since I generally don't like to do that. But maybe instead of throwing people into those rooms and hoping they don't complain, they should just update all the rooms. Seems a bit shady.

Food on the resort was mostly a good experience. It's funny - the breakfast buffet our first morning was delicious. The second morning was dry and flavorless. We had a great experience at the steakhouse on the resort - we ordered room service since we have a toddler and weren't willing to risk the embarrassment of a toddler in a fancy steakhouse.

The resort advertises itself as being child-friendly but honestly, I didn't really see anything that spoke to me about it in that way. No coloring corners or toys offered in the gift shop. Not sure what makes it child-friendly aside from the fact that kids are allowed to be there?

I appreciated the resort's remedying the room situation, but there were so many other ways in which the resort left us feeling "blah" - sorry, Omni Tucson National. Three stars is all we...