Bluegreen Vacations Eilan Hotel and Spa, an Ascend Collection Resort — Hotel in San Antonio

Beyond disappointing for the price. Eilan advertises a resort-like experience without the basic amenities and customer service of a Motel 8. While the grounds are well maintained and there is good shopping and restaurants in the area (not affiliated with Eilan), these things didn't make up for the hotel's shortcomings. There were many issues during our week-long stay here, I'll highlight a few.

When we arrived for our 5 night stay, we lowered our AC to 68. While the thermostat read it was at 68, we had to sleep without covers it was so hot in our room. By the last night, our room's temperature had crept up to 75. The only good customer service experience was with Manny, the maintenance employee who brought us box fans for the night. The AC had gone out in the hallways and several rooms. It wasn't fixed until the next afternoon. While it was in the 40's outside, our room remained at 75 all night. The front desk was very aware of this and offered no resolution. Disappointing.

Do not expect housekeeping during your stay. Over the course of a week, we had to continuously call for fresh towels, a change of linens, toilet paper and trash removal. When I called the front desk, I was repeatedly told "we'll see what we can do." You're at the mercy of whatever the front desk decides is good for you, not what you need as a paying guest. Asking for fresh towels is not an absurd request at a hotel you're staying at for a week. The same trend happened when asking for toilet paper, trash removal and clean sheets. When we requested a change of sheets, we were told we would need to remove our sheets, place them outside of our door, new sheets would be set outside and we will have to make the bed ourselves. No fitted sheets, we asked. Again, disappointing.

To top it all off, my husband's truck had the catalytic converter stolen the final night in the parking lot of Eilan. The valet is $35/day - we drove two cars and were told a week before our stay by the hotel staff that Eilan owned all of the parking and land around the hotel. So, we valet parked my car and parked my husband's truck in a lot directly by the hotel. This lot had the exact signage as the other lots on the property. When I called the hotel to let them know, I spoke with a manager named Claire or Chloe (not sure which). This is when all of the poor customer service we had experienced for a week came full circle. If she is setting the standard, the bar is not set high. As I was trying to explain to her the theft that had happened, she was clearly having another conversation with someone beside her. I wasn't asking for anything from her, just to simply let her know this theft had happened hours before on their property. Ironically, a security guard for the hotel was just standing at the front desk when we left that morning - clearly not doing a lot of good. She quickly told me that lot was not their property and we had been told wrong information. I find it interesting that they claim all the property around the hotel when they want you to use their valet service, but as soon as something bad happens, it's suddenly not their property. She asked for my name and number and let me know their General Manager would call me. I have yet to receive a call.

Do not waste your money here. There are hotels much closer to downtown San Antonio who actually live up to expectations. I no longer accept COVID as an excuse for providing poor service. It's been 3 years. Pay people appropriately to work for you so your customers do not have to pay full price for half...

Spend your money elsewhere. San Antonio has many better options at the same or lower price point. This is absolutely not a “resort” level experience. They’re providing minimal services with too little staff while charging full price. Food and drink options at the Restaurant and Cafe were good, not great. I paid $19 for a pretty good Tex-Mex burrito and imitation Starbucks coffee. Good location with nearby places to eat and shop, but for the price you could be on the Riverwalk instead of a half-hour away.

Most of the staff were friendly, but clearly overworked. I met two different employees from different departments who were 11-12 hours into an 8-hr shift.

If I could pick a slogan for the front desk it would be “I’ll see what I can do.” This was the response every time we asked for new sheets, fresh towels, and trash pickup. We stayed 5 nights and housekeeping never entered the room. For sheets, we were told to strip our own bed, leave the sheets in the hall, and they would drop off new sheets outside our door. Also no fitted sheets. Same for trash, just leave it outside the door and someone will get it some day. We ended up using grocery and shopping bags for our trash. Basic housekeeping I would get daily at a Holiday Inn had to be specifically requested and begrudgingly delivered.

I noticed the wifi on our smartTV was disabled and we wanted to cast a basketball game that wasn’t on the offered channels. The front desk told me “we don’t have smartTVs.” Yet when I turned mine on, I was greeted with a “Samsung SmartTV” logo. I can only assume they’re used to post-retirement guests who are locked into a time share and therefore can just BS and offer minimal effort.

By the second night we noticed the A/C was failing and the room was very humid. The 68° set on the thermostat mocked us as it refused to drop below 74°. This is south Texas, but because nothing is ventilated it was actually colder outside overnight. Manny from Maintenance is awesome and deserves a raise! When he couldn’t fix the A/C, he asked to get us another room only to be told the hotel was full. He got two box fans for us and several other rooms in the middle of the night (after the end of his scheduled shift). The A/C got repaired on our last night.

Nice indoor and outdoor pool. Whirlpool was relaxing when not packed with kids. Gym area was better than expected, though also often invaded by random swarms of small children throwing exercise balls and playing with the treadmills.

Parking is valet-only at $25-35 per day. Over the phone we were told the hotel owns all parking lots on the surrounding grounds. On arrival we noticed an overflow non-valet non-reserved lot and decided to park one of our two vehicles there to save on valet cost. I got a nasty paint-swapping door ding at some point. For the final act, I went to the lot in the morning before check out to find someone had stolen the catalytic converter from my truck. When I reported it to the front desk, the clerk was absolutely not surprised and was adamant that the hotel did not own that lot. Honestly I don’t care which clerk lied about the parking lot and it’s not the hotel’s fault that some jerk vandalized my truck. But even parked on hotel grounds in a lit area, there are no cameras and far as I could tell no security of any kind. I also noticed one other truck parked in a valet area with a freshly busted rear side window. I had a nice long and loud drive home to ponder...

Booked this using my RCI points. 10,400 points at other resorts have gotten me very nice condo style rooms including kitchens. This is what I was expecting, but upon check-in was told it was valet only at $40 a day, plus additional added resort fees that were not shown on my booking. Get to the room and it is a matchbox size room that we can barely turn around in. The counters were dirty and when we went to the desk to tell them the lady argued with me that it was "stains". I told her there were stains, but there is a difference between stains and dirty. She then handed me two Clorox wipes! I also told her we had no tissues in the tissue box and asked her to give me some and she informed me someone would bring them up to the room. The tissues arrived almost 2 hours later! The shower head is so caked with crud that hardly any water comes out of it and the exhaust fan in the bathroom does not work. We set through a timeshare presentation because it would "cover our parking". Only to find out that was not the case. The people at the presentation were great and ended up giving us the max they could, which was a $200 resort credit. We went to apply it and were told it could not be used to cover the resort fees and was only good at the restaurant and spa. We had breakfast at the restaurant and it was not good. My $20 Peaches and Cream French toast was cold when it arrived, was made of canned whipped cream and canned peaches. We did not get refills on our tea or coffee either, which by the way cost $5 each. Another complaint is when we got our car back the first day all settings were changed in it. The seat was laid way back, the steering wheel was adjusted, the arch support adjusted, the mirrors adjusted, the radio adjusted, the dash display adjusted, and AC settings adjusted. We also could tell someone had messed with some of our belongings in the vehicle. When we told the concierge in charge of valet, he made a note on our account to leave settings alone! After that we decided to park our vehicle down the hill where there was free parking and walk to and from the hotel. This "resort" is nothing more than a hotel with marble slapped on it to make it look nice. Everything costs additional prices to use and even though there is a $30 a day resort access fee. When asked what that covers I was informed it covered the Wifi, access to the pool, access to the gym, and access to boardgames. Oh and 10% discount at the restaurant and spa which are way over priced. $110 for a 30 minute massage! Besides the 10% discounts (ha) these are all ammenities that a regular Holiday Inn Express would have for free, for a cheaper night stay, and for just as nice of a room! We have spoken to many people in charge of this hotel and they have never once offered to move us rooms or offer us any...