Destin West Vacations — Hotel in Santa Rosa Island

Can I possibly give no stars? Let me start with saying that the amenities are fairly nice, but that’s about where it stops. When you make your reservations, they tell you one thing and when you arrive it’s different i.e. check in times - check in at 4 pm (verbally when making the reservations) is really 5:30 or 6 or whenever they get to it. We stayed at the Villas first then moved across the street to the Osprey then back to the Villas during our extended stay. The Villas were like a bad Motel 6 nightmare especially for $342 per night. Oh the smell of musty old worn out rooms that were not accommodating for one person, much less four people. Four towels were supposed to last four people for half a week... There was no oven, a two eye stove, microwave and smaller fridge. The furniture looked and smelled of a 1972 yard sale and the bed was as comfortable as sleeping on an old fold out couch.

The “in house” move was one of the highlights of the stay. The reservation specialist explained that “in house” moves are priority and that we would be able to check in early to the Osprey (well before 4p). After many calls, visits to the front office, and a final call involving a sarcastic front desk clerk, we were able to move to our new room at the Osprey around 5p. I’m so glad that we didn’t have a lot of groceries to move from the Villa to the Osprey but they would have been ruined being out of the fridge for hours after we had to check out of the Villa. And, they didn’t have pool arm bands for us for most of the day (which are required to enjoy any pool or the beach). The sarcastic call was another highlight of the stay. When I talked to the front desk, I explained again that we were an “in house” move and was hoping to get in our room soon, she told me it wasn’t ready yet (4:30p) so I asked her if she could give me an estimate on when it might be clean. She said she would call and check and let me know. Since I had been told this repeatedly with no return calls, I asked her when she would be able to let me know. Her response was “how about five minutes and 23 seconds? Will that work for you? I mean I don’t know?!?!” As you can imagine I was less than happy about that and let her know that I didnt appreciate her unprofessionalism. She immediately called back and said “I got on them and the room is now clean.” Keep in mind it had only been 30 seconds since we hung up the phone from the previous call.

Finally, we get in the Osprey, which was very nice and much more worth the high rates we paid. Time to relax in the Lazy River! That’s when we met the mentally unstable security guard. We will call him Mike. He is the younger of the two that were there regularly. He apparently has a hard time working with people in public and decided to label my entire family as trouble makers for the entire trip because one of the party didn’t see the sign to keep drinks four feet away from the pool water. This guy made it his personal goal to pick on our family the rest of our stay, to the point that we had to talk to the Sheriff’s department about possible harassment charges. We talked to the Association on site (who is responsible for his company’s contract) and they responded with “I will take care of this as soon as you leave my office. You won’t have to worry about him anymore.” Well let’s just say that was real productive. It wasn’t just a few hours and he was right back at it, harassing our family.

After a few days we were back at the Villas. It was a nice change of scenery to get back to the musty old smell of the 1972 yard sale furniture and horribly uncomfortable beds. The “in house” move was a similar experience as the previous one. Calling, begging to get move over and unorganized chaos. What a horrible experience. I will never give them another dime of my hard earned money. We had four rooms rented out from Friday to the next Saturday and spent a lot of money to vacation where we could have most of our family in one spot. The least they could have done was to keep their word on the things they promised in the...

My best friend had planned to get married at this resort and we got rooms on both sides. We arrived Saturday and everything was perfect, until the next day. We went to turn off the sink and the entire nozzle broke off so it made the kitchen sink unable to be used. We had planned to go to the beach that morning before the wedding so we headed down. The wedding planner calls and advises he is there and as her maid of honor I was to help him with the set up that the resort agreed would be ok to do at 10:30 with a spot reserved. We walked down the boardwalk as they advised and we were to set up on the right side since the left was a private beach. We arrive and the entire left side is full of people with with umbrellas all the way to the dunes. I call the front desk and they advised that they would call management but that I needed to ask the people if they would move myself to clear out a spot. Obviously people looked at me crazy since there was nowhere to really move. I spoke with the men working the chair and umbrella services for the hotel and they advised they had not been advised of a wedding and normally are given a heads up and have a spot cleared. An hour passes, at this point it’s nearly 11:30 and nobody has called or showed up. I called again to the front desk and they asked if I had asked the guest to move and I advised they said no and was not taking me seriously. I demanded somebody come down and have the guest move and rope off a section to have it set up (that was all agreed on a month in advance). The 2 ladies working came down and had a small spot cleared but advised that they would call maintenance to get a rope and come rope off the section so we could not worry about others coming in and setting up. Another hour passes and now it is nearly 1. No rope, maintenance, or set up started. I call again and they advise it’s illegal to rope off the beach but that if I bought the rope that I could do it myself. I advised the wedding is at 5:30 and we have to leave to get ready. Who was going to know who bought the damn rope? Just get it as a good customer service act at this point and fix the problem? Unfortunately I ended up having to get the bride involved. We headed to the front desk and they kept jumping around our issues and advising they would call but since it was Sunday there was nothing they could do. After 30+ mins we of getting no where, we left. I advised the front desk at this time that the sink had broken and was not able to be used. They advised somebody would be by to fix the issue. We finally got to the room to get the bride ready at 3 and had to rush to fit in time for pictures at 4:30 before the wedding. The wedding itself was beautiful except the bystanders that were all in the background of her pictures and the altar. With the honeymoon package, she was to receive a bottle of champagne and wine glasses that were not delivered to the room. We checked out Monday and guess who still had a broken sink? I would never recommend the resort for a wedding or vacation. If an issue occurs then it will not be handled, their responsibility or not. I was highly disappointed since I looked forward to the trip/day for my friend that turned into...

This resort has potential. Before you invest 2000 on a vacation here, read this post. After 5 days of calling front desk several times a day, speaking in person everyday, and emailing them, we finally received an email saying that we're "going to be reimbursed 10%". This was for missing amenities as advertised. 3 days after that email still no promised recompense. Long story short, DO NOT BOOK THROUGH DESTIN WEST VACATION RENTALS LLC. I would go through another rental company, there are like 10 to choose from. Just know, you pay 5 star prices for a 3 star budgeted condo. You pay for the pool/lazy river and location, not high quality interior or service. Surfaces are very used but livable for a few days. Day 1, Literally 1hour to check in. It starts at 4 they close at 5. On night 1, my family didn't have a key via confirmation email or anything to get into the room nor access to pool,gym, or pier. "Emergency" check-in number on the locked office door at 5pm was called and gave us our key for room only that night. We never got to speak to the supervisor/manager the entire stay. They have no experienced staff. Front desk and maintenance is new and inexperienced. (They told us that, not my opinion) Susan the most experienced person on site was overwhelmed because the manager was out "sick". Day 2, HOA, basically yelled at me for being in the pool when a 1 hour storm was coming(not a hurricane). I had to tell him to "calm down, I heard you the first time, and im getting out". He said, "Sorry I get scared". Resort grounds are fairly kept for an everage condo. Poorly maintained resort in general. Broken hot tub, broken elevators, broken dishwasher, televisions without remotes. We accidentally streamed to tv and a message appeared. The remotes work for cable box only, so could not exit the tv message. Day 3, Nothing but "run arounds". If you "complain", then you get laughed at, literally. Without persistence, we would have kept getting brushed off. Trying to enjoy a vacation while chasing DWV staff around is a joke. Day 4, Finally no double red flags. We enjoyed the complimentary chairs on the beach, but we were not allowed to use the umbrella. The beach staff immediately ran over and yanked it out of the sand, fused at me like I did something wrong, and just said , "we can't open these today". (Both resorts on our neighboring sides had every umbrella of theirs opened. IMHO, I think he was short staffed and overwhelmed also. Why stick the umbrella in the ground if I can't use it? Or say, "excuse me sir, welcome and hope your enjoying the stay but.... Day 5, Susan finally gave us something in writing saying we would be reimbursed for the unfixable dishwasher. I feel like for the prices, this is not a 5 star hotel, or 4 star. Maybe a 3. Again, it has potential; great location, lazy river/pool, and pier. However, feels like a ghost lives there, and the only worker I met and enjoyed talking to was the grounds keeper with the mustache who did an excellent job. Maintenance, front desk, hoa, Susan, and people who live on-site never even smiled or approach you...