Kingsmill Resort — Hotel in Williamsburg

I guess I shouldn't have ignored all the warning signs/red flags that the other reviewers posted here but it was quite disappointing for a couple's weekend getaway I had planned at this resort. It certainly is no 4 star resort with clear signs showing that the place has gone downhill. For starters, I had planned a weekend golf trip here for my girlfriend's birthday. The River golf course is nice, but I really had my concerns with the service and room we stayed at. We are not locals, so we had a long drive to arrive this past Friday evening. We got to the front desk and checked in for a King room I had booked. Without warning or the staff saying anything, they had checked us in to a 2 double bed room instead. We only found this out because we had arrived to the room to see for ourselves. Keep in mind the hotel rooms are not connected to the main area so you have to drive around. So then we drove back to the front desk area and told them that was the room we had not booked. The same person who had checked us in was quite rude and was not apologetic at all. She immediately got defensive and was just trying to tell us that she was doing us a favor by "upgrading" us to this double room. I told her directly that we do not want a double room and want a king room like I had booked (I mean it's pretty clear this is a couple's trip, what makes you think we would want this room..?). Turns out they had overbooked and they initially told us there were no King rooms available. Clearly not the news we wanted to hear, we had asked when the next king room would be available or if they must have some sort of solution for this. They finally said there is one last King room available. We thought the situation was resolved at this point, but (surprise surprise) none of the lights were working in the stairway/hallway to get to our room. It was pitch black and honestly the building looked creepy. Not only that, it was a little dangerous to be carrying our luggage up and down the stairs with no lighting. Again, the front desk staff gave us no heads up of this and we had only found out for ourselves by driving over to this hotel room. So I drove back again to the front desk to let them know of our concerns. The same female who had "assisted" me was already prepared to get defensive again. No sincere apologies really, but just saying things like "That is exactly why I upgraded you to the double room" or "You picked the worse time to come here" etc.. She did explain to me that they could not fix the light because they needed the HOA to fix it. I mean okay I understand honestly, and if you had just simply apologized and maybe given us a heads up of the whole situation (overbooking and light not functioning), I think we would have honestly been okay although it was inconvenient. They just ended making us drive back and forth multiple times and let us find out for ourselves these issues they were having. Eventually, we just sucked it up and stayed in the room with no functioning lights out in the hallway.

The room itself is dated, but it is okay enough to spend a couple nights in. The bed was comfortable, but there were issues with things inside the room not functioning including the remote control, Keurig machine, and the phone (we only found out later the phone is not in use anymore and they are a...

It is a lovely location, and beautiful accommodations and property. The food was great. (Service staff in restaurants and shops were phenomenal.) We could have enjoyed our time so much more but we were very frustrated with many problems. The amount of resort fees we paid truly did nothing to meet expectations.

Kingsmill may want to consider a detailed quality check of units before guest occupancy. Many unnecessary problems that we had to manage ourselves were ridiculous. This wasted our time and frustrated our experience. Overall we left the unit in better condition when we left than when we arrived.

The many issues we experienced at the resort dropped the VALUE of our stay immensely. We think we should have been offered a courtesy discount/refund for all of these unnecessary troubles that interfered with what would have been a delightful vacation. No one from the resort has replied to our request or offered an apology.

Please see list below.

Room not ready at 4pm check in, gained access at 5pm. Upon arrival found toe nail clippings all over carpet near bed and bedroom chair that I had to clean up myself. This was sickening. Broken vacuum when trying to clean up the toenail clippings, broken wheel made it impossible to move and strained my upper back. 2nd vacuum also broken, 3rd vacuum finally was in good working condition. Upon arrival toilet handle completely off of toilet, we had to repair it ourselves. Upon arrival previous guest garbage found under kitchen sink behind trash can. Upon arrival no kitchen towels or dish cloths in unit. Upon arrival Keurig broken and had to be replaced. Upon arrival back sliding door locks broken, could only use metal bars for 8 nights. It wasn't until the last day of our stay that we were asked if maintenance could enter our unit to address the issues. Silver fish bug crawled on me while sleeping in bed on 2nd night. Horrifying. Dryer does not dry well, took 3 hours for one load to dry. Dishwasher initially leaked all over floor on first use. Telephone line worked intermittently, mostly dead, we had to use our cell phone to call 800 # indirectly. Pools not crowded but filled with debris, bugs and hair on several days - more than typical for resort stays we have had in the past. Wi-fi was poor. Upstairs resident cleaned her balcony floor with a bleach solution that dumped all over our patio and personal beach towels drying on our patio. She swept leaves and debris off of her balcony and all over our patio. We were unable to walk our dog out through the back door with that bleach solution on our surfaces. Locked us out of our unit after we loaded our car on last day. They locked our dog inside and we could not get to her. My husband drove quickly to front desk to get another key which ALSO did not work. I called 4 times in 27 minutes and finally someone came and let us in. I was over-heated waiting on that HOT morning and worrying that I could not get to our 15 year old dog. Your staff took their time and did not help in a...

Although the resort seems to be a great one to visit if you are looking for a local get away, do not expect 5 star resort you've seen in Mexico. However, the overall experience has exceeded our expectations and provided a secluded environment where we felt relaxed. To me, the most important part of the resort is really the pool and the lounge/room area since we spend most of our time at the pool with the kids. As a mom, it's also very nice to have an indoor pool and a game room in case it rains and this place has all of that.

Although the pool was small in comparison to other resorts I have been to, the quality of food, the lazy river pool, indoor pool and the night time dj makes up for it.

The one bedroom suit was very spacious for 4 people family and was clean with kieurig machine provided. The bfast buffet was reasonably priced and good. Although everything is spread out and we needed to take the shuttle or walk a good distance to get to anywhere, it had a nice view of the river and access to marina once you got to the main lobby building. If you plan to stay there, you should look at their map and really understand how far your room is to the main lobby building so you are not surprised by the distance you have travel/walk to the amenities when you arrive.

It's also nice that they let you use their amenities after your check in and out time so if you want to shower after visiting Busch garden on the day of arrival or departure, you can use their fitness center and shower at the resort rather than trying to do so at the water park which is impossible.

I gave 3 stars despite of all the positive things noted here because it really bothered me a lot how we were treated at the river pool. The river pool is where we spent most of our time and was very important. The staff there was very busy and not caring at the pool bar/restaurant. I had to ask three different people to finally order food (btw the food was very delicious). However the first few times we asked for service, it seemed like we were completely ignored. We waited about 30mins before being able to put an order in (we already knew what we wanted to order but they didn't even provide a menu) and that's a very long time when you have hungry toddlers. I saw that it was very busy but it would have been nice if they at least followed up and said something like "we will try to help you soon and sorry for the wait." but no one seemed to care except the manager who helped us at the end. We asked for mayonnaise and the server said I don't think we have any and it almost seemed like she didn't even want to bother checking with the kitchen or apologetic about not having the basic condiments, mayo. Overall, river pool service and staff were not friendly. However, everything else was great and we will probably go again hoping to see an improved service at the river pool which is the place our kids liked to spend most of the stay. Everything else was really...