Kiawah Island Golf Resort — Local services in Kiawah Island

This is a rather interesting review to write. The Sanctuary Hotel was gorgeous. From the moment you arrive, you’ll notice how beautiful the hotel is and how amazing it actually smells! Once you walk through the doors, you are greeted with a gorgeous view across the property out over a verdant lawn to the ocean. There are several sitting rooms tastefully decorated that invite you to find a quiet spot to relax and enjoy the atmosphere. The hotel has an amazing location when staying on Kiawah Island. It’s incredibly convenient whether your day involves going to the beach, a lovely bike ride, a little tennis, or playing one of the amazing golf courses on the property. The restaurants were also terrific. We dined at the Ocean Room, the Atlantic Room, Jasmine Porch, and the Loggerhead restaurant by the pool. I won’t go into full details about the restaurants, but they all had wonderful selections, the service was impeccable, and the food really good. We also grabbed breakfast sandwiches from the coffee shop each morning, and the ladies there were terrific. Just a note, if you would like just an egg and cheese sandwich, make sure to order it the day before because they don’t have that option! The ladies always greeted us very warmly and were so friendly and left us with a good laugh. We found this to be such a delight when starting our day. This was like much of the service throughout the hotel. Everyone was really friendly and helpful. We loved all of the Jamaican staff. Our housekeeping staff we had were amazing! We did use the gym. With the exception of needing some updated towels, the gym was very good. It had plenty of treadmills so everyone’s not fighting over them! The gentleman working there was so friendly as well. Before I get to the big hiccup with our stay, I do want to say that we really did enjoy our time at The Sanctuary. In fact, if it weren’t for what I’m about to write, I would without hesitation stay here again.|As glowing as our experience was, it was unfortunately hampered by something really big. We drove the quick 15 minutes from Charleston airport and arrived around 12:30 p.m. and were allowed to check in early, which was incredibly nice! We had booked an ocean view room for our anniversary. When we arrived in the room, we were in a rush to get to lunch and to the golf course, so we didn’t pay too much attention at the time. Once we got back to the room and were out on our patio enjoying a glass of wine, however, we realized we didn’t quite have an ocean view. So we called the operator and explained our discontent, and they said a manager would contact us right away. Well, no one ever contacted us, and we called two more times on different days after this. Two of the individuals we spoke to confirmed we were unfortunately put in a dunes view room, not an ocean view. Although we weren’t in our room terribly much, the times we were, we were very disappointed in what was provided to us. We had a couple of celebratory bottles of wine that we brought to enjoy the view, thus why we booked that category of room many months in advance. When we checked out, we assumed the discrepancy would’ve been taken care of with our bill, especially since we didn’t hear back from management. When it wasn’t, we requested to see a manager. That manager proceeded to tell us not only were we in an ocean view room , but we were in their premier ocean view room! Now, my wife and I travel quite a bit, and this statement was simply absurd. My wife, at 5 feet tall, could barely see any water from our view, and I could make out a fraction of the ocean in the far left corner only when I stood up. After explaining our discontent vehemently with the manager, she took 10% off of our room rate! To say we were disappointed is an understatement. This was an important anniversary for my wife and me, and we didn’t get the room we paid for. We understand mistakes do happen when you travel, but to not have a manager reach out to us at a luxury Five Star property after we requested one multiple times was simply unacceptable.|We loved everything about Kiawah Island. We really enjoyed our time there. I dislike writing a review about a property we actually liked, but because of what transpired, my wife and I had an honest conversation as to whether or not we would ever come back to The Sanctuary. It’s not a cheap property, and we would have expected more from the management to address our issue. ||So if you do decide to stay there, I promise you you’ll really enjoy your time. Its a wonderful destination! Just make sure you get the room...

KIGR website booking says Kiawah Island Villa 4844 Turtle Cove, Villa Registration Desk gave us the address of 4844 Green Dolphin Way.

Closest full grocery is Harris Teeter at Freshfields Village. The Nest on Kiawah has some items.

Pulling in to KIGR, first time visitor, navigation of guard lanes is difficult, staff could slow way down, this isn’t a race to get through your spiel.

It would be nice if KIGR had a way to view folio during stay, instead of only emailed at checkout.

Bicycle hand brake didn’t work on tricycle. They should add road signs on the bike path so bicyclist know where to turn.

Villa has no elevator, killed two spiders inside, make dinner reservations as soon as you book your stay, call 25 minutes before you want complimentary on island dinner transportation and they will tell you how long it will be. Lots of deer walking in road and on side, barely lit roads at night, so be careful.

Found someone’s hair dryer then realized the villa hair dryers are in bathrooms in wall. Mini shampoo, conditioner, body wash and circular hand soaps are provided with towels and wash cloths. Secondary bedroom closet was taken up by villa stuff, so don’t expect to be able to use the closet. Villa has cracks, dirty handprint on door, paint running down wall, pantry smelled, had marks that weren’t cleaned. Papertowels, laundry detergent, dishwasher pod, coffee for coffee pot and trash bags were provided. I would take a shower, dry off and walk from the shower in to the kitchen to the living room couch and by then, the bottoms of my feet were black from dirt, the kitchen cabinet completely fell off and hit the tile floor, found someone’s keycard, dirt and clothing tag build up under the couch, rug had hard pieces in it including a screw nail, dryer was on low and got really hot and looked super old, beds were hard, pillows were super flat. Screened in porch floor was dirty, leaves and spider cob webs were built up along screens and the outside temperature gauge was drilled in upside down! None of these issues were pictured in the villa photos when we booked but it would have been good to know the truth. I really do not believe that this villa was cleaned and there is no excuse as no one had it booked the day before we arrived and now they have plenty of time to deep clean and fix all of the issues as there is a 3-4 day span of no booking after we depart. Scheduled a time to have it cleaned, they didn’t arrive, so I called again and were told the person was on their way to clean the floor and anything else we needed, to let them know. Not a fan of smelling cleaning chemicals, which I had to as they arrived after the time slot we gave that we would be out. I advised the kind cleaning lady of issues, the living room build up under the couch was left and I was told to let the front desk know about the washer and other things so they would let the property owner know and I advised that I already had yesterday. She swept open areas in living room and hall and kitchen, then mopped. From the amount she swept up, I am unsure when it was last swept and mopped as we were only here 2 days by this point and are clean people who would not have brought that much grime in with us. The couch has pills from being so old and the cushions are deflated and not comfortable. The cabinets above the microwave were so greasy and the cabinet tops below the counter were sticky from previous users’ drips. There was one old wet potholder and not another to go with it. The kitchen scissors were missing, they brought out a regular pair of scissors.

Honestly, I cannot wait to leave this overly expensive gross villa to go home to take a shower and be able to walk around without my feet turning black from dirt and feeling disgusting using the kitchen to cook and eat. Overall, we can pay less and stay somewhere with higher cleaning and comfort standards. We won’t be spending our money here again - regardless of the manager’s future generic reply “hoping you’ll return” that will be coming...

My husband and I rented one of the villas at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort 9/2/18-9/7/18. We have vacationed in South Carolina almost every summer for the past 5 or so years from Myrtle Beach to Hilton Head and we absolutely love it! This summer we decided to give Kiawah a try and due to our experience I’m sad to say we will not be returning. The resort at Kiawah is beautiful. The trees and low lying vegetation really make you feel like you are secluded.

Check-in was very easy and the staff was very friendly. It was only my husband and I so we were staying in a 1 bedroom premiere villa. Upon arrival at our villa (3583 Seascape) I noticed that the villa had a stale musty smell. Almost as if it had not been occupied in quite some time. I tried to ignore it and started to unpack our bags. When I entered the bathroom there was a dead spider on the corner of the vanity and spots all over the mirrors. One of the glass shelves above the toilet had also not been wiped down in what looked like years. Unfortunately, it only got worse. There was hair all over our sheets, stains on the pillows and the floor was covered in dirt/sand. Trying to make the best of it we decided to strip the bed and put the sheets in the washing machine. We also went to the grocery store and bought cleaner to wipe a few things down. When we put the clean sheets on the bed I noticed that both nightstands were COVERED in dust. Not able to take much more we decided to head to villa check-in to let them know with the hope that they could move us to a new villa in the morning (it was 10:30 pm).

When we arrived at the villa office we were greeted by Hart who was extremely apologetic and told us that he would move us right away. He gave us the keys to a new place (4325 Windswept) and told us to head over take a look and let him know if we would feel more comfortable there. We really appreciated his understanding and quick resolution. We told him that we would take it and moved all of our belongings over to Windswept at 11:30 pm that evening. The next morning as we began to unpack our belongings (again) we noticed that this villa was also rather dirty. While it was a slight improvement from our Seascape villa it was still rather dirty. The cabinets in both the kitchen and master bath were covered in grime. Food splatters all over the cabinets and molding, sand on the furniture, dust and dirt all over the floor and mold and mildew in the shower. While the villa itself was beautiful there are certain aspects of the property that really need some TLC. The furniture has seen better days, the screen door out onto the patio could be replaced and the sink is coming apart from the countertop.

Since the weather was cloudy and we did not have the desire to be moved again( considering the next villa could also be just as dirty if not worse) my husband and I decided to scrub the place from top to bottom. Therefore, anyone who stays in 4325 Windswept you’ll find comfort in knowing that the cabinets have been scrubbed, the floor has been mopped and vacuumed (behind and under the bed/furniture), the molding has been wiped down as well as the countertops and mirrors. When we returned to villa office to return our keys from our first villa (3583 Seascape) we were greeted again by Hart who had helped us the night before. We informed him that the condition of our current villa wasn’t so great and that we had decided to clean it. He again apologized and offered to send someone over from housekeeping but we told him that was not necessary. While all of the staff we encountered at the resort were very friendly and accommodating it seems they have a HUGE problem with their housekeeping service. For what is charged to rent any of the properties it truly is NOT worth it. We opted for a premiere villa as it was the highest tier and what we assumed would be the most luxurious but having to clean my own vacation rental is not my idea of luxury. I shudder to think what the deluxe and resort style properties...