Our family of 4 (2 adults, 2 kids aged 12 and 14) stayed at this resort for a week in July. We had fantastic weather the entire week. While the odd shower blew through the area, it never rained on us. Most of the time it was sunny. While hot and humid this time of year, it was not as bad as we expected.
The ocean was warm (estimated mid 80s) and very calm all week -- almost dead calm in the mornings. This was a big change from around the same time last year, when we had a week of roaring surf just up the road in Pompano Beach. I guess it all depends on the winds and weather at the time of your visit.
Wear your sunscreen if you are a pale white northerner like I am. I did, but still got burnt in the late afternoon after reading on the beach for an hour following an ocean swim.
The ocean itself was nice for swimming but otherwise uninteresting. Close to shore it is all sand. To see anything with a mask and snorkel, you have to go farther out than the lifeguards (9AM - 5PM) will allow. There are other beaches in the area with snorkeling closer to shore. Showers are available at the beach entrances for washing off salt and sand.
The resort is located at the very northern end of the Fort Lauderdale beach wall, which is lit with a colorful neon rope light at night. The resort is a short walk from the beach, with shops and restaurants lining the route. There was some covered parking, but most of the time the covered spots were taken and we ended up parking in the sun. The resort has a restaurant and bar which we didn't use (we only tried on Wednesday, the one day they are closed). There were no BBQs for guest use.
The pool was a very plain rectangle with a maximum depth of 6 feet. The water was warm and clean and our kids enjoyed playing there. There was also a hot tub on the sun deck above the restaurant.
We stayed in a 2 bedroom ocean view lock off unit on the 6th floor. The larger side of the lock off had a full kitchen, living room, dining room, bathroom, king bedroom, sofa bed, Murphy (wall) bed, and balcony overlooking the pool area and the ocean in the distance. The smaller side of the lock off was more of a studio, with a partial kitchen, king bedroom with dining table by the window, and bathroom. The air conditioning kept the unit quite comfortable. The internet speed was adequate, but just. The unit had a fairly roomy safe for locking up valuables (mandatory weekly fee applies). We were happy with the furnishings and appliances in the unit and everything seemed to be in working order. There seemed to be far too few dishes for our party of 4, however. I can't imagine how 8 would have fared.
These units had no laundry facilities. Laundry could be done downstairs or in a laundry just up the street towards the beach. We used the on-site laundry at $1.50 per load for the washer and $1.50 per load for the dryer (total $3 per load of laundry).
There seems to be quite a bit of renovation going on. Weekdays we heard quite a bit of construction noise: hammering, hammer drills in concrete, etc. That's fine during the day, but one morning, the noise started before 8 AM, much to our annoyance.
We attended a sales presentation for Vacation Villages Voyages, an RCI-like timeshare exchange program that promises better availability than the standard RCI membership. We had doubts the post sale availability of units would be as good as they suggested so we didn't buy. Plus we hate the "buy now or never return" high pressure sales (the sales lady actually wrote "no return" on our interview form to underscore the opportunity we were blowing). From what we understood, this wasn't a timeshare ownership, but more of a very costly club that would give you the right to book vacations through them. The cost to join was about $12K, dropping to about $8K if you have a current or former military or government employee somewhere in your family tree. They gave us $55 and breakfast for our time. The staff person who signed us up for the presentation assured me it would only take an hour. In actual fact, it took over two before they took our "no" for an answer. The sales lady said "we ate breakfast" and that didn't count towards the hour. I should have went with my gut. Two hours of our time on vacation was not worth the $55 remuneration.
The elevators were very slow. On Friday, it seemed the whole building was checking out between 9 and 10 AM and every elevator that passed us in a 20 minute interval was chock-a-block full. In desperation, some people just took multiple trips on the stairs or got onto "up" elevators on lower floors, which no doubt stopped at every one of the 17 floors to the top before stopping at every one of the 17 floors again on the way back down. At the suggestion of a staffer who sympathized with our plight, we used the service elevator at the end of the hallway. My suggestion: fully pack on the eve of your departure and move most of your stuff down to your car very early on departure day.
We thought this was a nice resort in a nice area. We felt it deserved its RCI Silver Crown rating and we would be happen to return.
