Valley of the Sun - Phoenix, AZ

Phoenix Zoo was a very enjoyable day in October. Last time we went was Labor Day in 1994 and it was extremely hot. In late October, the temperature high in the mid-70's made for a great experience.

A number of great quilt shops in the Metropolitan area...see Journal on Quilter's Travels for details on specific shops we visited.

The State Capital was, to us, an overrated place to visit. Of course, there was a lot of construction going on and this impacted the ability to really tour the Capital easily.

Old Town Scottsdale was just another Tourist Trap designed to part the tourist from their money. Basically had two things, normal touristy junk and great Jewelry shops which had lovely stuff, much of it Indian Craftsman made, but very pricey.

Ceretta's Candy Company was a pleasant tour that really gave a good view of how a small family owned Candy Company produces it's product.

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

You'll need a car as Phoenix is a very large Metropolitan area with some interesting undeveloped mountain sites within the midst of the city.

Be prepared for lots of traffic but a nice assortment of four-lane, divided limited access highways helped travel around the city immensely.

Best Things Nearby:
There wasn't a lot of things that I considered nearby. Lots of things to do but you had to drive into Phoenix or Mesa or Tempe to do them. Even Old Town Scottsdale was several miles north of the resort which is up in the Northeast Corner of Scottsdale.

Best Things About the Resort:
The resort had a very nice outdoor pool and an exercise/workout room.

Monday morning they had a continental breakfast and presented speakers from several tour/activity groups in the area. There was no sales push for the resort at the breakfast, just information of tours and activities available during your time staying there.

Resort Experience:
Our unit was defined as a 2 Bedroom unit but in actuality it was a large 1 bedroom unit with a studio lockout unit attached. An owner would have the option of space banking this unit as a single 2 Bedroom unit or as a studio and 1 bedroom unit giving the owner 2 weeks exchange instead of one.

That said, having the whole unit gave you a nice size kitchen in the 1 bedroom unit plus a small kitchenette area in the studio. The second bedroom was really the studio which had a nice king size bed in it.

The large 1 bedroom unit had a nice dining area, an electric start gas fireplace with gas logs, and a nice size bedroom with a king size bed in it. See pictures attached to this for some idea of how this unit looked.

Both units had nice bathrooms in them with the 1 bedroom unit's bath having a jacuzzi tub besides a shower.

The 1 bedroom unit's Big TV could be watched from the living room area but could not be seen from the dining area nor the kitchen. There was a smaller TV in the bedroom. The studio unit's TV could be seen easier from the bed than from the living room portion of the unit.

Both units had a small washer and dryer in them which made doing laundry nice although if you had much you could spend a little time as they were small. A nice iron and ironing board was also provided.

The 1 bedroom unit's dining area and kitchen had excellent lighting while the living room area's light was passable and the bedroom's light was terrible. The studio unit was quite dark and some of the light switches were not well placed in relation to the light they controlled.

They did provide a mid week cleaning and linen change which was very nice.

Overall this was a very pleasant and enjoyable timeshare to stay at if you had the 2 bedroom unit. We would have been fine with only the 1 bedroom unit but not with only the studio.

• Unit Type: 2 Bedroom
• Activities: Good
• Amenities: Excellent
• Unit Satisfaction: Very Good
• Family Friendliness: Excellent
• Service: Excellent

Best Things Nearby:
The Phoenix Zoo was about a 20 minute drive from this resort.

If you're a golfer, as the name implies, this resort is on a golf course.

This resort is on the south end of Phoenix, not far from I-10, making a good place to stay if planning day trips to Tucson or for visiting places in Mesa, Tempe, & Chandler, Arizona.

Best Things About the Resort:
The timeshare was very picturesque, set on a golf course, with a nice view of one of the golf fairways from our unit.

The unit was clean and well maintained.

Resort Experience:
We had what they define as a 2 Bedroom unit but it was actually a 1 Bedroom Unit and a Studio Unit with a connecting door.

The 1 Bedroom Unit was spacious, well lit, both from lights provided plus plenty of windows in the living/dining area that gave great light during the day. After dark, while not real bright, the light was satisfactory for reading and doing handwork such as cross stitch and needlepoint.

The 1 bedroom unit had a very nice size and reasonably well stocked kitchen area. The bedroom was nice size with a nice king size bed. However, the pillows provided were lousy. They felt like polyester pillows that had been around for so long that the polyester had crumbled and gave absolutely no support unless you knew how to wedge them into a pillowcase which you had to tightly wrap around them to make them into something of a pillow with support. The maid staff knew how to do this, so it took a day or two of use to loosen up what they did and discover you had no pillow support.

There were no extra pillows or bedding of any kind to use if you wanted to use the sofa sleeper.

They did a mid week cleaning and linen exchange, which was nice.

The studio unit was only good for one thing. Sleeping. It was so dark after dark, that you could not read or do anything other than watch TV. We would have been totally unhappy if we had exchanged into the studio unit only. So, beware if you plan on exchanging into this resort.

Another negative. The conceirge called us everyday trying to get us to take a sales tour of the resort even after we made it very plain to her that we had absolutely no interest in participating in such a tour the first time we talked to her.

Then, there was the mid week cleaning. It was nice to have except the maid was knocking on the door at 7:15 in the morning to do the cleaning.

Also, there was the key problem with the unit. The keys they gave us when we checked in didn't work. Fortunately, the clerk who checked us in realized he had done something wrong and was there almost as quick as we discovered they didn't work with ones that did. However, the next day, after being out all day, we came back and found the keys didn't work again and this time we had to go to the reception area to get new keys. Got no explanation or apology for this.

Parking at our building was a real problem as the building we were in shared the parking lot for the golf course so it was hard to find parking when you came back in the middle of the day. Also, the units open onto an inside courtyard and so you had a long walk to carry your luggage and stuff from your car and then back when you left.

The 1 bedroom unit had a full size washer and dryer in it along with an iron and ironing board which made getting laundry done on the trip real handy. The studio unit had a small washer and dryer along with an iron and ironing board so unless you had a huge amount of laundry to do, would also have worked fine.

This resort is rated a Gold Crown Resort but it definitely has some problems.

• Unit Type: 2 Bedroom
• Activities: Fair
• Amenities: Fair
• Unit Satisfaction: Fair
• Family Friendliness: Good
• Service: Good

Phoenix has a nice zoo that will get you plenty of exercise. There is a lot of walking between exhibits and in a couple of cases around exhibits.

They have a bear exhibit where the bears have lots of room to roam. The exhibit is in an area under trees and you walk and listen like you were in a jungle. However, you walk a lot before eventually finding an opening where you can see the bears. The amount of walking to see them depends on which part of the exhibit the bears are in.

The have a nice exhibit area with animals that are native to Arizona. A second real interesting exhibit is for the big horn sheep. It is quite a walk to see them but they have taken advantage of a natural small mountain. They put the sheep exhibit on this mountain where so can see them in a much more natural setting. Only problem is you walk for 10 to 15 minutes with nothing else to see to and there is no shade of any kind. I imagine that this view is brutal 6 months out of the year with the heat Phoenix gets.

They have a nice lion exhibit when you can see the lions very well and a tiger exhibit that is almost as good except the tiger can get down in the gully up near the front wall and be virtually impossible to see.

There was one white rhinocerous, who is 42 years old which is well beyond the normal life span for a rhinecerous. He had health problems but it appears they take good care of him.

As I said, a nice zoo (not great but nice) but be sure to wear comfortable walking shoes.

Throughout the Phoenix Metropolitan area are a number of quilt shops. Overall, the shops are very nice, with nice inventories of 100% cotton quilting fabrics.

However, 2 shops, operated under the same name at 2 different locations leave much to be desired. To see specifics on the various shops in the metropolitan area, see my journal, "Quilter's Travels".

Cerreta's is a family owned and operated candy company in Phoenix which gives tours of it's facility.

The tours are done M-F at 10:00 A.M. and 1:30 P.M. They are free and last about 1/2 hour. You can actually see the candy production lines in operation. Depending on what candies they are producing on any given day, you may be able to see the line and operation better at some times than at others.

Samples are given and questions are answered as the tour progresses. They have a retail shop as part of their plant and candy may be purchased while you're there...although there is no pressure to do so.

At other times, they have a set of Video Monitors with a taped tour that they will start up and run for you to see.

We were very disappointed in this. The State Capitol had construction going on and this made touring and viewing very difficult. There also did not appear to be that much to see.

We were not there right at the time of one of their guided tours which are supposedly given at 10 and 2 but what we saw did not make us feel like waiting around for the guided tour. Might have been a lot better, but we didn't feel it would be.