Halloween Week ('06) at the Water's Edge Resort

We thought from all the reviews that we had read about this resort that we were just going to love it. We didn't think it was bad, but it started as a disaster.

We get there and are given a room that had a smoker in it previously who must have smoked for the entire week because we were the second family to request another room. They gave us another and things went smoothly until about 10pm that night when the hot water tank gave out and they wanted us to go to another room for one night only and then change again the next day. So we stayed for the night and finally by noon the next day we got another room in the pouring rain. Did management really care about our experience? No, they called only the last night before we were going to go home to ask if they could do something to make it up to us. Thanks for nothing.

So what about the hotel? We saw two 1-bedroom suites with lofts. The first was larger but the second had a half-bath in the upstairs loft and was more convenient. The kitchens are small with a microwave, mini-fridge, and stovetop but no dishwasher, washer-dryer or stove. We had a fireplace in the rooms, but they could only use specific logs, which they sold at the front desk for around $4. We did that a couple of nights and the logs lasted around 2.5 hours.

The grounds were beautiful but the walk to the parking area was long and the resort has no elevator, so going in with a lot of luggage and groceries was a bad situation, especially having to move from room to room.

They have a nice workout room with plenty of machines, a decent-sized indoor pool (with regularly scheduled workouts in the pool), and a large hot tub. They also have a pool outside with a kiddie area near the Long Island Sound. There is a game room for the kids and they have a beautiful restaurant overlooking the water.

We had a nice size great room (living room, dining area, and kitchen) with a loft which had two twin beds. Our bedroom had a queen. Like I said earlier, we had seen two units and the larger was newer but had a VCR instead of the DVD player in the smaller unit.

We didn't eat in the restaurant because we thought that the prices were too high (the Sunday brunch was highly rated, but for $30+ it was too much for us.) But there are plenty of nice restaurants in the area and two casinos (30 minutes away).

So in conclusion, it's a nice place and we thought that the resort has a lot to offer, but we just had a lot of problems and the staff gave us the runaround. The time we went was just about a week past prime foliage time but it was still a pretty time to go.

For more info go to their site at http://www.watersedgeresortandspa.com/