Opinions RIVIERA RESORT AND SPA Palm Springs

I recently attended a work conference at Margaritaville in April and was left with a less-than-impressive impression of the property. From the moment of arrival, the resort exuded a cheesy vibe that attempted to channel Jimmy Buffet's laid-back ethos, but fell short of providing a genuinely relaxing atmosphere.

During my stay, I encountered several issues that marred my experience:

Room Location Issue: My room, 3102, was unfortunately situated next to a loud slamming gate. This constant noise disturbance made it difficult to relax and enjoy my time at the resort.

Miscommunication Regarding Bag Delivery: Despite clearly communicating during check-in that I wanted my bags delivered to my room, I was informed after waiting for 30 minutes that I needed to call the front desk again for delivery. This contradiction was frustrating and soured my initial impression.

Customer Service Response: I was disappointed by the handling of the situation by the staff, particularly Rebecca, who implied that I was mistaken about the bag delivery arrangement. This lack of accountability added to the frustration caused by the initial miscommunication.

Overall, my experience at Margaritaville Palm Springs was subpar. From the poor customer service to the disruptive noise near the rooms and the challenging layout of the property, I found little to recommend about this resort. Even attempts to communicate my concerns directly to the manager went unanswered.

Probably one of the worst places I've been. No soap or water in my suite when I arrived. There was trash on the floor. My balcony was covered with plastic and painters tape when I checked in. Everything is dirty and old. Even mentioned this via an email to them right after I arrived and I still have not heard from anyone. I do have to say, the food has been pretty good however and the staff that is here is working hard but very understaffed so extremely slow.

Old

Avoid this place! I am a huge Parrot Head and Jimmy wouldn’t stay here. Three day stay and they couldn’t get housekeeping to refill our shampoo, body wash, and hair conditioner. You would think it would be in the room when they made it up for our stay? When someone did come they just dropped them inside the door with no way to install them into the shower. When I asked for them to change the bed, they just left a pile of sheets on the bed! They charge a premium for the room and a resort fee, but don’t provide actual services. I spoke to Rebeca, the Manager, who assured me it would be fixed… and then she went home, and nothing was fixed. I returned to the front desk in the evening with the photos I’m including in this review, and they apologized but offered nothing to fix the situation. I’m more tensed following this “relaxing vacation” than when I arrived. Stay somewhere else and enjoy your time in Palm Springs. This was our 35th Anniversary and it’s not how I wanted to remember it.

Start was rough but staff made things right. Had a blast despite not so great weather while we were there. GF had a mani pedi, we had a couples massage at the spa, was ex Ellen, very relaxing.

While the staff at the hotel demonstrated exceptional service, unfortunately, the overall condition of the resort left much to be desired. Despite a smooth check-in process, the sprawling property lacked sufficient amenities to accommodate its size adequately. The sole pool and hot tub, presumably the main attractions, were overcrowded, with nearly thirty guests vying for space in that one hot tub, making it impractical to enjoy them. Moreover, the common areas such as hallways, lobbies, and elevators showed signs of neglect, with stains and moisture likely from the hustle of children frequenting the pool area and spilled cocktails.

Although our room boasted ample space, a closer inspection unveiled a disheartening sight of stains, dirt, and grime tarnishing the otherwise spacious accommodations. Adding to the disappointment, our balcony overlooked the mundane parking lot, while the intrusive sound of club music from neighboring establishments persisted until the early hours, indicative of insufficient soundproofing measures.

Compounding our dissatisfaction, despite our multi-day stay spanning four days and three nights, the housekeeping service failed to attend to our room even once, leaving us to contend with the accumulating mess and diminishing comfort levels.

We will not return and will advise our friends and family to find accommodation elsewhere.

JB would not approve.

Great stay and awesome staff!

Terribly overpriced for the condition of the resort. Everything looked like it needed refreshing. Seemed understaffed however the people working were very nice.

Had to go to service desk three different times to get more body wash. Finally noticed they brought it up but it was shampoo and conditioner. Guess we'll be making another trip to the service desk. Had to go to the front desk three times to get our card reset because we couldn't get into our room, the batteries were dead on our door. The bar and pool area is amazing but not worth it because of all the other problems. Would not recommend staying here if you like a place with good service.

Unfortunately, our stay here was a bit of a nightmare. There were fire ants all over the pool area and while I was sleeping at night, I was bitten by ants which were all over our room (with some in the bed!), and the bites took forever to heal. The premises obviously have not been treated for bugs and insects. We will never stay at this hotel again.

I stayed here for Easter weekend. 3 nights, arrived Thursday and checked out sunday. The whole reason we booked at Margaritaville was because it was labeled as a "resort". Well, there's nothing "resort" about it. First and foremost, check in is at 4pm, which I think is a little ridiculous and unfair to the guests, but anyway we arrive Thursday around 7pm and pay for the valet service. We get to our room, room 7109, it's a nice room, small but nice, 1 queen bed and a pull out sofa bed. Bathroom has a tub and two sinks and a stand up shower and toilet in a separate private room within the bathroom. One of the sinks smelled the whole 3 nights, just a foul odor so we ended up using just one sink. This room in particular came with a patio overlooking the parking lot.

We decide to go out and explore downtown which is a good 5-10 minute drive south from our "resort". We wait outside by the valet booth for a good 15 minutes and no ones around. We go to the front desk and the lady there says she can help us out and gets my parking permit and retrieves my keys. She hands me the keys and says to me she can show me where my vehicle is parked so I can fetch it myself. I was in disbelief and reminded her I paid for the valet, but apparently, they were short staffed that night, so they had no valet at the moment.
I go retrieve my vehicle and go on with our night. They said they would cancel the valet service and take it off the bill by the way.

The following morning we go to have breakfast at the restaurant that is located inside the "resort" in which then they deny us and tell us that they cant accommodate us because they were short staffed once again. We end up going out to get food.
We hit the pools later and we enjoy a few hours of pool time. I go look for towels and there seems to be no towels anywhere, so I had to go out of my way to fetch towels, keeping in mind that the pools are not very close to one another.
Next morning we have a nice day planned and decide to take showers but there hasn't been anybody come by to do house cleaning so I call for fresh bath towels to no avail. 3 hours later I call again and still no help. I go and find a cleaning lady to get towels from myself.
Before leaving for the day, I go to the front desk and ask for house cleaning services, this time in person. They abide and tell me they will do it.
We come back some hours later (we went to the airplane museum which I highly recommend) and to my surprise the room is left the same! I call to ask why they haven't came by to do room cleaning service and they tell me, you guessed it: "we're short staffed".

Long story short, I don't recommend this place. You pay extra money for higher standards which are NOT met. We had a very unpleasant time, it was 2 adults and 2 children. We had fun because we made the best of it but they seem to lack a caring attitude towards their guests. Staff doesn't smile, doesn't greet you, doesn't help you, doesn't cater to you as a resort should.
Or maybe I have the wrong idea about what a resort is?
Aside from all that, they charge a resort fee, and that resort fee has taxes and fees! Yes! you read that correctly, fees on top of fees.
Also, if u smoke in the parking lot or smoke while taking a walk to 7-11, which is across the street, they will charge you a 500$ dollar fee.
They say it's for "deep cleaning" but there is nothing to "deep clean" if you smoke outside the room.

Guests be weary. You can get better bang for your buck elsewhere. There was nothing impressive about this "resort". They are not capable of accommodating their guests or providing for them. As a resort, you're held to higher standards and those standards better be met, especially if you're charging fees on top of fees and fraudulent "smoking fees". 2 thumbs down.

Overall: it's located ~10 minutes away from downtown. The self parking is horrible. The valet parking is no better. The service is bad. The pricing is terrible. The rooms are small. But the pools are nice and warm.

Soletoanosolepresenteo

Pet friendly.

Paid for a Deluxe room.... Nothing about it was Deluxe except the price.

Staff was Really nice. Check in was easy. The room was nice. The shower was Horrible. The tub was pealing. Something I didn't even know could happen. No shower pressure and water didn't drain. There was a light out over the toilet and on the mirror. Wish we had a heavier blanket because the nights were cold. Oh.. no vent in the bathroom either. So the toilet seat was cold at night.

This property has So much potential but the rooms need work. It's nice... but not $600 a night nice. If we were going to be their longer than a weekend, I would have changed hotels.

I never write reviews like this, but I feel like people should be warned before booking a stay here.

I was really disappointed in our stay. While the pools were nice, there were never clean towels available. They only had one area to pick up towels, and it emptied in the matter of seconds once clean towels were brought out, and there were never enough to go around. We spent two full days by the pool, and we saw the towels be stocked maybe twice. We spent hours waiting for towels. The bar at the pool was nice, the bartenders/wait staff were the most pleasant and helpful staff we encountered, and the food/drinks were good…however upon getting home from our stay we noticed we had 7 charges from the pool bar, when we only had two tabs for the entire stay that came out to about $250. The additional charges amounted to almost $1000 and two days later, we are still unable to get help in clearing up the erroneous charges from the hotel. I was also charged a large bill after checking out that no one can explain after I had already paid in full at the time of booking, and it is more than triple the cost of the resort fee that I was prepared to pay at the time of checkout. I will now have to dispute the charges with our bank, which is a nightmare. It is unacceptable that the hotel refuses to take accountability for the charges or assist us in clearing them up, they can’t even explain what they are for.

We also paid extra for a suite believing it would give us more room and also expected for the price, a nice view. Instead we were still left cramped, the bed kept sinking into the bedframe as there were no box springs, the doors to the bathroom were broken, and we were incredibly disappointed to find our balcony was not only filthy to the point that we didn’t even go out on it but our view was also of a stucco wall from the building next to us. The bathrooms were not very clean, with rust around the drains and fixtures and cracks in the tile/shower. There was also no shower door or curtain, so water ended up getting everywhere on the floors and caused a safety hazard for our children. Not what I expected or paid for at all.

Lastly, we had dinner the first night in the hotel at the grill restaurant, and it was horrible. We waited over an hour to get our food despite the restaurant being empty, were never offered refills or even visited again by the waitress after our initial order was taken, and half of our dishes came out cold. The food itself was horrible, my son’s hamburger could have been a hockey puck, and we left hungry and annoyed at how much we just paid for such an awful meal. We never did find our waitress to complain to…we had to ask another employee for our check to finally be able to leave.

All in all, I will not be returning to this “resort” as the cost of staying does not justify what you actually receive, in addition to all of the false charges we are not stuck trying to clear up ourselves as the hotel will not help or even explain the charges. Ridiculous.

We had a wonderful one night stay in March. We loved our room. It was spacious, and comfortable. Excellent King bed and a couch with a pull out bed. We had a view of the mountains from our room. There was a small balcony. The floor to ceiling windows on one side of the room let in lots of natural light. One downside of the room-There was an annoying sensor light in the bathroom that turned on if you went to the bathroom in the middle of the night, which lit up the entire room. Also there was a barn darn to separate the bathroom sinks from the room, but it wouldn’t stay closed, plus it had a translucent window so it didn’t help prevent the light shining into the rest of the room.
Pool-
We spent a few hours at the pool which was lovely. Margaritas were delicious, though service from the bar left us wondering why the hotel doesn’t put more emphasis on customer service. Bartenders seemed annoyed, perhaps understaffed (?) just not very pleasant. Also, the pool area was short towels, and even asking asking staff multiple times we didn’t ever get any towels. Hot tub was very nice and we were able to warm up in there and hurry back to our room. It was spring break and hotel was nearly full so I imagine those were factors contributing to some of the issues.
Bikes-
An awesome perk is the free bikes for hotel guests. It was so fun to explore Palm Springs this way. Rode through the movie colony estates and then to downtown. Took us about 1 1/2 hours with stops.
Room Service-
I ordered the American breakfast and it was delicious. Perfect for a hangover meal.
We’re not huge Jimmy Buffet fans and wasn’t really sure what staying at the resort would be like, but we throughly enjoyed ourselves. Decor was tastefully done. Spacious rooms and free bikes are big plus. Improving customer service would be an area of to focus on, though front desk staff were quite nice.
was beautiful,

Nice resort hotel with beautiful grounds but somewhat dated rooms. Service was great and the manager and staff were awesome.

My partner and our friends were very excited to stay at the resort given that we love the Margaritaville brand. The resort grounds were clean and well kept. The building and rooms are looking very tired and need a refresh. I had some concerns with the cleanliness of the room as our tub had dark dirt stains, our soap bottles were empty, and the carpets had food stains. The paint above our windows was peeling, there were dents and marks all over the walls, our bathroom doors would not close and our faucet was extremely loose to the counter. It was very disappointing given that we enjoy the brand and had high hopes for this location.

Front counter folk...do not listen
I will never come back

Title: Disappointing Experience at Margaritaville Resort Palm Springs

My recent stay at Margaritaville Resort in Palm Springs left much to be desired. Despite the allure of its name, the experience fell short of expectations from start to finish.

Upon arrival at 3 pm, we were informed by the front desk that our room was not ready. We were told to expect a call around 4 pm once it was prepared, but unfortunately, no call came. It wasn't until we returned at 5:30 pm that we were finally able to obtain our room key. Check-out, on the other hand, was a swift process; simply providing the room number and returning the keys sufficed.

While the room itself was spacious, with a comfortable king-sized bed, we were disappointed to find an ant on one of the pillows upon closer inspection. Moreover, the state of the bathroom left much to be desired. The bathtub was visibly dirty and showed signs of age, with cracks lining the walls and sides. It was also surprising to discover that while conditioner and bath gel were provided, shampoo was notably absent.

Considering the issues encountered during our stay, the price paid for the room felt unjustifiable. Despite the hotel's convenient location, being just 10 minutes from downtown Palm Springs, it failed to compensate for the overall disappointment.

In conclusion, our experience at Margaritaville Resort Palm Springs fell short of expectations. From the delayed check-in to the cleanliness issues within the room, it's safe to say that we won't be returning.

Perhaps the worse experience I've EVER had at a hotel. First of all not all the towers/wings  have elevators, mine did not. So upon receiving my room key and hauling my cooler up the stairs I was greeted to a blood stained bed, and wadded up tissues all over the floor. Yup my room wasn't actually made. I used the phone to call the front desk and was placed on hold for 10 min. When they FINALLY picked up they told me to carry my stuff back down and they would put it in storage till a room was ready. Once I did that, 5 min later they put me in the room that was right next door!!! So I carried all my stuff back up.
On day 2 I had camera equipment on the bed when house cleaning changed the sheets. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on theft, I'll just say they must have taken my $400 action camera with the sheets.  Ana, who works at the front desk AND security depending on what shirt she changes into at that time responded and was at BEST, less than helpful. Alyssa at the front desk is extremely rude and tried to interject herself into my police filing when she had zero knowledge of the situation.
Meanwhile at the pool, the staff watched as someone let their DOG swim in the pool. When people complained, they said they didn't actually work at the pool location. So no one was on sight at the second pool location on a Friday who actually worked there. When the guest finally removed their dog at the yelling of swimmers, about 10 min later an employee showed up, however they said nothing to deescolate the situation.
I could refer this hotel to my worst enemy, but that would be too mean.

Just checked in, great front dest experience and nice room

This was a wonderful location for a get away. All staff we interacted with were wonderful. The waitstaff in Come Monday were fabulous and friendly and the food was delicious.

Hotel was very responsive to repair issue that were identified in

We basically used this room to put our heads down at night and wasn’t expecting much to begin with based off of reviews.

The rooms are nothing more than a holiday inn. The sink was clogged and took hours to drain, the tub was completely peeled on the bottom, and you will hear every noise from the hallway to rooms next door including them showering.

This isn’t a “resort” nor well kept at all. We have been waiting for bottled water from housekeeping for almost an hour now… you could most likely find a better maintained, better service hotel on Palm Springs than this one..