Hows the westin?
I've been there already 3 or 4 times and it's one of my favorite places for an easy, low-stress getaway with the family.
Ok. We are back. When you say the Westin realize that there is the hotel and then the villas. We stayed at the villas, used the spa at the hotel. When you use the villas you are able to use the hotel facilities as well. Based on info found in this chat I emailed as well as called the westin before we left ny and requested a better room. SPG Gold doesn't get any privileges at the Villas, maybe because it's a time share facility. Nevertheless, they gave me the room we requested. They were extremely nice. We stayed 6 nights, relaxed and did little else, so this is not quite a TR you would expect. The villa has a kitchen, living room and bedroom. Has a balcony. Other than that, no windows, which, honestly, we didn't even realize till we were there a while. You open the porch door and that's fine. As expected, facing the golf course, it was very quiet. In reality, the entire Villa grounds were nice and quiet. When we arrived we were quite thirsty and the person behind the desk got us 6 small waters so we didn't have to run out. We got 500 SPG points for each day we didn't use cleaning. (It hasn't posted to my account yet, have a call in), Food - We went to Segals a couple of times. Food was good. Service a little lacking as far as speed, but nice staff. Had your standard chicken dishes. No dessert. Went to La Bella for pizza motzei Shabbos. Large selection. Very good. We went to Manhatten pizza for breakfast. Run down, small, not too appetizing a place, but the food was actually good. All other breakfasts we ate at the JCC in Scottsdale. We went to Kitchen 18 Sunday night and couldn't get in - 45 minute wait. That's when we hit Segal the second time. Kitchen 18 folks said they're breaking records on attendance. We ate there Monday night and the food is quite good, staff very friendly (not so friendly Sunday night, but they were overwhelmed). Now Shabbos. We first checked Kitchen 18 food. It was like going to a restaurant and picking out some dishes. We wanted "Shabbos" food. Saw segal had package deals (definitely not a package of what we wanted). They said no cholent. We went to Imperial. No cholent unless you order 3 pounds minimum? That'll never fly in Flatbush! Anyway, in Imperial you saw everything in front of you and picked what you wanted. No liver, except frozen Meal Mart. We bought our stuff there. We were totally not impressed with the food. Very unhappy. The chopped liver was sawdust. Shabbos - We walked to the Torah Center (Rabbi Shoshan). Last time we went to Scottsdale, 5 years ago, it took around 25 minutes to get there. It seems they moved. Instead of googles 45 minutes, it took us an hour walking slower. Never again. That's just because I can't do the walk. We met another couple, same issue. The shul is very nice to go to though. We did very little. We did do the wild west jeep ride, we thought a very good trip. Very educational. We did one day at the spa. Other than that we just relaxed. The weather, until Monday night, was beautiful Cold in the morning and beautiful the rest of the day. As an aside, we used AA for the trip JFK-PHX and the entire staff on both sides were overly pleasant to deal with and things moved very fast. The steward/stewardesses were just okay. Sorry about very little detail but we really went to just relax. We picked this instead of florida because every one else went there! We recommend the trip, but be careful about where the shul is for Shabbos. (We bought tape for the door and refridgerator for Shabbos and it worked fine.)