We booked a vacation to get away on short notice -...

We booked a vacation to get away on short notice - Dec 25 - Dec 28th, then stayed 3 nights in Scottsdale. The room was spacious, the shower and tub terrific, the bed was comfortable. Our only grievance was the pillows were much thicker than we are use to which left us both with tweaked necks the next morning until we showered them out. We used their "green" option, since we don't require our towels changed, everyday. We were very pleased with the hotel's support staff on all counts. Compared to other places we stayed and check the value of this hotel seemed good to us in retrospect. The hotel reserves the rooms with the best views for their premier customers, which was not us. Hence the view from our balcony consisted of two trees with no foliage and patches of walkway, river, bridge and desert beyond, which we enjoyed immensely. There were plenty of other relatively quiet areas to sit and chill or just chat with great views. They only had three fireplaces going in the evening often occupied by football watchers. They also had an outdoor firepit which was burning every night next to the pools. We really liked sitting on our room balcony catching up on our reading. Quite a large number of Kansas football supporters were in town for the bowl game and watching all the purple shirted people walking around was amusing. There was noticeable but not annoying background noise from the near-by motorsport which could be heard lying in bed between 7 - 9 AM as the cars raced around the track. Primarily you could hear it in the distance because it was otherwise, really, really quiet. That is, the sound of the cars was lower than someone talking on the ground below.

Most folks appeared to hang out by the plethora of pools, and even though the kids slide was not suppose to be working during our visit period, there were a few dad's with tiny kids slipping down it like sea otters - probably enjoying the lack of competition for the resource. The place is surrounded by golf courses, and we observed a consistent number of people on the courses. Didn't get to the casino. In one of the reviews, someone mentioned hiking, which for me would involve some vertical elevation. We wanted to "hike" their trail, which is basically a really sweet path that rambles through the desert on the very large grounds around the hotel and I think covers a two mile stretch. I use the term hike loosely here because it doesn't involve more than about 36" of vertical from start to finish. The hike does pass by a number of water areas and there appeared to be drinking fountains spaced along the trail for those water buffalo individuals among us.

We did not use the spa this trip, however, the gym was very good. They had (don't quote me on the numbers) 3-4 nordic style machines, 3-4 tread mills, a full circuit of other machines, kettle balls, full rack of dumbells, full weight rack, towels service, TV's on the machines, pull ups, pull downs, half a dozen TV's overhead, full mirrored wall, rubber mats and plenty of floor space. I'm still sore. If you can't get your burn on at this place you aren't trying very hard. The place was virtually empty from 7 PM to 10 PM most nights. While I did not go in the morning, we saw a small number of the purple people headed that way each morning.

Parking was free with plenty available, although it is a definite walk to your room if you don't use their valet service at the front door. If you aren't someone who deals well with walking more than 100 yards you may want to mention that when you book. We rented a car and you can get from the Wild Horse to anywhere in Glendale, Phoenix, Scottsdale and Chandler in roughly 30-40 minutes on the highways.