Susanna Withers

Review of TradeWinds Island Resorts

Negatives: To be fair, I think we came at a bad ti...

Negatives: To be fair, I think we came at a bad time of year - mid-January. The place was fairly empty, but that was not a plus. Lots of things were unused, unstaffed, and felt deserted. For example, we were really looking forward to using their kid-watching service, KONK - basically you can drop off your kid for an hour or two to do arts & crafts with a staff member, and there were also "camps" for evenings. We chose this resort mostly because of this program, but we never wound up being able to use it - not once. I went to the KONK building three times during its listed open hours and there was never anyone there. Plus the camps, which you had to register for, vs. the drop-in program, vs. the different activities for different ages, was a little confusing. Actually, there were generally just so many options and areas and paths and activities that we felt overwhelmed and lost - kind of like if you arrived at Disney World with absolutely no idea of its scope or options and then realized you should have spent a month planning your trip. I guess this is partly our fault for not researching the place more fully beforehand, but honestly so many things were closed or understaffed or hard to find it would have been pretty useless anyway. It would be much more useful for the hotel to post a list of activities offered each day for each "area" - like a schedule of events on a cruise ship - and the areas sure could have been better labeled and signed. We got lost a lot. (Also, if you go, know that the RumFish Bay Resort is NOT right next door as most of their ads imply. There's another totally separate giant complex between them. You can get there in the beach side or the street side but there is no path connecting the two. This was confusing.) The rooms were ok, a little smaller and a little dirtier than average in my opinion (i.e. our sink drain was broken, a tile was cracked, etc), and probably the worst moment of the trip was when I stepped on a cockroach in my bare feet while walking into our bathroom, but hey, it's Florida, there's wildlife. Changing spaces by pools were likewise fairly gross, but they always are.

The pros: it was beautiful. Palm trees, blue sky, cabanas, beautiful pools including hot tubs and wading pools for kids, swans and ducks to feed, koi pond, paddle boats, clean beach, nice restaurants, a place in the lobby that sold really good chocolate muffins. There was also a little shower to wash off your feet when you came off the beach, which is KEY. The ocean water was not the same lovely clear blue-green it is in Sarasota but who cares, there were shells and low waves. Cabanas took up most of the usual sand-castle-building space though, no stretches of empty beach. I saw nobody swimming in the sea but many in pools. The coolest thing we did by far was the s'mores bonfire at RumFish though it took a long time to find it. The staff were all really nice and very helpful.

Obviously I am not an expert on this type of resort and have no idea how it compares with others of the "everything you need is right here!" type, but I felt that this one was average at best and a little too complex for me. (Maybe I should have expected that, considering it's actually CALLED a "complex"...) I'm sure there are many people who would enjoy it very much, but it wasn't my style. I don't like putting so much of my vacation enjoyment potential in someone else's hands, especially when there aren't enough hands. I prefer to AirBnB and explore a real place in my own way. But to each his own.

To sum up: Palm trees! Sunshine! Bonfires! Really good muffins! But: Understaffing! Confusion! Cockroaches! Complexity! C+/B-.