Villamare Health Club in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

My husband and I drove 10 hours from MD to meet our friends, who drove 10 hours from MS, to spend a week at Villamare. The entire resort is lovely with moss-laden trees and manicured landscapes. Unfortunately, our condo building and the surrounding area were an entirely different story. There were ample carts to haul our luggage up to our condo but the elevators were SO slow - and that did not change during the course of the week. We usually waited a good 5 minutes each time, whether going up or down. We arrived right at check-in time (4pm) but our condo was still being cleaned. We had to sit on the balcony for nearly an hour before it was finally ready. Once inside, we had to contend with the 80 degree heat. Not sure if that was the responsibility of the cleaning people, but it took the rest of the day and most of the night to get to a bearable temperature. We were thrilled to see that there was a trash chute right across the hall from our condo and an ice machine next to the elevator. That is, until the condo was invaded by fruit flies from the trash chute any time someone left it open. They were EVERYWHERE. The condo boasted a hot tub and pool, but the hot tub was not in working order until our last day there and the pool was so full of water that everything floating on top of it had nowhere to go. Then came the morning that I was on the balcony, enjoying the sound of the ocean and the sunshine following tropical storm Julia, when it was interrupted by the leaf blower being used to blow the mulch back into the gardens around the pool. I had a headache for the rest of the day. What he did could have been done in the same amount of time with no noise, using a broom. Then there was the gate that slammed every time someone used it, the slick surfaces on the stairs, in the elevators and around the pool whenever it rained, the light near the showers that flashed all night long for a week, the smell of animal feces on the way to the grill area and only one working grill. There was also no security so having to feel our way through the parking garage in the pitch dark (as the lights were not yet on), carrying everything we needed to grill, was not our idea of fun. On a bright note, it was nice to have the showers and pool there, as well as the abundant seating, when we came back from the beach. Sadly, it wasn't enough to make us recommend it to a friend.