The Westin Mission Hills Resort

Ratings: Baby/Child Friendliness: Romance: More about the ratings... Contact Information 71333 Dinah Shore Drive Rancho Mirage, California 92270 Phone: (760) 328-5955 Fax: (760) 321-2955 www.westin.com

The majestic Santa Rosa mountains background the quiet lakes and greens of the Westin Mission Hills.

Located seven miles southeast of Palm Springs, the Spanish-Moorish architecture of the Westin Mission Hills Resort rests on 360 acres, accented with an oriental flavor which includes colonnades, waterfalls, and long walkways. The colorful gardens, waterfalls, ponds and meditation benches resemble a vast Zen-like garden. The beautiful Santa Rosa Mountains frame this expansive property that provides ample space for walking with the family on a very stroller-friendly accessible expanse.

Mandalin was fascinated by the waterfalls, fountains, koi, and ducks. She was highly entertained by these features, making for a baby-friendly experience. The ducks can cross over the pathways, and the ponds are interspersed throughout the buildings, allowing them into pedestrian areas. Mandalin especially enjoyed having this nearby interaction with the ducks.

This resort has received the AAA Four-Diamond award every year from 1993 through 2000. It contains 512 rooms, including forty suites. My room, with its cathedral ceilings, was decorated with Oriental simplicity and a minimalist style and muted colors. The lighting was simple. A very comfortable bed, called a Heavenly Bed, had a pillow top mattress set, cozy down blanket, and plush pillows. These beds are extremely luxurious and it is hard to wake up from sleep in them, which I noticed right away. In 1999, Westin announced its intention to make a thirty million dollar investment by putting 42,000 new Heavenly Beds into their eighty-three North American hotels. After their own Sleeping on the Road survey and study, Westin concluded that for most travelers, great sleep is more important than even great sex.

The patio of our room offered pleasant views of the golf course and ponds, and it was a relaxing place to sit with my baby.

At the time of my stay, the resort was undergoing a vast renovation of the forty suites. Perhaps as a result of this, service, in general, was poor and disorganized. The Service Express System (accessed through their phone system) made communication more difficult. They seemed to think they were streamlining all services, but it made for a much more detached, remote feeling, and for less accountability and efficiency, in my experience. For example, I requested housekeeping service through the Express System and was told they would be right over, as we were leaving the room for lunch at that time. When we returned one-and-a-half hours later, the room was still unmade. I made a second call and the cleaners, unfortunately, arrived just as we were settling into the room. There seemed to be a poor sense of service and organization.

Also, clerks, servers, waiters, and maids did not greet us in the stores or on walkways as we passed by, unlike at someof the other resorts, where staff continuously greeted us with a smile and a "good morning" or "good afternoon" throughout the day.

Conference and meeting space:

35,000 square feet of indoor space is designed for group meetings. In January 2001, a new Conference Center opened, creating more conference space.

Golf:

An eighteen-hole golf course surrounds the resort.

Other features:

• Seven tennis courts, home to the Reed Anderson Tennis Program.
• Three pools: The Las Brisas Pool is the main pool. It is one of the more impressive pools I have seen in the desert area, and is surrounded by an expansive sundeck, two whirlpools, and waterfall landscaping. It offers loungers beautiful views of the golf course and the Santa Rosa Mountains. Also, there is a sixty-foot waterslide for children and adults. However, I would advise caution on this slide and would not personally have my own children use it; the pool into which the slide leads looked a bit shallow for my own comfort level.

Health and Fitness:

Spa facilities were undergoing a complete renovation at the time of my stay. The completed spa is expected to feature thirteen treatment rooms, a hydrotherapy room, steam facilities, a nail salon, and a fitness center. It was scheduled to have been completed by the month of my stay, but unfortunately I found a very unfinished spa: what I experienced was a sparsely decorated, temporary facility, a small, cramped room with none of the niceties expected in the upscale spas--such as candles, water jugs, flowers, and food trays for calming effects.

Treatment rooms were simple, small, and no frills. The spa offers a series of massages, body treatments, body masks, body wraps and facials. My massage, a maternity massage since I was seven-and-a half months pregnant, was basically a Swedish massage on my side with pillows. There was no specific maternity pillow. It was a fairly good massage, but not the best.

The fitness room was also under renovation and I was told "not ready" during the time of my visit.

Dining:

• The Bella Vista offers casual, outdoor dining. It is relaxing sitting on the waterfall-lined verandah. The food was reasonable, but the service was inattentive.
• The La Concha Restaurant and Lounge offered upscale dining in southwestern style. The lobster was tough and when I ordered items from here through room service, there was a lot of confusion due to the phone system.
• The Lobby Lounge and Caliente Bar are available for drinks.
• I cannot recommend the Room Service. The new system where guests call "Service Express" is like a third party, removed from the restaurant and kitchen. People taking your order on the phone, are not familiar with the entries at all. They cannot answer questions about the food or preparation.

Baby/Child Friendliness:

• Cactus Kids Program offers supervised activities for children of resort guests, ages four through twelve. The four-hour sessions are offered daily from 8 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. The costs are $40.00 per four-hour session, per child or $12.00 per hour. Activities range from nature walks, arts and crafts, games, stories, and outdoor sports. Parents must remain on the property while children participate in activities.

Other child-friendly features:

• Refrigerators in rooms.
• Same-day laundry services.
• Spacious rooms for babies and toddlers available; not cramped and small.
• Cribs.
• Natural and entertaining/interactive landscaping which includes wandering ducks.
• Kids' menus for ages twelve and younger: Breakfast includes French toast, oatmeal and kid-sized pancakes. Lunch and dinner offerings include mini-burgers, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chicken fingers, and spaghetti with tomato sauce. Desserts offered are cookies or brownies with ice cream.
• At check-in, children are given a little bag with a coloring book, crayons, a baby's cup with a lid, baby shampoo, little soaps, and a sponge.
• For baby-sitting, the hotel just offered child-care referrals. This is not too secure and I cannot vouch for it.
• Picnic lunches can be ordered from the in-room service and then you can take it and sit somewhere along the picturesque property (not on the golf course of course for safety) with your family to eat lunch. The kitchen offers five varieties of boxed lunches for approximately $20.00 each which includes varieties of salads, sandwiches, fruit, chips, and cookies in the box.

Romance:

The most romantic parts of the stay at the Westin Mission Hills Resort are the beautiful Zen-like gardens and the romantic, Heavenly Beds.

Note:

In general, the service was inconvenient and unaccomodating. For instance, I had to go to the front desk to have my credit card reswiped instead of just being able to give them the number over the telephone.

It is possible that the unaccomodating services mentioned throughout this report are due to the renovations and changes currently happening during the time of my stay. Perhaps after renovations are completed, service will improve.