Saddlebrook Resort

Cannot believe I took a night away from my family for this. It was supposed to be a relaxing luxurious mommy getaway and instead it was a basic night at an old motel. The deluxe was sweet was anything but deluxe. The room was spacious but that’s where the good stops. Old, moldy, dirty and dated. The chairs and table on the patio were filthy, there was only enough sugar and creamer for one cup of coffee, no extra blanket, no robe. It’s not a resort at all. The staff, like someone else mentioned, is full of teenagers that really could care less. I stayed in Cluster 3 and it was quite a walk on a cobbled road to get to the restaurants and pool. The food at Dempsey’s Too was way overpriced for just so-​so food. A $ 15 martini made of cheap liquor was ridiculous. I was told there was a Tiki bar by the pool and searched and searched. It’s a white tent with a few bottles of liquor, not a Tiki bar. At checkout I get into my car and the radio is blaring with some rap music from a local station. I most certainly never have it on that station and when I left my car with the valet it was on the Christian music station. I am appalled!!! About 5 minutes before I arrived home I realized I left something in the room. Since I am local I called so they could hold it and I would go back and get it the following day. They «claim» the cleaning staff brings everything to lost and found yet they didn’t find it. I am 110% positive it was left in the room. I am then told someone was sent to my room and it was found. Go to pick it up and it is not mine. Their attitudes about my stolen item were rude. Never again will I stay there and if I have family coming to town I will not let them stay there.

We had an excellent stay in a very nice King suite. The staff jumped at our beck and call. The grounds are immaculately kept, as are the pool and tennis court areas. Your car is valet parked and they take and pick you up from your room in a golf cart within a few minutes of calling them. Everyone was super polite and accommodating!

ok so here is the deal: first of all, tennis is excellent. no doubt about it. however if you want to play tennis, save yourself the money, stay at a surrounding hotel for ¹⁄₃ the price and save yourself the misery.
Here are the negatives. First, the hotel is dirty, really dirty, moldy bathrooms, shower curtains look like they were never cleaned and I stayed in an upgraded 1 bedroom suite. Would hate to see what the normal studios look like. I paid over $ 300 a night and a days inn or super 8 is cleaner than this place at ¹⁄₃^rd the price.
Wifi internet NONEXISTANT. It reminds me of using AOL from 1992, it is soooo slow that you can practically get nothing done. So if you plan on doing any work or even browsing the internet… bring a hotspot!
The hotel staff is basically useless. I wanted to print out a ticket for a disney park. Emailed to the front desk. It was in PDF format which is the most popular format on the internet today and virtually 99.9% of docs/​tix are in that format.
Guess what, they could not open the doc. So I go to the front desk and see they are using an unlicensed version of some old pdf program which cannot open it. So they direct me to their printer which is $ 5 to print 1 page. I reluctantly agree and put in my credit card to pay. Guess what, the printer there does not even work!
So then I go to someone in the office, show her how to download Adobe PDF reader which is a FREE program and print it from her computer. Her response, IT never showed that to them !!
Next, I have a 2 year old who eats something funny and throws up in bed on the sheets, wife calls room service at 8am… no one comes… calls again… no one comes… wife cleans up all the sheets… calls front desk again… now they finally come… guess what… matresses do not have mattress protectors on them at all… so they put some lysol on the mattress and leave… so out of courtesy to the next guest who would have checked in after us… wife calls the head of room service to complain that they did a bad job and should have at least cleaned the mattress a little more throughly… guess what… a mattress cleaning guy comes and does a deep cleaning on mattress… so we think we are happy… we go to check out… they charge us $ 100 for the mattress for the deep cleaning… unbelievable…I complain… they give me the head of room service’s number and tell me to call him… I check out pissed… call him 3 times in the next 2 days… he never bothers to call me back…
that about sums up the level of customer service this place has… I will never stay here again… first bad review of a hotel I have ever written in my life… its that bad, believe me…

This place is a comedy of errors. We are currently on our third soon to be fourth room in less than 24 hours. First two rooms were moldy, current room doesn’t have working A/​C and it is 1212 at night and very hot. If I wanted bikram yoga I would pay for it… Staff have tried to be helpful but are controlled by management who is phoning it in. This place needs to be declared a decrepit hell hole and torn down, might actually be the worst hotel I have ever stayed in.

Disaster. Teenagers working in place of real management. Moldy, mildewy, outdated rooms. Shower barely works. A/​C broken with no way to fix it until the morning (in the meantime, it’s 80 degrees in this room?! And the screen door has a hole in it, so we can’t open the door?!) The worst hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.

This is one of the strangest resorts I’ve ever been to.
You’d think that they would warn you at check in that it’s not uncommon to encounter an alligator on the paths. You’d be thinking wrong. I guess it’s more entertaining to let people be surprised/​terrified.
You’d also think that they would have updated the place since it was built, but again you’d be wrong. The guest rooms look like their were built in the mid-70’s and sadly, they smell that way as well. The wallpaper was peeling off the walls. Come on guys, this is an easy update — especially for what you’re charging.
The clusters are a little inconvenient, but they do cart you there if you ask. I had the misfortune of getting Cluster 4, which I named «Rape Alley.» It could not possibly be more poorly lit. I asked a make coworker to walk me back one night and even he was caught off guard by how dark and creepy it was.
Now for the pluses — the food at Tropics is DELICIOUS. That breakfast buffet is top notch, and I was sad on our last day that I wouldn’t be getting it again.
The conference center was nice. Rooms were spacious and comfortable. Lots of areas to meet outside as well, which is always nice.
I didn’t golf but those who did gave it high marks.
A simple cosmetic update to the guest rooms would make this place an easy 4-​star, if not 5. Well, that and better lighting on Rape Alley.

This place was built in I believe the 80’s and they still probably have the same carpet and furniture. In desperate need of updates within the rooms.

WoW what can I say. We went there for Christmas day dinner and Still Edwardo Torres and his group Lynne and Olie did a fantastic job in the preparation of the food and the Rosemary chicken was my favorite and Desserts. wow… three tables filled with peppermint chocolate cups and moose cream very very good… excellent for the price 55.00 pp I know its a pricy day but where can you all you can eat. I did not eat that much but my husband paid for the both of us so he did eat a lot. and I mean a lot! I feel that this place needs to get more like 10 stars. I really enjoyed it. its a far place to travel but since its the holiday why not. I did not want to sit with others so we chose a small room just off the main room in a quiet table in the corner that was set for 6 and we had the entire table for ourselves… I really enjoyed this… They have this 3 more times a year Easter, Mothers Day and Thanksgiving too… so look them up and next time take out the one you love so she does not have to cook!

Clean but outdated. Could use a renovation. And by God, the walls must be as thin as the new iPhone. I could hear inside of all three surrounding rooms. I felt like Tobey Maguire in Spider-​Man when he found his new keen hearing senses. I could hear the abortion conversation taking place in room 201, hear the pooping and the flushing in room 203, and the snoring in room 204. Arrrrrrrghhhhhh can’t sleep!!!

Cool place. We have some family house sitting down here and came to visit. Gated community, uppity-​type place with lots of golfing and tennis courts. Grounds were generally well kept. For the money these people charge for homes and fees and amenities, I would expect better maintained roads and water features – lots of the ponds were gross, and roads pot holed. Some big money down here though. Staff is accommodating and everyone is friendly. I wouldn’t spend the extra money to live here. To come and stay in the resort I think is overpriced for what you get with prices starting at $ 200. However, I don’t golf. Perhaps if I golfed, the two courses alone would warrant the cost.

If I could give this place less than one star I would. DO NOT STAY HERE! Unfortunately, I chose this hotel to stay at for my wedding weekend. That was a huge mistake. Myself, along with more than 20 of my family and friends brought them a lot of business. From the moment we arrived on the property we had problems. We tried to check in to the hotel with 5 hours to spare before our rehearsal dinner thinking we would have plenty of time. Nope! They had completely messed up our reservations and it took us over 2 hours to get it figured out and Into our rooms. And that’s the short version. We barely had enough time to make it to the rehearsal dinner. Later that night we called for more pillows and blankets that never came. The following morning we were trying to get ready and had no towels, called twice and then I (THE BRIDE!) had to go myself to the front desk just to get them to give us towels. One of my bridesmaids had set up a special Romantic surprise for our wedding night that was prepaid and told would be ready for us when we arrived back after the wedding. It was not. She had to throw a fit just to get a bottle of champagne in the room and nothing else ever made it. She had to break apart her own bouquet just to get some flower petals on the bed. No candles, no chocolate covered strawberries and all the special things she had planned. Their response was sorry our kitchen is closed nothing we can do. Needless to say there was no special romantic surprise ready for our wedding night. I could even go on and on but all I’ll say is unless you want a complete nightmare experience with no such thing as professionalism and customer service then don’t waste your time and money on this place!

If this resort was just a little closer to home, I’d play here as my home course.
Every golf trip I make out to Saddlebrook is a pleasure, whether I play the Palmer Course or the Saddlebrook Course. There’s plenty of memorable holes on each course and the layouts have plenty to make you manage your game to get around without big numbers. Saddlebrook Course is tighter off the tee, but Palmer is more of an adventure on the greens if you aren’t putting well.
The director of golf here is one of the true professionals of the industry locally and an all around good guy. He really takes good care of every aspect of the golf experience, makes sure both courses are properly maintained and goes above and beyond for clients who book outings at his property.
Beverage cart girls stay out on the course later than virtually any other place I play in the summertime in the Tampa Bay area. She even stuck around today even after a vicious dose of lightning came through and scared virtually everyone off the course mid-​afternoon.
Starters, rangers and cart guys are good dudes and the valet parking attendants really take care of those of us playing golf for the day and not just resort guests.
Valet parking is free with paid golf and you can simply walk with your clubs to the Pro Shop. It is a short walk past the pool area and you can even drop your clubs at valet parking before taking your cart back and they’ll pull your car around and have it waiting when you walk back. It isn’t like you have to tip four different people to accomplish coming and going at Saddlebrook, unlike what others have written on this page.
Oh, and more than a few of us have either had a nice lunch poolside (served extremely fast) before our round or a couple quality cocktails at the poolside bar after it. You just don’t get that option many other places in the Tampa Bay Area.

My $ 400 sunglasses were stolen from my room. I never took them out of the room. Enough said. Horrible. The employees ride the golf cart unprofessionally. The lunch wait was beyond slow. Never come here. The fact that my property was stolen is disgusting.

Terrible place. it’s over 2 hours past checkin time and I still don’t have a room because housekeeping are so slow (same as last year)… also WiFi in hotel doesn’t work… I guess some people come to relax but I have to come for work and this place is terrible, absolutely terrible

I have been to the Saddlebrook Resort holiday buffets on multiple occasions, finding the food generally very good and the variety of items excellent. I have found that service is sometimes lacking, especially during the busy holiday occasions. The service was poor on Easter Sunday and when told, the manager did not seem overly concerned. It is not good service if drinks don’t arrive in a reasonable fashion, dishes are not cleared, and drink refills and coffee are not offered. For well over $ 50 per person I would expect better service.

Review is for golf courses only. Two fantastic courses here Saddlebrook course is a little tighter, tougher and more scenic.
Both are in fantastic shape.
My rating would be 5 star except for the requirement that you have to valet your car to play golf, while it is complimentary it requires a ride to and from the valet area to the pro shop. So you have four people to tip, driver to the pro shop, club cleaning guy, driver back to valet and finally the valet that delivers your car. Pretend your going to a strip club, bring singles.

Here with 18 friends from Greenwich to attend tennis camp. Great pros great weather, great looking athletes by the pool!
Bring your energy and get a good night sleep to get the most out of your trip.

Very nice resort with beautiful grounds, pools, tennis courts and restaurants. It was a very relaxing place… as a resort obviously should be. Keep in mind that there is no self-​parking so you will have to valet (and be charged) for the duration of your stay.

I was here for a 2-​day conference and did not stay here. The food we had for lunch along with the service was excellent. Some parts of the resort feel/​look outdated but the rest of the property that I saw was beautiful. The staff did an excellent job accommodating our group.

One has to consider the entire package when reviewing Saddlebrook because there is so much that is good about it and only a few things that could use some improvement. So let’s start with the good. The property is beautiful and large. It has really nice pools, one is even heated which is nice when you are visiting in February, nice pool bar, and the tennis facilities are amazing. They have clay, hard and grass courts and one of the best instructional programs in the US.
The bad includes the rooms. While they are large, I think they are privately owned condos so they can be hit and miss. We stayed on a lower floor and the noise isolation is an issue. I would stay on a top floor if you can get it. The only other concern is a big one and that is the staff. Not exactly Ritz Carlton type service at the front desk and lots of confusion regarding discounts associated with the convention that we were attending.
Ultimately it comes down to would I stay here again? and the answer is a quick yes. Over look the front desk and get an upper level room. Enjoy the pools, the bar, and the tennis facilities. (sorry I didn’t play golf).