Fairmont Scottsdale Princess

My girlfriend had raved about the resort as her happy place so she convinced me to go. In general the service was impeccable, the pools were nice as was the room. My major issue was the Spa. She had gotten us a couples massage which had access to all the spa facilities. Our first unpleasant surprise was walking in with our pool noodles only to be told they were banned because of a previous "incident" (what kind of dangerous incident can you have with a pool noodle??? And also, how incompetent are you that you allow one buffoon to ruin the experience of countless others? Smacks of sheer lazy "well this mediocre bad thing happened so the easiest solution for us is to just ban every noodle"). The massage itself was phenomenal, and the basic spa facilities (steam room, sauna, cool dipping pool etc.) were nice. However, the pool was a mad house. Every seat was taken and there were people constantly scrambling for chairs. Apparently there had been zero thought to capacity planning, especially since they had sold a ton of day passes to locals. The noise was constant, not even remotely calm. The pool itself used to have big floaty chairs which had been removed, I guess for their deadly potential. The misters that used to be part of the framework to cool people had been removed as part of renovations. Even basic maintenance seemd to be overwhelmed, as the coffee maker was blocked, and then when unblocked there was no milk in it. Basically this calming $250/person spa was a Times Square Zoo. After all the praises my girlfriend had sang about the spa, it was extremely disappointing. I don't know how this hotel compares to others in the area, but we're definitely going to investigate.

Here to celebrate my 40th birthday. Overall the hotel is incredible, great staff and beautiful property. Would normally give this hotel 5-stars. However, the entire property is under construction constantly jack hammering, grinding, hammering etc. The princess pool was under total renovation which is not something we were told about ahead of time. In the future guests should be made aware of major construction projects and disruptive noise prior to their stay.

This was our first time staying at the Fairmont Princess and I must say, it exceeded our expectations on every level! The resort is absolutely gorgeous. The restaurants are wonderful, and the staff is very friendly. I highly recommend this resort to anyone who wants to do a staycation or visiting from out of town!

What a treat! Even though my stay was brief, I got a great sense of the property. So much so that I contracted for a company retreat next April for 275 attendees. They will be thrilled.

The Fairmont is a beautiful family resort with its barometer pointed toward luxury. It is a huge property on 65 acres with 750 rooms. In addition to a hotel, there are villa casitas and perhaps other accommodations that I did not see. My hotel room was pretty average with a few upscale amenities like bathrobes and steamers in the closet. This is where my customer service story starts. First it is July in Arizona and the temperatures reached 116. So when I couldn’t get my room to stay cool, I was up every couple of hours the first night to turn the air down because the thermostat insisted on turning itself up. Since I was speaking at a conference, I had brought a pink jacket and was delighted to see a steamer in my closet because the jacket had wrinkled in my suitcase. However, when I used it, it put a couple of black residue spots on my jacket. I had received a text message from the hotel staff previously welcoming me and inviting me to let them know if I needed anything. So I texted the issues with the temperature and the steamer. Some lovely person named Simone took care of all of this for me right away. When I came back to my room that evening, my room was cool and my jacket had been sent to the cleaners and was hanging fresh in my closet with no stains. Super customer service. There are some lovely high end restaurants, and the conference food was amazing. Something you don’t always say about conference food- but it was truly a gourmet delight. I saw four pools on the property, and the overall cowboy ranch suited the Arizona southwest vibe to a tee. Even the valet parkers were wearing cowboy hats. Hats off to the Princess for a lovely Arizona luxury resort experience.