This “resort” is a glorified motel, that after every mishap, left my husband and I constantly stating to each other “welp, it’ll be a funny story one day”. Today is that day. I pride myself on always doing a significant amount of research before leaving on a trip. With that said, I am not sure if the staff are paying to remove negative reviews, or if no one has stayed at this resort since 2005, but after returning home from the Willowbank Resort, I feel utterly catfished. When we first arrived at check-in, there was a family of four in front of us checking in, and when it was our turn, the woman at the front desk said she was so overwhelmed by the previous family checking in (who had since walked away), that she could not direct us to our room and instead gave us a packet of information (which included a map) and said to refer to the map if we got lost finding our building. Weird, but fine whatever, we will find the building on our own. Before we could leave the office we had to sign a document stating that if we are injured in any way on their property, or if anything is stolen from us on their property, they are not liable. Also weird, but whatever, maybe this is in the fine print of other resorts I’ve stayed at and I just didn’t realize (remember this, I will come back to it later). We wander around for a bit and eventually find the building we are staying in and after going in, I go to use the bathroom and there is someone’s toothpaste spit up in the sink… clearly indicating this room has not been cleaned (even though the beds were made). I leave the bathroom to tell my husband to check the bed for bed-bugs because the state of this room looked like it would have bugs. While he was looking for bed bugs, I spotted black mold all over one of the pillows (visible with the pillow cover on). In looking at the bed we also noticed the lampshade for the lamp between the two queen beds had burn marks up the side of it as if it was in a fire. Normally, finding the mold would have caused us to change resorts immediately, but all surrounding hotels were booked for the weekend. My husband and I didn’t want to make a fuss because we understand things happen and maybe this room was turned over by mistake when it wasn’t ready for guests yet, so we decided to call the front desk - no answer. We headed down to the front desk in person and asked for a new room and thankfully a woman (who I assume is the owner) overheard our conversation with the woman at the front desk and gave us a new room. At first glance, the room looked much better than the previous one, so we thanked her and accepted the room switch. Immediately after she left, we noticed the air conditioning did not work (blew out room temperature air), the fire alarm was missing and loose wires were dangling from the ceiling where it should be, and the hot water ran out after showering for 5 min… but there was no mold on the pillows…so small win. We decided to explore the property a bit and found the bar was not an actual bar, but a reach in fridge with a chain lock on it and canned beer and seltzers inside that get charged to your room. There was no bar or anyplace to order a mixed drink, even at the restaurants they have. The hours for food are extremely limited with breakfast being served from 7:30am-9:30am, so if you miss it, you’re out of luck until lunch. The Ocean Restaurant, which was advertised on their website as opening spring of 2025, was not open, and instead, tables for lunch and dinner were spread around in the lobby while a private party took over the entire outside patio and you had to awkwardly walk through it in order to get into the lobby. We left the resort and came back at night time and noticed the resort was completely empty and dark. We didn’t see one guest or worker walking around, to the point where it was actually pretty eerie being outside. All of the bollards lining the walkway paths had lights atop them, but none of them were on and the broken concrete pathways partnered with pitch darkness was tripping hazard galore. Remember the liability waiver they had us sign at check-in? I’m assuming this is part of the reason why. The rooms didn’t have any safe, so we were forced to carry around all of our cash and passports, the beaches had broken glass and trash on them, and there was cockroach spray under the sink. Lastly, to wrap this nightmare of a hotel up with a pretty bow, the owner called me as my plane was leaving the gate and had me recite my credit card information out to her because she said my husbands card was expired. I made the reservation with my card, my husband put down his card for incidentals when we got there, so she had my credit card on file already and could have used mine as backup if they wrote my husbands expiration date wrong but would not let me off the phone or email me the bill until I recited my credit card information to her (again) in a plane surrounded by people. I have been monitoring my credit card since I returned home to make sure I don’t have any strange purchases from anyone who might have written down my card info when I was reciting it on the plane. If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I will say the food was good, Nick, our waiter was amazing, and the views overlooking the ocean were beautiful. Worth spending $636.32 for two nights of filth? No. 1/5 would not recommend.
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