I have stayed at the Westgate Resort on numerous occasions and I have found the staff at the resort to be concerned about our needs and concerns. Currently they are making major changes in the rooms the results of which will enhance anyone's stay.
The front desk is very pleasant and willing to go the extra mile to make your visit exceptional. I have worked with the consultants for the golf packages and they have also been exceptional. Those working the restaurant and bar are always friendly and accommodating.

The following review is very in-depth, and I hope it is beneficial to you. I try to be as detailed as possible to give the most quality review possible.

I went to the Westgate Resort on March 8 -12, 2013. It was during a college spring break weekend. The check-in age is 18 years old, but I would not worry too much about that. The resort seemed relatively quiet even on spring break, and as I will later talk about, the guest service seemed to be very good so if there ever was a problem with young guests, I’m sure they would take care of it in a very timely matter.

This Westgate Resort is divided into two sections – a wing and a tower. The tower is not connected to the wing, but the outdoor patios of the wing and tower are connected.

The front desk was very welcoming and accommodating. The lady checking me in gave us a great room location (the last floor of the tower which had a breathtaking view of the ocean and boardwalk). We had a ocean-view room (not an ocean-front room). Our room was located in the tower - which seemed to be recently new (seemed to be built within the past 3 years). The room had 1 bedroom with a full kitchen, dining area, bathroom and living area with an extended porch from the living area to the bedroom. The room was incredible. Everything was nice, modern, and functioning properly. The kitchen table could easily seat 6 people and possibly even more than that. The kitchen had plenty of dishes, cups and appliances (all functioning properly). If you like to sometimes cook at the beach, this is a great set-up. We made tacos one night, and it worked great. The bathroom was very spacious – it had 2 sinks, 2 showerheads (with great water pressure), and a side toilet room (with a door). The bedroom was just as spacious as it had a closet, jacuzzi and outside porch access. The bed was very comfortable. The outdoor porch had plenty of seats and tables. Our porch connected from the bedroom to the living room (so it was a large porch). The living room had a couch and loveseat. The couch had a sleeper sofa within it (I heard it wasn't too comfortable, but I guess you cannot expect too much from a sleeper sofa anyways). The entertainment center was built into an “entertainment cabinet.” There was a stereo system (with a iPod connector) within the cabinet doors, and the flat-screen TV was built into this entertainment center as well. There was a DVD player hooked up to the TV also. There were flat screens in both the bedroom and living area. The cable feed looked fuzzy and seemed noisy (like a static sound) on certain channels. It almost seemed like there was a bad cable feed so it was annoying at times. The TV programming came with 2 HBO channels, which were nice. Overall, the hotel rooms was superb and more than we expected.

The tower is a lot newer than the main wing of the hotel. From what I observed (but please double check me on this) there are no ocean-view rooms on the wing section of the hotel. On the wing section, rooms are either facing the ocean or facing the parking lot/theme park located nearby (don’t take my word on this, but I’m fairly certain.) The tower, however, seems to have ocean view rooms and ocean front rooms. And the tower is a lot newer. There are 16 floors in the tower (we stayed on the 17th floor but that is because hotels do not have a 13th floor). Honestly, I am glad we had an ocean view and not ocean front view. Not only were we able to save money this way, we were able to have an amazing view of the boardwalk/Ocean Avenue while still being able to see the ocean. It was amazing.

The outdoor amenities are nice. There are two swimming pools, a hot tub, a lazy river, and water play area. The hot tub and 1 of the swimming pools were in front of the tower so I hung around this area more. The tower also had a fitness center on the bottom floor (right behind the pool). There seemed to be a good amount of patio furniture around the pool areas, but considering the size of the hotel (wing and tower included) I’m not sure if it would be enough for the summer crowds. There seemed not to be too many in the hotel when I was here in March so I did not get an accurate depiction. The outdoor amenities are kind of crammed together. They are all part of a very narrow patio stretch in-between the hotel and beach shore.

The location of the hotel is pretty good. It is probably around a ½ mile from the Ocean Avenue boardwalk, and it is right beside the Family Kingdom Water Park and Amusement Park. The hotel is more on the southern end of Myrtle Beach near the airport and Highway 501. It did not take us long to navigate to places (but consider that there was not the “summer crowd” while we were here). But I really liked the location overall. We liked traveling to places so we enjoyed cruising through Ocean Avenue back to the condo. (And the tower is gorgeous looking by the way). As far as location on the beach, it could be better. There is a river/channel of water between the Family Kingdom Water Park and the hotel tower that takes over much of the beach during high tide, so there is not much beach in front of the hotel when this happens (especially in front of the tower). But when it is low tide, the beach shore returns, however, there was always a “river” flowing beside the tower. It is kind of hard to explain. It did not come above my knee while crossing to the other side, but it was kind of annoying at times (especially when the water was SO cold in March).

Parking is interesting. Parking was free, however, it seemed like it was very limited. When we were there in March, one night we had to wait until somebody left before we could park. And every night when we came back, we had to really search for a spot. It does not seem like there was enough parking, especially when the summer crowds come around. So I would check on this issue prior to coming to this resort. I don’t know what the other parking options are if all spaces are full. The parking lot was very tight also. There is a covered parking area, but again, it is very tight.

Here are the things I think the resort could improve:

1) Beach access – It seemed like it was hard to get to the shore for this hotel. There was only two beach access points and they can be difficult to get to. There could easily be another 1 – 2 beach access points from the patios.
2) Overall Maintenance – There were huge cracks on the glass door entrance for the tower for our entire stay. I feel like this should have been taken care of or at least handled in a better manner. (This isn’t the most welcoming site to see while entering the tower). The elevator had some small, sharp support racks sticking out of it in some areas as well (when they had to take down broken picture frames when they were broken somehow – remember this was on spring break). Also, there were some minor things in the hallways and some outdoor dirtiness and such that I thought could have been better maintained, but I was observing all these things with a critical eye. It wasn't nothing too major besides the glass cracks in the tower door.
3) More friendly staff – Much of the staff was friendly, however, there were some occurrences in which the staff did not say anything when they were riding the elevator with guests of the hotel. I am studying this with a very critical eye, but I always think there should be some type of welcoming or friendly interaction when a staff member sees a guest. The timeshare salespeople and front desk associates always provided interaction but other members of the resort did not.

This hotel was great for service. There is not a daily housekeeping service. I think they come every 4 days or so. But you can request trash pickup and towel pickup/requests at any time and they will come to your room and do so. There were many times we stopped at the lobby to request more blankets, and they gave them to us on the spot very quickly. I was very impressed. And when I called guest services on the phone, they were always so friendly. I also liked how they did not care if people used the pool after its 10:00 pm closing time. Some hotels really enforce this, but they did not, and I really appreciated that!! 10:00pm just comes way to quickly!

I really enjoyed staying in an ocean-view room in the tower. The tower is newer, and I really liked the fact that you were “to yourself” in a sense. It was almost like you were entering an apartment in a sense that there was not lobby to have to go through (the lobby is in the wing). As soon as you enter the tower, you go into the elevator. Very quick and easy, and I liked it. Be careful of the different floor layouts. We had a room where there was a 1-bedroom ocean view with a connecting porch between the bedroom and living room. Some layouts, I believe, have a slightly different floor layout and do not affect the price of the room since both layouts are a 1-bedroom ocean view. I really liked our layout of the room. It seems more spacious that the other layout (the other layout has a “straight line” layout – kind of hard to explain). We were still able to see a lot of the ocean and Myrtle Beach surroundings and able to save money!

This was the second condo I stayed at within a year span at Myrtle Beach. The other condo I stayed at was Dayton House. There are cons and pros to each. Dayton House had more suitable outdoor accommodations and a better beachfront location while Westgate Resort had a much nicer condo room.

I hope this review was helpful to you, and I pray that you and/or your family or friends will have an enjoyable and safe stay in Myrtle Beach!

If there are any additional questions or explanations needed, please email me, and I will get back to you as soon as possible! My email is nolan5@vt.edu

God Bless!

My husband and I spent a week here the first week in March. The accomodations were very clean and comfortable. The resort is directly on the boardwalk and the view from the balcony at night was beautiful. Of course the best thing about the location is the ocean which is directly in front of the resort. I was impressed by how quiet the room was. No noise at all except when the housekeeping staff was vaccuming in the hallway. Our room had 3 sliding glass doors which made the suite very bright and sunny.
Cathy and Lance

This was very good value for the money, especially when visited outside the high season. The room was spacious and comfortable. Only the WiFi connection was of poor quality and the fitness center lacking of some necessary equipment and free weights.