We all slept in after a previous eventful day. We needed the rest after so many days of getting up early. This was also my brother in law’s last day. He had a late morning flight out of Palm Springs.

Breakfast Chaos and Off to the Airport

The hotel’s chaos around check-in time from the previous night continued at breakfast. There was a crush of people, and we had to sit in an adjacent conference room, trekking back and forth to the buffet. We also had to upgrade to the hot breakfast as the free continental breakfast didn’t include much of anything other than break and some fresh fruit. Luckily the kid’s breakfast was relatively reasonable (about the same cost as our upgrade cost).

There was a mob of people with no indication that the staff or facilities were prepared to handle a relatively full house. It was quite frustrating and followed the unfortunate theme of our experience at the resort so far.

After breakfast, we hurried off to the airport. On the way, we accidentally found out the rental car supports Apple CarPlay. I’ve only used it a couple of times, but I find it helpful that it puts the Google Maps display on the car’s screen, which makes it much easier to follow. It only worked if you plugged the phone into one of the USB charging ports. I had been plugged into the other port for our trip from San Diego. Too bad, but we’ll have it for the rest of the journey!

The Palm Springs airport is tiny. There’s only one terminal, and while the departures drop off area looked busy, there were only a dozen cars, and we quickly found a place at the curb to stop and unload my brother in law’s bags and say our goodbyes. The boys gave him a big hug as they enjoyed having him around and spending quality time with him. There were even a few tears from our youngest, who is attached to his uncle.

Mini Golf and Lunchtime Football

Back at the hotel, the kids were intent on playing mini-golf. We picked up the balls at the bell desk, though they said they didn’t have any more putters. When we got outside to the course, we found a bunch of putters lying on the ground and leaning against trees. We assumed they were free for the taking, as there was no indication otherwise.

The boys and I played a round while my wife took pictures of the flamingos in the nearby pond. The mini-golf was actual grass rather than carpet and windmills. It was like a miniature golf course. What a concept! We had to wait on some holes, but a few groups let us play through since we play pretty quickly. It was a lovely “free” perk, but given the lack of any organization, I wouldn’t have paid to play it.

When we finished our round, it was close to lunch, so we headed to a local pizza place/sports bar. It was the last weekend of the NFL regular season, and football games were playing on all their TV screens. There was a competitive yet positive vibe in the restaurant, with fans and workers cheering for their favorite teams.

Palm Spring Air Museum

The boys had seen signs for the Air Museum on the way to Palm Springs and wanted to go. It was on several “must-do” lists I had found online, and I’m glad we went. There was a lot to see and experience!

There are four hangars full of planes and displays, as well as substantial outdoor areas with even more aircraft and vehicles. There’s an upstairs area with some simulators, though we didn’t make it that far during our visit.

We even got to see them fire up an old propeller-driven fighter plane. Someone had paid to go for a ride in it (presumably not cheap). They started it up not more than 200 feet from us, and we could feel the strong wind generated by the propeller. We thought it was just natural wind, but as soon as the plane taxied away, the air was perfectly still. That was only the force generated at idle.

A few minutes later, we heard the engine rev up and watched it take off down the runway and leap into the sky. It was pretty loud and awe-inspiring. Museum guests were lined up along the fence overlooking the track watching it take off. The runway was the same one used by the Palm Springs airport, so it is used by commercial traffic as well. We saw a few modern passenger jets take off while we were there, but those were less interesting than the vintage fighter planes!

There were two hangers dedicated to WWII, one for the war in the Pacific war and another for the war in Europe. They had a B-17 bomber on display, which is an aircraft my grandfather flew as a radioman when he was in the Navy at the tail end of WWII. Luckily he was young enough that the war was over before he was ready to fly in combat. The video displays they had were excellent and very informative. They gave you perspective on what the soldiers were facing at the time.

Basketball (sort of)

The boys reached the end of their attention span at the museum. It was exciting, and there was more they would be interested in if we had stayed, but sometimes you know when not to push things. We decided to head back to the hotel and look for the basketball court they had read about in the hotel documentation in the room. We got directions from the concierge in the lobby. We were directed to the tennis center, which was a short walk away.

We found the basketball court, but three teens were using it, and it was clear they weren’t going anywhere soon. Nearby they had several lawn games set up, including a badminton court, horseshoes, and more. We went into the tennis center to see about horseshoes and found that each lawn game cost $10 per day for a family. That was a bit of a slap in the face on top of a $40/night resort fee. They had lots of options for games, but it was $10 each per day per game to play. You could buy a frisbee or soccer ball for about that. When we asked, they would allow us to use our equipment for free they said that was allowed. How generous…

My wife and Tomatico went back to the room to get our equipment, and I called my dad to catch up with him while we waited. When they returned, I played some Frisbee and soccer with the boys until the sun went down, and the temperature started to drop quickly.

Boat Rides

We headed out to grab a quick dinner and get some dessert nearby before heading back to the hotel for the night. We wanted to try the complimentary boat rides that left from the lobby. The boats would come in through sliding glass doors, dock, pick up new passengers and head out a second set of doors. It was pretty neat. There were two stops at different restaurants on the property. It was undoubtedly a unique way to get to your dinner reservation. We were only there for the ride, though. The driver gave us the abbreviated tour and dropped off one of the groups at a dock near their restaurant. It was a short but fun trip, and the kids got a kick out of it.

On the way back to the room, we stopped by the front desk, which was thankfully less chaotic than the previous night. We needed to see if we could get late checkout the following day. We were told the latest we could check out was 1:00. We had hoped for later since my wife had to work, but it was at least something. I also pushed back on the charge for the rollaway bed. It bugged me that when I booked the room, the reservation was for five people, which forced me to book a suite since a regular place could only hold five people. But the rollaway first $25/night and since the room couldn’t sleep five people without a rollaway bed, it seemed like that was a hidden fee (on top of the resort fee, which is a bogus but well-known hidden fee all by itself). The agent agreed to take that charge off our bill.

If the rollaway bed had been a real bed, then I might have been okay with the charge. Some rollaway beds we’ve had are incredibly comfortable. This one was just a cheap folding cot on wheels. It’s not the worst we’ve had, but most non-kids would have a sore back in the morning after sleeping on it.

Back in the Room for the Night

We got back to to the room for the night after mostly being away all day. We had a tough time telling if housekeeping had been there. The master bed was made, and the towels were replaced, but not much else. Pillows were scattered around the room. The chairs around the table weren’t even aligned to look neat. Other things that generally are tidied up by housekeeping were not done. We usually aren’t very picky about these types of things, but we’ve never come back to our room and had to spend time figuring out if housekeeping had come through. It even more disappointing given this is a luxury resort.

This caused us to look around our room with a closer eye, and we found all sorts of things that pointed to shoddy workmanship and a lack of attention to detail. There was paint on the door handles, electrical covers, and the marble tiles on the walls. The wallpaper had bubbles in it along some of the edges, and you could see several of the seams. There were parts of the baseboard with water stains on them. The alarm clock was an hour off. This is not what you’d expect at a self-proclaimed high-end resort in a “recently refurbished suite” as it was billed on check-in.

We haven’t had a great stay at this resort for a lot of little reasons, and I decided to send some private feedback to the hotel to give them a chance to respond or at least let them hear our feedback so they can improve things. It’s been far from the luxury resort experience we were expecting, and the room hasn’t lived up to the quality you’d expect in a suite at a luxury resort.

Of course, just after sending the email, we got a knock on the door from housekeeping. When I answered the door, the lady handed me a piece of paper and some chocolates and walked away. When I read the paper, I realized they were there to do the turndown service. It was almost 8:30, and I’ve never been at a hotel that did that any later than 6:00 or 7:00. The kids were about ready to go to bed, so I’m glad housekeeping didn’t knock any later. On top of that, they didn’t even do the actual turndown service. They just handed me the chocolates and the card.

And with that, we concluded our final day in Palm Springs. My wife will be working tomorrow until we have to checkout at 1:00, so I’ll be filling the morning with activities with the boys. We had skipped the gym, so we’d make that a priority the next day to get back into the routine.