Diamond Resorts Bryan’s Spanish Cove – Orlando

It is the smallest timeshare resort I ever stayed at. 44 units.

It has a big lake in the back – but its not a good place in my opinion for small children. No beach at the lake. Docks behind swimming pool. The water looked dirty. Who knows what is in there.

The swimming pool is very small. Older resort.

Irate guest ahead of me caused delay checking in, No resort information inside the room. Left to guess what is where.

Second-floor stairs in my unit – no assistance offered to help with bags. Not fun. Trash is a nice walk around the side,

Beds were comfortable and the internet was fast. You pay a resort fee on top of everything else – but don’t understand why since they have very few activities going on.

It’s ok for visiting the nearby theme parks but not a five star resort.

Let me start by saying I really, really wanted to like this place. The reviews were all so great and the price was awesome for the space. Each day I tried to convince myself, but I was truly underwhelmed.

Let’s start with the good.
– Quiet. We were in unit 210 in the middle of one of the 2 wings of the place. We were upstairs and heard nothing from the units below or on the sides. That was great.
– Friendly staff. They were friendly… not always helpful though
– Time Share pitch. Did not get the hard push to attend the Diamond Resort timeshare sales pitch. We had one request (they would give discounted tix and $100 for the 2 hour sales pitch) and then no one bothered us again. They also told us so many people were taking them up on it they didn’t have many scheduled openings. So we skipped it.
– Wifi. The service was excellent. Well worth the $8 property fee (which also includes use of boats, pools, playground and all facilities at the Diamond resort next door… there were fees for some activities next door, but we just used the boats and fishing at our resort and skipped their fees, but their playgrounds and pools were great and included)
– Space. Great family gathering spaces with a truly comfy pullout couch. That was probably the best thing in the place. So much better than the old pullouts with springs that poke into your back. En-suite laundry was also great for drying swimsuits and quick washes.

Negatives
– Cleanliness – All reviews had focused on how clean the place was. Eh, not so much. On day 2 I discovered someone else’s wet underwear hanging from our shower curtain. Did not belong to anyone in my family. Gross. Then we changed the sheets on the master bed mid-week and the mattress cover (not the mattress protector but a cover zipped around the mattress) to have a significant blood stain on it. Double gross. That means someone ignored it when they changed the sheets between customers. I took a picture, showed it to the front desk and absolutely NO follow up happened. No cleaning people, no calls from the desk. Also, the pool and hot tub were kind of grungy (especially compared to the facilities at the Diamond Resort next door) and my 6-year-old was not happy with the massive spider webs on the playground equipment.
– Staff follow up. I contacted the front desk with several issues throughout the week. I had trouble in the dark finding and accessing the garbage dumpsters (the swing gates were jammed shut) and the guy at the desk was chatting on the phone and very unhelpful. He just told me to throw the garbage bags over the wall… I eventually hip-checked the gates until they opened enough for me to get them in (once I actually found the thing!). As well, my son left a Fitbit type activity tracker in the suite. I called the day we left and several days later and no one followed up at all on my calls. One day I asked someone at the desk a question about the fitness facilities at the sister resort next door and the woman responded that she had no idea where they were, she’d never been there. Very odd since it is right next door and they are all employees of the same company and they refer people to go there for activities…. All added up to very annoying. I expected better service based on the reviews and the smaller facility.
– Furnishings- Our suite was likely last furnished prior to 1995. I had to know that from the pictures prior to booking, but I really hoped things would be in working order. They were not. The tv cabinet in the master had two drawers under the tv. Neither were usable for storing clothes b/c they were too wobbly when you pulled them out. The master bedroom had a few hand-built shelves in the closet that we tried to use. One continuously got jammed and the rolling tracks did not work. I thought I was going to lose my mind trying to open and close it (couldn’t access the clothes in there without doing so). I complained the first day, but follow up did not happen. We ended up leaving most of our stuff in our bags for the week. This meant we ended up taking a few bugs home with us (not bed bugs, but definitely big enough stowaways to gross me out). Finally, the last night I had time to take a bath in the master tub. I was so excited to test out the Jacuzzi functionality. Alas, the plug for the drain did not totally seal and it continuously drained so I was never able to fill the tub. And the pressure was so low that the hot water ran out before the tub got more than an inch filled. So disappointing.

Anyhow, I give the resort a 3. It was actually an excellent $/space value. It was also super close to restaurants, supermarkets and Disney. And being able to utilize the facilities at the resort next door was a big win. But, the negatives just ate away at me and I couldn’t rate it anymore than mediocre.

Initial reaction to the timeshare was that it was very nice.

The morning after we checked in, (3/22), we found cockroaches in various rooms.

A few of us also woke up with numerous bug bites that we did not have when we went to bed.

This happened numerous times throughout the week we were there.

The furniture was extremely dusty and dirty.

We discovered after 2 days of being there that the bedroom sliding glass door lock was broke and that the door was not locked!

The maintenance crew was great, but, none of these issues should have ever existed!

Also, we tried the paddle boats, and it is obvious that they are not well maintained, as we could not even get the peddles to go around! Entertainment-wise for kids: Very boring!!!