The Buttes: A Review of the Marriott Resort in Tempe, Arizona

Have you ever heard a radio advertisement for a family getaway at a local resort? The radio spots usually attempt to entice local families to spend a weekend at a nice family-friendly hotel with a great pool for about $100 a night. I suspect that The Buttes had such a promotion, because my weekend stay at The Buttes involved a lot of badly-behaved children, their apathetic parents, and cut-rate service.

The Buttes looks so promising, too. Situated upon a high point in Tempe, Arizona, set apart from the generic industrial office parks that clog the area, The Buttes (a Marriott resort) is a lovely retreat featuring desert landscapes and surprising tranquility (especially considering the resort's proximity to the freeway system). It's as nice and scenic a location as you can get while being smack in the middle of Tempe and close to every modern amenity. My sister and I and our children came to The Buttes to have a mini-reunion. She lives in Los Angeles, I live in Tucson. My sister was already in Phoenix for other business, so we made a weekend of it and gave our kids a rare opportunity to see each other. My sister selected The Buttes as a mid-priced hotel that also happened to have a waterslide-we wanted a grown-up hotel, but with a little something we could sell to the kids.

We drove up to an imposing lobby building, with valet parking service, but no parking lot-- the guest rooms building with guest parking is further downhill, before the lobby building. As we pulled our car to the side (no valet parking for us-we'd rather park our car close to our room and spare ourselves the golf cart ride to the guest building in the 105 degree heat), we were greeted by a valet, who offered one of the five of us a cold bottle of water. Yes, only one of us. At the front desk, my sister asked me where my water was, and I had to tell her that she was the only one of us who was offered one. As if to make up for it, the front desk clerk gave my sister and me cactus-shaped lollipops, just like the kids received. Little did we know that the front desk clerk was to be the last truly classy and professional employee of The Buttes that we were to encounter during our stay.