Just got back from a beautiful week at South Shore with some friends, our first time there. It had snowed briefly the night before we arrived, but it got warmer and warmer as the week went on, much to our delight! Everyone said it was unseasonably warm - between 70 & 80 degree highs the whole time. Only used the fireplace the first night. And while we had a nice top floor, 2 bed corner unit, there is no A/C and the place heated up very quickly with the afternoon sun shining in/down, so we had to leave windows open all night before the heat would disappear - one with a fan in it too! Not sure we would have felt comfortable doing that on the ground floor, though. And I suspect the lower floors remained much cooler. Not sure if any of the places in town besides the casinos have invested in A/C either, as it was pretty much the same situation everywhere we went (warm and stuffy indoors), but it cools down outside very quickly after sunset. Still, not a big price to pay when you are in such a "heavenly" place, lol.
The grounds were lovely and the location very convenient - one block to Safeway and a 10+ minute walk to Nevada beach. While the unit had a new flat screen tv in the living room, and was very clean, it did look like it could use a little sprucing up here and there, and I was surprised to find only a shower in the master bath. We used the pool and hot tub a few times...they were very nice and good sizes (there is a second hot tub that is covered in a different area from the main pool/hot tub/kiddie pool). We usually ended up getting back to the room just a little too late to make the 10:00pm pool curfew...sure hope that time will change one day soon! From our balcony, we could see the pool area and there was a children's play structure next to our unit (Building 4) - which also meant we could hear everyone, lol. But it wasn't bad if the windows were closed. The garbage receptacles for each building were out in the parking lots, not conveniently located down the hall as in most other resorts. There were no separate recycling bins. They've put alot of effort into keeping things "bear proof" though. And while there are elevators in the buildings, our unit was much closer to the stairs, so my husband and I just decided to use the stairs all the time to get some exercise. At least after the first day, when we had gotten more used to the high altitude and stopped gasping for air.
There were a few times that we were not able to find a parking spot for our building, but when we notified the front desk, they didn't hesitate to ask folks to kindly have their guests park in the designated guest parking area. Most of them said that their guests were just unloading, but we know that wasn't the case. Anyway, it didn't seem to upset anyone, so all was well.
I was surprised that there was no w-fi available in the units yet, but we were able to check out a special modem that plugged into my laptop, and worked well enough. We were so busy each day that I wasn't online alot anyway. The staff said they are hoping to have wi-fi available very soon. If we hadn't just signed up for TravelShare, there would have also been a fee for the modem, I believe it was $4.95/day or $14.95/wk.
Since the weather was so amazing, we were able to do a number of different activities - hiking to Vikingsholm in Emerald Bay (you'll need good lungs for that, lol), a lunch cruise on the lake, renting bicycles to ride to a couple of beaches further down south shore and visit ValHalla/Estates, walking to nearby Nevada beach a couple of times, patio barbecues, checked out the casinos and some sushi/various restaurants, watched some comedy at the Improv at Harvey's, walked around Heavenly Village and the shops at Stateline, and went up to the top of Harrah's to get a nice view of the lake (because we didn't want to pay $30+ a piece to go up and down the Gondola). We thought about doing horse rides too, but decided to just take a drive around the lake to save some money. There was a little road construction that slowed things down here and there, but not uncommon this time of year. There are also innumerable hiking spots, and water sports to partake in, and you never know when something fun and/or motorcyle-car related will be going on in Reno or Sparks (about an hour away). I would recommend just looking for brochures/coupons/recommendations at the front desk. Some places will give you a discount if you mention where you're staying. One note: every beach we went to had an $8 to $12 entrance fee per car, BUT if you ride a bike or walk you can get in for free! At least that was our experience. Also, be sure to reserve a day or two in advance anything you need tickets for, just to be safe.
I will try to wrap this up by saying that we really enjoyed our stay in this very special place and want to come back again to experience it during the winter months and do some snow skiing. Or just retire, lol. The ONLY thing we did not enjoy was the "Owner Question & Answer" session they signed us up for right off the bat, as they usually try to do. We were told it would NOT be a sales pitch, and would only be about 45 minutes, to go over info on the "merge" and we would receive a flash drive with tons of useful info on it. We had no questions to ask, and since we just signed up for TravelShare in Dec. and can't afford one more penny for anything - figured that would be in our file and it would be obvious we would not be interested in buying more credits right now. Well, we were there for over 1.5 hours, they did try to talk us into purchasing more credits in the end, and they almost forgot to give us our flash drive and "free gift" after we made it clear we were NOT interested. Ugh. We have vowed never to sign up for one of those things again! But all in all, we had an excellent experience at this resort and I would highly recommend it to everyone!