What is Holiday Inn Club Vacations Scottsdale Resort?
First, the honest version: it’s a timeshare resort that also rents to the public, and a good one for families. Holiday Inn Club Vacations Scottsdale Resort spreads across about 12 acres and 14 low buildings on Princess Boulevard, a short walk from TPC Scottsdale and the Fairmont Princess. Many of its 213 villas are booked by owners using club points. The rest go to nightly guests, many of whom will be invited to an ownership presentation at the on-site sales center. It’s optional, and you can decline.
The villas are why people come. They run from one to three bedrooms, roughly 550 to 1,395 square feet, and a four-bedroom Signature Collection tier sits on top. Every villa has a full kitchen, a separate living and dining area and a washer and dryer. The grounds are built for kids: four pools and four hot tubs, the Splash Canyon waterslide and splash pad, a game room with billiards and ping-pong, and a marketplace for snacks and supplies. ArteZania Kitchen & Cantina serves Southwestern food with a tequila and mezcal list, and breakfast is available for a fee.
The address has had a few names. Before 2016 it was an all-suite hotel, Xona Resort Suites and then Zona Hotel & Suites Scottsdale, until Orange Lake Resorts turned it into Holiday Inn Club Vacations’ first Arizona resort.
Who it’s for: families, multigenerational trips, golf groups and anyone who wants a kitchen and laundry near the Princess. Who should stay elsewhere: pet owners (no pets), anyone who needs an elevator, and travelers who don’t want a sales pitch.
How to do the Holiday Inn Club right
Plan for the sales center. Holiday Inn Club Vacations sells ownership, and the resort opened with a sales center on site. You’ll likely be offered a presentation, sometimes with perks attached. Go if you’re curious and have the time. If not, decline once, politely and firmly.
Read the fees. A nightly resort fee covers parking, Wi-Fi, the pools and the fitness center. Daily housekeeping isn’t included: linens are changed on request, so plan to tidy up yourself. Check-out is at 10 a.m., earlier than most hotels.
Pick the right villa. The buildings are three stories with exterior corridors and no elevators. Families with strollers or grandparents should ask for the ground floor. If you’re traveling with a big group, look at the Signature Collection four-bedroom units.
Do Splash Canyon early. Kids head for the waterslide and splash pad as soon as they open. Go in the morning, before the Arizona sun heats everything. Save the afternoon for the shade or the game room.
Eat on Princess Drive. ArteZania covers tacos and margaritas. Close by, the Princess has La Hacienda, Bourbon Steak and Ironwood American Kitchen, and Toro overlooks TPC’s 18th green. In late January and February, check the dates for Barrett-Jackson, the Arabian show and the Phoenix Open. The roads fill up those weeks.
Xona, Zona and the club: three lives on Princess Boulevard
This property’s address only makes sense because of what happened in 1987. That year the Scottsdale Princess opened beside TPC Scottsdale, the stadium golf course built on federal land the city leased in 1985, and the Phoenix Open moved in. Within a few years the city’s horse park, now WestWorld, was hosting the Arabian Horse Show and Barrett-Jackson a mile east. Everything on Princess Boulevard is built around that combination of resort, golf and events.
The 12-acre campus at 7677 E Princess Boulevard dates from the late 1980s, according to property records. Its early history is hard to pin down, but by 2011 it was an all-suite hotel called Xona Resort Suites. That January, Sunstone Realty Advisors bought it, brought in O’Neill Hotels & Resorts to manage it, renovated it, and reopened it in October 2011 as Zona Hotel & Suites Scottsdale. It was a 431-suite hotel in Choice Hotels’ Ascend Collection, with four pools, the Orange Iguana cocktail lounge and the Asada Desert Grille, selling itself to golf travelers, corporate groups and families.
Its third life began in 2015. Orange Lake Resorts, the Orlando company that runs Holiday Inn Club Vacations in partnership with IHG and later renamed itself Holiday Inn Club Vacations Inc., announced the Scottsdale property as the brand’s 16th resort and its first in Arizona. Its CEO said it filled a gap in the West next to the company’s Las Vegas resort. The resort reopened in two phases during 2016. Where Zona had counted 431 suites, the club counted 213 villas, and a sales center opened along with the new Signature Collection units.
The sequence matches the area’s growth. The golf and the Princess drew the first visitors. Hotels filled the gaps between the resort and the office parks. Later, some of those hotels became vacation clubs, so that people who kept coming back every February could own a piece of the week. Families who now return to these villas every year are part of the same pattern that brought the first golfers here.