Four day, three night stay with my wife and three kids (4, 4, and 2).

I wouldn't head here if you are on a business trip or if you are a couple looking for a romantic getaway.  This place is built for kids.  

The pool complex includes a beach entry and shallow area for little kids, 3' of water most other places, and nothing over 4' anywhere.  There is an "adult" pool that I assume is more than 4' deep, but I never saw it.

The pool water was warm to hot.  There was a noticeable temperature drop from the cooler lazy river to the shallow pool area.  The water was cooler than the outside air, but it wouldn't be called "refreshingly cool" in any way.  August in Texas is brutal.   

The lazy river is fine.  My kids are 4, 4, and 2, and they thought it was keen, and they had more fun bouncing/swimming around the river than going on the tubes.  The lazy river wasn't exactly crowded, but you were not going to have a quiet time with an adult beverage lazily floating along.  

The water slide is little-kid friendly.  It is 2-stories tall and gentle - the first slide my kids were comfortable going down alone.  I would assume an adventurous 10 year old would be bored with it quickly.

S'mores each night was fun, although it is August in central Texas - so we were all sweaty eating s'mores.  

Kids movie night was packed with folks on blankets covering the entire yard.  My kids were too little for it, but it looked like folks enjoyed themselves.

A few dozen bicycles from training wheels to adults (with helmets) were available for everyone.  

I didn't get a chance to play golf, but the course looks nice.  

Check In

Checked in around 1:00pm, and the room was available.  Check-in was a breeze, with diamond status acknowledged.  The entrance right at 1:00pm was a bit of a mad house with people checking out and cars and bags everywhere, but not hard to flag someone down to help with the bags to the room while I parked the car 1/4 mile away in the self parking (rather than $25 a day valet).  

I had asked for a room on the side with the pool, and that is what I got.  This place is spread out, and if you were on the far side of the hotel, it would be at least a 1/4 mile to the pool, and maybe close to 1/2 mile.  It isn't a horrible walk, but something to consider when herding kids or if mobility impaired.   

Room

Did points & cash, and used DSU to upgrade to a junior suite.  Not sure why they call it a junior suite - it is a traditional two-room suite, with a separate living area (with four seat dining table and pull out sofa) and a bedroom with a king bed.  

The carpet and furniture are not brand new, and at first I was a little disappointed in the lack of "posh-ness", but by the end of the trip, I realized my kids had spilled milk on the carpet three times, I sadly dropped a good apple pie (from the Club) on the floor, and at least 10 wet feet had tromped through that room on a daily basis.  The carpet looked the same when we left as it did when we arrived.  

It is a highly kid-friendly place, and they would have to put in new carpet and furniture yearly to keep it looking sweet.  

Dining

At at the pool each day, and it was fine pool food.  Didn't pay a ton of attention to the prices, but three burgers, fries, and drinks hit about $50.

The food in the Club was pretty good.  One hot dish for breakfast (biscuits/gravy, hashbrown caserole) and the normal pastries/cereals.  Same layout for dinner.  The staff was very accomodating for me getting glasses of milk at all hours of the day for my kids.

Lots of kids in the Club, enough that it would make 90% of Club regulars at a business hotel pull their hair out.  It is what it is at such a kid-friendly place.  

Had a poor experience with room service the first night.  My wife was hungry for pasta, so called down and ordered.  When asked if I wanted a drink, I said, "water would be fine".  They said they only had two deliver people, so it would be 45 minutes.  I said I would happily pick it up, and she said they would call when it was ready.  They called 10 minutes later.  

I was hurrying back to the room, so just signed and moved without looking at the receipt. Even though I picked up the food, I was charged the delivery charge.  When I said, "water would be fine", I was assuming the normal glass of ice water, but they interpreted it as the $4.00 bottle of water.  

I didn't notice until I got home, so all my bad for not checking the receipt.  

Service

Service was good overall, but lots of people at the pool for relatively few pool servers.  You would go hungry and thirsty if waiting for them all day.  Better to just go get the food/drink at the pool bar itself. 

Location

Hotel is a couple of miles off the highway on a very long winding road.  Bastrop is about 10 miles away and Austin is about 20 miles away.  If you need a run to the grocery store or a restaurant, it will take you at least 30 minutes to get there.

Check In

I had booked two rooms for our two last nights in Texas several months ago and applied DSU to both. In this property DSU means "Junior Suite", which is kind of funny, as it is normal suite, i.e. bedroom and livingroom plus BIG bathroom and balcony. We checked in around 3 pm, and both rooms were ready. The guy checking us in explained the Diamond benefits at the property ($60 for breakfast per room in Firewheel or McDade's, Club Lounge not open so 2500 points etc.), and we discussed ice hockey for a good while (there were no other people checking in at the moment, even though property was packed with various corporate events).

Room

Junior Suite has a big livingroom and smaller bedroom. The livingroom has a sofa and a dinner table for four as well as access to a balcony. Furniture etc. look a bit dated, but everything was clean and in perfect working order. There seemed to be a lot of wasted space e.g. in the bathroom, but I guess some people would see this as a plus. Our balcony was facing the horse paddock.

Livingroom

Shower and part of bathtub (it took some time to get water to the right temperature)

Service

Very good staff. Friendly, proactive etc. One night at Shellers the kitchen had messed up (slightly) one of our kids' order. Both kids received free sodas (two each) as compensation. Pretty good recovery, I'd say.

Dining

First morning we had breakfast buffet at Firewheel. Buffet (which includes also the omelet station) is priced so that $60 Diamond breakfast allowance per room covers it + tips for two persons. The buffet is really quite extensive for an American hotel, good selection of hot items, meats and cheese, for example. Second morning we had to head out very early, so we grabbed coffee, toasts and some other items from McDade's. This item was not automatically deleted from the bill, guy doing the checkout was unsure why. (But I had no problems in getting it removed.)

We had dinner on both nights at Shellers. Not cheap, but not expensive by resort standards. Hamburgers and tacos were tasty, and there was a nice selection of local beers.

Location

It is long way from anything urban, which is the point. I enjoyed e.g. hiking. It was unusually warm during our visit, which also meant many visits to the pool area. It is not very big, and I don't know how it would be when there are more people. Now it was almost deserted. The property was pretty packed, but it was mostly corporate events.

Overall

For my family this hotel offered a very nice two-day break. We were not very active, but the golf course did look tempting. We did go hiking and used the pool, though. Getting the Diamond breakfast benefit for both of our rooms was really valuable.

Lots of pictures of various Texas musicians in rooms, restaurants, hallways etc. I liked this a lot.