Does any body know the age of this resort? Also what year the last buildings were added & where the new & older section's are ? That night help in finding some thing more modern.Doing some reading on the trip resort it seems if you get a room that's not refurb people are saying furniture is so out dated & worn.
After running around the parks all day a firm bed is what I always need.Sounds like the grounds & pools are so beautiful.
I don't have many definitive answers to your questions but am happy to relate what I've seen and what I've been told over the years.
When we were there for the first time in late June 2005 the newest section of the resort was being built. As I recall, buildings 77, 78, 79 and 84 (surrounding and near the Plaza del Sol pool area and Copa Loca bar and grill were open and buildings 85 and 86 were under construction. They were also doing landscaping all through that area. So, the newest buildings are 85 and 86.
During that same visit I was told by a resort staffer that the resort was seven or eight years old (could be true but I don't know how long that staff person had been there). If the staffer's estimate is correct then the resort has been open since the 1998/1999 time frame. Based on the maturity of the trees and other landscaping at the time, I thought that seemed about right.
I didn't ask which sections were built first but I assume that buildings 80, 81, 82, 83, 93 and 94 were the first to be built as they're in the area of the original main pool area and the registration building (which is building 80). I'd guess that the next section to be built included buildings 87, 88, 89, 90, 91 and 92 (we stayed in building 90 back in 2006) and then buildings 95, 96, 97, 98, 99 and 100 (we stayed in 99 in March 2008) over by the golf course clubhouse/Nick's restaurant building. I assume that latter order because, while the units seemed about equal when we stayed in those two section, the pool area near buildings 95-100 looked to be newer than the one serving buildings 87-92.
Despite those assumptions on the relative age of the buildings, I think it's a little different you're thinking about the relative age of the villas in the buildings - because they started the refurbishment projects after building that newest section of the resort the villas in those refurbished buildings are actually newer and fresher than those in the "new" buildings. So if you're looking for the newest/freshest then you'd pick the most recently refurbed building - whichever one that is. However, we stayed in 'older' villas in 2005 (building 90), 2007 (a three-bedroom unit in building 80) and 2008 (building 99) and we were very happy with all three of those stays. But then I'm not overwhelmed by granite countertops in the kitchen for a one-week vacation stay. As others have indicated, even if a full refurbishment hasn't taken place, Marriott does a nice job of swapping out soft goods in the villas every few years to keep guest comfort at a high level. It's true that more can be out of order with an older villa but the maintenance staff at the resort is very responsive and they've taken care of any issues that we've identified very quickly (and there haven't been many).
Dick Taylor