I liked Gold Choice Palm Coast. It was very clean, very simple, and very quiet. They have activities to keep the people busy (if they want to be busy). They do have private rooms, but I wouldn't have been able to put my son into one of them.
They were very good at showing me around everything, and showed me the rooms. They were very clear on what it was and what the cost would be. I liked it because you don't have to cook your own meals. You can go in there, and they cook your meals. They have snack things. They have different rooms and TV rooms. You can have your own TV in your room. They look very comfortable. Right now, he can walk around, cook his own meals, and make his own decisions on what he's going to wear and where he's going to go; we are kind of looking for that. However, I would recommend it to anybody. In fact, I was thinking that this would be maybe a place for me when I need it because I live in a big house all alone.
One of the things that would be a hold back for some would be if you want your own room, but you can't afford it. You would end up having a roommate that you didn't like or something. Their shared rooms didn't even have a panel or a divider. It was maybe two bedrooms on the side of the room that were kind of closed in, but they didn't have anything for a little more privacy. They could maybe divide the room in half.
It was an excellent place, and they had beautiful grounds outside. They had different things, and they could go out any time they wanted in different areas. They kept the ones that probably have their own private units a little bit separated from the ones that were not so private.
I have seen the menus. Every day they rotate to something different, and they have a choice. If they don't like what's on the menu, they can request something different. It's not like you have to eat what they fix. If you want something else, there's another list there. They said you could have a small refrigerator and a small microwave. You can have one of those new hot air things.
The landscape was nice, and it's quiet. The road is not that busy, and there are no busy stores. You're kind of out in the country with no big trucks backing up. There's nothing basically right next to this place. It's out in the middle of a piece of property. I think they had three or four different doors you could go out to be on different sides of the building. They had tables out there. They had some games you could play out there. They had some sun umbrellas up, so it looked very comfortable if you wanted to go outside. It was very clean. There were gardens around, so it looked very nice.
We saw the Gold Choice Palm Coast. We liked the price; but to me, that was about it. The rooms were very small. The carpeting was very cheap and thin. Their memory care had no sink, no kitchen, or anything of that type. There's no room for anything, but a bed and a television and maybe a chest of drawers. They are separated by a wall that only goes up about halfway to the ceiling. I didn't care for it at all. I suggest they improve the size of their rooms. We saw a one-room, and that was it. It was just one room with no dividing walls to separate some type of living area from the sleeping area. It was just dingy to me.
The staff that we had contact with was the sales representative. I wasn't really impressed with him. My wife was though. She said he was very knowledgeable because they left me for a while, and he was talking to her. She was impressed by what he was telling her. However, he came off very arrogant, sort of. They had a game room that was fairly small, and they had a salon.
I toured Gold Choice Palm Coast. We looked at the assisted living and then we looked at both a studio with double occupancy and single occupancy. It was older and not as upgraded. It was still very clean, and it didn't need maintenance, but you could tell that it needed to be updated at some point. It just looked and felt older. It wasn't decorated as modern as the other facilities. We only met one staff, and he was very knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful. They had like a community room for like bingo and movies, and they had a full dining room. There was a room that had a couple of exercise bikes, which was kind of small compared to the other ones, but still, it was there and available. The shared laundry was a lot further away from the apartments or the rooms that were available though. I think that was probably why my stepdad didn't like that one as much. And for Dad to afford that one, he would have had to go with a double occupancy room. The single room was a little more expensive, so Dad didn't really like that. It was a little older, a little smaller, and the quality of the building was not to the standard that the other ones were. It was still nice and clean, but yet not as nice as the other ones.