Wooddale Village Retirement

We have moved into Wooddale Village Retirement. It's independent living. They furnish some care, but not extensive care or assisted care. It is not too much care, but it is some. It's a friendly community. Very nice people live here. Some have been here for quite a few years, and some have moved in for a couple of years; then they've decided they don't have a family here and move. It's a very pleasant place. The help is very nice and very helpful. They really take care of the property. We have housekeeping, and the women do a very good job. Our cook that we have here has been here for many years. In fact, most of the employees in the office have been here many years; it's a very stable place. The help doesn't change very often. We have a lot of young high school kids here in the dining room that are all very courteous and pleasant. This cook has been here quite a few years, and he serves a variety of meals. Everyone feels he does a very good job. They used to have a meeting once a month for complaints about anything, and he would try to correct it. I would say 90 percent of the meals are very good. They give us a choice of three main things. If we don't want that, we have a choice of a hamburger, a hot dog, chicken, or something like that. We have a variety of food. Unfortunately, they had to close for a long time, but they are getting back to doing things. One of the amenities is that there's two swimming pools here. They have a bus that takes people shopping, and they have a car for transportation for going to doctor appointments. They're starting movies. We will have two movies a week. There's a lot of games scheduled and entertainment. They used to have an appreciation breakfast once a month, which was very nice. They're starting to take the bus and do different trips. They have exercise classes. They're starting to do more things with usually entertainment once a month and birthday parties once a month. I looked at many places before I decided to come here, and I'm very happy here with the people, the staff, and everything. Everyone's been very helpful. I moved here for my husband, and he just passed away two weeks ago. I will continue to stay here. I won't be moving anywhere else. They have the activities at very strange times like they might have something starting about the same time as a mealtime. The timing is bad on some of the activities. Some of them start too early in the morning. Like card games and stuff start at 9:00 in the morning, and sometimes I'm just not ready at 9:00 to go and play cards or do something. It's just too early. However, I would recommend it to my friends to move here if they had a choice.

I'm a resident of Wooddale Village Retirement. I have been here more than a few years, so obviously I'm happy with it. We have one main meal served a day, dinner or lunch, and a light breakfast. We have juices, cereals, and rolls. There are different things that you can have for breakfast. We have light housekeeping once a week. They clean your carpet once a year if you want. We have outside door entries at both the front door and the back, and I like that. I don't know of any other place that has that. I'm in the largest one-bedroom. It's 875 square feet. It's very adequate for all my needs. I like that it's very warm and friendly. They take care of you very well. That's important to have a welcoming feeling, and we have that. I think the staff members are very happy, too. They have all been here a long time. The activities director has been here 25 years, the chief chef has been here 15 years, and the head of sales has been here for over 20 years. Everyone has been long-term employees and obviously are satisfied also. We are not associated with any large company, but we have two men that are owners. The food is very good, too. We have 170 units. We have four maintenance men, and they're all busy all the time. The groundskeeping is very nice and very well done. It's a very nice place. Right now, we're shut down. Normally there's 18 card games to choose from. There's bingo and bowling. It just goes on and on. We have two pools, one is heated and one is not. It's very nice. It's going to be hard to find something as nice.

I really liked Wooddale Village Retirement. It was actually a little bit bigger than other places and the apartments were a little bit bigger too, with a full kitchen and a little patio. They have a couple of swimming pools, one heated, one not. Each apartment faces a big central court, and the apartments are clustered around the activity center, so it makes it accessible and it's located within a few steps of almost every apartment. They have a library and the dining room is fantastic. They have an indoor spa, a theater, an exercise room, and a hair salon. Sharon, the person who took us around, was awesome and greeted almost everybody we passed by name. They have the best food of any place that we visited. The grounds were spectacular. It was just very comfortable.

We moved into Wooddale Village retirement, and it takes care of our needs. We recommend it to most of our friends. It's a 2-story structure with just under 200 apartments, some are 1-bedroom, and some are 2-bedrooms, with five or six different sizes of apartments. They have a cafeteria-style breakfast, with a choice of midday or evening meal. A maid comes around once a week to clean. The staff is excellent.