My comments in Italics on the post from sharonl7340:
We moved here Oct 2018. We were wowed with all the amenities, but post move we realize we pay for everything (if you want to use the online golf reservation system, then you pay extra). I use the online golf reservation system and don't pay extra. The amenity fee keeps going up. We've owned since mid-2016 and haven't seen any increases in the amenity fee. Everything is crowded during SnowBird season and people are downright rude. In a population this large, there will be rude people but I saw as much or more rudeness every where else I ever lived before retiring and moving here. I can go to any grocery store on any day and see an argument about parking spaces, places in line, well just about everything. I must be wearing rose-colored glasses or something as I just haven't seen this and my wife and I have shopped at multiple grocery locations around The Villages.
The restaurants are terrible and overpriced and it has been much harder to make friends here than I ever anticipated (everyone seems pretty cliquish). For restaurants, "terrible" is in the eye of the beholder. There are restaurants we haven't cared for but it's mostly about our taste in food, just as there we restaurants we didn't care for everywhere else we have lived. Maybe we're not gourmets, but we have found the prices reasonable at the restaurants we frequent; certainly on par with similar level restaurants in other states. Compared to large metropolitan areas, we do find less international cuisine but compared to cities of about the size of The Villages, we find it about on par. We have determined that we may be "too young" to be here. Maybe it is just the neighborhood, but we feel that we are still too young at 57 and 62 to really be here. We were 62 when we moved here and fit right in. My niece was 52 when she moved here and fit right in and loves it. But then we all moved into new neighborhoods and the neighbors were close to our ages. Perhaps you moved into a long-established neighborhood with older residents? That can certainly happen. And one of the things you need to know is that if you choose to move here while you are still working then your activities are really limited as everything happens during daylight hours. I think this is a very valid reservation. We do a LOT here, but as retirees, we have the time now to do it. As my retired brother puts it, "I don't know where I used to find the time to work!" Maybe a retirement community isn't the best place to live for people who are still working full time.
We are still asking ourselves if we made a mistake by coming here, but we need to stay in the house about 3 years to really recoup what we put into it. While I am slowly getting into some activities, it is still difficult to ascertain if we made the correct decision. No place, including The Villages, is going to be perfect for everybody. Some people do move from here to other retirement communities or to non-retirement communities. I wish you good luck on finding your place here or elsewhere.
With all that said, you have to decide what is important to you. Make a list of "must haves" and then decide. Amen to that!
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