In general, my wife and I were pleased with our stay at the property Friday 9/17/10 through Monday, 9/20/10. The resort staff was uniformly polite and responsive and the studio unit we were assigned generally met our expectations.
Some let downs and areas for improvement:
1) It was obvious that there are some deferred maintenance issues with our unit. In the toilet tub room, the baseboard paint is cracked and peeling away. In the tub/shower itself, the top of the surround is woefully cracked and gapped and needed to be caulked in the worst way immediately. Both of these jobs could be easily done during a normal 4 hour turn of the room WITHOUT taking it out of service. There's a resident handyman or Mr. Fixit on the prowl with his supply/tool cart; why was this obvious minor repair let go? It tells me the housekeeping supervisors are not taking the time to examine their units with an "owner's eye". I own some apartment units and we're always on the lookout for minor damage, signs of aging, water stains, and/or dried out caulking in the tub and toilet areas.
2) When we checked in, we were sent over to the activities/tour desk to pick up our amenity kit, which included some wipes and a complimentary shaver, but no shampoo or conditioner. Saturday morning I went down to ask for some shampoo and was directed to the on-site Gift Shop where I had to pay $2.50, plus tax, to get an amenity sized bottle of commercial grade shampoo. Why is that?
I absolutely hate and resent that many hotels and resorts have taken to componentizing their product and charging for various "ups and addons". It's nickel and diming the customer. I pay roughly $700 per year for "maintenance" for one (1) week. Wyndham is one of the world's LARGEST hotel chains. Surely with their bulk purchasing power they can acquire amenity-sized shampoo and conditioner for complimentary availability, on request, at their Worldmark properties. To charge for them is chintzy and certainly not in keeping with a "world class" experience. It occurs to me as a "gotcha", because it is now so difficult to travel with a personal supply of shampoo and conditioner if one doesn't check their bag (another $35.00 gotcha from the airlines). I'd rather pay slightly more for my annual dues and not be hit with these miscellaneous amenity fees.
Further, to charge for internet access is also highly objectionable. The resort needs a "fat pipe" anyhow to carry its timeshare sales and hotel operations data traffic. The guest internet access could be provided free of charge and could be managed by the server to allow the resort's internal business traffic to have priority on the inbound and outbound legs.
I travel a fair amount and I now carry a Verizon MiFi with me, because I got SO TIRED of various hotels and airports (not all) charging for internet access. It's just ridiculous. Again, I'd rather pay slightly more in annual fees and get rid of these obnoxious "toll booth" type charges. It makes no sense to me and at the end of the day is indefensible OTHER than "we have you over the barrel and we can get away with it".
3) On Sunday morning I got up at around 5:20 AM and came down to the Lobby area to get a cup of coffee and I purchased a newspaper to read. My wife wanted to sleep in and this way I could enjoy the paper without the rustling of pages disturbing her. I noticed that the Lobby and Pool areas of the resort have nice background music playing all day, which is fine. HOWEVER, at 7:30AM or so Sunday morning the tour/activity staff for the timeshare sales operation came in to open their area in the Lobby and get set up for the day. They proceeded to turn on (and turn up) their own music, which led off with the driving and thumping music theme from the movie "Top Gun"... Highway to the Danger Zone.
Needless to say, sitting in the Lobby trying to enjoy a quiet Sunday morning with a newspaper was turned into feeling like I had an involuntary front row seat at some battle of the bands being played out simultaneously. I got up and left and went back to my room.
A couple of observations:
• There should NEVER be more than one format of music playing in the public areas... period. It's intolerable, in poor taste, and certainly not hospitable. And I could care less about the needs, wants, or music preferences of the timeshare sales lobby staff, whom I sure want a more fast-paced or drive-type music going to psychologically enhance their appointment pitches.
• If I had to guess, the Timeshare Sales division has its own distinct on site management with whom the hotel has to maintain some type of "uneasy" management stand-off when it comes to issues like this.
• If I had to further guess, the Timeshare Sales folks consider themselves to be the "top guns" at the resort, given the number of expensive cars I saw taking the spaces close to the lobby. I might normally attribute them to some inbound guests, however, I saw a local mobile detailler washing and waxing these same cars in front of the hotel. I have to assume they belong to the resident timeshare sales staff and/or sales management.
4) When I did return to my room Sunday morning after leaving the Lobby because of the very apparent conflicting music selections, I still had no peace. From approximately 7:40 AM to 8:00 AM there was a very loud noise coming from the pool patio area beneath our window. After about 10 minutes, I got tired of listening to it and went down to see what was causing the racket. One of the maintenance people was out by the fence that separates the Lobby patio area from the northwest pool area. He was using a Briggs & Stratton gasoline-powered spray unit to either wash something down or water the trees; I couldn't tell. In addition to the loud ambient noise ANY Briggs & Stratton motor makes while it's running, this one would surge every time the man pulled the trigger on the wand and the water sprayed out.
Unless it's an emergency, why is ANY loud and noisy maintenance operation permitted to occur at a resort before 9:30 AM or 10:00 AM? It makes no sense to me... The staff, or certainly their supervisors, should think ahead regarding the unintended consequences for the guests of performing their assigned tasks. Did it occur to anyone that some folks might be tired and want to rest or that perhaps others had had a late night out on the town and might want to sleep in?
Given the 360 degree stucco courtyard design of the property, loud sound bounces and reverbrates around the patio and pool areas, any run of the mill MORON should know that you don't operate loud equipment early in the morning where folks are sleeping.
It might seem a bit obvious, but if this work needs to be done regularly before the pool area opens at 8 AM, perhaps the resort might consider purchasing an ELECTRICALLY powered pressure washing unit. They are about 90% quieter than a gasoline powered one...
As I said earlier, the staff was uniformly very polite and responsive and we generally enjoyed our stay AND we would return. However, management's "Perfect 10" flyers were posted in the elevators and elsewhere on hallway bulletin boards. To my my of thinking, that's a very high standard or benchmark to aspire to and one shouldn't attempt, in advance, to "bleed their audience" for applause. I fully understand that Wyndham, in no small way, rates its managers on the guest feedback it receives. However, it seems a little pretentious to pre-frame the guests' expectations, in writing, for the grades the resort wants to receive... kind of like a waiter dropping excessive hints that he or she is expecting a big tip. Polite, pleasant, clean, and efficient will consistently get you 7's and 8's.
If the resort REALLY wants a 10 score, then ALL the staff not only needs to be consistently polite and responsive, they also need to think ahead and be PROACTIVE and anticipatory of guest needs.
To get and keep a "Perfect 10", the staff also needs to constantly adopt and train for an "owner's eye". Like being on the lookout for minor deferred maintenance, like not charging for a small bottle of shampoo, like not having the timeshare/activity desk staff turn on separate music THEY like, like having maintenance people who are conscious of how much noise or disruption their activity or task might cause a guest to experience early in the morning.
In the hospitality business, ALL employees are equally responsible for maintaining the brand AND the customer experience. Marketing is AN UNDERLYING ATTITUDE and worldview, not a department.
When all resort team members are functioning in a consistently proactive mode and working together like a well-conducted symphony, Perfect 10's are both clearly earned and deserved... no posted reminders or begathons will be necessary.
[Please note: I made these comments, in an email, directly to the Resort GM and received a very prompt, polite, and detailed reply thanking me for my input and assuring me that my observations would be brought up at their next training meeting.]
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
