Upgraded room only to be kicked out of it
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 7/5/05
I read a lot of reviews about this place before my boyfriend and I got to Florida. My parents own a timeshare and let us use guest passes. I do agree with other reviews that complained about the lack of parking. Often times even in the extra lot we had to sit and wait for someone to leave.
They have just recently renovated all the rooms so they were actually rather nice. However, we went from Wednesday to Wednesday instead of the usual Saturday to Saturday. It caused some issues with our billing, and we got kicked out of our upgraded room. We were told at checkin that our room had been upgraded. We thought hey that's great. We were sent an express checkout notice on friday when we weren't supposed to check out until the following Wednesday. I went to the desk and she clarified that they send those to everyone because most people stay Saturday to Saturday. I wanted to make sure we were still on the books for the rest of the week. She said yes but I would have to come back to get my new room keys, parking pass, and towel card. I asked her what she was talking about and she told me we were being moved to a different room. I asked her why and she said because we didn't get the upgraded room for the whole week, only until Saturday when the new guests arrive. I was horrorstruck. Who does that? There was no mention of this at checkin. In fact, I was speaking to the same woman who had check us in. The worst part was that we were moved to the farthest building from the water and placed in a small room with no balcony, no ocean view and no oven after we had bought dinners that required baking (based on the kitchen in our upgraded room). We went from one of the "penthouse" rooms (which are really just nice, slightly larger hotel rooms) and shipped to the other side of the world. I was then told that if I came back the next morning, I would be given a beeper so they could let us know when our new room was ready and if we packed up our stuff, someone would move it for us. Essentially, we would be roomless for a day and we wouldn't be able to sleep in. We had to be out by 10, regular checkout time. We had intended to go to the keys the next day and had no intention of being within beeping distance. I argued with her about at least being able to move Friday night so strangers wouldn't be touching our stuff and she finally conceded. We found out later that we were moved to a worse room than we were originally supposed to be in. If we had known we would have to move, we would have just taken our first floor room near the pool with the balconey instead. We then paid the mandatory fee for maid service only to find they never came most likely because we were forced to move. I had to go ask for more toilet paper.
It's a decent place to stay although it's flanked by Trump towers. I just wish I had known the right questions to ask. They also don't do the express checkout if you go Wednesday to Wednesday. Just be wary when they tell you your room had been upgraded, ask if you'll have to move later and make sure you ask where the other parking lot is or you might get towed.
The beach is litter free although there is a lot of seaweed. There is free laundry and towel service, but don't lose that towel card they give you or you'll be charged $50. Not the best of "first timeshare" experiences and I'm glad we refused to pick up our welcome packet because they would've tried to sell me a timeshare and I might have said something I would regret.