Minimal
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 11/09/08
Blue Ridge Village was “minimal” in every way compared to the other eight locations at which we have enjoyed our time share. The 8 to 8 office hours would be considered limited by most Mom and Pop motel operators. Worse yet, when the office was closed you can’t be called by anyone who doesn’t know the telephone extension of your unit. Emergency calls coming in after 8 P.M. just have to wait until 8 A.M. These limited hours caused us another problem when the radio used as an alarm clock in the unit beneath ours came on loudly our last morning. I thought it would be soon turned off but it went on and on. I tried to contact the occupants to ask it be turned down but got no answer. I believe that they had left the day before and accidentally or on purpose left the alarm set. Until the office opened at 8, which was too late to do any good as we had to check out at 10, there was no way to get the radio turned off and no way to sleep with it on. Since we were faced with a ten hour drive that day, we did not appreciate the loss of sleep.
Our unit itself was minimal in several ways. The kitchen was inadequately equipped, there were too few pans and basic utensils, such as spatulas, were not provided. If we had planned on much cooking, we would have had to purchase additional items. There were no chairs in the bedrooms to sit in to read or watch T.V. Propping yourself up in bed was not an option as the bedstead was of ornamental iron rods, very uncomfortable to lean against with only the flimsy pillows provided for padding. There were reasonably comfortable chairs in the living area but the only lamps were too short to cast much light over them thus making it difficult to read after dark sitting in them.
Outside the miniature golf course was only 9 holes and the holes were so short as to not present a challenge to anyone over 8 or 9 years old. Several of the buildings, including ours, were only about 150 yards as the crow flies across a pond from the main lodge but the narrow road to reach them wound around and up and down for a half mile from the lodge. This made use of the swimming pool, Internet access, and games in the lodge very inconvenient for those staying in the far buildings.
Finally we would advise anyone staying here to double check by telephone in advance of arrival the information on check out and in times and other details provided in their confirmation letter. That letter indicated a check-out time of 10 P.M. on our last day but when we arrived we found it had been changed to 10 A.M. We asked if we could stay till noon as we had made plans based on the stated later check-out. Only the manager could approve that and she wasn’t there. In fact, she was not there any of the several times we called over in the coming days and never returned any of the messages we left. Finally the receptionist admitted she would not be in until the following week. This was more infuriating than if she had just said no and added insult to the injury caused by the change in check out times.
