Palace View - the WORST exchange I've had in 18 years, by FAR

Details will be in my review in the member Reviews section, but this was the worst. Floors/ceilings are PAPER-thin in the 800 building. I had requested - both by phone and in writing, 5 months prior to the exchange - a top-floor unit, but the reservation staff insisted multiple times that they never rec'd it until, lo and behold, there it was in their file, with "Done" hand-written across it. By that time, they had no top-floor units left to give us.

We didn't sleep for sh*t one single night. Every step above us was like a giant stomping. These buildings must have been thrown up with no standards at all, just as cheaply as possible. I feel sorry for owners at Palace View, as the maintenance costs over the lifetime of this place will be astronomical, and the staff there could use endless hours of customer-service training.

I have NEVER "bitched" about an exchange ANYWHERE before, and I've stayed in places as bad as run-down converted motel rooms, so keep this in perspective. This is not just some lunatic rant. The staff at PV had 5 months' worth of chances to prevent this, and they JUST - DIDN'T - CARE!

Where is Palace View? Sounds as bad as the timeshare we had at Atlantic City--spent the night and went home the next day.

Branson (RCI 4067)?

"Roger" said:

Branson (RCI 4067)?

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That's it (sorry I left it out of the original post).

Kauai Kid said:

Where is Palace View? Sounds as bad as the timeshare we had at Atlantic City--spent the night and went home the next day.

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What resort was that?

La Renaissance (LAR)--it has been years ago though. Hopefully it is better now.

Sterling

Wow, the TUG ratings shows a rating of 8.10 ranked #13 out of 50. Based on TUG ratings I would have had no problem with a stay there.

But..... Now I guess I would have to reconsider that

My rating is at least 10 years old so don't base a vacation on that old piece of data. Hopefully it has significantly improved--it needed to. TUG is more accurate and more up to date. But, my wife didn't even want to spend the night.

Sterling

kcirbodmot said:

Details will be in my review in the member Reviews section, but this was the worst. Floors/ceilings are PAPER-thin in the 800 building. I had requested - both by phone and in writing, 5 months prior to the exchange - a top-floor unit, but the reservation staff insisted multiple times that they never rec'd it until, lo and behold, there it was in their file, with "Done" hand-written across it. By that time, they had no top-floor units left to give us.

We didn't sleep for sh*t one single night. Every step above us was like a giant stomping. These buildings must have been thrown up with no standards at all, just as cheaply as possible. I feel sorry for owners at Palace View, as the maintenance costs over the lifetime of this place will be astronomical, and the staff there could use endless hours of customer-service training.

I have NEVER "bitched" about an exchange ANYWHERE before, and I've stayed in places as bad as run-down converted motel rooms, so keep this in perspective. This is not just some lunatic rant. The staff at PV had 5 months' worth of chances to prevent this, and they JUST - DIDN'T - CARE!

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Don't feel to bad. We just returned from 3 nights at Westgate Branson Woods and had the exact same issues. Unfortunately this is high family season and everyone around us had little kids. Half the time they sounded as if they were coming through the ceiling. As for next door we could hear every word clearly of any normal conversation they were having. We went out and bought a fan at K-Mart for white noise so we could sleep a little better.

Oh yea, to top it all off, while we were out one afternoon someone (I'm sure it was one of the staff) let themselve's into our room and stole a camera, camera bag, 4.5 gigs of memory cards and 8 rechargable batteries that I had sitting on the kitchen table, which was right next to the door. Needless to say it wasn't exactly a great vacation.

Wow, here too!

I've been following TUG for about ten years and Branson resorts for longer than that. This is the first complaint I have heard about Palace View, pertaining to anything at that resort, and it is one of the in-town choices I have always recommended, and still will.

I know folks who have stayed there, and we have visited them there, and never heard a complaint (except for the day that Rapmarks had their car totalled--not at the resort!).

It is a nice resort, with a nice office, a nice free business center with Internet access, and a nice indoor pool area. it is convenient to in-town stuff, but enough off the beaten track to be quiet and intimate. (Well, except for the noise from above, I guess. )

I'd go with the 8 rating. Based on our 100 exchanges, that's about where it should be.

As a person who was away from home more than 100 nights a year, I know the value of a pair of earplugs, a buck at Wal Mart.

Noise from above and from kids is common wherever we have gone, well, except for the ugly little resort we like in SW FL, where the sign in the office says, "Unattended children will be sold into slavery."

But, somehow, that doesn't seem appropriate for a vacation resort.

Having said all this, I should point out that perhaps Hillbilly construction is not up to the standards of elsewhere. (To be politically correct, I mean Ozark Americans). But I have stayed in poorly built hotels and resorts in all areas of the country.

Arkansas Winger said:

Wow, the TUG ratings shows a rating of 8.10 ranked #13 out of 50. Based on TUG ratings I would have had no problem with a stay there.

But..... Now I guess I would have to reconsider that

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JLB said:

As a person who was away from home more than 100 nights a year, I know the value of a pair of earplugs, a buck at Wal Mart.

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Needless to say, earplugs are the "duh" answer - I wore them myself, and the booming thuds still were enough to keep me awake. Further, have you ever tried to get a "special needs" kid with autistic tendencies to accept earplugs in his ears?

None of this would even be pertinent had the staff at Palace View :ignore: not completely ignored my request. In the competitive Branson lodging market, this is simply unacceptable, and I still don't see why anybody should take a chance with their precious vacation time by staying there.

In our case, it was particularly damaging because we followed this week with a week in another state visiting my side of the family. Instead of arriving rested and excited to be there, we were exhausted and ready to get home. :annoyed:

We had the same problem at an upscale Fairfield Kingsgate in Williamsburg, VA. What we learned was to never trade into a resort built with wood frame construction. The only way to minimize the overhead noise is a townhouse style or concrete construction. The only wood frame we liked was Cape Cod Holiday Estates on Cape Cod, which were actually small single family homes in the woods, so no adjoining walls.

Palace View Last Year

We stayed at Palace View in Branson last year and had no problems. Unit was beautiful and spacious. We had no noise problem. Staff was O.K. not overly friendly but not rude. Only complain would be the heat (it was over 100 every day). Our family decided we really aren't the Branson type and probably won't be vacationing there again but if we did I wouldn't hesitate to stay at the Palace View again.

It may of course depend on the building you are in. We were in what I think are some of the newer units. (I can't remember the number...but you drive in pass office on left get to end of road and turn right and it was building on the left.)

bad stays

Bad experiences happen-even at the best resorts! Why should this surprise anyone??

Anyone else having the thought, "A bad week in Branson is still better than a good week at work?"

Sorry, Everybody, For Wasting Your Time

Removed because it did not advance the discussion about the poor treatment we received.

Don't go away mad.

I was where I think you are at about 20000 posts ago, but I still remember the feeling. It can be just devastating when someone does not agree with something you believe with all your heart.

I have also learned that very few on Internet forums will sympathize with you unless they have had exactly the same experience.

The way TUG has always worked is to allow for a balanced discussion. If someone posts a negative, those who have positive experiences to share, do so.

I guess you either accept that, or get POed. Maybe it takes a few times of having others speaking their own mind to get used to it.

It did for me. It took me awhile to learn that just because I think something, that doesn't mean everyone else thinks the same thing. I recall wording a topic maybe six or seven years ago, What is Wrong With People Like this? It does not matter what the topic is/was, because the answer is nothing, they just think differently about it than I do.

Even at a late stage in life, I have learned a lot about people from Internet forums.

You learn about people from the bulk of their overall contribution, not from just one post on one topic.

The fact still remains that you are the very first person that I know of that has posted about a bad experience at Palace View. Perhaps now there will be a deluge of folks reporting the same thing. Let's wait and see.

kcirbodmot said:

Sorry, Jimster and JLB, I'll be sure never to relate any personal timesharing experience on a TUG Bulletin Board again; after all, that's not what these boards are for, is it? Take it for what it's worth.

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Don't worry about what other people might think. You had a bad experience and anyone with a special need (whether it's a child or some other reason) should be aware of the situation you had.

On the other hand, while this clouded your entire stay it doesn't mean that Palace View is a resort that everyone should stay away from at all costs. All resorts will have front staff that won't follow up on a request. Someone started the ball rolling but someone else dropped the ball along the way. Maybe that person will be working at that resort in another couple of years but maybe they won't.

Based on the one problem you had, you've rated this resort a 1 on your review (I'm assuming that was your review). I understand your frustration but, in the big picture for the rest of timeshare exchangers I think that was a little unfair. How many other people would have the same very personal experience that you had and rate the resort based on that one issue? There's another review that rated French Quarter a 1 because someone backed into their car at the resort and the resort refused to pay for the damages.

Is it fare that French Quarter's ranking takes a hit because of that one special need? IMO it isn't. Nor do I think that Palace View desrerve's a rating so poorly based on their inability to get an exchanger into a specific location. Exchangers fall in line behind owners. Owners should always get preference over exchangers no matter what the special need might be. They are the one's that paid the developer price for their units, they are the one's that pay any special assements, they are the one's that pay the MF's of that resort and they should be the one's to have preference of unit location at their own resort. After all, they own it. As an exchanger into any resort you'll have to face the fact that despite any special needs you might have, someone else will always be in line ahead of you.

Now, if you were an owner at Palace View and were treated this why in preference to someone who had exchanged into your home resort, how would you feel then? My bet is you'd be even madder than you are now.

Don't get me wrong, I understand your frustration and can see why you'd be PO'd. Especially since your request had been approved but someone else dropped the ball by not paying attention. That would tend to tick me off as well but, to ding the entire resort on this one incident of room location as an exchanger isn't enough for me to condem the entire resort or boycott exchanging into that resort.

Heck, I had my camera stolen at Westgate Branson Woods but I'm not about the rate the resort a 1 based on that one experience that most likely involved only 1 employee. It just isn't fare to the resort or others on these forums. I'll post my information and let others make up their own minds as to the worth of Westgate's Branson Woods.

BTW, in my review I still gave the resort a decent rating based on the resort as a whole, not completely bagged the resort because of that one bad incident. Now if only TUG will get my review posted (it wasn't as of this morning).

Removed because it did not advance the discussion about the poor treatment we received.

Removed because it did not advance the discussion about the poor treatment we received. 'nuff said.

kcirbodmot said:

I was trying to warn others who may have the same concerns regarding soundproofing (or lack of it) and what laughably passed for "Customer Service". It seems exceedingly arrogant of anybody who was not there to question whether or not our experience was really that bad, doesn't it?

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Your view is your opinion and I find you brave for posting your honest opinion because some people will be upset as you may be hurting their feelings if they happen to own at that resort.

A noise problem is a nuisance anywhere and wood frame structures do not muffle hardly any sound very well. By putting this in the TUG reviews, you are saving other people from this annoyance too.

The problem is that you find noisy people anywhere, if they leave their windows open or they talk loud outside or in the hallways late at night. Thank goodness, it doesn't happen too often unless they have had too much fun drinking beer or whatever with a larger group.

PS. I didn't read your rating or review but I read now that you gave it a 1. You were upset but is the resort really worth only a 1?

The whole rating system is too personal so I don't pay any attention to it ever and I will never rate a resort myself for that reason alone.

I see we have moved on from resort review.

Sorry to see that.

If I am the one that took it astray, sorry I did that.

Re-reading the thread, I see I missed your post about a special needs person. Thus, my next post does sound a bit flip. That was not intended.

I did not quote that post of yours; I was responding in general, and to the posts subsequent to your special needs post.

So, sorry you had a bad experience, but it is still the only one I have heard of at that resort. Of course, there has to be others.

Kauai Kid said:

La Renaissance (LAR)--it has been years ago though. Hopefully it is better now.

Sterling

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We've stayed at La Renaissance several times in the last few years. It's not a 5 star but the location is terrific for those who like to gamble. It was always clean when we were there and the staff was always nice. We've stayed in both a one bedroom and a two bedroom. Both are 'tiny' when comparing to, say, Orlando but it is beachfront, boardwalk-front and, again, a terrific location for gamblers. We never used the car when we were there except for the few times we decided to do a little sightseeing in the area.

I am there right now. I think the staffs are not friendly at all. They do not have some one to give your travel plan. They charged you $150 in advance for security. I have never encounter that before. The internet only available in club house. other than that. It is OK. Not a high end resort.

yan19454 said:

I am there right now. I think the staffs are not friendly at all. They do not have some one to give your travel plan. They charged you $150 in advance for security. I have never encounter that before. The internet only available in club house. other than that. It is OK. Not a high end resort.

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I've had resorts take the credit card imprint for security and I've had resorts take a security deposit, either cash or credit card, before. All the resorts we've exchanged into have required some sort of security deposit or credit card imprint when we've checked in. This has been standard practice even when staying at one of our home resorts.

Internet is hit and miss with many resorts. Of the resorts we own at, only three have WiFi in the room. Two do not even offer internet access at all. Internet access has also been hit or miss with our exchanges. Some resorts have WiFi in the units at no charge. Others have it but charge you a usage fee. Some only have WiFi in the lobby. Others have a few computers that you can use, mostly for a fee. Finally a few don't have internet options at all unless you want to connect to their phone lines and use a dial up service.