Wyndham Ocean Walk, Daytona Beach - all 2018 availability gone

[55plus]

Dear Wyndham,

What's up? I just check Ocean Walk and as of today all availability from today through the end of 2018 is gone. The other day all December 2017 availability disappeared. Then all January 2018 availability disappeared. And now, today all availability for the remainder of 2018 is gone. What's the deal? What are you up to this time?

 

[Dave Landry]

Wow! Just checked and getting the same thing as you. Hopefully it's a mistake and will be fixed. We were hoping to go down sometime in February or March but are still waiting for our contract to transfer.

 

[Sandy VDH]

Star island just disappeared too

 

[Avislo]

This appears to be spinning out of control on the availability issues. Is Wyndham in more trouble than we think?

 

[chapjim]

Dear Wyndham,

What's up? I just check Ocean Walk and as of today all availability from today through the end of 2018 is gone. The other day all December 2017 availability disappeared. Then all January 2018 availability disappeared. And now, today all availability for the remainder of 2018 is gone. What's the deal? What are you up to this time?

So if I cancel an early January reservation, what are the odds it will reappear in inventory? Zero?

 

[Avislo]

The way this ball is bouncing, I am not sure how much 2018 inventory is going to be offered or where it will be offered. As people search for things if they find additional resorts not showing availability for one year, it would be interesting reading.

 

[55plus]

A potential problem I see is if an owner is deeded at Ocean Walk and wants to book a reservation beginning January 1, 2019 (13 month APR) and no availability is showing, then what? As of today nothing is available through the end of 2018. I wonder what January 2019, will look like?

 

[Dave Landry]

Showing availability again but tried several different dates as a check in date and get the following message!


With the current check-in date selection there aren't any units available for a continuous stay. Please select another check-in date or resort to proceed.

 

[DeeDibble]

How many of you think it’s a purposeful event? Who thinks it is because of the damage to the Pompano Beach Resorts from the hurricanes? Who thinks it’s simply this POS website? I have to say as simply being an owner who uses all of our ownership to go on vacations and having friends and family I am so upset with Wyndham. It’s beyond my comprehension as to how the decision makers are treating us

 

[Avislo]

Damage to Pompano Beach and other weather damaged resorts, believe, in part. Not believing new website issues. Pass on purpose event - who knows on this one.

 

[kaljor]

I just spent 5 nights there and checked out on Sunday the 12th. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary, the resort didn't seem very crowded, so I'm at a loss to explain why there is such limited future availability.

 

[ilya]

Damage to Pompano Beach and other weather damaged resorts, believe, in part. Not believing new website issues. Pass on purpose event - who knows on this one.

I don't think this resort had any major damage. They were scheduled to make renovations (South Tower) and took inventory off line September 1st. Did not appear back until last week for a few moments. Luckily I was able to grab a room for Thanksgiving week. (while my 1 bedroom sat not upgraded.) I do think with most of the resorts they are probably taking advantage of hurricane insurance money instead of the reserves they were originally going to use. Maybe they don't get the insurance money if the resort does not show loss.

Royal Vista renovations should have been well underway in the renovation process by the time the hurricane hit. They started the 2nd week of July. Many other resorts were up and running a week after the hurricane. The major problem for the coastal in that area was the power, from what many of the resorts have reported.

 

[DeeDibble]

I’ve talked to staff at Sea Gardens, Royal Vista and Palm Aire. All 3 staff members said there was a lot of water damage and that it’s taking a lot more time due to contractors and supplies on backlog.

 

[Sandi Bo]

Showing availability again but tried several different dates as a check in date and get the following message!


With the current check-in date selection there aren't any units available for a continuous stay. Please select another check-in date or resort to proceed.

I was that seeing that same behavior/message at Bonnet Creek around the same time last night (for dates in December that have been unavailable and are unavailable today).

I do think they were having 'back end' issues yesterday. Guessing after we had logged in they lost some connectivity to the database (back end) so the website (front end) was not reporting correctly. Basically confused. Things seem back to "normal" today (whatever "normal" is these days in the world of WYNdham).

 

[Roger830]

While at Sea Gardens Ocean Palms, we have had water come into the room thru the balcony's sliding door during a rainstorm with moderate wind.

At Hollywood Sands Resort, we have $5000 hurricane proof doors that swing out. No water damage. The wind blows the door tightly closed.

 

[ilya]

I’ve talked to staff at Sea Gardens, Royal Vista and Palm Aire. All 3 staff members said there was a lot of water damage and that it’s taking a lot more time due to contractors and supplies on backlog.[/QUOTE

I’ve talked to staff at Sea Gardens, Royal Vista and Palm Aire. All 3 staff members said there was a lot of water damage and that it’s taking a lot more time due to contractors and supplies on backlog.

SIL lives directly between RV and Sea Garden on the beach. Only problem they had was a temp power outage.

 

[jaygould]

We are currently staying in a three-bedroom unit at Wyndham Daytona Ocean Walk nearing the end of a one-week stay that we booked online as a discounted two-bedroom-with-upgrade-please TEN DAYS before the reservation was to start as a substitute for a last-minute cancelled reservation at Sea Gardens. Some of the units at the north end of the north tower suffered water damage and are closed for renovations but most of the resort seems to be fully functional. At high tide, the water comes right up to the seawall and at low tide goes out to the usual high tide level.
I suspect that Wyndham may have shut off further booking access to undamaged Florida inventory till next spring in order to accommodate the anticipated upcoming cancellations of confirmed Florida bookings at damaged-and-still-unrepaired properties. This may open up some interesting last-minute discounted booking opportunities as it did for me.

 

[richardm]

Plenty of miscommunication from Wyndham.. The front desk staff keep blaming repair delays on county permits, but county employees state that only two permit applications have even been received from Wyndham, and those only recently. Per the county, the permit process has been streamlined and costs reduced in an effort to speed up recovery. Per the front desk employees, little to no progress has been made.

Spoke with Lighthouse Cove and the front desk there states they were able to get all rooms repaired and back to fully operational in only four weeks after being completely shut down by damage. Spoke with Marriott BeachPlace and they state repairs are proceeding smoothly and they expect to return to full operations near the end of this month. Issues seem to be solely with Wyndham resorts. Makes me wonder if this is a result of the confusion and financial issues of the proposed spinoff (target date was beginning of 2018). Perhaps the two sides can't determine who's going to pay for the repairs. If they keep delaying, they can hit owners with special assessments and allow the new timeshare business to collect and fund the repairs that way?? If so, that could also be the reason for the refurbishment delays happening at Bonnet Creek as well. When the purse strings squeeze shut, it makes sense that the work would stop!

 

[55plus]

I don't buy Wyndham's explanation. If what Wyndham stated were true they would have pulled all available inventory within days of the hurricane (immediately after a walk through was completed), not wait until early November. Wyndham is known for lying to owners and I believe that's what they are doing in this case. I suspect Wyndham's wheels are turning to figure out how to profit from the hurricane related to the spinoff.

 

[Avislo]

At least one resort, Wyndham Patriot's Place, recommend use of RCI and Extra Holidays, a number of other Wyndham representative mention Wyndham Vacations.

 

[ilya]

At least one resort, Wyndham Patriot's Place, recommend use of RCI and Extra Holidays, a number of other Wyndham representative mention Wyndham Vacations.

So why are they not pulling inventory from extra holiday's?

 

[richardm]

When units are lost at a resort, Wyndham can normally put a hold on any cancellations or new reservations at a specific property. The stated purpose of this would be to recapture any cancellations to use and correct overbooking (resulting from the units withdrawn for repair). This has been seen recently at the Pompano Beach resorts, Ocean Walk, and Bonnet Creek. Why such holds would be entered to the system and extended throughout all of 2018... Again- we have to assume it is either intentional, or a result of poor management and operations.

You can pull the transcript from the 3rd quarter earnings call and see comments from CEO Mike Brown.. Those comments appear to be in direct contrast to what is actually happening..

...."Well there has been a lot of noise and sometimes it's easy to confuse all of it. What I would say is I would and I'll share a few areas to look at but what you should be focused on is what we're focused on which is first of all we're number one focused on the consumers. And when you look at this industry over time it's been an extremely resilient industry because people love the value proposition and love the product offering that is Vacation Ownership whether it's Wyndham Vacation Ownership or anyone in the industry.

So to the extent that we can execute that business plan and put people on vacations at the highest rate possible, we're going to be doing the best thing we can for our consumers and create long-term sustainable growth.

Our business and one of my primary focuses in the first six months has been about getting our owners on vacation towards greatest extent as possible and maximum utilization of their ownership......"

https://seekingalpha.com/article/41...-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single

 

[55plus]

It appears CEO Mike Brown must have sales weasel experience or at the very least had sales weasel training - say one thing when in fact it's the total opposite.

 

[ilya]

where is all the inventory going ? seems odd one resort after another has vanishing inventory?

 

[Avislo]

Hard to tell at this point. I do not believe this can be attributed to the new web site at this point. Hopefully, people keep reporting the name of the resort(s) that missing inventory is showing up at and a trend emerges on what the answer to your question is. Is this the beginning and/or expanding of the segmentation of what was Club Wyndham Plus?