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Aruba Surf Club unit assignment

enma

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As I am sitting on the 4th floor Spyglass balcony here at the Surf Club I can only wonder how the villas are assigned. My husband and I own 2 weeks here. We also own other MVC weeks and destination points and are presidential level owners. We have been coming here every year for 15+ yrs. However, we do exchange a lot thru interval and typically come here on Interval exchange in lower season. Also we usually come here with a big group so I have a few villas reserved . This time it was just my husband and I so only one unit. First we were offered a handicap unit in a Lighthouse building. We declined that since my husband is tall and the counters were way too low. Manager Boris was quite rude about it, too as a matter of fact. Yes, that is a part of the inventory but for heavens sake save those units for people that need them. Then we were given an unit where we are now, 4th floor in Spyglass building. That's fine, better than a handicap unit. Over the years , 15+ yrs , I remember being on a high floor only once, max twice. Other times never higher than 6th. I truly have to say regardless if I use Interval or not I sure do not feel like an appreciated MVC presidental level owner. After all, Interval is now owned by Marriott and my maintenance fees do keep people employed here unlike any other Interval exchangers who use a non-Marriott timeshare for an exchange to come to Surf Club. We will be coming back in June with 5 2-bedrooms villas reserved for the same time period. Very curious to see where we end up then having the villas close to each other being the top priority. I love Aruba and usually don't let the villa assignments get to me but this just makes me wonder how these units truly are assigned. According to people here this is NOT a high demand week.
 
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Luvtoride

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Enma, it sounds like one of the eternal mysteries of MVC and I'm not sure if it varies by property. I remember once seeing a clearly defined priority order of villa assignments at Ocean Pointe on Singer Island, where we own. It clearly delineated the order in which Villas were assigned and "Interval traders" (either Marriott owners at that resort, other MVC resorts, or NON-Marriott resorts) was somewhere lower down on the list. I'm sure somewhere here on TUG that listing or a similar one exists somewhere.

We go to the Aruba Surf Club every year, where we DO NOT own. We reserve our villa using DC points (we are Chairman's level) as an Oceanside Villa and request the Lighthouse tower when we get the pre-arrival email. We are always in that building on a higher floor (I think 6th was the lowest floor we were ever on), facing the pool and adjacent to our other family member who owns an Oceanside week at Surf Club and books it with MVC almost immediately upon our return home each year for the following year.

We have other friends who own 2 platinum season Oceanside weeks at Aruba Surf Club who ALWAYS request to be in the Compass building and never go during platinum season. They actually prefer to be "downgraded" to stay in that building.

I understand your frustration. Maybe next time book the week you want to stay directly with MVC and perhaps you will get a more desirable villa assignment.
Hey, you're in Aruba...chill out and enjoy it.
Brian (from balmy 76 degrees NYC today)
 

Dean

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As I am sitting on the 4th floor Spyglass balcony here at the Surf Club I can only wonder how the villas are assigned. My husband and I own 2 weeks here. We also own other MVC weeks and destination points and are presidential level owners. We have been coming here every year for 15+ yrs. However, we do exchange a lot thru interval and typically come here on Interval exchange in lower season. Also we usually come here with a big group so I have a few villas reserved . This time it was just my husband and I so only one unit. First we were offered a handicap unit in a Lighthouse building. We declined that since my husband is tall and the counters were way too low. Manager Boris was quite rude about it, too as a matter of fact. Yes, that is a part of the inventory but for heavens sake save those units for people that need them. Then we were given an unit where we are now, 4th floor in Spyglass building. That's fine, better than a handicap unit. Over the years , 15+ yrs , I remember being on a high floor only once, max twice. Other times never higher than 6th. I truly have to say regardless if I use Interval or not I sure do not feel like an appreciated MVC presidental level owner. After all, Interval is now owned by Marriott and my maintenance fees do keep people employed here unlike any other Interval exchangers who use a non-Marriott timeshare for an exchange to come to Surf Club. We will be coming back in June with 5 2-bedrooms villas reserved for the same time period. Very curious to see where we end up then having the villas close to each other being the top priority. I love Aruba and usually don't let the villa assignments get to me but this just makes me wonder how these units truly are assigned. According to people here this is NOT a high demand week.
A couple of thoughts. Technically when exchanging ownership is not part of the assignment process. In general for many weeks they'll have to assign HC units to those that don't request them thus someone has to get them. They are held back as the last to go for HC but that's it. My experience on 4 trips and multiple units is they give you the priority for the underlying reservation and the view type that's reserved.
 

suzannesimon

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I think Surf Club is one of the resorts that is pretty specific about the pecking order on room assignment. I never expect a good location as an Interval trader. I also don’t expect any special consideration for owning multiple weeks or being a “Titanium” Bonvoy member because it isn’t listed as criteria in their room assignments. I’m pretty happy as long as I’m not looking at a parking lot.
 

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I think Surf Club is one of the resorts that is pretty specific about the pecking order on room assignment. I never expect a good location as an Interval trader. I also don’t expect any special consideration for owning multiple weeks or being a “Titanium” Bonvoy member because it isn’t listed as criteria in their room assignments. I’m pretty happy as long as I’m not looking at a parking lot.

My ocean view owner unit faced the parking lot last year!! I was not happy but stayed there without complaining as we had 3 other 2 bedroom units on the same floor as I had requested (and I didn't want to be moved to another floor). Others were II exchanges. All in my husband's name but only the owner unit got the parking lot view. The II exchanges had nice pool/ ocean view while the owner unit faced the Ocean Club parking lot and had dumpster right below our balcony. For the life of me I can't figure out their system.

I emailed the room coordinator basically saying the same what I said in my original post here. Got a reply from the leadership team and according to them they do consider your ownership level and Bonvoy status when assigning rooms, even II exchanges. Have not worked for us too well even though my husband is lifetime Titanium Elite with Marriott and Presidential level owner with MVCI. Go figure. At the end of the day Aruba is Aruba and the anger fades over the course of few days while sitting on the beach. I am just sometimes very jealous of people who get a high floor unit.
 
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suzannesimon

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I like the way Westin does it. The pecking order is in order of when the reservation was made. Since I always stay up until midnight to book at the first available minute, we always get a nice location. In addition to that, Harborside at Atlantis specifies buildings as Fri, Sat or Sun check-in buildings. I know I’ll get a Harbor view if I reserve a Saturday check-in. It’s all about managing expectations, setting the standard of practice and sticking with it. I would have been disappointed too if they gave me a parking lot view for my owned ocean view week.
 

PaulaC

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I think Surf Club is one of the resorts that is pretty specific about the pecking order on room assignment. I never expect a good location as an Interval trader. I also don’t expect any special consideration for owning multiple weeks or being a “Titanium” Bonvoy member because it isn’t listed as criteria in their room assignments. I’m pretty happy as long as I’m not looking at a parking lot.
As a Surf Club owner for the past 15 years, I am still in the dark about the pecking order for room assignments. We were once told that they alternate high and low floors for owners, since everyone prefers high floors, however they said they consider floors 6 and above high floors. We are Chairman's Club owners and it doesn't seem to matter whether we use our owner's week or use DC points, we always get a mid-level room. It would be nice, if all the resorts within Marriott used the same criteria for assigning rooms. It would make the owners and exchangers much happier, if they knew in advance what to expect.
 

AKC3333

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I am a first time MVC vacationer and I am going to Surf Club in a few weeks. How do I request a good view room? Is there anything I can do before I get there? I am not spending 7 days staring at a garden, I can do that at home in my backyard.
 

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I am a first time MVC vacationer and I am going to Surf Club in a few weeks. How do I request a good view room? Is there anything I can do before I get there? I am not spending 7 days staring at a garden, I can do that at home in my backyard.
You should get an email at roughly 3 weeks out titled something like "Plan your vacation now". It will give you a link to put in some basic preferences which won't help you much but usually they respond directly by email to you once you do so and you can have more of a dialogue. You can also put in your request directly by calling the resort. Your exchange will be tied to a view type of Ocean Front, Ocean Side, Ocean View or Garden View. Interestingly OS is better than OV. You can find that information by calling the resort or putting the exchange into your Marriott.com account and searching for the reservation. If you don't have one (and it sounds like you probably don't), you can register and then do so. In my experience you WILL get the view type listed though it's not a requirement on them to do so. If you look at the property map https://www.marriottvacationclub.eu/common/cms/mvc/pdfs/resortmaps/arubaSurfClubResortMap.pdf OF is the front side of Lighthouse, OS the rest of lighthouse, OV all but the lowest 3 or 4 floors of compass as well as part of spyglass. Here's a visual representation that gives color to the specific locations http://www.arubawego.com/images/surf/surf_buildingkey.jpg . Statistically you're most likely to get GV or OV but even if you do, they give priority to owners, to those with multiple units or staying multiple weeks, to Marriott Exchangers (including direct points reservations) so even if you have OS or OV, your chances of a good view are not great. I'd say just request the best view/highest floor possible within your category and hope for the best but plan for the worst. The lower season may help you somewhat but don't get your hopes up. But even if you get a poor view you're still on the beach, in a good location at a great resort so enjoy.

Bigger picture this is the nature of exchanging and it's why I feel that a lateral exchange (similar to what you give up) is often a downgrade because you give up flexibility, have associated costs, and often get worse unit assignments. Having said that my daughter got OF 5th floor at Maui Ocean Club for her honeymoon and we had an Of studio at SC our list trip there so it truly is luck of the draw to a degree.
 

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Thank you for the info. I just called them and they said my unit is a GV but they put in request for OS/OV. Wow, is there really rooms behind Spyglass? No kidding, I would leave the resort if that's where they put me lol. Crossing fingers I get a good view, it's my 1 year anniversary.
 

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Thank you for the info. I just called them and they said my unit is a GV but they put in request for OS/OV. Wow, is there really rooms behind Spyglass? No kidding, I would leave the resort if that's where they put me lol. Crossing fingers I get a good view, it's my 1 year anniversary.
Not behind spyglass but lower floors or on the side of spyglass. I think you need to reconcile with the likelihood of either looking at the pool, out over the construction or the side of the Ocean Club buildings, basically look at the red colors on the map I posted. The only times I've seen them give any flexibility was to match up with existing reservations to not have to move.
 

AKC3333

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What will happen if I slip the check-in staff a $50 bill, like how they do at hotels for an upgrade or better view room?
 

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What will happen if I slip the check-in staff a $50 bill, like how they do at hotels for an upgrade or better view room?
You never know but I doubt it'll make any difference. Please let us know how this turns out.
 

bazzap

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What will happen if I slip the check-in staff a $50 bill, like how they do at hotels for an upgrade or better view room?
Perhaps this was a tongue in cheek comment?
It would be seriously disappointing and morally wrong though if MVC resort staff actually accepted bribes to influence their room allocation decisions.
 

AKC3333

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Perhaps this was a tongue in cheek comment?
It would be seriously disappointing and morally wrong though if MVC resort staff actually accepted bribes to influence their room allocation decisions.

No not at all, hotels are okay with it. Front desk ppl don't get paid as much, so it's just tipping them for extra service, same way you would tip any worker to get better/bigger/faster service or product. It costs the hotel company the same if you stay in a studio facing garden or if available, a bigger room facing ocean, so they don't care. Money is a powerful object.
 

bazzap

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No not at all, hotels are okay with it. Front desk ppl don't get paid as much, so it's just tipping them for extra service, same way you would tip any worker to get better/bigger/faster service or product. It costs the hotel company the same if you stay in a studio facing garden or if available, a bigger room facing ocean, so they don't care. Money is a powerful object.
There is no problem at all with tipping front desk staff (or any other resort staff) for going above and beyond and providing extra service.
However, if I was checking in and found that another owner was given “an upgrade or better view room” just because the front desk staff had accepted a bribe to get it I would be seriously unhappy.
We already pay huge amounts of money in MFs, we shouldn’t expect to have to then pay yet more in bribes to get a fair shot at the better rooms.
I am fairly sure that MVCs room allocation priorities / criteria (published for some resorts) do not include how much you bribe the staff!
 

AKC3333

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There is no problem at all with tipping front desk staff (or any other resort staff) for going above and beyond and providing extra service.
However, if I was checking in and found that another owner was given “an upgrade or better view room” just because the front desk staff had accepted a bribe to get it I would be seriously unhappy.
We already pay huge amounts of money in MFs, we shouldn’t expect to have to then pay yet more in bribes to get a fair shot at the better rooms.
I am fairly sure that MVCs room allocation priorities / criteria (published for some resorts) do not include how much you bribe the staff!

Yeah I see what you are saying. I am new to MVC and this is going to be my first trip using a timeshare and not a regular hotel. I am still a little confused between the two and how they operate differently. Regarding hotels, especially in Vegas, I usually try my luck at the front desk, not sure how MVC's work though.
 

bazzap

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Yeah I see what you are saying. I am new to MVC and this is going to be my first trip using a timeshare and not a regular hotel. I am still a little confused between the two and how they operate differently. Regarding hotels, especially in Vegas, I usually try my luck at the front desk, not sure how MVC's work though.
With MVC resorts, typically you receive a Pre-Arrival email 2 to 3 weeks before your check in date where you can make your villa requests.
Some owners prefer to phone the resort with their requests.
It helps clearly to know the resort or at least to have a good idea of the resort layout and how the view categories map onto this then to request your preferences.
You are probably more likely to get a match if you are not too specific with your requests, say by quoting a building, high/low floor... rather than an actual villa number.
Priority allocation seems to vary by resort, but home resort weeks owners will come first, followed possibly in different orders by Points owners, other MVC resort owners, Interval exchanges, rentals....etc
Good luck.
 

Dean

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No not at all, hotels are okay with it. Front desk ppl don't get paid as much, so it's just tipping them for extra service, same way you would tip any worker to get better/bigger/faster service or product. It costs the hotel company the same if you stay in a studio facing garden or if available, a bigger room facing ocean, so they don't care. Money is a powerful object.
I don't really think hotels are OK with it but some employees are. IMO it's both dishonest on the hotel's side and entitlement thinking on the guest's side though I realize it's not that uncommon. For timeshares it's completely inappropriate IMO.
 

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I'm sure staff is happy you are generous with your cash. In all my years of travel involving hotel stays, I have frequently been switched to a room based on my preference. But I have never had to pay for that 'upgrade', nor did the thought ever occur to me that I might need to.

The only exception might be the city (at least the hotel area) where the water doesn't run hot without greasing a palm - yes I mean:

Regarding hotels, especially in Vegas, I usually try my luck at the front desk
 

Dean

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I'm sure staff is happy you are generous with your cash. In all my years of travel involving hotel stays, I have frequently been switched to a room based on my preference. But I have never had to pay for that 'upgrade', nor did the thought ever occur to me that I might need to.

The only exception might be the city (at least the hotel area) where the water doesn't run hot without greasing a palm - yes I mean:
Some timeshares historically have been willing to offer upgraded views for a fee. KBC on Maui was the one that comes to mind, I don't know if they still do that under Diamond.
 

csalter2

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Some timeshares historically have been willing to offer upgraded views for a fee. KBC on Maui was the one that comes to mind, I don't know if they still do that under Diamond.

Yes, Diamond does allow you to pay for an upgraded views to owners but you have to book the next lowest level before you can pay for the upgrade if it’s available.
 

Dean

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Yes, Diamond does allow you to pay for an upgraded views to owners but you have to book the next lowest level before you can pay for the upgrade if it’s available.
More specifically at KBC before Diamond (when it was Embassy) they would give you the worst views and charge you to upgrade even if the deposit were for a different view. Certainly within their technical rights but the way it was done felt sleazy, basically a money grab IMO.
 

csalter2

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More specifically at KBC before Diamond (when it was Embassy) they would give you the worst views and charge you to upgrade even if the deposit were for a different view. Certainly within their technical rights but the way it was done felt sleazy, basically a money grab IMO.

I have done the upgrade with my original reservation. It’s fine now. I usually book a year in advance. They charge you a per day fee. It saves you a bucket load of points because when you upgrade for example to a 2 bedroom from a one bedroom you get the two bedroom for the points of a one bedroom. I am not sure if Marriott would or should ever go to that format based upon how they currently operate, but I love that feature with Diamond.
 
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