Has anyone any recent experience with Grand Seas resort at Daytona beach?
Am thinking of acquiring a week there this winter. I see the reviews are very mixed, and they seem to be beginning a lot of renovations. according to the front desk they are closed temporarily due to the storm but will be open in the near future. Any idea to the extent of damage? Like the location but do not want to end up in a poor quality resort!
Scott
We purchased a week at Grand Seas Resort in August 2001. It hadn't been too long from when it was first converted from a beachside motel into a timeshare. The motel was named The Voyager Beach Motel. There is the multistory building on the beach plus a two story wing with no beach view.
For the first few years we were quite happy with our purchase. Then we let them talk us into converting our ownership from floating weeks to points in a share company called Club Navigo. We paid them dearly to convert which put a rider on our deed and let us exchange use our points at other resorts in their club. We never exchanged the points and continued to use our week at Grand Seas. Every year we saw things going downhill there. Even while we saw things like the carpet replaced by tile in the bedrooms and new lamps, the refrigerators would be eaten by rust and the stove electric units would not seat flat. I think they probably still have the same couches in those rooms today.
We began to wonder what our maintenance fees were buying. Grand Seas Resort management Partners went bankrupt. Club Navigo went bankrupt. Our points exchange membership was bought and made part of Diamond Resorts International. I have no idea what effect that had legally to our deed.
We were offered an opportunity to buy their 'vacation club' and said no. So they offered to take back our deed if we bought the vacation club. That sounded like an offer to let us out for a price, which is usually a scam, but this was at the resort, so how could it be a scam? We could tell the vacation club was worthless to us. But we wanted out of this declining property that could be rented for a significantly lower price than we paid in fees.
We decided to take the deal - not for the vacation club, but to get out of that deed. We signed a Warranty deed on the Grand Seas letterhead in their office and paid them $4K to join their vacation club. That was February 2014. I figured that after 4 years of not paying any more fees to Grand Seas, we would be about even. The units there could be rented for less than we paid in fees.
At that time we didn't yet know that Grand Seas Resort was going to be put up for
bankruptcy auction in August 2014. It was bought by Exploria Resorts in November 2014.
Grand Seas never registered the Warranty deed. I went to their office about it and they said to wait 6 months. I waited and wrote them a letter and they said they'd look into it. Then the bill came for fees and I wrote more letters. Then there was a letter from a collection agent for maintenance fees and I wrote more letters and went to the Florida Attorney General's office. They sent me to Seniors Against Crime and they suggested we sign a Quit Claim deed and register it ourselves. Brilliant! We did just that and now, if they contact us, I send them a copy of that Quit Claim Deed with Volusia County registration stamp and tell them that we don't own it anymore.
We travel at least once a year to Daytona Beach and have kept an eye on GSR. Exploria has painted the outside of the buildings a light aqua color and replaced the roofs. The roofs had been extensively repaired or replaced in 2004 when they were damaged by Hurricane Charley. At that time the repairs were covered by insurance, but we had to pay a special assessment to cover the deductible before repairs could begin.
The outdoor pools are still well maintained and the deck furniture is now all new. The exterior of the building didn't look too bad before and one would think they should have begun renovations where most needed. The reviews continue to indicate the decay on the inside has not been yet cleaned out. They continually promise new elevators which were old, slow and creaky when we bought back in 2001.
Internet does not work in the rooms. One year we had a unit at the far north end and we got strong steady wireless connection from the La Playa resort next door, but couldn't hold a signal from the GSR.
It looks like Exploria will try to bring the property up to standards, but it's going to take a long time. When the property changed hands they lost their liquor license and closed the popular tiki bar and restaurant. You would think that after 2 years they could have these in business again. They never share what the obstacles are...just promise it open soon.
As to hurricane damage, there is doubtless extensive water damage - especially to the first floor units. There may be broken windows.
I loved GSR when we first bought it. Love the location and it's a relaxed place with no carpets to be mussed by kids sandy feet. There's fun shopping right across the street.
After our experience, I would recommend getting a resale Wyndham Oceanwalk unit rather than GSR. How do you measure quality? Where will the quality of GSR be in another 2 years? Can't answer that.
