Berkley sold to Vacatia

[Tamaradarann]

From a recent ARDA report...
Some quotes from co-founder of Vacatia... (they were just founded in 2013)...
Let's see...

https://www.arda.org/sites/default/files/media/file/navigating-the-future-of-timeshare_2.pdf?utm_source=Skift&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=White%20Paper%20Reshare

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Nice find about Vacatia. Hopefully Shin performs the way she talks and sets up a good resale and rental program that will welcome Deedbacks to provide inventory for those efforts instead of forcing owners to just stop paying their maintenance since they have no other alternative to deal with a timeshare they no longer use and want.

 

[escanoe]

Wonder what role, if any, this played with Massanutten no longer associating as a VV affiliate? The timing makes it seem like more than a coincidence.

 

[Tamaradarann]

Wonder what role, if any, this played with Massanutten no longer associating as a VV affiliate? The timing makes it seem like more than a coincidence.

Could you explain more? I have been to Massanutten and stayed at one of the Vacation Village resorts there. It is the one with the Water Park. I thought it was an actual Vacation Village Resort, not a affiliate. You say that Massanutten is no longer associating as a VV affiliate?

 

[Eric B]

There are no VV resorts at Massanutten. The resorts there are managed by Great Eastern (with the exception of Mountainside Villas, which is HOA controlled). Vacatia is a competitor to Great Eastern for resort management and had an affiliation agreement with Berkley; I would speculate that they are happy as a continuing separate corporation and continuing the affiliation wouldn’t be consistent with that situation.

 

[Sandy VDH]

Fantasy Island in Daytona Beach is also now Vacatia.

 

[chriskre]

From a recent ARDA report...
Some quotes from co-founder of Vacatia... (they were just founded in 2013)...
Let's see...

https://www.arda.org/sites/default/files/media/file/navigating-the-future-of-timeshare_2.pdf?utm_source=Skift&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=White%20Paper%20Reshare

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Well if their goal is a happy owner they are missing the mark .
I am going to withhold my MF payment until closer to my use time just in case they decide to lay off the entire staff and shutdown like they have done with Hiawatha. This is definitely not instilling confidence and trust in them especially since they are a new company starting in 2013.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[escanoe]

When I owned at The Colonies and at VV Williamsburg, I saw in the budgets that the delinquency rate was around 15% - despite those being decent trading weeks in Interval, that prompted me to divest those weeks to someone else wanting to use them for exchanges.

In addition to many owners wanting out and making postings, I am wondering if VV didn't also get hit by some sort of Viking ship (illegitimate entity taking on deeds for cash and not paying MFs.) Maybe it was just lax oversight of past individual transfers.

The discussion here is making me think back to the thread @TUGBrian started about 1.5 years ago after LT transfers flagged a bunch of new scrutiny on transfers by DailyManagement.

I also own a prime summer week at the Colonies and have enjoyed trading it in II and RCI. But the D-I-V-O-R-C-E between VV and Massanutten had me thinking about reducing my VV ownerships (also have an RCI Points Grandview EOY) before I learned the news from this thread.

I always trade my summer week at the Colonies, but I often do internal VV exchanges to stay there Thanksgiving and other off-peak times. I have found the Colonies to be relatively well managed and helpful staff at the location. DailyManagement has been a little more difficult. It often takes them a week or longer to verify a deposit with an exchange company, and I have heard several reports of them taking a lot of time to transfer ownerships.

 

[TUGBrian]

think perhaps some resort systems are seeing the writing on the wall in regards to defaults/delinquencies and the "bad debt" line item on the annual financial statements and making some hard business decisions going forward.

 

[Tamaradarann]

There are no VV resorts at Massanutten. The resorts there are managed by Great Eastern (with the exception of Mountainside Villas, which is HOA controlled). Vacatia is a competitor to Great Eastern for resort management and had an affiliation agreement with Berkley; I would speculate that they are happy as a continuing separate corporation and continuing the affiliation wouldn’t be consistent with that situation.

I must have thought it was a Vacation Village Resort since I received some type of special deal in reserving their from Vacation Village. I just saw the post about the Great Eastern/Vacation Village Divorce that kind of explains why I thought it was a Vacation Village Resort since I booked it through a special deal not a customary RCI reservation.

 

[SherlockHolmes]

I noticed COHO Services took over VVs Northwest (WA, OR and ID) resorts. This is going to be very interesting.

 

[dioxide45]

I noticed COHO Services took over VVs Northwest (WA, OR and ID) resorts. This is going to be very interesting.

Who is COHO Services?

 

[wackymother]

Vacatia took over an old resort in the Poconos that we loved--Quail Hollow Village at Beech Mountain Lakes. The units were extremely dumpy, but the location was directly on a beautiful lake. Vacatia took over, changed name to Crown Resorts in the Poconos, and did NOTHING to maintain the buildings or grounds. The second-floor balcony fell off one of the units; the solution was to print out signs on office paper and tape them to all the second-floor windows to tell people not to use the balconies! Some buildings were literally condemned.

It's hard to piece together, but it looks to me like their MO is to run resorts into the ground and then walk away. If you look up Crown Resorts, LLC, or Vacatia on the BBB website, you'll see tons of complaints and then Vacatia's response is always, oh, we don't manage that anymore, not our problem.

Crown Resorts Management, LLC - powered by Vacatia | BBB Complaints | Better Business Bureau

View complaints of Crown Resorts Management, LLC - powered by Vacatia filed with BBB. BBB helps resolve disputes with the services or products a business provides.

www.bbb.org

Vacatia, Inc. | BBB Complaints | Better Business Bureau

View complaints of Vacatia, Inc. filed with BBB. BBB helps resolve disputes with the services or products a business provides.

www.bbb.org

 

[dioxide45]

Vacatia took over an old resort in the Poconos that we loved--Quail Hollow Village at Beech Mountain Lakes. The units were extremely dumpy, but the location was directly on a beautiful lake. Vacatia took over, changed name to Crown Resorts in the Poconos, and did NOTHING to maintain the buildings or grounds. The second-floor balcony fell off one of the units; the solution was to print out signs on office paper and tape them to all the second-floor windows to tell people not to use the balconies! Some buildings were literally condemned.

It's hard to piece together, but it looks to me like their MO is to run resorts into the ground and then walk away. If you look up Crown Resorts, LLC, or Vacatia on the BBB website, you'll see tons of complaints and then Vacatia's response is always, oh, we don't manage that anymore, not our problem.

Crown Resorts Management, LLC - powered by Vacatia | BBB Complaints | Better Business Bureau

View complaints of Crown Resorts Management, LLC - powered by Vacatia filed with BBB. BBB helps resolve disputes with the services or products a business provides.

www.bbb.org

Vacatia, Inc. | BBB Complaints | Better Business Bureau

View complaints of Vacatia, Inc. filed with BBB. BBB helps resolve disputes with the services or products a business provides.

www.bbb.org

I think it comes down to the fact that Vacatia is just third party fee based property management. They work for the HOA. If the HOA isn't willing to spend the money, it doesn't matter who the resort management company is.

 

[chriskre]

Vacatia took over an old resort in the Poconos that we loved--Quail Hollow Village at Beech Mountain Lakes. The units were extremely dumpy, but the location was directly on a beautiful lake. Vacatia took over, changed name to Crown Resorts in the Poconos, and did NOTHING to maintain the buildings or grounds. The second-floor balcony fell off one of the units; the solution was to print out signs on office paper and tape them to all the second-floor windows to tell people not to use the balconies! Some buildings were literally condemned.

It's hard to piece together, but it looks to me like their MO is to run resorts into the ground and then walk away. If you look up Crown Resorts, LLC, or Vacatia on the BBB website, you'll see tons of complaints and then Vacatia's response is always, oh, we don't manage that anymore, not our problem.

Crown Resorts Management, LLC - powered by Vacatia | BBB Complaints | Better Business Bureau

View complaints of Crown Resorts Management, LLC - powered by Vacatia filed with BBB. BBB helps resolve disputes with the services or products a business provides.

www.bbb.org

Vacatia, Inc. | BBB Complaints | Better Business Bureau

View complaints of Vacatia, Inc. filed with BBB. BBB helps resolve disputes with the services or products a business provides.

www.bbb.org

Do they walk away or facilitate a sale to developers? We just had a $700 special assessment at Enchanted Isle.
I'm not going to pay it. There is no way most of the owners are going to pay it is my guess. We have a ton of
delinquent owners. Most of our owners are elderly who have owned for 30 plus years or some locals. Lately
it's been mostly RCI exchangers which is fine.

Vacatia ruined our rental program that they were supposedly enhancing. I got $30 a day for
my unit that I usually got $180 a night after commission in the past. If they could be trusted with the rental then I would
pay the assessment and give them my week, but since I know what they did to me last year I'm out.

It's sad because we've had that timeshare for well over 25 years now and I'm sad to see what they are doing to
it but after I see they fired the manager who has been there for 20 years now, I know they are up to no good.
That property sits on prime beachfront real estate where I'm sure a developer would love to put a high rise luxury condo.

 

[AwayWeGo]

Does that acquisition have anything to do with Vacation Village At Parkway's diminished presence on RCI ?

Just wondering what's up.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

For the 1st time in a long while, Vacation Village At Parkway once again showed up as available when I was searching yesterday for RCI Bonus Week reservations.

For $299 plus tax & guest certificate -- and minus 10% RCI Platinum discount -- I got my son & daughter-in-law a 2BR Bonus Week reservation for check-in the middle of next month.

The apparent bad blood between Vacation Village At Parkway & Armed Forces Vacation Club seems unchanged. The fine print on the RCI reservation for Vacation Village At Parkway said no reservations through Armed Forces Vacation Club will be honored, no way, no how, a strange notification in view of the fact that Vacation Village At Parkway never shows up as available through Armed Forced Vacation Club anyway.

Meanwhile, unrelated to Vacation Village At Parkway but semi-pertinent to Armed Forces Vacation Club, I used a resort certificate purchased yesterday from Resort Certificates Dot Com to snag my other daughter-in-law a nice 2BR reservation in July at High Point World Resort (west of the Disney Gap). The week my daughter-in-law wanted was already on sale through Armed Forces Vacation Club for $329. As it happened, the same reservation was available through Resort Certificates, which was running a sale -- 2 certificates for $500 (no tax). So I bought 2 certificates & used 1 immediately for my daughter-in-law's High Point World Resort reservation -- no added fees, no tax, & no guest certificate. Plus, I have another unused resort certificate left over that's good for the next 264 days.

Is this a great country or what ?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[dioxide45]

For the 1st time in a long while, Vacation Village At Parkway once again showed up as available when I was searching yesterday for RCI Bonus Week reservations.

For $299 plus tax & guest certificate -- and minus 10% RCI Platinum discount -- I got my son & daughter-in-law a 2BR Bonus Week reservation for check-in the middle of next month.

The apparent bad blood between Vacation Village At Parkway & Armed Forces Vacation Club seems unchanged. The fine print on the RCI reservation for Vacation Village At Parkway said no reservations through Armed Forces Vacation Club will be honored, no way, no how, a strange notification in view of the fact that Vacation Village At Parkway never shows up as available through Armed Forced Vacation Club anyway.

Meanwhile, unrelated to Vacation Village At Parkway but semi-pertinent to Armed Forces Vacation Club, I used a resort certificate purchased yesterday from Resort Certificates Dot Com to snag my other daughter-in-law a nice 2BR reservation in July at High Point World Resort (west of the Disney Gap). The week my daughter-in-law wanted was already on sale through Armed Forces Vacation Club for $329. As it happened, the same reservation was available through Resort Certificates, which was running a sale -- 2 certificates for $500 (no tax). So I bought 2 certificates & used 1 immediately for my daughter-in-law's High Point World Resort reservation -- no added fees, no tax, & no guest certificate. Plus, I have another unused resort certificate left over that's good for the next 264 days.

Is this a great country or what ?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

It seems odd that they won't honor reservations through AFVC when all AFVC bookings are is RCI Extra Vacations inventory.