It is official! Wyndham has ruined it for us.

[bendadin]

We flew to London and I booked a 2 bedroom Airbnb. What a mistake! We have to leave. Nobody wants to be here. We are going to check into a Wyndham hotel later today. It won't be like the timeshares, but it will be a step up from this place.

At least I know that these three kids will be wanting to keep this membership. Lol

 

[Avislo]

How did Wyndham ruin it for you? The facility appears to have been book through Airbnb.

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

How did Wyndham ruin it for you? The facility appears to have been book through Airbnb.

I think the OP meant : that the quality level of Wyndham timeshare accommodations has spoiled his family and they won’t accept anything less ( ie - the mistake of trying an Airbnb rental )

the LOL - is the key .

 

[pedro47]

I agree the OP, was expecting a villa liked a timeshare.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/?link=https...o&mt=8&pt=9008&cid=5982621131205400423&_icp=1

 

[Sandi Bo]

Yes, my children are Wyndham snobs as well. Big time!

 

[Braindead]

The first question our 7 and 8 year old grandkids ask: are we staying in a condo or do we have to stay in a hotel?
Spoiled and convinced already!!

 

[Panina]

We flew to London and I booked a 2 bedroom Airbnb. What a mistake! We have to leave. Nobody wants to be here. We are going to check into a Wyndham hotel later today. It won't be like the timeshares, but it will be a step up from this place.

At least I know that these three kids will be wanting to keep this membership. Lol

I hope you are having a good time now with your new accommodations. Many of us are spoiled like you. I have heard many good stories about renting but unfortunately just as many bad ones like you experienced thus I only go to brand name hotels when no timeshare is available to insure I am not in a dump.

Even with brand name hotel, I experience timeshare withdrawals. The other week I was in Georgia and was staying at a the Hilton Garden Inn. It was a nice place and room but it felt so small to me. Luckily they had a suite for just $20 a night more.

 

[jwalk03]

We stayed one night at a MARRIOTT HOTEL on a recent trip and my FIVE year old complained when she didn't have her own separate bedroom and had to sleep on the pull out coach in the room! You would have thought I made her stay at the Travelodge! Kids today! lol.

 

[rickandcindy23]

I hope you gave the place from Airbnb a bad review. It's important others know that it's not as nice as the ad probably states.

Our daughter had some great experiences renting that way for their trip to Norway, Denmark and Sweden last year. She researched places thoroughly and didn't book anything with so-so reviews. She would have done the same as you, had she walked into a place that didn't have the feel she is expecting.

 

[Richelle]

As I was reading the responses, I was relating to a lot of them. It just hit me that I have been staying in timeshares for 20 years now, starting with my parents timeshare in Vacation Villages at Parkway. I am incredibly spoiled. I think the only time I didn't fee like I was missing out, was when I was in a hotel suite at the Four Seasons where there was an opening to the bedroom. Not a door, but a wall that had an opening to the bedroom. It also had what passed for a living room. It had no kitchen, but the company was paying for my food, so I was OK there. So it takes me staying in a luxury hotel with a wall separating the bedroom, for me to feel less cheated. Sheesh.

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

As I was reading the responses, I was relating to a lot of them. It just hit me that I have been staying in timeshares for 20 years now, ....
a hotel suite at the 4 Seasons ....It had no kitchen, but the company was paying for my food, so I was OK there. So it takes me staying in a luxury hotel with a wall separating the bedroom, for me to feel less cheated. Sheesh.

Remember when a vacation was in a station wagon with 460 air ( 4 windows down / 60 mpg ) & 3- 6 siblings . A Scotch cooler held the sandwiches your parents made at 6 am ; and a roadside motel with a tiny pool was heaven .

I was 11 years old and it was a 1966 Plymouth Belvedere Wagon .

 

[cbyrne1174]

I'm more of an amenities snob. I can stay in a studio no problem, just as long as I have a balcony, a microwave and fridge and a badass pool to chill at.

 

[Richelle]

Remember when a vacation was in a station wagon with 460 air ( 4 windows down / 60 mpg ) & 3- 6 siblings . A Scotch cooler held the sandwiches your parents made at 6 am ; and a roadside motel with a tiny pool was heaven .

I was 11 years old and it was a 1966 Plymouth Belvedere Wagon .

I’m a little younger, but we still had the station wagon. I think it was late 70’s model.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[TravelTime]

This was good to read and made me feel better about my timeshares, even though I have had a rough week with them.

 

[dioxide45]

We had a similar problem with an AirBnB in Barbados. We had booked it for five nights following a stay at Ocean Two Resort. It certainly was not what we expected and not advertised very clearly. No AC in the living room, which is apparently common for condos in Barbados. Also had open shutters in the same living room, so any bugs or critters could get in. It was clean, but my wife wasn't having it. We cancelled it on AirBnB and booked the Courtyard in Bridgetown for five nights. Unfortunately we had to burn a Marriott Rewards five night hotel cert and also pay an extra 30K in points to upgrade it, but it was worth it. The host gave us a full refund and we counted the lost cleaning fee as a learning experience. It wasn't worth the trouble to try to get that back. We didn't leave a review for the host, but were happy with the end result. AirBnB simply isn't for everyone. If you like the comforts of consistency in a brand, you simply will never find it in AirBnB or others like it.

 

[Jan M.]

In 1999 I saw an ad in our newspaper, called the person who lived in our town and rented her house on Sanibel Island for a 10 night stay over Thanksgiving week. She bought the house earlier that year and was renting it to help pay for it. She told me it wasn't fancy yet but it was certainly livable. When we got to Sanibel we had to stop at the real estate agent's office to pick up the keys. The agent told us other people hadn't been happy with the house and she offered us a nice two bedroom/2 bathroom condo across the road from the beach that we could stay in instead. We asked where it was and she explained that we had to walk out of the plan the condo was in, a little ways down the street, cross the street and walk down the path between a motel and another condo building to get to the beach. That didn't sound too promising. We wanted to see the house for ourselves before we decided. It was our first time on Sanibel so I had no idea the location of the house was horrible if you were there for the beach and we were. It meant you were definitely driving if you wanted to go to the beach as it was way too far to walk and paying to park at the beach. If by livable you mean hardly any furniture and cheap college apartment quality then yes it was. We would have had to use one of the chairs at the table for the 3 of us to sit in the living room. We never even looked to see what the bedrooms were like. And because it was under some big pine trees it was dark and gloomy. When you come to Florida from Pennsylvania in late November you want sunshine! When we walked back in the door before we even said a word the real estate agent was laughing. We gratefully took her up on the offer of the condo and had a wonderful stay. And the walk to the beach from the condo was easy.

Our other experience was the following year. I was at some fancy charity auction and bought a stay at a small carriage house in Georgetown (DC). It must have been a couple of months since the people who owned it had been there. The house had older windows, not well sealed, and there was a layer of dirt on everything. Not dust, dirt. My husband, our then 14 year old son and I got to work broom sweeping the floors, no vacuum sweeper, wiping off the counters, tables, end tables and shaking out the cushions on the furniture and the comforters and pillows on the beds. When my husband and son didn't complain that I was being too fussy and it wasn't that bad you know how bad the layer of dirt was. It was over Veteran's Day weekend, definitely chilly, and on the second day the boiler died. We of course called the people about the boiler and they did have someone come out but it needed a part. It was a cute little place, comfortably furnished and we were there to sightsee so were out and about during the day. We still had that night and the following night. We stayed, wore our hoodies in the house and used the extra blankets at night; after all we had already cleaned the place! The location was great btw, Madeline Albright lived on the next block. It was within walking distance of a Ben and Jerry's and our first time experiencing their ice cream. We had a wonderful long weekend despite being inconvenienced and chilly. I didn't ask her to but the wife found out how much I paid for the auction and sent me a check. I was going to tear it up but my husband said take the money because there is no way they didn't know how dirty the place gets and hadn't warned us. We would have arrived earlier so we weren't having to clean before we could go to bed.

The next year we bought the timeshare! No Air B & B for us thank you very much. The only surprises I want are "this is even nicer than it looked in the pictures" when we get to the timeshares.

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

Hi Jan ,
While your accomadations had challenges - the stories remain fresh & vivid 18+ years
later .
I bet your 32 year old son remembers it as well .

 

[Jan M.]

Hi Jan ,
While your accomadations had challenges - the stories remain fresh & vivid 18+ years
later .
I bet your 32 year old son remembers it as well .

All three of us have great memories of both those trips! We were so very lucky with the Sanibel trip to be rescued by the real estate agent. The carriage house in Georgetown was in a really pricey neighborhood and walking past the then Secretary of State's house was pretty cool. Having to clean and bundle up to stay warm didn't kill us. And after all that was the trip that introduced us to Ben and Jerry's ice cream!

Part of the discussion when we bought the timeshare was what are the chances that next time someone will rescue us or we will be able to make the best of the situation? Did we really want to push our luck and risk a third time? We had been going to the Outer Banks for years, having to bring our own sheets and towels, never knowing what would be in the kitchen. Knowing what to expect wherever we went with the timeshare sounded pretty wonderful to us.

We've had vacations that we got bad weather for part of the stay, one of us was sick for part or even most of the stay and thanks to Delta had our two worst and never to be forgotten experiences with an airline. But we've never had a vacation that we would call awful or a miserable experience. I just asked my husband his opinion and he agreed. I hope I'm not jinxing us!

Our son's birthday isn't until December so he is still 31. I'm sure he can tell you what flavors he had and how many times he went to Ben & Jerry's that trip. I had to add that about his age because earlier this week he referred to me as being in my late 60's. I let him know in no uncertain terms that I am still in my mid 60's because I just turned 67 at the end of July. That 63-67 is mid 60's and 68 is late 60's, not 67. If anyone here counts it differently please keep it to yourself!

 

[klpca]

Our first VRBO stay was on the Big Island. There had been some kind of miscommunication between the owner and the property manager and the house hadn't been cleaned. In addition to trash and dirty linens, I found used syringes. We packed up and went to the property manager's office and they found another place for us to stay. Yuck.

 

[ecwinch]

Since this thread is turning into "what was my worst rental experience".... I'll join the party with mine.

Just last month I was literally driving over to my AirBnb rental to check-in and when the host cancelled on me. No place to stay since there was a big conference in town. Ending up spending $600 extra bucks to stay at a hotel with no compensation from AirBnb - only a refund and lot of apologies.

One secret about AirBnb - you are on your own if your host cancels. They will not book alternate lodging for you - only send you a list of "possible" listings you can book thru their platform and give you a 10% credit. Even if it happens last minute.

 

[Richelle]

I agree with ecwinch that we veered off course, but what the heck, I'll add mine to. We were putting our house up for sale, and since we had a dog, decided it would be a good idea to get an ozone treatment for our house. Since we were treating the entire house, we had to be out of it for a few days. So I booked a Howard Johnson. I've stayed at one before and it was decent, and I figured it's a Wyndham owned chain, how bad can it be?

I knew there was trouble when I saw a sign saying their was a fee for the safe that you had to pay when you checked in, and another sign that said there was a deposit for the physical key. You got both back when you checked out. There was also a sign that said the internet and TV were out. Hmm...ok, well it's only for a few nights right? I booked two rooms, one for me and my husband, and the other for my son who was in the middle of the college semester, so he had to stay local. When we got to the room, we noticed that there were key card readers on the doors, but rather then use them, they drilled a new hole in the door above the reader, for a lockable door knob. The room had no deadbolts. We went into the room, and it wreaked of weed. I went to high school once. You don't forget that smell. The other room smelled like mold. They had a 70;s era window unit air conditioners. The area the hotel was in, was kind of shady. I don't think I want the window open for any reason. The room was very dated, and I wouldn't be surprised if the cockroaches made friends with the bedbugs. I am glad i didn't bring a black light like some people do. I immediately called hotels.com and told them of our issues. They refunded the money, and we spent an extra $100 to stay at the Ramada up the road in a better area. It was so much nicer and cleaner. Hotels.com later gave us a $100 credit which we used the night before we closed on the house, at the same Ramada. Never staying at a Howard Johnson again.

 

[OutSkiing]

Our 6 yo daughter is totally spoiled on Wyndham Resorts as well. Most recently we stayed in what you would think is a humble place .. Wyndham Kingsgate near Williamsburg. We were super happy with it as with most all Wyndhams. Saw deer from our back balcony, turtles swimming in the pond and those little toads sitting on the railing were a new joy for my daughter. The pool setup is one of the most comfortable we've seen .. combo of indoor / outdoor setting and a bar and grill at the pool. Exercise room nicely setup in the thick of things as well.

And when we have to stay at a motel we've gotten with reward points, we sometimes end up disappointed unless there is a Wyndham Garden or some such available. This weekend we were at a Baymont near Cedar Point Sandusky .. amazing that they still had those old 1" square peach and green pastel tiles in the bathroom and older fixtures. Lots of miss-matched plaster patches inside and out. But remarkably, everything was quite clean.

Bob

 

[philemer]

I hope you gave the place from Airbnb a bad review. It's important others know that it's not as nice as the ad probably states....

It might not have been "bad" but just not up to OP's standards. Not enough details to tell.

 

[jlp879]

I agree with ecwinch that we veered off course, but what the heck, I'll add mine to. We were putting our house up for sale, and since we had a dog, decided it would be a good idea to get an ozone treatment for our house. Since we were treating the entire house, we had to be out of it for a few days. So I booked a Howard Johnson. I've stayed at one before and it was decent, and I figured it's a Wyndham owned chain, how bad can it be? .....Never staying at a Howard Johnson again.

Even more off topic, I just returned from a weekend conference held at a Hilton Doubletree. Saturday night a group of colleagues and I ate dinner in the in-house restaurant since we were too lazy to venture any further and were very much impressed with the food. All of us were expecting only a mediocre dinner. Anyways, as we discussed food during dinner, a friend reminded us that Jacques Pépin was hired to develop food lines for Howard Johnsons in 1961. A real reminder of how much hotels have changed and that hotel in particular!

 

[Lisa P]

Gotta love timesharing! Especially at nice, well-maintained resorts with great amenities. We often stayed with our kids in a hotel overnight while traveling to/from our destination resort, either to break up a long drive or stay/park/fly. The kids traveled well sleeping in hotels but they really appreciated the roomy comforts of the condos and the resort amenities during the timeshare vacations.

Now as adults with jobs and young families, they've all tried B&Bs, modest hotel packages, rental timeshare weeks, and camping. They all strongly prefer the timeshare weeks for anything longer than 2 nights. They've all said that once they're financially settled with their homes and cars, they will want to spend some time learning more about choosing the best resale timeshares for their families. It guess it did spoil them a little. But it was good too.