Parking Passes & Keys at Welk have changed

[Guitarmom]

Many of you have heard that since the Marriott/Hyatt merger with Welk, there has been a radical name change in Escondido. Instead of the Escondido properties being called "Welk Resort," they are now called "The Welk." Shocking, isn't it?

We are in the middle of a week in Escondido, and the biggest change beyond the name is that both the keys and the parking passes look substantially different. The old parking passes were oval-shaped, shiny, and pale olive green in color (I'd seen pale blue, too). The new parking passes are rectangular, matte finished, and bright turquoise. There are similar changes to the key cards. My whole family is laughing about how we'll have to get rid of our stash of old passes!

On a similar note, we got a parking pass at the office for our personal golf cart, but the guard at the gate said no. Sigh.

 

[PerryKing]

Looks like maybe "The Welk" is neither a Hyatt Residence Club or a Welk Resort any longer!

 

[mjm1]

I think it was a nice touch to maintain a reference to “Welk” in the name as part of the rebranding to Hyatt. The legacy continues.

As for the changes to the keys and parking passes, if those are the worst changes they make I suspect owners and returning guests won’t have much to complain about. We always enjoyed our stays at the Villas and the Mountain Villas as prior owners. We never stayed in the VOG section of the resort.

Best regards.

Mike

 

[Guitarmom]

We have always loved staying at Welk. If points didn't matter, we'd choose the original Villas (LWV) every time. Our original purchase at Welk (resale) was at Villas on the Green (VOG), and we like those quite a bit, too. The new Mountain Villas (MV) have, far and away, the best pool, but the condos just aren't as welcoming as LWV or VOG. It's hard to quantify, but there's a peacefulness at LWV and VOG that I don't feel at MV.

I know that VOG got some really poor reviews in the beginning. Here's my theory why. When the VOG condos were first built, they were furnished as if everyone would always rent both sides of a unit. So the large 1BR side got a King bed and the small 1BR side got two twin beds. In reality, people tended to rent just one side or the other. Now, imagine that you and your significant other book a romantic getaway at VOG and walk into a bedroom with two twin beds! You probably wouldn't be super happy about your stay. By the time we purchased, both sides had King or Queen sized beds.

 

[RunCat]

We have always loved staying at Welk. If points didn't matter, we'd choose the original Villas (LWV) every time. Our original purchase at Welk (resale) was at Villas on the Green (VOG), and we like those quite a bit, too. The new Mountain Villas (MV) have, far and away, the best pool, but the condos just aren't as welcoming as LWV or VOG. It's hard to quantify, but there's a peacefulness at LWV and VOG that I don't feel at MV.

I know that VOG got some really poor reviews in the beginning. Here's my theory why. When the VOG condos were first built, they were furnished as if everyone would always rent both sides of a unit. So the large 1BR side got a King bed and the small 1BR side got two twin beds. In reality, people tended to rent just one side or the other. Now, imagine that you and your significant other book a romantic getaway at VOG and walk into a bedroom with two twin beds! You probably wouldn't be super happy about your stay. By the time we purchased, both sides had King or Queen sized beds.

The small side at VOG has been updated from when we originally purchased (developer-too new for resale). The small side is actually somewhat functional now.
We usually travel at Thanksgiving to Escondido with other family members. We always tend to stay in the LWV due to the extra space that is available for a crowd. We've stayed in MV and the large side is just too cramped for more than a few people to gather. For next year, I reserved one of the 2bed Standards in MVs. It will be nice to see how the layout works for us in that one.

BTW, re keys. When we were in Breckenridge in April, the keys that we used were unbranded and generic. The employees all had HVC badges. But that was the only Hyatt branding that we saw.