Westin Riverfront Villas (misc. + Owner Presentation yesterday)

[travelpager]

We arrived at WRV on July 4 for a one-week stay. The place looks none the worse for wear, but staffing is very lean. The restaurant Maya just reopened at reduced capacity with limited hours; the fitness center and spa are open, but steam rooms are closed and facials are off the list of spa services for now. Upon arrival for spa services, staff takes temp and asks the standard questions about exposure. Pool and hot tubs are open with requests to limit capacity. Guests mostly comply, with the notable exception of That One Adult who neglects to guide, monitor or correct his/her brood of young children. Again, most families comply, but there’s always that one (or two, sigh). I saw pool attendants spray and wipe area furniture between parties. Our riverview 2BR LO was attractive, comfortable, and clean (especially after I finished my own cleaning, LOL). The dedicated concierge usually found in the villa building lobby is gone for now, as are housekeeping services.

Bring your masks (don’t argue – it’s state law). Local police drop by resort periodically to check for compliance. Fellow guests and a staff member told me that, the evening before we arrived, the police had “closed” (emptied) the hotel lobby after finding insufficient compliance. Masks are required in all indoor public places, statewide.

Attended Owner’s Presentation at WRV yesterday. Closed since March, the sales office opened on or around July 5. Appointments are scheduled hours apart and I think I heard our sales rep say that only one sales team is operating. The presentation itself was an explanation of how Sheraton Flex and Westin Flex exist in conjunction with the old framework. Much was made of how Interval International has been revamped (“don’t think 'exchange', think 'live reservations'!"). For a variety of reasons, we have never used II. Might take a look at the new II setup, but it's not a priority.

We are 4-star elite, with a mix of weeks at mandatory resorts (some picked up resale ... thanks, TUG) and Sheraton Flex in nearly the exact amount we needed to hit 4-star. We have slightly more than half the SO needed to reach 5-star…but don’t "aspire" to 5-star status. In the end, the pitch looked like this:

• Buy more Sheraton Flex at a spring promotional (pandemic-related) discount of approximately 30%. (No.)
• Buy Westin Flex at the Covid19 discount. (No.)
• Upgrade what we own in Sheraton Flex into Westin Flex. (No.)
• Sell back our 2BR LO at SKV (144k SO) to buy more Flex shares (hahahahahaha … no).
• Apply for Brilliant AmEx card. (Our current Bonvoy AmEx Brilliant card is a business account, an arrangement held over from 10+ years ago.) Apply for card/personal account, then buy/upgrade Flex shares. Enticement consisted of (a) extra Bonvoy points earned by (b) using card to purchase promotionalCovid-discounted Flex shares, combined with (c) other card bonuses (statement credit against yearly fee, etc.). (Yeah … no.)

Fwiw, dues on Flex shares are # shares x 0.02022 with 1-3% increase each year. Whatever – we had no intention of buying anything right now. My advice to anyone interested in acquiring Flex shares anytime in this year (at least) is to request/insist on benefit of the "Spring Promotional" discount. The sales force is in recovery and ready to deal.

That’s all I can think to report. Hope the information is useful to somebody. TUG taught me so much. We may have made a misstep here or there, but are far better off for what we learned through TUG.

 

[controller1]

We arrived at WRV on July 4 for a one-week stay. The place looks none the worse for wear, but staffing is very lean. The restaurant Maya is closed;

Unfortunately we had to cancel our 10-day stay beginning next week, however I had been in contact with a couple of employees and they indicated Maya was to have opened on July 3. Apparently that did not happen?

 

[travelpager]

Thanks for the correction! I just called Service Express and was told that Maya is open 5-8 this evening at reduced capacity, etc. I must say that the property has kept this news awfully quiet. Then again, I've not had much reason to visit the lobby so I probably missed information.

 

[JohnPaul]

Well. If sales just opened on July 5 that explains why they canceled our June 25 - 29 Encore stay. (Encore is the pay some $$$ for a future stay and they get to try selling you again program .)

 

[controller1]

Thanks for the correction! I just called Service Express and was told that Maya is open 5-8 this evening at reduced capacity, etc. I must say that the property has kept this news awfully quiet. Then again, I've not had much reason to visit the lobby so I probably missed information.

I had been told they planned on opening July 3 and would be open initially Wednesday through Saturday each week.

 

[travelpager]

I had been told they planned on opening July 3 and would be open initially Wednesday through Saturday each week.

That makes sense. We checked in Saturday night and hadn't visited the lobby much since Tuesday. Thanks again for what was news to us - we're going to try to get in (or else order takeout specifically from Maya) for tonight, our last evening!

 

[travelpager]

Well. If sales just opened on July 5 that explains why they canceled our June 25 - 29 Encore stay. (Encore is the pay some $$$ for a future stay and they get to try selling you again program .)

We didn't get the call, much less the blinking "message" light on villa phone, from sales until Tuesday night of our Saturday-Saturday stay. The sales office was definitely dark and deserted during our first few days here. While we were checking in for presentation, another guest wandered in to ask a question. The receptionist was very professional and polite but you could almost hear her inner voice yelling, "YIKES. This is an Unexpected Incident. You are NOT supposed to be here. PLEASE STAND BY ... over there."

 

[travelpager]

I had been told they planned on opening July 3 and would be open initially Wednesday through Saturday each week.

UPDATE: Maya is indeed open 5 to 8 Wednesday through Saturday. Dining is largely take-out, not least because the restaurant is simultaneously completing minor renovations (!). As of yesterday, the restaurant does not have a working phone. The highly truncated.menu consists of 3-4 types of tacos, chips/guac ($14 - sorry, but I'm from TX so ROTFLMAO), elote, and lots of cocktails. The tacos were legit and tasty (we ignored the rest of the menu)!

 

[controller1]

UPDATE: Maya is indeed open 5 to 8 Wednesday through Saturday. Dining is largely take-out, not least because the restaurant is simultaneously completing minor renovations (!). As of yesterday, the restaurant does not have a working phone. The highly truncated.menu consists of 3-4 types of tacos, chips/guac ($14 - sorry, but I'm from TX so ROTFLMAO), elote, and lots of cocktails. The tacos were legit and tasty (we ignored the rest of the menu)!

So a little bit of a stretch for them to claim in their email they were "open" especially considering they knew I had three reservations over the 10-day period. I think that limited menu would not have sufficed for more than one meal.

 

[The Colorado Kid]

We arrived at WRV on July 4 for a one-week stay. The place looks none the worse for wear, but staffing is very lean. The restaurant Maya just reopened at reduced capacity with limited hours; the fitness center and spa are open, but steam rooms are closed and facials are off the list of spa services for now. Upon arrival for spa services, staff takes temp and asks the standard questions about exposure. Pool and hot tubs are open with requests to limit capacity. Guests mostly comply, with the notable exception of That One Adult who neglects to guide, monitor or correct his/her brood of young children. Again, most families comply, but there’s always that one (or two, sigh). I saw pool attendants spray and wipe area furniture between parties. Our riverview 2BR LO was attractive, comfortable, and clean (especially after I finished my own cleaning, LOL). The dedicated concierge usually found in the villa building lobby is gone for now, as are housekeeping services.

Bring your masks (don’t argue – it’s state law). Local police drop by resort periodically to check for compliance. Fellow guests and a staff member told me that, the evening before we arrived, the police had “closed” (emptied) the hotel lobby after finding insufficient compliance. Masks are required in all indoor public places, statewide.

Attended Owner’s Presentation at WRV yesterday. Closed since March, the sales office opened on or around July 5. Appointments are scheduled hours apart and I think I heard our sales rep say that only one sales team is operating. The presentation itself was an explanation of how Sheraton Flex and Westin Flex exist in conjunction with the old framework. Much was made of how Interval International has been revamped (“don’t think 'exchange', think 'live reservations'!"). For a variety of reasons, we have never used II. Might take a look at the new II setup, but it's not a priority.

We are 4-star elite, with a mix of weeks at mandatory resorts (some picked up resale ... thanks, TUG) and Sheraton Flex in nearly the exact amount we needed to hit 4-star. We have slightly more than half the SO needed to reach 5-star…but don’t "aspire" to 5-star status. In the end, the pitch looked like this:

• Buy more Sheraton Flex at a spring promotional (pandemic-related) discount of approximately 30%. (No.)
• Buy Westin Flex at the Covid19 discount. (No.)
• Upgrade what we own in Sheraton Flex into Westin Flex. (No.)
• Sell back our 2BR LO at SKV (144k SO) to buy more Flex shares (hahahahahaha … no).
• Apply for Brilliant AmEx card. (Our current Bonvoy AmEx Brilliant card is a business account, an arrangement held over from 10+ years ago.) Apply for card/personal account, then buy/upgrade Flex shares. Enticement consisted of (a) extra Bonvoy points earned by (b) using card to purchase promotionalCovid-discounted Flex shares, combined with (c) other card bonuses (statement credit against yearly fee, etc.). (Yeah … no.)

Fwiw, dues on Flex shares are # shares x 0.02022 with 1-3% increase each year. Whatever – we had no intention of buying anything right now. My advice to anyone interested in acquiring Flex shares anytime in this year (at least) is to request/insist on benefit of the "Spring Promotional" discount. The sales force is in recovery and ready to deal.

That’s all I can think to report. Hope the information is useful to somebody. TUG taught me so much. We may have made a misstep here or there, but are far better off for what we learned through TUG.

Hi thanks for this excellent summary! WRV is our home resort and we really enjoy staying there.

We are fairly new owners...is there a benefit to attending the Owner's Presentation other than updated information?

Also....am I correct that the best way to add SO's to our portfolio is from resales from the mandatory resorts and not additional purchases from Westin? But I also ask myself....I am still adding the accompanying additional MF's so am I gaining or just treading water? Would appreciate your thoughts!

Vince

 

[travelpager]

Hi thanks for this excellent summary! WRV is our home resort and we really enjoy staying there.

We are fairly new owners...is there a benefit to attending the Owner's Presentation other than updated information?

Also....am I correct that the best way to add SO's to our portfolio is from resales from the mandatory resorts and not additional purchases from Westin? But I also ask myself....I am still adding the accompanying additional MF's so am I gaining or just treading water? Would appreciate your thoughts!

Vince

I apologize for not responding sooner but I only just caught your message (my fault). Depending on your travel objectives, the best way forward is to buy mandatory resort on resale. From the beginning, we bought into the network knowing that some years we would convert almost half our SOs into hotel night stays (at 4 or 5 hotels during one summer in Europe) but that we wanted to be able to swing one week in a 2BR almost anywhere, almost anytime. We don't know that our travels will lead us back to WKV where we first bought, but the SOs have led us to happy experiences at St. John, WKPOV(?)-N, and others. As mentioned, we bought SheratonFlex before WestinFlex was introduced. Basically, they talked us into 4*elite status. Give a do-over, we'd have waited (my husband bit), if only to take a look at WestinFlex BUT circumstances are such that we haven't ever really "flexed" our Flex options yet regardless. I agree with others who observe that Flex is not the best value when you consider the annual fees, but so much can depend on what you want to accomplish (specific destination, diff. arrival date or whatever). This year might be a great time to pick up something worthwhile on resale; I can't imagine much pushback on retro'ing a resale into the Bovay pts network. Honestly though, consider us generally gunshy pending announcement of however/whatever Vistana/VSE properties will be valued in relation to Marriott portfolio of timeshare properties, etc.

Without a resale purchase to discuss, our opinion is that the Owner's update is only ever worth the time if (1) we want the points, (2) study TUGbbs beforehand and (3) enter with specific questions (most of which they don't answer).

Notwithstanding any of the preceding, this could be a good time to test for wiggle room on price of ... I don't know, anything. As mentioned in my earlier post, we visited during the first week the sales office was open since March. We had other things we wanted to do that day, but the sales "force" seemed H A N G R Y enough to deal (whatever that might mean - honestly don't know what flexibility exists).

 

[The Colorado Kid]

I apologize for not responding sooner but I only just caught your message (my fault). Depending on your travel objectives, the best way forward is to buy mandatory resort on resale. From the beginning, we bought into the network knowing that some years we would convert almost half our SOs into hotel night stays (at 4 or 5 hotels during one summer in Europe) but that we wanted to be able to swing one week in a 2BR almost anywhere, almost anytime. We don't know that our travels will lead us back to WKV where we first bought, but the SOs have led us to happy experiences at St. John, WKPOV(?)-N, and others. As mentioned, we bought SheratonFlex before WestinFlex was introduced. Basically, they talked us into 4*elite status. Give a do-over, we'd have waited (my husband bit), if only to take a look at WestinFlex BUT circumstances are such that we haven't ever really "flexed" our Flex options yet regardless. I agree with others who observe that Flex is not the best value when you consider the annual fees, but so much can depend on what you want to accomplish (specific destination, diff. arrival date or whatever). This year might be a great time to pick up something worthwhile on resale; I can't imagine much pushback on retro'ing a resale into the Bovay pts network. Honestly though, consider us generally gunshy pending announcement of however/whatever Vistana/VSE properties will be valued in relation to Marriott portfolio of timeshare properties, etc.

Without a resale purchase to discuss, our opinion is that the Owner's update is only ever worth the time if (1) we want the points, (2) study TUGbbs beforehand and (3) enter with specific questions (most of which they don't answer).

Notwithstanding any of the preceding, this could be a good time to test for wiggle room on price of ... I don't know, anything. As mentioned in my earlier post, we visited during the first week the sales office was open since March. We had other things we wanted to do that day, but the sales "force" seemed H A N G R Y enough to deal (whatever that might mean - honestly don't know what flexibility exists).

Great information and insights! I am adding one or two actual weeks from resales where annual events are happening which we would like to attend and then in future years, rent those out or exchange.

 

[travelpager]

Great information and insights! I am adding one or two actual weeks from resales where annual events are happening which we would like to attend and then in future years, rent those out or exchange.

Great. Read around this forum for guidance/insight as to which resales might best suit your purpose. Best resale VSE property for rent/exchange/trade value may not be the best resale VSE property value re leveling up SO's for relatively less $$ in MFs. Know your "mandatory" from your "voluntary," etc.