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RCI website resort reviews need overhaul!

Carol C

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Hi Madge,

I thought I'd call your attention to the fact that RCI needs to put some serious resources into overhauling resort reviews that appear on your website. This means deleting very old reviews to reflect current realities and working to get new reviews submitted.

Case in point...first timeshare I ever bought was #1845, Sun Club in Cozumel. It went bankrupt and was bought out by Palace Resorts and is now AI and Gold Crown. My friends who've stayed there say it's luxurious now that all units have been completely redesigned with jacuzzi tubs and all new modern decor. The common areas are all redesigned as well, with more restaurants and an infinity pool overlooking the Carib sea.

Recently I visited the RCI website and your online directory of resorts, to see that RCI still has old and completely outdated (and thus erroneous) reviews of the former Sun Club units with their dated fixtures, leaky air conditioners etc. It's a totally different resort since Palace Resorts took it over, stripped it down to its foundation and rebuilt everything. I'm surprised Palace Resorts hasn't complained to RCI about the way the RCI website makes their resorts appear in the online directory. I haven't looked at the RCI directory online to see if the other Sun Clubs that Palace took over are also plagued with awful and ancient reviews (Nuevo Vallarta, La Blanc Spa, Playacar Palace are some others that were Sun Clubs and got bought out by Palace Resorts and turned into 5star luxury resorts.)

I personally think RCI should delete all the old reviews on the RCI website and do a mass mailing to all RCI members to solicit new reviews of our resorts...and then get those current reviews onto RCI's website asap.

FYI here's a link to the Cozumel Palace review page on RCI's site:

http://www.rci.com/RCIW/RCIW_index?... Resort&action=resortdir&orgPage=resortdetail

P.S. I don't really have any questions, but I wanted to present you with this idea as an opportunity to improve RCI's website and thus customer service. :wave:
 

patty5ia

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palace review never included

A year ago I wrote a very flattering review of the Vallarta Palace in Neuvo Vallarta and submitted it to RCI. It was never published. The Palace Resorts are beautiful resorts and these reviews need to be updated.
 

Madge

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Carol C,

When the RCI Community website became inactive, so did the reviews. The reviews appearing on rci.com right now are the ones that already existed at that time. However, our web development team has always planned to bring active reviews back to rci.com directly.

In the meantime, be sure to check the TUG reviews, which are very comprehensive.
 

Carol C

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Carol C,

When the RCI Community website became inactive, so did the reviews. The reviews appearing on rci.com right now are the ones that already existed at that time. However, our web development team has always planned to bring active reviews back to rci.com directly.

In the meantime, be sure to check the TUG reviews, which are very comprehensive.


Madge,

I know about TUG reviews...I've been a TUGger for years. My point is that RCI's own website has reviews by resort visitors/RCI members that are ancient and do a disservice to many fine resorts. Such ancient reviews also misinform exchangers who use RCI's website and look for reviews there, in order to know whether the resorts might be a good fit for their families. If RCI can do it via the web developers, they should just delete or kill the entire reviews program, rather than just let stale, inaccurate info sit there online.
JMO but it amounts to very bad customer service to let bad information just sit there on a website as popular as RCI's.

Carol C.
 

Madge

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Carol C,

It is RCI's plan to reinstate active reviews, hopefully even this year. In the meantime, while there is certainly the risk of inaccuracy of older information, some pieces, such as location, restaurants, unit layout, etc. may still be helpful to members. The best case scenario is of course to have up-to-date information, and that is the plan.
 

Carol C

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Hi again Madge,

I just went to RCI resort directory online, searched for Cancun area resorts, clicked on Playacar Palace #2994, and this is the description that came up:

Resort Information
Villas at Summer Bay Resort ( #5995 )
17805 U.S. Highway 192
Kissimmee, FL , 34714 , USA Phone: 352/242-1100
www.summerbayresort.com
customercare@summerbayresort.com
Participates_ in_Points

Search Results
This intimate vacation destination is located on the grounds of beautiful Summer Bay Resort, just minutes from Walt Disney World(R) and Universal Studios. The resort offers several heated pools; beach with water-sports activities including Jet Skis; interactive water feature; Kokomos Tiki Bar; miniature golf; on-site Disney ticket sales; excercise room; games rooms; horseshoes; shuffleboard; volleyball, basketball, and tennis courts; and children and family activity programmes. Free transportation is provided to the Disney parks.
 

hudson1126

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" In the meantime, while there is certainly the risk of inaccuracy of older information, some pieces, such as location, restaurants, unit layout, etc. may still be helpful to members."

I agree 100% with the OP.

There is no reason to keep outdated and inaccurate information on the website. Any logistical information such as location, restaurants, etc, can be had by anyone with a keyboard and a mouse from all over the internet.
 

#1 Vacationer

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I was an active member posting daily on the RCI Community & Journals and when they stopped those forums they referred us to IGO UGO. I was so distraught and the IGO UGO website was so unpractical to browse around that I quit going on there for about a year. Finally I did some research and found TUG, and I am now satisfied once again. It is cumbersome to have to go to 2 websites...one to do research, one to book the place, but I don't think it'll go back to the way it was.
 

Madge

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Carol C,

This appears to be a crossover error -- it is not intentional or related to the reviews. If you see this again, please send a message to feedback@rci.com with TUG in the subject line so that the Communications Team can report it.
 

Carol C

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Madge...Do you have a good guesstimate when RCI might be ready to put up more resort reviews? I'd like to submit reviews on three excellent Palace Resorts that I recently visited. But, I don't want to take the time writing and submitting if they're unlikely to be used. Thanks for any further info on a timetable when RCI might be ready to go with a newly overhauled reviews system. :hi:
 

Madge

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Carol C,

I don't have a timetable yet, except that we hope it will be this year. If you don't mind writing up the reviews and holding onto them, we will love to have them later!
 

Carol C

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Carol C,

I don't have a timetable yet, except that we hope it will be this year. If you don't mind writing up the reviews and holding onto them, we will love to have them later!

Madge,

Will RCI have exclusive use of our reviews, or might they be given or sold to another website like IGoUGo? I prefer writing reviews when I know they'll be used exclusively on the site I'm submitting to. Please advise.

Carol C

P.S. I honestly think this is my last question on this topic! :whoopie:
 

Madge

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Carol C,

I will check on this. My instinct is to say that they will be kept strictly with RCI; however, I have not received exactly this question before so I'd like to be sure! Thanks for asking.
 

Madge

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Carol C,

Will are still working out whether we will show reviews in the public resort directory online or only after login. However, we will not be sharing the reviews with a third party like igougo and definitely won’t be selling them.
 

wilmark

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Website Overhaull

I find that i get too many errors with the RCI Points website too many 500 server errors. I could never get a confirmation printout - I use firefox and when i dont get thru i use IE and this still get errors. I get errors when i try to put something on hold it shows me the wrong resort. The drop down menus on the search weeks or last call are iffy. RCI did a refresh but its looks like just the photoshop graphic that was changed (the images and the shadows etc). On sometimes its extremely slow.
 

Madge

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Wilmark,

Web traffic to our site is especially heavy this time of year. You should see fewer errors, particularly 500 errors, as we head into summer.
 
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