Enjoying OLCC

I'm here in the East Village (Bldg 878) and enjoying myself. Today is the first rain day so I figured I'd use this time to for a few small snippets:

My parents unit is Friday to Friday to Friday and my unit is Sunday is Sunday so I was in their unit for the first 2 nights and they will crash in my unit the last 2 nights.

Check-in was a pain and took a long time. While the owner check in line was short, the actual check in was probably an hour.....The over friendly and cheerful front desk clerk took forever giving us every detail. They offer you the time slots for the owner's update meeting and go over what you get.

For the 60 minute owner's update you get five $10 food and beverage coupons and discounted cabana rental for $49 (full price is $119). No change on the F&B coupons so look at it as $10 off whatever you purchase. Since we were 2 separate owners, we rented 2 days of the cabana at River Island.

Yesterday we had Apple Cabana. It's barely worth the $49, much less the full price of $119 but we did still enjoy it yesterday. You get a tv, small fridge stocked with various can sodas and bottle water, small basket of fruit, towels, 2 inner tubes, table with 4 chairs and 2 lounge chairs. You can call the restaurant to come take your order for food but we were told that they only do it when it's slow. We have pineapple on Thursday.

We've been to Universal City Walk and Downtown Disney which were fun to walk around. We enjoyed an awesome dinner at Fulton's in Downtown Disney. We're still planning to do Ice Bar and Cocoa Beach. Shopping at Publix was fairly standard and I found the prices to be about same of what we spend back home.

Owner's Update presentation was exactly what I expected and the various posts on here about the subject were pretty much on target. I didn't convert my week 26 or week 51 to points BUT my parents did convert their week 13 to the HIVC points. We did tour the units on River Island and I think the East Village is much nicer...well not as decorated as nicely but East village rooms are much bigger than River Island. The signature units in River Island are really nice.

For my parents conversion from weeks to points, I think points will work better for their type of traveling but who knows how well it work until they use it. I'm still not fully understanding the process of points and what has now happened to their week. It's supposedly an upgrade with 46,000 points at lake Geneva and the points equivalent for the week 13 - about 166,000. The only benefit I see with points is the nightly stays - nothing else, so am I missing something?

Overall, I am really pleased with Orange Lake and plan to come more often then every 5 years. My only minor complaints is that the lazy river could use more regular cleanings as we didn't see anybody cleaning until the end of the day but the rest of the resort is clean. Also, I think I prefer phone calls to the room to dothe tour rather than being ambushed at check in but I do understand why they do it.

That's it for now....

LOL....yes ambush is a good way to put it. When we checked in, in May....I told the very very friendly....exhuberent staff member.....thanks....but I don't need an update....I attend the owner's meeting, etc. Got my keys, parking pass and resort materials...and out the door I went.

Let's be perfectly honest....it's got NOTHING to do with an owner update of the resort...and EVERYTHING to do with trying to convince weeks owners to convert to points.

yes, you are exactly right - there was no owner's update at all...it was strictly trying to get you to convert to points and nothing else.

I forgot to add about the cabana you also get some cookies and crackers but don't get excited as I did as it's the same as what you get on an airplane - individually wrapped cookies and single packets of saltine crackers.

There were plenty tables and umbrellas that provided shade for our non-cabana days. We did bring a cooler in with drinks and food and nobody seems to be stopping people as we saw many people doing this.

Tonight we had dinner at Key W. Kool's...turn left on 192 and head a few lights towards Disney from OLCC. It was pretty decent. From the outside, it didn't look as nice as it did inside. Strange name for a chop house.

I don't normally check in during busy hours as I normally show up about 1 PM but you are correct, the front desk tries to tell you everything which is time consuming. I point out that I have been there multiple times and while the information can be useful, I am aware of most of it.

The owners' update is nothing more than a sale spiel and a hard sell at that. The real benefit from points is the ability to use smaller units (1-bedroom instead of 2-bedroom) and less busy times (slow periods versus busy periods) to get more use out of your week. If you normally exchange your week, it is less expensive. If you normally use your week and don't belong to an exchange organization because you use your week, it is more expensive as in the points system you must pay an annual membership fee and an exchange fee for every visit (plus housekeeping in some situations) whereas you have no exchange fees with the unit that you own and use every year.

For exchanging to larger units and busier periods, assuming that you check in on the Friday-Friday, Saturday-Saturday, Sunday-Sunday schedule and stay 7 days, the weeks program is better. For example, when I owned week 50 (which I stayed ever year), I had exchange my 2-bedroom unit for a 3-bedroom unit for week 51. This is perhaps the most extreme exchange as I exchanged from one of the least busy weeks to one of the most busy weeks plus I upgraded from a 2-bedroom to a 3-bedroom. It only cost the normal RCI exchange fee. In the points program, this can still be done but I wouldn't have enough points. I have three options. First, I could borrow points from next year (or have points carried over from the previous year) meaning that I forgoed a vacation in one year. Second, I could rent out points at I believe $4 per thousand but there is a limit to what they will let you rent. Third, I could forgo the week 51 vacation and go at some slow week. Points works best if you have a high demand week and worst when you have a weak demand week.

You still own your week, the same as before but it is converted into the points currency to use.

Here is a URL on the Signature Collection at River Island, http://www.theregistrycollection.co..._states/signature_collection_at_river_island/.

I love OLCC but....

When I was checking in back in February, the check-in process was more than annoying. I explained to the clerk that I was not interested in the update meeting and she just wouldn't let up. I made the mistake of pointing out my reasons and she tried to talk me into it with questioning that was like being in court on trial for murder. My husband was wondering what was taking so long and finally came over and saw how upset I was getting. He told the lady she was stressing me out and this was our vacation. I was annoyed at myself for getting sucked into her questions and trying to prove that I was not some uninformed timeshare owner. Our current weeks ownership works perfect for us but she didn't seem to think that was important. It was not a pleasant way to start my vacation.

Jamerican71
how much did it cost to do the conversion?? never did hear the total cost..

they got 166K points and how much are the MF now.. did they think it was a good deal or do they feel kinda cheated..

thanks

carl2591 said:

Jamerican71
how much did it cost to do the conversion?? never did hear the total cost..

they got 166K points and how much are the MF now.. did they think it was a good deal or do they feel kinda cheated..

thanks

Click to expand...

They got 166K for their week 13 plus 46000 points. I'm not sureof the total cost but I think it's about $160 per month.

They think it's a good deal b/c of the nightly stays. Of course they tried to get my mom with "you can get upgrades to the signature units of River Island" I told her that would be impossible so don't even make that a deciding factor. I thnk the sales rep wanted me to leave espcially after I told her I was in no way changing my weeks to points. Everytime she said something that I know is impossible, I would expalin the correct way to my parents.

Easy with no spouse in attendance

We just got back from our first (but definitely not our last) exchange in Orange Lake (North Village). At check in, I explained to the clerk, there were no married couples in our party. My DH couldn't come; he had to work. My sister was with me and my brother-in-law . . . this totally THREW her . . . well, aren't they married and can come listen to the timeshare speil? so I had to explain, that my sister's husband was back in Houston working, and the brother-in-law that was with me was my husband's brother! Ha! She must have thought I was crazy . . . but REALLY we brought no "complete" couples with us!

The next morning, the phone rang, and I got to explain it all over again! HA! I usually just disconnect the phone, but this time, I had forgotten to. They REALLY want you to go on a tour!!

Anyway, that being said, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay! My mom, my two sons age 16 and 20, my sister, my brother-in-law and his two daughters age 5 and 8, all had a FANTASTIC time! We'll definitely be back!