My wife and I are preparing to travel back home after a lovely trip that included a visit to Florida where we stayed at a place called Vacation Village, an RCI resort in Kissimmee. Normally we stay in Wyndham resorts where we have ownership, but sometimes we stray in order to have other experiences. We never have any major complaints when we stay with RCI, but there are always little things that remind us why we stay with Wyndham.
Here are a few of the things that happened this week. During the evening of the day we checked in we were quite surprised when another couple opened the door to our unit preparing to move in. Apparently the computer had also assigned them to the same unit, and so they had to drive back over to check in to get it straightened out. While they were doing that, it appears that our unit keys were also invalidated as we discovered the next morning when we tried to get back into our unit after going out for a walk. We had to knock on someone's else's door to use their phone to get new key cards. Fortunately someone answered the phone when we called. I mention that because most of the time when I have called for whatever reason, there is either a recording saying that everyone is busy or else the phone just rings and rings. This has never happened at any Wyndham resort. And I believe this is the first resort we have ever stayed at that actually charges a $25 amenities fee to cover things like wireless internet and use of the pools. In most cases those things are covered by the rental fee.
But the biggest difference I find between Wyndham and other places is the consistency and quality of the, let's call them, products that you get in your unit. The bed, the cabinets, the silver ware, the dishes, the pots and pans, the coffee maker, to name just a few things, none of these things are Wyndham quality. Wyndham doesn't work on the cheap. For whatever faults the company does have (and I could certainly list a few), they do go out of their way to make your stay a pleasant one. And they are willing to spend the money on quality rather than on just getting by. And whenever there is an issue, you dial 0 and the problem is immediately solved.
While we were at Vacation Village, we agreed to sit through their 2 hour sales pitch in exchange for an $80 gift card. During the pitch we learned a little bit about how their point system works and how much it costs to purchase. It's different from Wyndham's but of course they're only going to emphasize the parts they consider selling points, which makes it impossible to discover if their system would be better; i.e. would RCI points that cost the same as Wyndham points get you more vacation opportunities. One thing the guy kept emphasizing was that RCI's maintenance fees are lower than Wyndham's, again a point impossible to prove based on the information they give you.
And that's when it hit me. I didn't care.
I realized that if a little higher maintenance fee is the price we pay to ensure that whenever we go to a Wyndham resort we know exactly what kind of forks and mixing bowls and coffee maker and towels and sheets, etc, etc, that we’re going to have and if something isn’t up to par there will be someone at the other end of the phone who will immediately fix it; well, I’m willing to pay that little extra.
Whoever would have thought that such a cheapskate as me would ever get to that place.
