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Re: Global Access thru Orange Lake Resorts (by Suzanne S.):

My husband and I just returned from a "week 12" vacation at Orange Lake. (We are owners of a 2bed/2bath). We were constantly pestered to attend an "owners" update meeting at the "beautiful" Founders Club. Apparently this was supposed to whet our appetite. My husband felt we should find out what provisions have been made for future development etc. etc. I wish to stress that the "meeting" was billed as an informative session for owners. We were appalled to find ourselves in yet another fairly high pressure timeshare presentation. On top of the scam like tactics to get us there (other couples at the meeting felt as we did and were expecting an Orange Lake rep to address us as a group.....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO such luck.) It is unconscionable that years of ownership counted for nothing and we were treated as though we were coming off the street for a presentation. All for a whopping $60.00 cash! Most presentations pay at least a $100.00. Oh, yes we did have to tour the new units and the penthouse!! What really infuriates us is the new "levels" of membership. Which is a bit of a pyramid scheme in some ways.... as a regular old weeks member (as we have been for years) it turns out we aren't as valued an owner as we once were. You see the deal is: the more weeks you own, converted to global access points, the more privileges and perks you are entitled to. For example golf benefits, village upgrades, restaurant upgrades etc. So now we have different levels of ownership. Great! I'm embarrassed to say we actually bought into the Global Access Points system before they discontinued allowing owners to upgrade by buying another week. It seemed as though it was a good option as it was billed as an incentive price point that would be going up and was being offered at an introductory price to "get members on board". The real dilemma for us was the whole points system offering greater flexibility because so many point resorts wouldn't trade with weeks owners. We were convinced by repeated guarantees that converting our week to points would absolutely guarantee us a greater pool of properties and the fee to switch to a different week at OL would be done internally for only $40.00 as opposed to the over 4 X fee RCI charged. We are still scratching our heads over whether that move was worthwhile. The fee we paid to convert was approx. $2000. I would like to add that when we asked the sales woman at our meeting and the "closer" what about the members who were grandfathered into Global they absolutely denied that happened and said any owner who says otherwise is a liar. So there you go.. We were very thankful we backed out of a purchase for a unit in the new River Island village. The crowd in that area was unbelievable, by 10 am there was not a chair to be had. I can't imagine paying the price of the RI units and not being able to even find a chair, especially for families with young children. This may be somewhat alleviated upon completion of the pool at the West Village as many were owners (as we are, from the west village). All in all we have to say we have found a distinct shift in attitude in the last couple of years.. OL is not the same as it once was. Long time owners consistently expressed this opinion to us over the week we were on site.