Anyone ever stayed at Grand Lake Resort?

[mrs. magoo]

My father is in RCI and will not leave a request sitting to see if we can get something that i would like. So he jumped at the 2 units here. I can tell from the photos that it is old and only has the one pool. My kids are excited about the little beach area. We are going next easter. The location looks great in terms of the parks, but I am worried that it is not going to be the vacation spot I was dreaming of.

Thanks in advance for any answers

Kathe

 

[Lisa P.]

Mrs. Magoo/Kathe, I'm sorry to discourage you... I would not be very excited to plan a stay here - especially with so many other, better rated resorts in the area. This place is older and has wildly varying reviews, from decent for a motel conversion to ugly, noisy, buggy, rundown and smelly. It's right on 192 and it does not look nice from the road, IMHO.

Some very mixed reviews of Grand Lake are on TripAdvisor.com - where most people seem to compare it to cheap motels - some may think it's a step above that while others absolutely could not stay there at all for more than a night, even if they lost money on their rental stay by leaving. RCI.com reviews were pretty good, though some of those were from people who had gotten last-minute cheap getaway weeks - again, perhaps fine for a place to sleep and shower near WDW on a last minute trip to see the parks.

But TUG's reviews by timeshare owners who are used to nice condos with more resort amenites - terrible! Both resorts at Grand Lake are in the BOTTOM 10 out of 80 resorts reviewed for that area. The variations in room descriptions in previous reviews may indicate that some sections or rooms have been refurbished more recently while others are badly in need of it. So who knows what you'd end up with.

If there's any way to encourage your father to try again, I would. My experience with RCI has been that it's reasonably easy to get two timeshare condos in any of the larger, better resorts in greater Orlando IF you place an ongoing search request and wait a few weeks. The exception is if your father owns a very offseason studio week in a rather remote place (very poor trade power asking for prime Easter week); then it could be tougher to secure 2 units at a nicer resort.

I'd suggest choosing from any of the following groupings of resorts and asking the phone vacation counselors if any of these are available. To place an ongoing search, just choose ONE resort and place identical requests for both the exchange weeks/rooms.

Then wait a week or two. If it doesn't match, switch the resort selected to another resort and try again for another week or two. By mid-August, if nothing has matched for your spring break, then lower your hopes and accept what you may. Along the way, call in at least weekly with a spot-check to see if any of the resorts listed below are available.

Now, both of the following Gold Crown mega-resorts have deposits constantly and should match your two requests within a couple of weeks - just choose one for an ongoing search:

0450 Sheraton Vistana Resort
0670 Orange Lake Country Club

The following Gold Crown resorts (below) bulk spacebank, meaning they suddenly upload dozens of rooms into RCI at once. This increases the chance of a simultaneous match for 2 or more rooms when you have an ongoing search running in RCI's computers at time of the bulk banking, so they are a good choice for trying to snag a couple units between 6-10 months ahead of travel (now) - again, just choose one for an ongoing search:

3517 Hilton Grand Vacations Club at Sea World
3995 Fairfield Orlando at Cypress Palms
6309 Hilton Grand Vacations Club on Int’l Drive

These next resorts are smaller and harder to get multiple units for the same time. But they sure are nice places, worth asking about on phone call spot checks (not with ongoing searches for multiple units):

1276 Sabal Palms
1699 Royal Palms
2619 Cypress Harbour
4852 Oasis Lakes at the Fountains
6059 Sheraton Vistana Villages
6369 Fairfield Orlando at Bonnet Creek
6884 Houses at Summer Bay Resort
7605 The Fountains

These last RCI resorts (below) are not on my top hit list, but they'd be a much better option than either of the Grand Lake properties. They're a little simpler, very pleasant resorts with nice condos where people like to stay (and come back again) for an enjoyable Orlando vacation - just without some of the Gold Crown resort whistles-and-bells but still with consistently good reviews. These are definitely a good choice if your trade power is lacking or you're just want to get a match as soon as possible for next Easter's vacation:

2610 Silver Lake Resort
2750 Cypress Pointe Resort
3175 Summer Bay
3664 Embassy Vacation Resort at Grand Beach
3996 Cypress Pointe Grand Villas
4934 Barefoot'n in the Keys (2BRs, not 1BRs)
5095 Sunterra Polynesian Isles
5109 Orbit One
5389 Celebration World Resort
5592 Orlando's Sunshine II
6315 Sunterra Grand Beach
6815 Silver Lake - Silver Points

Hope that helps. Wish you well!

 

[mrs. magoo]

Lisa,

My father has red time, but will not give in on this. So I guess we are staying there in April. He says it will be fine, but I don't know. I guess we are not in the room all that much anyway so hopefully all will be fine. Thanks again for the heads up.

Kathe

 

[DianeV]

We go down there alot and use timeshares..every time we drive past this place I shudder...it looks absolutely awful

I would continue to try to persuade him to change it..for what reason is he so stuck on this?

 

[mrs. magoo]

Diane,

My father is well my father and can be very stubborn about these things. I don't even know if we can change it now anyway because he accepted it. I am concerned, but it has a mixed bag of reviews. Some good some bad. I have to make lemonade right. My kids are very excited about the sand area and the playground. We will be spending 4 days at the parks and 1 day at Typhoon Lagoon so as long as it is clean I guess it will work. I am most concerned about the pool though seeing as my kids are part fish and all. What if the one and only pool breaks?

Is the location good? Because that is the one saving grace I keep telling myself. Please tell me that it is.

I wish I could convince him otherwise, but since he accepted we are stuck right? Please correct me if I am wrong.

Thanks for the heads up

kathe

 

[spiceycat]

it is pretty good location - also the street from the short cut - but you can still use the short cut...

this place has gotten horrible reviews for a long time. I would think RCI would tell them to make it better or get kicked out...

they certainly have to others....

generally the timeshares in Orlando try even harder than other places to make their resorts outstanding.... because the competition is so great.

next year offer to do everything yourself.... he probably just didn't want to kept looking.... you can do it - you just need his membership number then you can sign up online and find what you want yourself...
www.rci.com