Family of Five, I agree with your observation on Tripadvisor. I noticed the same thing BUT what I also noticed was that on the Vistana Village area of Tripadvisor someone had knocked the resort and made comments such as the room was 25 years old immediately following that there was a response from Vistana Village managment stating that the person had the wrong resort and was actually speaking about the Vistana so I am going to conclude that at least some of the resort management watche that site. I would venture to guess that some of the good reports are simply management trying to offset the bad. It is hard to tell. I often think some of the good reports on this site on places we know are really bad are the same thing but who knows. For the most part I think this board is more reliable than Tripadvisor.
Madscrapper, I cannot believe you did not write a letter to Marriott management. I know I always preach this but when something really bad happens and IMHO getting a child's hand pulled into a jet is bad, you have to let upper managment know. How else can they make a change. Did you ever work in a in retail?? Management always wants to handle problems at the store level no one ever wants to have a problem brought to the attention of the upper level and it the same is true in this case. I have worked in retail management and trust me I know. One letter is multiplied by 100 or somtimes 1000 depending on the company.
