West gate???

[mrsschlep]

I did a search and the threads on West Gate were from a while back. Here's the story:
We are planning our first family vacation to WDW in January. We haven't booked anything yet and were planning on staying at All Stars Sports but then my mom says she wants to give us one week of her time share for West Gate as a birthday present. I think that I would be foolish not to take it. But I have read so many horror stories in posts from the past. Which West Gate do you recommend?Villas or Lakes? Or is there another one? Or should we just stick to our original plan and stay on site? This is our first ever family vacation and I have no experience with any hotels. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Straitlover]

I think there are three Westgate Resorts: Vacation Villas, Towers and Lakes. From what I've read, go w/ the Lakes. I think it gets the least number of bad reviews.

 

[vaca101]

i stayed at the westgate villas last november, no horror stories here, but not as nice as i would have liked it

 

[welovedisneyx4]

If you want the true, full "Disney Experience", stay at the All Stars.

However, if you want a lot of room, a jaquzi tub, kitchen, washer/dryer, etc. then go for Westgate. We own at the Villas and have stayed at the Town Center. Both of those were very nice, we have never had any major problems. The Towers are 5 star, but I have heard they are not as nice as the others. We have also rented Westgate Lakes to a friend and they said it was nice. I think if you ended up w/ a bad villa or something, you could complain and they would probably move you, if at all possible.


I would recommend either the Villas or Town Center. It is very close to Disney and won't take you any time to get there and to get home at night (once you get out of the parks, LOL!). I am not very familiar w/ Westgate Lakes, so I don't know if there are any back roads you can take to the parks. There are lots of restaurants and stores on 192 around the Villas and Town Center.

We would love to stay on property for the experience, but for us having a "free" (taxes and maintenance fees already paid) week at a 2 bedroom unit w/ all the trimmings, we can't justify it. We will probably try to rent out our weeks so we can stay on property when we go next time or the time after.

Good luck w/ your decision!!!

 

[spiceycat]

for free - I would go with Westgate - here are the problems - check in - Westgate problems has the worst check in Florida - it will take a long time!!!!

secondly their service - they say they want to help - yea right - their service is on of the worst.

I really think this is intentional.

they call their sales meeting - a maintence meeting - now if the villa was all nice and fixed while would you want to go a maintence meeting???? understand their though process.

Westgate does not value its owners - they mistreat them badly - yea I am one too.

I even got some buyers for my unit - I have been through the.... with Westgate they are refusing to tell me anything - I was gonna go with a outside closing service - but I now think I will give to a charity.

there is a resort fee for changing the name of the person - it was $75 - I was trying to find out the current rate.

I was send to 5 (yes 5 ) departments for this information - then they told me to contrac their lawyers in writing - who refused to do anything because my timeshare was paid off, - who send me back to the original person!!!!! I now know that was being had!

Just never, never, never buy at Westgate - believe me you will regret it!

they in my opinion try to make it hard for owners to sell their resorts - so they will just give them back to Westgate - NOT HAPPENING!!!!

all that say - the resort is beautiful - if someone would just get rid of the management - this could easily be one of the best resorts in Orlando.

 

[StephMK]

We had a similar situation w/my SIL. Since we have 3 kids, the space and savings was too good to pass up. We will be at the Villas in Nov. After hearing the horror stories & some good points, I am cautiously optimistic we will have a great trip. We have no other timeshare stays to compare & are easily impressed. If we can avoid the maintenance sell & get a decent room, we'll be happy.

I'll let you know how it goes. Good luck w/your decision.

 

[vaca101]

i agree with you StephMK, at first management said they were there to help, then they somehow diapeared when i had questions. They tried to set up a time to meet in the middle of the week at 2pm to go over activities and events at the villas (sorry i went there togo on vacation, my time is limited here and there is no way i am going to give them 2 hours of my time in the middle of the day when i can be at Disney!, just to try to sell me timeshare). I am glad that i only traded to go there, an dthat i don't own there. And also, checkin was terrible (worse than the cheapest hotel anywhere) they had me wait in the packed lobby before i could checkin. The reason was because they wanted me to sit and talk to one of there sales people about buying timeshare there. No thank you. This July i will be at the Vistana!

 

[welovedisneyx4]

spiceycat,

Oh man, we would like to sell our unit, but your story sounds like it will be even harder than we thought.

When we bought our unit, they told us we could sell it back to them! Yeah, right!!! What a joke!!! We called them a few years after we had bought it and asked about selling and the tune changed. They said that they had never said they would buy it back from us and they were not able to buy anything back b/c of something about the inventory, that the had sold all the units. We know good and well that they did tell us we could sell it back, that was one of the reasons we bought.

We originaly went for free Sea World tickets and they sold us on the 1 bedroom every other year. We upgrade a couple of years later to 2 bdrm every year and then DH had to take a lower position at his job (or either not have a job!) and we have been trying to sell ever since.

We ended up paying the loan off when we got a home equity loan when we had to get a new roof. It is really nice to have it paid off, but the maintanance and taxes are what is so bad now! It would be fine if we went every year, but we just can't do Disney yearly. (Believe me, we would if we could!!) So, even on years we don't use it, we are paying at least $500.00 for m&t.

I think next time we go, I am not going to the maintanace "don't you want to buy more or upgrade" meeting. We will just ignore the calls, I don't know what happens if you don't go to the meeting. What are they going to do? Keep us there until we attend? They do make all kinds of promises w/ exchanges and everything during these meetings. The biggest bunch of BS!!!!

I have only had slight problems w/ check-in. A wait of probably about 20-30 minutes, I guess. However, w/ the mood I am in after a 2-day, 12 hour drive, I get my point across that I had better not wait that long or they will be sorry and I usually get someone to take us to our unit in about 10-15 minutes. LOL!!! (I am normally not a very aggressive person, but in this situation, I can't help it!)

I know my previous post was much more positve than this one. Westgate will be fine if you are just renting there. Like spiceycat said though, JUST DON'T BUY FROM THEM!!!!! RUN, RUN AWAY QUICKLY!!!!

 

[Mom2Madi]

Just wanted to add my two cents here...

We stayed at the Villas this past June... The first room they put us in was worse than the first apartment I had right out of high school!! I refused to move my things in - it smelled of bleach and disinfectant, there were stains on the carpet - the bed looked as if it had already been slept in, the closet doors were off the track.... there was no washer or dryer (they were actually in the hallway). We had spent the day at Epcot and checked in at 10pm or so... there was no line, but it did take a really long time... our so called "representative" said - Just stay here tonight and we'll see about changing in the morning - I said - No, I'll stay at a hotel tonight - but I'm not staying in this room... He said, we haven't had a chance to renovate this part of the property yet - I said, well, take me to a part you have renovated.... He made a call, I got on the phone and they argued, I argued and we were finally moved to a room that was more along the lines of the one I bought... Their major two argument was - You don't own HERE - granted I own in the Smokey's, but I am a WestGate owner. My reply back was "is this one of the units you show to prospective owners?" The answer??? I'm still waiting for that one!

I also agree with the earlier post about the "maintenance" visit. I ignored the representatives calls - and finally told him I was not interested in spending any part of my vacation sitting with him talking about his property, because I was less than impressed about the whole mess! Oh, but Ms. Riley, I was able to find you the upgraded unit on your first night... blah, blah, blah!!

The second room was unbelievably nice... but they try to sell you even after you have bought!! Geezz!!! We too would like to sell ours, but can't seem to get rid of it!

 

[spiceycat]

I got pretty good results using
www.redweek.com

I got several takers - but I am so mad at Westgate that I am giving it to a charity.

besides the charity will give me a bigger tax refund that I could have sold Westgate for.

After I have used the charity - if they do everything they say they would - I will post the site here - if anyone is interested.

I have also considered making a formal complaint to the state of Fl - there have been so many complaints against Westgate that several states won't even let them in - so see where bad business practices get you.....

 

[welovedisneyx4]

spiceycat,

Please let us know how it goes w/ the charity. I had never thought of that angle.

TIA!

 

[disneymom3]

We won a stay at Westgate Vacation Villas a couple of years ago. My then two year old still refers to it as the "stinky Florida house with the ucky pool." This was his name for it as DH and I were trying to be positve and not let the kids know it was not a good thing! Of course, we stayed at Vistana Villages the week before so they obviously noticed a difference!

We called three times in four days about the smell. They would come in, mop the kitchen floor and leave. Uhhhh, no, that didn't do the trick. Also called because the fire alarm was beeping intermittently and they sent people to check it out who without warning any of the guests set of the alarms to test them. Thankfully we were already outside with the kids in the car before that happened.

For us checkin was really quick and we have a policy of just not answering the phone when we are called. Who do we know who would call us in FL?

Was it worth the $250 I paid? Yeah, it was bigger than a hotel room and allowed us to have a kitchen (albeit a stinky one.) Would I stay again? Well, DH wouldn't so I guess I would have to chance it on a solo trip. I think I could probably convince him if it were free.

 

[mrsstats]

I am sorry for those who have had problems with Westgate. I own there and can honestly say I have never had probems with the unit or having any small problem taken care of promptly.

I do agree that their maintenance meeting is a hoax and we have not gone in the past. This past year my husband agreed with the person who brought us to the unit to go. Once we arrived, he told the timeshare person he had 15 minutes to complete his questionnaire and we were not interested in upgrading or buying another unit. The guy told us "Ok, you can leave"

No more maintenance meetings for us.