Why Is Bonnet Creek #77 on Tripadvisor?

[erineab]

From the reviews I have been reading on disboards, Bonnet Creek seems like the place to be for a Disney vacation that is not officially on Disney property. I'm curious to hear opinions from seasoned travellers to the area about why it is rated so far behind other Orlando properties on Tripadvisor?
I had basically decided Bonnet Creek was the place I would like to be next year (we are doing our first longer stay of 10-12 night - we usually just add a few days onto a cruise). Now I am second guessing myself. Are there other recommendations for 2 or 3 bedroom units that are close to Disney and have great pool areas?

 

[JimMIA]

First of all, I think all Internet forums tend to accentuate the negative. For example, if you go over to the DIS DVC boards, you'll find numerous complaints about housekeeping. We have done 29 DVC trips and have NEVER had a dirty room. I think it's the nature of the beast that people who are happy don't post, and those who have an axe to grind DO post.

I don't personally look at TripAdvisor, but from some of the reports I've seen, their reviews are not given much credence.

I also don't look at numbers. Anybody can click 5 stars or 1 star...with very little thought or justification for either a high or low rating.

I read the substantive comments in resort reviews -- and then I ask the question: "Would their 'horrific' or 'spectacular' experience have impressed me one way or the other?"

Most of the time -- when I read the substance of their complaint or glowing report, it is something so trivial that I probably wouldn't have even noticed.

 

[kathy884]

#77 is a good rating with all the properties in Orlando. I think, though, so many of the forum posters are just so elated with the value that an off property two bedroom that is so close to Disney for so much less than onsite, hence all the rave comments. For many of the posters it sounds like they have never rented a condo before, always stayed onsite, etc. -- so it's the first time they've had something like this for so little money. Those of us who do offsite condos all the time, we think it's a nice property, but not any better than the many wonderful condo resorts in the area -- not as nice as some -- a little nicer than some -- the closest to Disney, but others are pretty darn close too.

I belong to TUG2.net, a timeshare users group that rates timeshares all over the world. I don't own a timeshare, but I rent these a great deal. Orlando is the best place I know to get a good deal due to it being overbuilt -- so many high quality properties with great prices. TUG2.net including Disney timeshares lists 101 different ones. Members have rated Bonnet Creek number 30 out of 101, so in the top third of the pack. They give it an 8.37 rating. Usually most people are very happy with anything rated an 8 or above. I think you'll love it. If you don't have your heart set on Bonnet Creek and want the names of some other properties, just let us know and we can give you a bunch. I like to try different places (variety is the spice of life sometimes) and have stayed at at least eight different timeshare resorts in the area and would recommend any of them. (I'm sort of a price/value person when it comes to Orlando). The highest rated timeshares are usually Disney and Marriott ones, but they rent for more than I like to pay. I usually go for ones rated very highly, but a little lower than these, as they are so nice and I can get such great prices for an owner rental.

 

[kathy884]

Here's a list of properties TUG users rated higher than Bonnet Creek in the Orlando area that aren't Disney and have a reasonable number of ratings. I took off brand new properties that people just loved, but didn't have very many reviews for example. Like I said before, I think most people would like Bonnet Creek, but if the reviews have you scared, here are some other possibilities for timeshare condo properties in the Orlando area, that TUG members think highly of. TUG is $15 a year to join and IMHO by far has the most detailed reviews and best information to help with evaluating and selecting a timeshare condo to rent of any travel website I know of. I've been a member for more than 10 years, and done about 15 condo rentals from owners during that time period. I've highlighted the ones below that I've stayed in (five of them on this list). Many disboard posters have stayed in many more of these than I have. Sheraton VIstana Resort and Cypress Pointe are two that I've stayed at numerous times -- It's usually been really easy for me to find rentals for the week I want at these on TUG2.net classified ads section (no cost to join) or Redweek.com (can get on free as a guest, but have to pay $15 annual fee to contact an owner about a rental.) Most owner rentals too, are for a seven day period.


Marriott's Lakeshore Reserve (MGK)
USA,FL,Orlando


Marriott's Cypress Harbour (2619 MCP)
USA,FL,Orlando


Hilton Grand Vacations Club on International Drive (6309)
USA,FL,Orlando


Houses at Summer Bay Resort, The (6884)
USA,FL,Kissimmee


Marriott's Grande Vista (MGV, MGR)
USA,FL,Orlando


Hilton Grand Vacations Club at SeaWorld Intnl Ctr (3517)
USA,FL,Orlando


The Fountains (7605)
USA,FL,Orlando


Lighthouse Key Resort & Spa (LKE)
USA,FL,Kissimmee


Marriott's Imperial Palm Villas (MIP)
USA,FL,Orlando


Marriott's Royal Palms (1699 MRP)
USA,FL,Orlando


Holiday Inn Club Vacations at Orange Lake Resort - West Village, formerly Orange Lake Country Club (0670)
USA,FL,Kissimmee

Marriott's Sabal Palms (1276 MSP)
USA,FL,Orlando


Cypress Pointe Resort (2750 CYO)
USA,FL,Orlando

Sheraton Vistana Resort (0450 VIT, VIO, VI1, VO1)
USA,FL,Orlando

Marriott's Harbour Lake (MHZ)
USA,FL,Orlando


Oasis Lakes at the Fountains (4852)
USA,FL,Orlando


Holiday Inn Club Vacations at Orange Lake Resort - North Village (8897)
USA,FL,Kissimmee


Sheraton Vistana Villages (SVV/VKW/VVM)
USA,FL,Orlando

 

[erineab]

Thank you so much for the detailed reply. The two factors that are most important to us are proximity to the Disney parks and pools. In your opinion, does the pool area of any of these particular resorts stand out? The children we are travelling with will all be between 3 and 6 years old, and water play is a huge necessity.

 

[erineab]

Also, we are looking at a 10-12 day rental (I am a teacher so have very limited flexibility). Does that automatically exclude any of these resorts?

 

[disney-akj]

I always take Trip Advisor reviews with a grain of salt. People like to report the negative a lot more than the positive. BC has awesome pools, lazy rivers, slides, and a kids water area. It is as close to Disney as you can get.

 

[kathy884]

"Thank you so much for the detailed reply. The two factors that are most important to us are proximity to the Disney parks and pools. In your opinion, does the pool area of any of these particular resorts stand out? The children we are travelling with will all be between 3 and 6 years old, and water play is a huge necessity."

BC has awesome pools, lazy rivers, slides, and a kids water area. It is as close to Disney as you can get.

Almost all of the timeshare resorts have really nice pools that would satisfy most families. But these days, many families are looking for something a little more special -- waterpark features right at their resort. If that's your family, you might want to go with your original choice of Bonnet Creek. My kid and nieces and nephews have always been totally happy with regular swimming pools and hot tubs, so I'm not too much of an expert on the resorts with the fancier water park features. The three properties I know of with the waterpark features (I'm sure there are more that I just don't know about) are Bonnet Creek -- the one you are considering -- probably one of your best bets for this. // Disney's Beach Club resort // Orange Lake's River Island. // Disney's Beach Club being onsite and in their deluxe category, of course, is going to be much more pricey than the other options. Orange Lake, while lovely (The River Island area is really nice -- outstanding waterpark features), is a huge resort. -- You might need to take a shuttle or drive over to River Island. When we stayed there, we went over to take a look at River Island, and said "Wow this is beautiful -- We were quite impressed". But with all our other Orlando activity on our seven night stay (and two of those days were sort of down days too) -- never bothered to go all the way over there and just did our swimming and hot tub activity at the pool we could walk to from our condo.

The Disney parks are spread out, so different resorts are closer to different parks. One resort that stands out as being really close to Downtown Disney are the Cypress Pointe / Cypress Pointe Grand Villas properties. They don't have the waterpark features though -- nice pool areas (warm pools) // one pool has this center Volcano thing. // If a 15 or 20 minute drive is OK, almost all of these are in the running from a distance stand point.

If you want a zero entry pool, the little spash sprays, etc. // other waterpark features especially for little ones you might want to do that as a separate post. The Cascades section of the Sheraton Vistana Resort had a great zero entry pool like this, those little spray things, all kinds of cute animal blow up floats you could rent (really nice pool for little ones), but no lazy river or anything like that. It's in Lake Buena Vista too -- recently remodeled -- really beautiful condos and landscaping (two miles further away than Cypress Pointe). My teens (DS, my niece, and my nephew -- I consider them all my teens) like this resort because the pools stay open till 1 a.m. and they can go swimming after a late day at the theme park. Lots of the other places have pools that close at 11 p.m.

 

[kathy884]

Also, we are looking at a 10-12 day rental (I am a teacher so have very limited flexibility). Does that automatically exclude any of these resorts?

We never take our kids out of school. so always go high season. I have had great sucess getting condo rentals popular spring break weeks (my favorite time to go) and Christmas week. // For the best prices for many of these it will be a week long owner rental. Friday to Friday // Sat. to Sat. // Sun. to Sun. // With a 10-12 day stay not seven, that might make renting from Ken and getting Bonnett Creek (often mentioned on this forum) an appealing choice if you don't want to have to move. // If you are looking for the price advantage of an owner timeshare rental what I see is usually a seven day period. Most resorts do retail rentals for any timeframe, but you will pay more.

If you are looking at two weeks at Christmas, we have rented from a guy who owns back to back Christmas vacation weeks at the Sheraton Vistana resort for 14 days -- was great that we didn't have to move. He charged $1000 per week for a great two bedroom that slept eight.

 

[bankr63]

We never take our kids out of school. so always go high season. I have had great sucess getting condo rentals popular spring break weeks (my favorite time to go) and Christmas week. // For the best prices for many of these it will be a week long owner rental. Friday to Friday // Sat. to Sat. // Sun. to Sun. // With a 10-12 day stay not seven, that might make renting from Ken and getting Bonnett Creek (often mentioned on this forum) an appealing choice if you don't want to have to move. // If you are looking for the price advantage of an owner timeshare rental what I see is usually a seven day period. Most resorts do retail rentals for any timeframe, but you will pay more.

If you are looking at two weeks at Christmas, we have rented from a guy who owns back to back Christmas vacation weeks at the Sheraton Vistana resort for 14 days -- was great that we didn't have to move. He charged $1000 per week for a great two bedroom that slept eight.

Most of the big name timeshare resorts (Sheraton/Marriott/Wyndham) can offer you flexible stays. The resort management will often book hotel like stays from their developer units (i.e. you can book Vistana Resort directly from Sheraton for however many nights you need).

For owner rentals, many resorts are points based; about half of Vistana Resort is also "points" based. These owners have a bit more flexibility around length of stay than weeks owners, so you may be able to find an owner who can book exactly what you want. Or you can mix a weeks rental with a couple of extra days directly from the resort management company. We'll be extending our Vistana week this year with a couple of extra rented days. The one downside of mixing is that you may need to change units though after the first 7 nights.

Tug is a great place to get these rentals lined up. You can just post what you want (location/resort(s) you want, dates) in your own rental wanted ad. In a few hours you will probably have several competing offers from owners who want to rent and will arrange your dates for you.

 

[Senator Tressel]

Does the fact that some of these resorts may be nicer than Bonnet Creek outweigh the fact that they are not essentially on property? For me, I would think that the extra distance and having to worry about traffic would be a deal breaker, but I'm not totally against trying another place.

 

[kathy884]

Does the fact that some of these resorts may be nicer than Bonnet Creek outweigh the fact that they are not essentially on property? For me, I would think that the extra distance and having to worry about traffic would be a deal breaker, but I'm not totally against trying another place.

It's definately a personal decision / individual preference -- no right or wrong answer. I'm really comfortable driving around Orlando, though, and don't think of it as any big deal. On one longer stay than normal for me, we started at Cypress Point for a week, moved to Port Orleans Resort (a moderate onsite hotel -- freebie due to seminar for work for DH -- overflow people were here (seminar was at the Contemporary), and then we moved to the Sheraton Vistana Resort. I had a rental car and drove to parks. It didn't feel any farther driving from Cypress Pointe or the Sheraton Vistana resort to any of the Disney parks than it did driving from Port Orleans. // If you are going to Disney parks every day, I could see that being a larger factor. // We ususally in a six day seven night trip do two days at SeaWorld, one day at a Disney park, one dinner at a Disney resort (ALK or Polynesian), a day trip day to either Clearwater Beach or Kennedy Space Center, and two resort down days (one of our Disney resort visit/dinner days is then and we'll go see the Titanic attraction on I drive, maybe check out Gatorland, do pool time and tennis at our resort etc. // Obviously with the kind of itinary we're doing proximity to Disney isn't going to be as big a factor.

 

[erineab]

Tug is a great place to get these rentals lined up. You can just post what you want (location/resort(s) you want, dates) in your own rental wanted ad. In a few hours you will probably have several competing offers from owners who want to rent and will arrange your dates for you.

How far in advance would I be able to do this? Is it no sooner than 10 months prior to dates? I know cheaper rates are often available within 60 days, but given that I am required to travel during peak season (March Break), I wouldn't be comfortable leaving it that late.

 

[Brian Noble]

To the OP's question:

TripAdvisor's "popularity" number is not a simple average of review scores; there is a lot more that goes into it. For example, if two properties have exactly the same set of review scores, but they are "more recent" for one property than the other, the one with the "more recent" reviews will have a better ranking. There is also a volume component: if we have the same average review score, but your hotel gets twice as many reviews as mine, you will have a "more popular" property.

This last probably biases against Bonnet (and, indeed, any timeshare) because most of the guests there are owners, and owners are probably not using trip advisor to decide whether or not to stay at "their" resort.

There are other reasons as well. For example, someone might be surprised to find that Bonnet (or, indeed, any timeshare) doesn't provide daily housekeeping, and ding them for that in the reviews, and so on.

For calibration, here are the popularity rankings of some of Disney's timeshare resorts, as of today:

OKW #72
SSR #44
BCV #80
BWV #42
BLT #30
VWL #16

(AKV is listed under "speciality" lodging, not regular hotels, so it's ranking isn't comparable.)

Look at those numbers for a minute. Is SSR really that much nicer than OKW? They have similar locations, and OKW's rooms are both larger and have been more recently refurbished. Is VWL really that much better than BLT? BLT's rooms are brand-spanking new, have an extra bath in the 1BR and 2BR units, and BLT has a better location. Is BCV really the "worst" DVC property?

I think the answer to all of those questions is probably "no". So, I would not put too much stock in the popularity number on TripAdvisor.

 

[TDC Nala]

It's 77 out of 337. What's wrong with that? it's also a timeshare. Sites like TripAdvisor tend to downrate timeshares because they are not full service hotels.

The #1 ranking is the Floridays Resort Orlando on International Drive. I don't get how it's that much greater than Bonnet Creek. In fact, if your plan is to concentrate on Disney, Bonnet Creek's location is much better. TripAdvisor is a good place to make sure you're not staying in a dive, but I wouldn't use it to pick the top hotel anywhere.

 

[bankr63]

How far in advance would I be able to do this? Is it no sooner than 10 months prior to dates? I know cheaper rates are often available within 60 days, but given that I am required to travel during peak season (March Break), I wouldn't be comfortable leaving it that late.

If you are renting from an owner, sooner is much better than later. As you get closer to the date, it is much more difficult for them to get the reservation (unless they have a deeded unit). Most owners pay their fees in January, and that's often when they decide on "rent or use" for the year. If you are 10 months out, there is a pretty good chance they can reserve your dates.

There are sometimes deals to be had as you get closer and an owner has a late change of plans, but that isn't something you can rely on if you need a certain date.

 

[bankr63]

Does the fact that some of these resorts may be nicer than Bonnet Creek outweigh the fact that they are not essentially on property? For me, I would think that the extra distance and having to worry about traffic would be a deal breaker, but I'm not totally against trying another place.

I agree with what Kathy said on this too. WBC is on the property, but only 2-4 miles closer via expressway than many of the resorts around 535/536- that's a two to four minute difference. Many of the other resorts that are just off property can be quicker compared to say DTD resorts as they have more direct access to less congested routes into the resort. We never hit traffic from Vistana Resort into the park, unless we go the "wrong" way through the DTD zone.

I would take a look on google maps or mapquest to understand how far away any of the resorts you are considering actually are from the parks. Most of the popular ones have very good access.

 

[erineab]

When posting a "wanted" ad for a timeshare rental on tug, are there are precautions one should take in order to ensure that you're dealing with an actual owner (and not getting scammed)?
Sorry if this is a silly question - I am new to the whole timeshare rental concept.

 

[darrius1st]

IF you read the reviews most of the negative reviews comes from the timeshare pitch and the constant phone calls. Also people tend to complain about things that happen everywhere like the air breaking down and things like that because if it's not fixed in 5 min. then it’s not fast enough. Now I have been to WBC on 2 trips and the only problem I had was that the last time I went it was way to crowed and my family didn't get to enjoy the amenities like we had the first time, but that was my fault because I went during the 4th of July. People sometimes have unreal expectations and when a place doesn't meet them they make it seem far worse than it was.

 

[bankr63]

When posting a "wanted" ad for a timeshare rental on tug, are there are precautions one should take in order to ensure that you're dealing with an actual owner (and not getting scammed)?
Sorry if this is a silly question - I am new to the whole timeshare rental concept.

Not a silly question at all because there are scammers out there. Tug is pretty good about weeding them out, but due caution is always recommended.

The best answer to that is probably to send you over for a little research at tug. Go the Buying Selling Renting Forum here: http://tugbbs.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=13 and check the stickies at the top. There are a couple of threads there that are specific to renting (from both the renters and rentees view). If that fails to answer your questions, do a search on the forum with a couple of keywords about what you want to know. There is no shortage of people with opinions over there.

Also, a little trick is to do a lookup on anyone responding to your ad on Tug. If you can match their name over to the forum side, go over there and look at a few of their posts to see if they are legitimate. Not all renters will be forum users, but many are.

Good luck!