Best / Worst management

[Carolinian]

What are some of the examples of the best or worst timeshare management out there?

For the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the worst would involve two:

1) Barrier Island Station resorts - Two of their resorts are long sold out. Both have specific provisions in their covenants as to when they should have been turned over to homeowner control, which have long ago passed but the developer keeps a hammer lock on control of the HOA, nonetheless. At the two sold out resorts, less attention is given than should be to maintenace and replacement issues. Owners at those resorts often feel that the developer concentrates its attention on the resort they still have in sales.

2) Cape Management - Within the last year, has lost two of the four resorts it used to manage. Husband of the owner of this company has a maintenance company that does most of the maintenance work on resorts they manage. This company goes to great lengths to try to place management rubber stamps on HOA boards. Inattentiion has led to some significant maintenance/repair issues at some of their resorts. The resort that is almost directly across the street from their office seems to get more attention than the one 5 miles or so south of their office.

Some of the best managed resorts are self-managed, where a hands-on HOA board hires its own management, but for management companies, SPM managment at Outer Banks Beach Club I and II has been getting high marks.
VRI just took over Sea Ranch II (from Cape Management) this summer, but so far seems to be impressing owners there from what I hear.

[jgtragesser]

High praise to the management team at French Lick Springs Villas (FLSV) I hope that all the timeshareforums.com members who own at FLSV will join me in recognizing the excellent job this self-managed Property Owners Assocition (POA) does in maintaining our resort... Big Frank where are you???... our volunteer board deserves our thanks, our gratitude, our applause for hiring and overseeing a conscientuous, hard-working staff which is holding costs to reasonable levels and getting the best return on our annual maintenance fee... this Bud's for you gang!!!! ....

We hope that the refurbished French Lick Resort Hotel... the soon to re-open, refurbished West Baden Hotel... and the new French Lick casino blow the socks off of the Ohio River Valley hill country economy!!!!.....
Joe Tragesser... jgtragesser@yahoo.com .....
Resort link... http://www.frenchlickspringsvillas.com/

[jgtragesser]

High praise to the management team at the Country Hideaway Association (CHA) at Mountain Lakes in Cleveland, GA I hope that all the timeshareforums.com members who own at CHA will join me in recognizing the excellent job this self-managed Property Owners Assocition (POA) does in maintaining our resort... our volunteer board deserves our thanks, our gratitude, our applause for hiring and overseeing a conscientuous, hard-working staff which is holding costs to reasonable levels and getting the best return on our annual maintenance fee... this Bud's for you gang!!!! ....

This Blue Ridge Mountain resort looks better every year... and now we have TELEPHONES!!!! ... Joe Tragesser... jgtragesser@yahoo.com ... Resort link... http://www.countryhideawayresorts.com/

[Carolinian]

Joe - It looks like your experience is much like mine as to resort management. The self-managed resorts seem to do better for their members in most instances than those under management companies.

[jgtragesser]

I LOVE Fairfield, Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, etc.!!!.. but is the resort management group's first concern for me (the resort owner) or for their corporate profits and their personal year-end bonus???... Joe Tragesser ...

[tonyg]

The two smaller resorts I frequent in Maine near Acadia National Park seem to be well managed by their HOA. One of them is still developer controlled. They keep the places well maintained and try to keep the maintenance fees low.

[EAM]

Joe,

Just curious. What is the status of amenities (pool, tennis, golf, mini-golf, etc.) at French Lick Springs Villas during this year while the resort hotel is closed for renovations? IMHO, the bus tours at FLSV are so entertaining, and the hiking at Spring Mill is so good, that one could have a great time at FLSV without using any of the facilities at the resort, but still, they are nice to have available.

EAM

[bigfrank]

Joe I have done well in both renting and in trading my units at French lick. I hope to try to make it there in Febuary of 08.

[Larry]

Playa Linda in Aruba was close to bankruptcy a few uears ago with the resort falling in disrepair. HOA had the votes to kick out the developer whose management company was not doing the job ( except for what was good for the developer) and hired two well respected Arubian hotel Managers. The resort is now better than ever and has received a five star rating from II to go with their RCI GC rating as well as being voted among the top caribbean resorts by Travel and Leisure magazine two years in a row.

All of the units are now getting new kitchens and bathrooms as well as new mattreses. Furniture was replaced a couple of years ago. There was one reasonable special assessment paid over three years and maintenance has not gone up as high as some other caribbean resorts like the Pelican in St. Marteen which has the Royal resorts as their management company and maintenance has gone through the roof in the last four years.

I believe that the current management team of Jan and Jan have done an oustanding job in maintaining and managing this great resort which is about 18-20 years old and looking fantastic.

We currently own two weeks there and if we could do a permanent swap of our two Pelican weeks for one Playa Linda week I would do it in a heart beat.

[suskey]

Of the resorts I own..two have an excellent management team in place. They are both small resorts but are run far better than the larger resorts I own .

The two who get kudos from me are Casa Del Mar in Aruba amd Casitas Del Monte in Palm Springs.

Susan