WorldMark Angels Camp — Hotel in Angels Camp

We had an awful experience at Worldmark Angels Camp. Allow me to explain. From the moment we arrived we were greeted by the front desk to check in. After getting our cards we were greeted by “Donn” who was promoting one of the timeshare presentations the following day. We were told that we could choose between a $100 visa gift or a 7 night gift to any RCI resort. My wife and I thought why not try the presentation and take the RCI gift. Remember we were told that this was through “RCI” which is a very reputable vacation company. We checked into our room and it was nice for the most part. Nothing terrible and nothing special. The drain to the shower was clogged and the water would barely go down, and the tv would glitch out when scrolling through the guide. Small problems that never got addressed. Anyway the next day my wife and I went to the presentation and was greeted by a front desk lady and we were then told that the 7 night vacation is not through RCI but through “RVC”. My wife and I were super bummed because we were told by Donn that it was through RCI and not RVC?? We took the RVC not knowing anything about it… HUGE MISTAKE I will explain later. So we sat through the 90 min presentation with Shane (a manager). We showed interest in learning how the point system works as we are not owners and are staying at angels camp under my parents account. As Shane was explaining some of the points options he said I will be right back. As he came back (without permission) he revealed basically all of the account information to myself and my wife. THIS WAS 100% CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE REVEALED. My parents gave ZERO authority to reveal to me and my wife the personal information on the account. I WAS EXTREMELY LET DOWN BECAUSE HE SPOILED A SURPRISE TRIP THAT MY PARENTS HAD BOOKED FOR MY WIFE SURPRISE BIRTHDAY GIFT.

We left the presentation after 2.5 hours (1 hour after the time we were told the presentation would last. The rest of my day was ruined. This surprise trip for my wife was something my parents had planned for months and now she knew everything. After that privacy breach I informed my parents about what Shane and worldmark did and they were FURIOUS! My parents immediately got on the phone with multiple managers at Worldmark Angels Camp and just got the runaround from everyone and all that she got was “sorry about that”, nothing to make it right or any extra nights or compensation.

We ended up checking out the next day and received our gift (7 night trip) in our email and were even more disappointed with our experience when we leaned that the booking site RVC HAS LIKE NO NICE PLACES! ALL OF THE PLACES ARE LIKE 2-3 star places and you can only book your trip within 30 days of going! Also to note the locations are EXTREMELY LIMITED and not in really any tourist destination cities really. Who plans a trip 30 days in advance! IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE TSKE THE $100 DONT TAKE THE TRIP! ACTUALLY DONT GO TO A TIMESHARE PRESENTATION AT ALL!! THE GIFTS ARENT WORTH IT AND YOU MIGHT GET YOU PRIVACY VIOLATED AS WE DID. STAY AWAY FROM THE TIMESHARES TRUST ME!

Well all I can say on my wife and I first time of staying at Worldmark by ourselves we will never probably return to angels camp as the staff cannot be trusted (Donn and Shane example) and are so unhelpful when any problem arises along with most of the managers (Charles Dawson) just verbally apologizing but taking no actions to make it right! Actions speak louder than words! You are supposed to satisfy your customer and no effort at all was made to satisfy us! And this bigger issue for Worldmark is that my wife and I were actually considering purchasing our own ownership and NOW BECAUSE OF WORLDMARK ANGELS CAMP experience we are definitely opting out from purchasing and will take our money elsewhere.

We will definitely be spreading our experience to all of our family and friends along with our social media platforms. Worldmark you NEED to do better and should be embarrassed for what you did! ...

WorldMark Angels Camp was a mix of very good and very bad. I definitely hope to return to Angels Camp one day, but I'm not sure I'd like to stay at WorldMark next time around.

I'll start with the good. The room was beautiful. We had a one-story room with a balcony that looked out toward a dry glen and occasional wildlife such as deer and stray cats. The room had two TVs (one in the living room and another in the bedroom), lots of amenities and cooking utensils, and small bags of Lavazza coffee. It was spacious and homey. The premises were well-manicured, and it was nice to see at least two pools, a basketball court, and a tennis court. The gentleman at the front desk (Matt, I believe his name was) was friendly and personable. The location is also ideal: a 13-minute drive from Murphys and less than a half-hour drive to Columbia and the large sequoias.

Now for the bad, beginning with some minor gripes. I had a couple of friends over at my room to play the new Mario Kart for the Switch 2, but the TV in the living room was so small that we all had to pull up our seats as close as possible to the TV to see what was going on. The WiFi was also extremely spotty the entirety of our stay, making it difficult to do simple things like Google search or play video/phone games that required internet connection. Like I said, it was nice to have a basketball court on the premises, but the basketballs that were provided were falling apart and had hardly any bounce to them. The website also spoke of the "pickleball courts," but there was only a tennis court that could be converted to a pickleball court with confusing lines.

The worst thing about my experience was the service. When we were checking in, an employee named Peter gave us a pamphlet of things to do. He was very humorous, but right away, I felt as if he was trying to "butter us up." Then he told us that if we attended a breakfast seminar the following morning, we could get a free seven-day stay at any WorldMark in the world. We asked what the catch was, and he said there was no catch; we just needed to watch a 90-minute video at the breakfast the following morning. I felt that he was not being very forthcoming, and as someone who always likes to read the "fine print," I felt uncomfortable. But so he would get off our backs, I told him we could go to the breakfast the following morning.

As that day went on, my wife and I talked about the offer and decided we did not feel very good about it. We thought Peter had neglected to tell us something. Therefore, the next morning, we decided to explore the area instead of going to breakfast.

That night, as I was entertaining a couple of friends with Mario Kart, Peter called the room. "Hey, I was told you didn't go to the seminar this morning," he said. "I set aside that gift for you. Do you just say you're going to do something and then don't do it? I selected that gift for you, so you can go to breakfast tomorrow or Sunday. Should I put you down for 10 AM tomorrow? 11:30?" I told him that I wasn't interested, but he kept insisting that I attend, implying that the gift could not be revoked, and that he already prepared it for me. I then told him, "When we were talking to you, I had a feeling there was something you weren't telling me. My wife and I are on vacation, and this is our first time at a timeshare. I didn't expect to be pressured when I came here." That's when he said the worst thing of all: "Well, you're in our world, now. This isn't like a hotel, where you don't have everything you need. You have everything you need here. You're not trapped in a little box; you have a nice place and access to whatever you want. So yes, you're going to have salesmen try to sell you things. Welcome to our world." That was when I decided I really wanted to have nothing to do with the seminar, and possibly with WorldMark ever again. I told him I was not interested and kept telling him that until he finally let me go.

The room and location were great. The service truly soured...

I remember a time in the past when the hospitality industry was still hospitable. This no longer seems to be the case in the industry or at the very least, is not for the WorldMark Angels Camp. ||My family and I stayed there this past weekend and had a completely fine time. ||About an hour after checking out, my 6 year old guiltily informed me that she had left her younger sister’s stuffed hen toy in one of the bedroom drawers that she was pretending was a chicken coop. Bummer. Totally my bad. Should have checked the drawers. Noted. ||It just so happened that we were still doing activities in the area for the next few hours so we figured we could try to pick it up on the way out of town. We immediately called the desk at the WorldMark property to inquire about the missing bird and were subsequently informed that we had to make a claim with a third party website called ILeftMyStuff.com and would be notified when it was found. ||Ok. So rather than the hotel desk sending a simple text message or call to the housekeeping department that was likely IN THE ROOM at that very moment cleaning the drawers with the stuffed hen inside, we filed a report with this website. 24 hours later I receive a message that the hen has been recovered and it will cost $50.00 to return. I expected to have to pay something, but $50.00 to ship a 4 oz stuffed hen 2 hours away is a blatant heap of bullsht.||Hospitality companies used to care about their guests and the experiences they shared on property. WorldMark, like many other companies nowadays, views its guests as vessels of monetary exploitation. They aim to provide the absolute bare minimum service to their PAYING customers while taking as many short cuts as possible to extract the highest profits. This might mean that they pay their employees as little as possible and degrade their humanity by considering them disposable. It might mean that the company sources the cheapest cleaning and hygiene products available that don’t actually clean as well as advertised and may even be harmful to guests and staff. It might indicate that the company procures the lowest quality building materials and furniture for their rooms that at best are uncomfortable and at worst dangerous. And it might mean that the company partners with scammy third party websites that charge exorbitant shipping fees to return a fcking kids stuffed chicken to you.||At the end of the day, I’m talking about a stuffed toy. Who cares? There are bigger problems in the world.||But when guests comply with this absurdly predatory behavior or simply allow it to occur without speaking out, it sends a message to these companies that this is a completely acceptable business practice. It sets the dangerous precedent that as paying customers, we are totally fine being treated like blood bags by these vampiric corporate ghouls. ||Screw that. ||Don’t support this behavior and don’t support these businesses! They should be ashamed...