Bluegreen Vacations Fountains, an Ascend Collection Resort — Hotel in Dr. Phillips

Better than a Super 8, but can get much better for your money. Don't buy in with their sales pitch- you can buy for cheaper online from people trying to sell if interested. My wife listened to the sales pitch for a "cheap" vacation in Bass Pro. After having difficulty getting dates/locations we wanted, we went to Orlando Fountains resort. First off we had to meet with 5 different people at 3 different locations to get checked in. They reverify income and info and get you scheduled for their "2 hour" sales pitch, talk about how good everything is and send you to the next location for keys. Spoke with the next person that was very nice and got us our room keys and very useful info, then had to go to talk to another person - slow and repeated steps already done- waste of time. Building 2- room 2208- The room was a below average, dated and worn 2 room suite. Dusty edges, worn pathways, old uncomfortable furniture in the living area, sliding door to balcony track broken- the kids and mom could not open to door, but I could slide it on the old track. Ice machine in fridge is way too slow and loud. bedrooms and baths were fine, other than we had no conditioner. Old, low connectivity TV's would loose signal every 5-6 seconds and flicker on many channels- no option to streaming, no guide- they give you a channel list but that's not helpful without a program guide. A couple nice pools if you want to just swim. They advertise the nice pool slides but only available 10-1, so my kids never got to use them due to time closed. seems like they could have one of the hundreds of staff be there during all pool hours. Kids didn't want to swim since the slide was closed so we went to the arcade- figured it was included but you have to pay to play. spent $80 on 4 cards and that only lasted lees than10 min! Way too expensive for so little. We wanted to go the last day to the sales pitch but they would not allow us to do it on the same day as checkout, - They had no good times available either so we had to miss half a day of universal to go to the sales pitch- in hindsight instead of receiving a "discount" on the room and $150, I would have paid them to let me enjoy my vacation. Walked in 9am and they had loud music going and were trying to hype everyone up. Free coffee and soda but we don't drink either. figured we would grab breakfast right after. each person is assigned a sales person and then there are multiple managers. You go sit with your sales person and they work on building rapport. Then they put you in a room and do a 55 min presentation. During the presentation I looked at BBB, Google, and Reddit- almost all bad reviews and people displeased with the system. based on a review, I looked at ebay and found multiple bluegreen owners selling with unused credits cheaper than you could buy. After the sales person tries to use you to come up with numbers to make their vacations look good. Our sales person was nice even after mentioning multiple times that it didn't seem for us. They take you on a bus to one of the newly renovated units- which was nice and is what I would have expected in the first place- I asked why our room was so bad and they said we should have called for maintenance to fix anything we had issue with. after we got back we said it had been over an hour and a half and we had plans ad were told 2 hours. He did not address that but He kept saying we must not understand the program if we didn't want to buy. I then asked how many of his family and friends had bought and he said that was a stupid question that they all get it for free through him. After that he was visibly upset. He called a manager over and He said it must be a money issue then. I reaffirmed it was not. He finally relented and said we could wait at the door for him to walk us to get our $150 card. All together it took over 3 hours. Had I known I would have just paid the extra for the time with my family. Bluegreen owners on site we spoke to said don't buy in- they are always trying to upsell you. Spent the time writing all this so...

We travel often and own a timeshare but for only half the year. We seriously wanted to find this to be a great addition to our ownership. However we didn't leave with the same excitement we came with. Our first day we were checking in and we requested a bottom floor and close to main pool. We explained that walking was difficult for me at the time due to breathing issues. The girl confirmed us a room and sent us on a blind hunt because as it turned out the room she assigned us , ground floor - building 10 didn't exist. After walking longer than I felt able to do I found a seat and sat while my poor husband searched. I tried asking several workers as did he and none of them had a clue. Finally someone took him back to front desk where they told him that room didn't exist. They apologized but turned around and did it again. They explained that because we were on a promotional visit (promotional with extra nights purchased) we could only stay in building one. We accepted that but stressed to the girl we needed ground floor. She assured us we were ground floor and could walk out to pool. Well turns out after another blind search we were not on 1st floor but actually the 10th floor and the very last room down a long halfway. Now with that being said I will say we actually loved our room and decided I would just walk slowly when walking down the long Hall. Our room was large and pleasantly decorated. We had the most amazing view that overlooked the lake and half of Orlando. We had two fireworks shows every night from our balcony. So we were happy there. However the cleanliness left some to be desired. We were told that the cleaning was contracted out. We had hair and dirt on bathroom floor as if it had been swept there and left. Some of the light switches had smeared food on them, a piece of popcorn was laying on the living room floor, and a couple other minor things. The basic feel of the room was clean but I kept finding those issues throughout the week. We took a walk on their beautiful walkway from building one to the clubhouse, we stayed there a couple hours. It had started raining so we moved to the indoor pool and hot tub. When the rain quit we walked back to eat lunch and when we reached our building the gates were locked. I had no energy left to walk back so my son and I had to walk all the way around the building to front door. My husband and daughter made security unlock gate for them after a long wait. Security claimed they closed the pool for lightning but the pool we had just came from was still open and we didn't see any lightning, it was barely sprinkling but maybe I missed it.. They told us also that if we had walked back, that the other gate was closed then too. What kind of hospitality is that? No sign saying gates close in rain. No person checking the walkways to see if it was clear of guests. No concern whatsoever for the people they were supposed to show hospitality too. I also want to point out that the entertainment was lacking. We love going to the main pools and listening to live music at night. Most resorts offer this at least one or two nights, some every night. This one did not at all offer it. If it was happening it was not on their provided schedule. I was disappointed. Overall we loved our room and view. There was a nice arcade, the pools were nice but cold, the best pool in my opinion was the indoor outdoor one, so the week was good but not somewhere I would buy into. I will say the sales presentation was honestly the best we have experienced. Sadly the product didn't match the...

Hoping the rest of the stay is better…we confirmed procedures for a later check in because of going to the parks. We 3 way called the hotel with another family a couple weeks prior to request to be in the same building (so we have a witness to the conversation)…which we were told we would both be in building 2. We arrive for check in and of course we were not in building 2 with the other family that arrived earlier…my wife even called to check again about a week prior to confirm we were all set and it was noted on our reservation. So instead of apologizing and giving some sort of perk for the mix up…we were interrogated asking who we spoke with because apparently it was not noted in our reservation even though the other family on the 3 way call also heard that it would be noted on our account for both of us to be in building 2. We were referred here by an owner and have visited the property before along with another high level owner and had a good experience while visiting but I guess our first impression actually staying here did not live up to expectations…hopefully the rest of the week goes better. update not much better…second day in and we settled on building 5 which we were okay with at that point and I was in the middle of a shower when the water shut off in the entire building. Called down to figure out what was going on and they were doing boiler work from 10am to 5pm…my daughter had a dance competition that day and need the shower. Called down to figure out what was going on and they said they sent out notice which after a quick conversation we verified we of course were never notified. So they offered 2 fixes…we’ll provide you a place to shower (pool house)…or we can move the entire family of 5 (3 teens) to a new room. We really needed running water so we opted on moving rooms…so 3 teens, parents, luggage and food in the fridge all had to be moved quickly because we still need to get ready for the dance competition. We were already waiting for a call from the manger for the check in problem…no call as of noon day 2…switched rooms…asked again for a manger to call during room switch. End of day 3 still no manager call…call evening day 3 and the night manager was polite and said he would look into it and have someone call back the next day. Day 4 different manager calls mid afternoon and asks for all the details of what happened all over again after I gave a detailed explanation the evening prior and was told everything was noted in my account. Got a little frustrated with 2nd manager asking to tell the story all over again and he made it sound like he was doing me a favor as he expressed he went out of his way to call me on his cell phone…and told me he didn’t appreciate my sarcasm when he said he would have to give me a call back regarding another issue..:and I asked if I would actually hear from him that evening as he stated…which should be understandable at this point. He said he would reach back out by 4:30…which turned out to be 5:30 which we missed the call because we figured he forgot about us again. Then someone texted us a resolution which wasn’t even the manager…it was now a third person…guess the second manager was too busy to reach out on his cell phone again. The place has potential…just not managed well…front line staff were all great…the rest falls back on...