Hilton Grand Vacations Sales Center — Hotel in Dr. Phillips

Step 1. Guy A gave a "TED Talk." Immediately pulled the "C'mon guys I'm going to need more energy than that" move. Went into his history as a former pro football player, kept talking about "my Puerto Rican wife" in a fetishistic manner, as in, "when we're on vacation at this location, I know she's going to wear that bikini she doesn't wear around her parents." Dumbest thing he said was "We've got a Hilton in Italy with an Italian restaurant that serves Italian food cooked by an Italian Chef who speaks Italian."

Step 2. Guy B "designs" a package for us, barely listening to what we have to say. Kept referring to my boyfriend as "the money guy" even though we made it clear we are not married yet, haven't combined finances, don't know how often we will go on vacation or for how long, and that the reservation was in my name. Glosses over details like the resort fee -- 2,000/year, which comes out to a mere $5/day -- more like $5.43/day, and it doesn't include the timeshare payments themselves. Dumbest thing he said was, "It started to be a liability for us not to tell customers about this amazing offer."

Step 2. Guy C goes into the more detail on the financial side. He compliments my boyfriend on my questions. Says we should move some money around ... immediately after tariffs were announced and the stock market tanked. The other option was an unsecured loan at 17%. Guy A said it has to be high because they have so many international customers whose credit they can't check. Dumbest thing Guy C said was "it sounds like you're looking for more reasons not to do this." Didn't have to look too hard for those reasons.

Step 4. Guy D finally shows up with the paperwork -- of course the sale was so high pressure that they don't let people look at it typically. I pointed out the paperwork shows resort fees are subject to change based on property taxes and insurance rates. Dumbest thing he said was, "doesn't everything have unpredictable price increases?" Yeah, so why would I want another unpredictable expense? He also made the mistake of explaining that rates also go up based on how the HOA votes. Wow.

Step 5. Guy C shows up again. I noted that my house has appreciated in value since I purchased it, so property taxes and insurance rates are not as much of an issue. Guy C chimes in, claiming he paid $4K for his timeshare and now it's worth $40,000. I asked him if he could genuinely find someone to buy it from him for that much, cash, right now. I also noted I wasn't on the title and couldn't exactly use a timeshare as collateral. It's not an actual investment.

Step 6. Woman A explains that she was here from Corporate to offer an exclusive package that would allow us to experience Hilton again and do another presentation. Pass.

Step 7. Woman B offers ANOTHER package on a smaller scale before finally signing us out. Pass.

My rating is based on my experience with these individuals. It is possible they didn't explain the program properly. If they did, know:

Pricing is based on the assumption you would spend X at a Hilton regardless. I personally don't, and wouldn't. I wouldn't want to be tied to one company and its affiliated for ...

... life. It's a lifetime commitment. I asked what would happen if I get old and end up in a nursing home. They explained that someone else could buy it from me. I asked if they would facilitate that sale. To their credit, they admitted they would not.

They were honest about inflation rates, but only in the sense that things would cost more in the future. The presumption here was that we would be spending, say, 2025 dollars for 2035 prices. No. We would be spending 2035 dollars at 2035 prices.

You are basically paying a huge amount for the privilege of paying for resort fees ($2,000). Realistically, I might spend slightly more than the resort fees on hotels in a year. If those fees rise with inflation, there is no point in spending an extra $500/month on an unsecured loan.

I went in knowing it was a scam, but I didn't realize it was this...

My stay at this location was disappointing. Let me preface this by saying it was a last-minute booking that I was using to mix business and pleasure. I was traveling alone and I knew this was a resort catering to families, in any case, I knew it was a Hilton property and I expected the stay at a minimum to match a standard Hilton property. Uh, it did not. For 3 days and 2 nights not to mention my first sort of vacation this year was..how should I put it..awful. The room was dark, musty, and poorly designed. I had a studio king, bedroom with no balcony. My biggest issue with the room was that there were no drawers for clothes, and most of the plugs in the room didn't work so I had difficulty charging my devices. The bathroom requires you to be a contortionist to enter, move around leave, and use the toilet. You can't even get out of the shower without running into the door. Which has to remain open so it doesn't fog up the mirrors. And the room was so dated, with peeling paint, and stains on the walls and carpet. The location was nice, it was close to shopping, entertainment, and theme parks. But with so many resorts saturated in one area, most places you visit will be congested unless you get up early. I even found the Uber Eats delivery extremely slow but I expected that with so many competing patrons. The property itself seemed nice, but for a single woman on vacation, no complimentary coffee or breakfast was a bummer. Unless you had vouchers which I guess was offered after the timeshare presentation. The staff was ok and friendly but the property was super busy. The staff seemed to manage the crowds professionally and with courtesy but it did not feel very welcoming to me. Besides the room, the property is probably better suited for families with children. From other reviews and pictures, the larger rooms and suites seemed better. But being a long-time Hilton guest, even my stay at the most basic property room was more than comfortable than this, so my expectations for this basic room were not met. I left feeling even more tired and dirty. However, I checked out and drove to Lakeland and stayed at a Hampton Inn that was lovely for one night before a customer visit and returning home. I also have to mention that instead of getting an email or text message inquiry about my check out intentions, someone arrived at 0900, ringing the doorbell and banging on the door while I was on a conference call to inquire if I was checking out. But the room did include a DVD player and no streaming options so why wouldn't this happen? SMH And the kicker, I was charged $1.00 for a donation that I had declined when I checked in. This was not a grand...

We had our sales presentation to attend that Monday morning. Since we are from out of town and traveling with two young kids (6 and 2), my boyfriend had to stay with them while I went to the presentation. After arriving at Parc Soliel and checking in, my rep (at the time) Lena (apology for any mispelling) was sweet but quite inept. She said she had lived in the area of Orlando for 30 years but didn't seem to know where anything was. How could someone sell property when they don't know the property? She described the video presentation as "some pretty pictures" to bide time until we saw the model rooms. As she asked more about me and my boyfriend, she ended the "meeting" because he wasn't with me as we do cohabit. I explained that nowhere did it say I could bring my kids, and I felt it was disrespectful if they just ran around the office. Lena's supervisor then came to me, had me fill out yet another survey, and told me that marketing would call me within the hour but "definitely by end of day" to reschedule. Marketing did not contact me. I had to call them the next day to reschedule myself.

Because I had to reschedule my own sales presentation, we had to cancel plans to make it to the presentation as a whole family on Wednesday. Once again, check-in was quick, l and as soon as we settled, my rep, Gustavo, greeted us. You could tell he was not comfortable nor ready to pitch to young kids or my boyfriend. He didn't seem to listen to us very well when we described our vacation goals, wants, and needs. You could tell he was trying to think of how to phrase his next directional input to bait us. His flow of pitch wasn't smooth. He had to back track a few times and reword what he said a lot. He didn't know the exact number room the models were in. You could tell he wasn't comfortable with the desk screen computer while pitching us the prices. At the end of it, he had to get his manager to finish the pitch. Gustavo said at the end, "Before corporate gets to you, I gotta show you this first" as if it was a last minute sell or something he needed to show "corporate" that he did it. Needless to say, the presentation was uncomfortable and waste of our time. We did not agree to it because they expected you to have at least a $6k deposit to...