WorldMark Galena — Hotel in Elizabeth Township

This place is a joke.

I booked the Wyndham Worldmark in Galena for the first time. We frequent Galena and usually stay at eagle Ridge Resort. Eagle Ridge was full so I found the WorldMark. It looked decent and it was actually closer to my parent's house right off the territory so I thought we'd give it a try. On 11/24, I received a voicemail from Jennifer at the hotel saying that "They discovered some deficiencies to their roof and chimney and emergency work was going to take place until the middle of December and there will be contractors on site and there may be some disturbances." OK, no problem, we are only going to be at the hotel to sleep, shower and get ready. We arrived to the property, and at check in, the gal said to us that we may have "low water pressure" but you are on the third floor "So you should be fine." If there are issues you can shower in the pool." In the pool? I thought that was strange, but she said we're on the third floor and she was confident that we'd be "Fine." Also, while this was happening, an older couple in front of us was being talked to by a Sandy that worked at the hotel. She was telling them that there are problems with their well and that they are being moved to another hotel, that they had tried reaching them but it was their land line and they never received the message but that was going to be "on us". I thought, I remember a message about their roof, not their well. Hmmm. We got to the room and it was OK. My wife asked if it was clean. The carpet was worn in the entryway and the corners along the baseboard were dirty with debris. The jetted tub was stained and didn't look very clean. We weren't going to use the tub and I thought, it's a timeshare. Things are a little different. We're just there to sleep, shower and get ready. The PTAC unit at night sounded like an air compressor and woke us up through out the night. We woke up in the morning and there was NO WATER AT ALL. NO SHOWER and we couldn't even flush the toilet. We checked out a day early and I told the gal at the front desk that we cannot stay another night due to not having any water in the morning. I asked for my money back for last night's stay as well. I booked through Expedia and the gal at the desk said I will have to take it up with them. So I call expedia on Monday, tell them what happened, they apologize, put me on hold called the hotel. They get back on the phone with me, they say they spoke to Sandy at the hotel and they agreed to refund my second night. I said "My second night?" the gal at the desk said I wouldn't be charged for my second night. They said they had 'No notes" from Saturday about no water. I laughed. I asked for the hotel's phone number and called them myself. I spoke to Sandy, told her what happened. I asked for my money back. Three things are essential in a hotel, shower, bed, and cleanliness. We had no water. I didn't even tell her about the PTAC unit and cleanliness. But No Water??? she put me on hold and went to check with the General Manager, Chis Alpers. General Manager Chris, told Sandy to tell me "NO. They are not refunding my stay. They will only refund the night we didn't stay." I said, "But we had no water....." Sandy then told me to call expedia back to have them call her back to arrange the refund for the night that we didn't stay that the gal at check out said we wouldn't be charged for.

Oh, and "No Notes about no water that morning...." the gal at the front desk couldn't even make coffee for the guests in the lobby. She was working off a four cup coffee pot. I assume she was using bottled water to make coffee. LOL

What a joke. I should have booked one of the dive motels along route 20. We would have had a better experience.

Luckily Eagle Ridge had rooms open on Saturday night. We had an AWESOME Hot shower there and GREAT Customer service.

Thanks for Making it...

I am thoroughly disgusted and so upset to write this review. To give you a picture of me and my history with WorldMark, I am a Platinum member and have been an owner since 1998. I’ve have stayed at WorldMark Galena over a dozen times through the years. I’ve had my company attend meeting retreats there, vacationed, and even hosted get togethers.

On this particular occasion a friend/co-worker was using the condo. There was a discrepancy with the dates of stay. My friend/co-worker called and said that the property was showing they were due to check out vs. stay an extra day. The person, Patrick, who stated he had worked there for three (3) years was completely rude, unprofessional, argumentative, and interrupted continuously. It got to a point where I got the WorldMark 800 person on the line and she was assuring him that my guests did in fact have the proper dates and his records were incorrect. He was horribly belligerent to the two of us and I informed him I would record him, “…he said fine…”, therefore I did. His horrible behavior continued for some time and not until I reminded him several times that I was recording him did his horrible behavior end. He explained he’d been up since 1:45 am dealing with a fire alarm going off. This is NO excuse for such horrible treatment of a loyal customer.

He insisted we (the girl from WorldMark and I ) send him the reservation. Upon asking for his email he stated he could not get it due to being locked out of his email for two days. What?!?!

I asked to speak to the manager, Christina Douglas. Patrick said she was off and could send me to her voicemail. He proceeded to hang up on me. I called back and asked to again speak to her. He again hung up on me. I will be speaking with her, however! I was able to speak to the “room manager”, Anthony. He was amazing. However, my guests left. So very sad that something so simple that could have been calmly resolved was turned into such a fiasco by Patrick and his horrible customer service. I will be lodging a complaint with WorldMark as well. No one who has invested so much money into a vacation property should ever be spoken to or treated as I, or my guests were.

There are too many people looking for good jobs, WorldMark has always been a great place. Too bad they have such a liability working for them...

We had a delightful stay at the Club Wyndham Galena, and would definitely recommend this property and area. We had never been here before, and didn't know what to expect, but we were very pleased with the quaint historic town of Galena, and the variety of activities in the area.|The property and unit were well maintained and equipped. We had a studio with a small kitchen. There was a mini-fridge and stove-top, and plenty of pans, dishes, and utensils. The property is about 7 miles from the town of Galena, which is close enough to get there conveniently, but also far enough away to be in the quiet rural farm area rather than in the business of the town. We enjoyed breakfasts and cocktails on our 3rd floor balcony which overlooked mostly woods. The staff was very friendly and helpful. There was a well-equipped game room with pool table, foosball, ping pong, and several vintage video games. The surprising part was that all games in the room were free - no coins required. There are also washers and dryers on each floor that are free for guest use. The swimming pool was out of service during our stay, but we didn't really miss that.|My only suggestions for the room would be to have more storage space (there were only 2 drawers in the entire unit to store clothes), and to replace the dated and worn carpet. We had no problems during our stay.|While there we took a guided kayaking tour on the Mississippi through Roger of Riverview Ranch and Resort (highly recommended), toured the Blaum Brothers distillery (just so-so), and hiked in several local parks. We also enjoyed walking through the historic town of Galena and shopping and dining on Main Street. We were very pleased with the Fried Green Tomatoes restaurant where we enjoyed a wonderful dinner, and the Market House restaurant where we had a great lunch. We also spent one day in Dubuque Iowa where we toured the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium (very good), and walked along the Mississippi River trail. The museum of the Star Brewery there was also very...