Welk Resorts — Local services in Vista

We (girlfriend and I) received an invitation to attend a free tour and presentation in exchange for a one night's stay at Catalina Island and some other goodies. We were prepared for the time share pitch and were prepared to say no. We met with a nice man named Justin who was very personable and shared some of his personal experience with Welk. He was very convincing and assured us that Welk is not a time share and that we'd be saving thousands of dollars in the long run. At the end of the presentation and tour, we decided to purchase a 120,000 point platinum membership as we were convinced that it would be a great deal.

After our membership became active, through our own research and meeting with a nice lady named Lucy in guest services, we found that Justin had told us some very misleading information. Unfortunately, many of the things that he told us were the things that ultimately persuaded us into purchasing the membership.

Justin told us that with our membership we can:

1. Use our points to stay in any of the thousands of RCI hotels throughout the world for a weekly price of $239 a week. We have found that RCI is very limited with their availability and that many of the hotels that he promised that we could stay at are not even available. Justin did not mention the severe availability limitations on RCI.

2. Use a RCI bonus week to book an on-property Disney World Resort. After checking the RCI website, there are no on-property Disney World Resorts available during 2019. Furthermore, after meeting with Lucy, she explained that due to the bonus week limitations it would be nearly impossible to stay at Disney World for a bonus week. Additionally, she said that most of the resorts cost more points than our current 120,000 points would cover if we chose to not use a bonus week. Justin was not transparent in any of this. I have this in writing as well.

3. Stay in RCI hotels for one night at time and accumulate unlimited bonus weeks. Again, Lucy told us that we can only get up to 5 bonus weeks a year. Additionally, most RCI hotels require a week's stay.

Justin also gave us four round trip plane tickets and wanted to send us on "our first Welk vacation to Disney World." He did not mention the blackout dates. And how are we even supposed to use our place tickets when we cannot even book a Disney World Resort?

It all seemed too good to be true, we asked cautious questions about the membership but were reassured that we could stay at luxurious Disney World Resorts and other luxurious resorts for only $239 a week. After meeting with Lucy and doing my own research, this is simply not the case. The fine print in the contract is ambiguous when it comes to RCI. Additionally, anyone I've met with or called when dealing with RCI has been ambiguous as well. I feel very mislead and am very unhappy now that I am a member of the "family. "

This is a cautionary tale. The sales/real estate agents will lie to you. It is not as good as it seems. We are both college educated adult professionals with retirements and a good financial sense. We reviewed the fine print, asked all the right questions, but ultimately were lied to.

Don't fall for the Welk lies. They are very nice people, but don't let those smiles and warming personalities deceive you. Don't make...

We stayed here in 2014 and had a good experience but this stay was really disappointing. This time around my family stayed with my parents who are owners at this timeshare. The check-in was a complete disaster. Long lines and they seemed very disorganized, as if they couldn't handle all the people checking in. The room was a decent size but the problem was that the room wasn't what my parents wanted. When the registration was made my parents requested accommodations for 8 in the newer buildings and was told those rooms did not sleep 8. But when we got there we discovered there were rooms with 3 bedrooms. We had all kinds of issues with our room. First it wasn't clean or finished being cleaned. They never came back to finish cleaning. One of the refrigerators did not work which they did fix. The bathroom walls were disgustingly dirty. The washing machine was so loud we could not hear our own conversations. There was a hole in the entry way wall. The medicine cabinet was dirty. We had no supplies to clean dishes. We were given no instructions on responsibilities for the tenants to maintain the room ie where trash goes and what day they will come clean the room, which never happened and we stayed for a week. We were constantly calling for supplies. Our dishwasher broke two times and leaked all over the floor. There was a large gap under the main door and insects were constantly coming in. There were plastic bags of old linens left out on the sidewalks for more than 24hrs. My parents who are disabled called for a shuttle pick up and they never showed up. I gave a 3 rating because our 1st stay was ok. If I were to base my rating on this stay alone it would have been 2 stars. The only compensation was...

If you love paying exorbitant prices for mediocre accommodations and sub par amenities, then the Welk is the place for you! Masquerading as a luxury resort, the Welk is actually a poorly-maintained timeshare property — don’t expect to feel like you’re staying at a hotel, or any of the services upscale hotels offer.

Check-in is a joke, the lobby feels like a Wal-Mart customer service desk and the employees have no idea what they’re doing. We were told three completely different stories about check-in procedures. Our room was not ready on time, which was a huge inconvenience given that we had traveled cross-country with young kids. Once we did check in, we were directed to the “concierge desk” to “pick up our pool passes.” Nope — there is no concierge, this is their way of forcing you into an interaction with their time-share salesmen, who are unrelenting.

Pools are not clean and there is insufficient seating for the number of people crammed in there. Bathroom/changing room facilities are poorly maintained and dirty.

We ate at the restaurant twice — the food was okay but service was lacking. At breakfast for our party of 11, more than 30 minutes passed between the first and last plate of food coming to the table. An $8 side of bacon was two and a half scrawny, paper thin strips. They are “new to breakfast” so perhaps still working out the kinks, but this was crazy.

Hot water heaters are insufficient for the number of units they serve, so be prepared for cold showers when the water heaters can’t keep up.

Going with two stars here because the units were large and we appreciated having a full kitchen. Beds were comfortable enough.

Hyatt Vacation Club, you have a lot of work to do...