TarheelTraveler

Maybe I'm assuming my experiences apply across the board to all or most DCs, but perhaps I shouldn't. My experience has been that the DC houses are better maintained than my own, even though I am very particular. However, non-functional jacuzzis, A/C units, and BBQ grills are serious issues in my mind that deserve a negative review, particularly if they weren't corrected in a timely manner.

vineyarder

The patio furniture was my biggest dissapointment, especially since TripTX posted in March:

I therefore expected that by June this would have been taken care of. We booked the penthouse over the oceanfront because of the rooftop deck, expecting to use it quite frequently for drinks & dinner, but the quality of the furniture made it downright depressing; who wants to relax in a $6 K-Mart plastic chair that blows away whenever you stand up? The other maintainance issues (A/C, leaking window, etc.) are just stuff that happens, and were dealth with promptly. But, to reiterate my posts in other threads, overall we were pleased, and I wouldn't consider my review a 'negative review', just a fair & balanced review that was 90% positive.

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DC4MS

I need to rethink the DC review section as some of the reviews....including my own get lost in the other threads.

Perhaps I can break this out as a a special "free" sub-forum as I have no intention of charging $15 per person.

Tedpilot

Reviews: Some very good points made. As many things in life, if you elect not to address a problem, that inactivity in itself is condoning it. Worse yet, you're passing along the buck to someone else to deal with it. That being said, yes, I've had a few problems with HCC properties over my 2.5 years of membership, but if the problem was rectified its no longer relevant to report.

rwhaugan

pwrshift- How did you stay in 2 different DC places? Were you a guest or do the DC's offer the ability to stay in a place to try it out.

DC4- I think breaking out a review section would be great. Perhaps you could create the threads to have no replies (which would limit discussion of the review, though if someone wanted to they could start a thread "Re review of property X." Anyone could post their own differing review of the property as long as it was a review and not meremly a comment on another review). Users could then very quickly and easily parse through every review posted under this section very easily.

Kagehitokiri

rwhaugan, IMHO trip reports are best in the respective club forum.

OTOH flyertalk has a trip reports forum, although some reports are in the respective forums anyway.

IIRC pwrshift also suggested having a "trip reports" forum here.

and i see DC4MS commented >
that might be a good point re getting lost in other threads. part of the problem here is that the forum is still so new. once there are more active users, there should be ongoing discussion threads on various aspects of the clubs. members can share information with each other, as well as prospective members. but right now there are mostly news/announcement/etc threads with few replies.

perhaps having a report subforum and/or a news subforum in each club forum could be a temporary solution to this issue, until there are more users/members/discussions. that could be one potential alternative to creating a single report forum.

re not allowing replies, IMHO discussion (asking questions etc) is the point of forums. i believe TUG's review section is read only, but im not sure, as i have not accessed them. in terms of moderating, its fairly simple to split threads if they go off in another direction from the original topic.

DC4MS

How about this.

Add a subforum for each DC that are limited to reviews of their properties.

At present, there are about only 10 true DC property reviews posted by various members, but this is a very important feature of this bbs and I don;t want to see great reviews lost in a sea of various posts.

LTTravel

I think that sounds like a good idea. I also agree that it should have reviews only. One can only post reviews. Others can post their own review of the property but not comment on other reviews, more like Tripadvisor. Discussion of the properties or quiestions should be posted in other sections.

pwrshift

Before you jump in, I suggest the paid members of TUG here have a look at TUG's Resort Review and the separate Resort Ratings sections to see how they are set up. There are thousands of TS so a comparable DC review section should be workable as there are less units in total. You'll also note that TUG reviewers do not have to put their name or handle on the review - some do, but the majority do not which nets an increase in the number of reviews and more objectivity.

I don't find the FlyerTalk review section as good...but there may be other BBS review sections that could provide ideas for this.

I think it would be better to have an alphabetical review section database that could also be sorted and/or searched by DC Club, location, etc. This would make all reviews readily available to all members and could encourage them to consider also joining other DC Clubs.

In other words, the reviews would have to take a different form than current - while the text review is OK as is (too long in some cases) the 'data' part would become very important once there are 200 or more reviews. Best to lay the groundwork now instead of cleaning up a mess later.

Quintess Michael

I would love to see a space where reviews were not subjected to rebuttal.
I think it would be healthy for the industry, and the prospective members.

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Quintess, The Leading Residences of the World

caribbeansun

Honest reviews are very valuable. In fact I joined TUG only because of the reviews as I believe they have allowed me to make informed decisions.

As to Bourne's comment about only HCC and UE benefiting from TS owners I'd have to strongly disagree. My own experience has been one of discovering different alternatives:

• I started out with the all in air and hotel stays in modest resorts,
• Moved up to Starwood, Marriott and Hyatt then discovered TS,
• Found a low end TS, dumped it,
• Bought a high end TS,
• Bought another high end TS,
• Sold one of the high end TS
• Bought a condotel unit in Grand Cayman
• Now I'm considering either buying another condotel unit as part of a group of people or turning them on to a DC or both.

Could I have afforded a DC when I started this process - arguable yes but it wouldn't have meant much to me without having experienced the others as well. Can I afford one of the high end DC's - yes but I have to assess if it's the right time for me to reallocate investable capital into vacations or as I said an alternative is invest less and share a membership with others adding more time later in life if I choose - I still have that condotel unit I like to use and I'm told I still need to work by my DW.