The December 27, 2017 Gathering was well attended by interested parties. Great staff, wonderful set up and very comfortable. Thank you for your support.
Aimfair Gatherings - December 27, 2017 and January 3, 2018
January 9, 2017
A spirited group particpated in both Gatherings. It was an opportunity for Aimfair members to meet each other and raise questions they have about developments at the resort. Mr. Brett Estes is a Member Liasion for Vida Vacations. Brett provided answers to those questions he could answer and let us know when he did not have an answer. A big thank you goes out to Vida Vacations for sponsoring these first Gatherings and those that took place last year. Following are summaries of the issues discussed:January 3, 2018
- Reservations - I call at the first moment I can and am told there is no availability.
- Reservations are made on a first come, first serve basis.
- Availability varies with floor plan.
- The fewer the number of units in a given floor plan, the faster the reservation window closes.
- Nuevo Vallarta Example: 2 BR Loft Residences = 16 are available for Christmas week, vs. 2 BR Villa = 200 available for Christmas week.
- Since there is a limited number of units in one floor plan, the availability for a week in high demand will diminish more rapidly than it will for a floor plan with fewer units.
- The addition of inventory will reduce the pressure.
- The issue is heightened if the week is in high demand (Elite Weeks).
- Room Assignments - How is this done?
- Complex process - Priorities are assigned based upo a number of factors, including:
- Member’s Investment in dollars.
- Member’s ownership in floor plans.
- Exchange company commitments.
- Whether the member is National or International during the period in question.
- Allocation to Nationals is higher during Elite weeks and summer weeks.
- Allocation to Internationals is higher during Red Weeks (October/November to May/June).
- Allocation to Sales.
- Each week, arrivals are looked at and prioritized.
- Sometimes changes take place, which further complicates the process.
- Not easy, and very complex!
- Complex process - Priorities are assigned based upo a number of factors, including:
- Accidents - Procedures for getting on and off the property.
- Emergency exits through tunnel network.
- Emergency returns through the tunnel network also, but this option is not widely known.
- More information is necessary to make the process better.
- Accident Reports - How are they handled?
- Using Sister Resort facilities and transferal of benefits - how is this done?
- For Luxxe and Platinum benefits to apply, need to pay Luxxe maintenance fee.
- Sister Resort rules apply when using sister resorts.
- Confusion occurs when Luxxe is not available at desired time, but Sister Resort options are available.
- Members need to be certain to understand their contracts.
- Getting off the property is still troublesome.
- Gate at the Condo end of the property is open all day.
- Exit and return through this gate. Have to walk to the exit.
- Closes at night.
- Taxi fare is lower when returning to the property through the Condo gate, so long as it is during the day light hours.
- North bound exit. Why did this happen and when will it be resolved?
- Property owner or permit issues may be preventing the opening of the north bound route when leaving the property.
- Issues may be resolved in a couple of years. Uncertain now, but working on it.
- The Park - What is happening with this project?
- Opening will not take place in 2018 because of changes in designer, plans, scope and theme.
- New designer has experience with the Disney properties in China.
- Currently there are three buildings, each with two towers. All are skeletons with no skin.
- New designer is making changes.
- IT - Reservation system - online and between hotel, sales and reservations.
- Two basic controls:
- Reservations in the Contact Center - agents have access to one scheduling system.
- Hotel scheduling and accounting system - track members’ bills by name, room number and reservation number.
- Linking the two is impossible.
- New IT director has a background with Disney.
- Goal is to standardize new contracts.
- In the meantime, existing contract owners with multiple exceptions (addenda) will still be treated individually because of the number of exceptions.
- Agents - Get paid for making reservations. So they are incented to do a great job.
- Two basic controls:
- Future projects - East Cape, Cruises, Cirque du Soleil (NV)
- The Park is taking top priority.
- Other projects are being placed on the back burner or will proceed after the Park opens.
- East Cape:
- Roads are in place and being paved, according to Google Earth images dated.
- One building is on a knoll and is likely the sales floor, according to images from Google Earth.
- Another building pad appears to be in place.
- Not much else will be authorized.
- Argentina - unclear about the final disposition.
- Owners cannot take money from the country.
- Country is in difficult economic straights.
- Not a good setting for Vidanta now.
- East Cape:
- Improvements in Acapulco, Mazatlan and Puerto Penasco may be postponed.
- Cruises - Not much information until Spring, 2019 at the very earliest.
- Receiving mail at the resort is a mystery. Need to know how to receive urgent packages and parcels.
- Off property - I Shop in Bucerias
- On property - Need a process for handling mail.
- Liability issues.
- Procedural issues.
- Personal health issues.
- Email scams and calls - report them to the call center.
- How do the scammers get member’s names?
- Paper records are being eliminated. This will reduce the chance of confidential information leaving the property.
- Names and telephone numbers are in the public domain from prior years. These lists are reused and often not updated.
- Internal procedures are tightening to prevent release of names and telephone numbers
- Security expert is now on board.
- Arrested a number of people who were perpetuating scams involving Vidanta members.
- How do the scammers get member’s names?
- Vidanta Bonus weeks - use inventory members do not have access to.
- Many members have not been invited to participate.
- Bonus week programs are attractive because weeks used do not take away from current inventory.
- Not everyone receives invitations to use Bonus Weeks.
- Alternate Weeks - Carry the same weight as the Residence Weeks.
- Additional weeks in the system could mean more difficulty getting reservations.
- Concern is too many weeks with not enough space.
- Question is, how many weeks do we actually use and how many go unused?
- There are 52 weeks in a year. Elite weeks make up four weeks, leaving 48 weeks per year. There are 200 2 BR units in NV. 48x400 = 19,200 weeks of usage. Assume each contract has three weeks. That would mean there are 6,200 contracts to fill NV.
- Top 3 priorities.
- Improve Reservation System.
- Improve room assignment process.
- Improve property ingress and egress procedures.
December 27, 2017 - Scott's Notes
- What will happen at the Park? They changed Designer, things on hold until final updated design. Pushing back opening 9-12 months, now Late 2019 (even hearing 2020). Phase 1 will be the Waterpark. Overall design 4X larger due to acquiring nearby property they didn't have initially.
- Fajita Republic - getting off property is still a pain. Suggestion to build a walking path along resort to the Sea Garden like we currently have from Grand Mayan to Costa Arena.
No boat pier is in the horizon in NV.
- East Cape: Delay due to gov permit issues... some folks want bribe money to accelerate; Vidanta not paying it. Also decreased priority behind the Park.
- Conventions - 2 large ones recently occurred, blocking room availability even though in the off-season. Ambassador bookings were denied because full from convention. Over 600 people attended and were in all categories.
- Availability Hierarchy - there are two competing groups, national contracts and international contracts. Rooms are allotted to both types of contracts but some national contracts have guaranteed availability with a shorter reservation window so resort must hold back rooms. Rooms also allotted to sales. Old contracts had 10 month window for international registered week. Fewer of those so more people now booking out 12 months in advance.
- No plans to build additional Grand Luxxe units up the river... 6A and 6B will be the last buildings (at this point in time).
- Exchanges are part of the game.. resort claims this is due to owners wanting to go other places. They look at the historical exchange usage and pre deposit those weeks into Registry collection. Members not happy with Interval International exchanging lessor quality and staying in Luxxe for cheap. Claimed to be fixed going forward.
- Members receiving solicitations and these people knowing personal info. Some past employees have stolen information and been prosecuted so it happens. They are moving away from paper to reduce access to information.
- Room Assignment - members venting annoyance with RCI exchangers getting an upgraded room by agreeing to timeshare presentation, paying $20 deposit and then not showing. Exchangers end up with better room assignments than members or member's guests due to upgrade.
- Cruise Ship - currently in Spain to be re-fitted. No info when it will be launched or how exchanged.
- Resort operations feedback - shuttle wait time is better but not great. The new carts are there but not always in service. Worst is at the taxi stand with too many people wanting to leave at same time for dinner.
- Tennis... two courts is not sufficient for such a large resort... need more.
- Hot tubs - these need to be heated! Also complaints about balcony plunge pools being too cold to go in.
- Pool chairs: still an issue. Near fights by guests in Tower 4 pool at 7:40AM because chairs taken (reserved with a towel) but no one is in any of them. Suggest an electronic sensor showing occupancy.
- There is a request for better communication of promotions... when elite weeks are opened up for Red time and other customer service promos. Need a waitlist system like Disney Vacation club currently uses.
- Tower 5B, 6A, 6B will have another set of pools to use on the ground floor
- Someone prefers maids to keep lights and TV's off for turn-down service to conserve energy... multiple hours before owners return.
- Animals - why can't we have them. Simple case of one person not following rules and ruining it for the rest who would. Member feedback is that it will cheapen resort.
- Reservation system - members want to see it online now.. At a minimum have an online tool showing available rooms for each type that consistently refreshes so we can look there first before calling in, wasting 10 minutes on hold only to hear nothing is available.
- National and international contracts are different. Nationals can stay 3 or 4 days and split their weeks. Not limited to a Fri- Mon arrival.
December 27, 2017 - B&MA's Notes
- Park - When will it open and what is the status?
- New designer who worked with Disney has replaced Goddard is making changes to the overall design, which has pushed the projected opening date out by at least one year.
- More land has been acquired (or leased?) to enable the Park to expand by maybe four times the original configuration.
- Previous architectural renderings are no longer relevant.
- Opening of first phase - now Phase One is planned for late 2019 or maybe 2020.
- Park property is outside the timeshare property entry gate. Therefore, Park visitors are not going to be using timeshare owner inventory.
- Three hotels will provide ample space to meet demand for rooms.
- Cirque du Soleil will still be part of the operation.
- Getting on and off the property
- Walk the beach or crawl over a fence. Those are the two ways to get off the property.
- One exception: The gate for the Condominium Owners is open during the day, but not at night. However, it is a longer walk than walking the beach.
- One suggestion: Build a walkway up the beach to the Sea Garden.
- Complaints:
- Sea Garden restaurant is advertised in the Luxxe, but access to the restaurant is either a walk down the beach or an $85 MXP taxi ride.
- North bound exit.
- Mr. Estes admits it is a difficult situation but there is nothing that can currently be done.
- Possible the north bound exit will open after 2019.
- Reservation System - When will it be available?
- Online for standard contracts is likely to be made available sooner than for members with older contracts with addenda.
- Older contracts with addenda are too complex to put into a standard reservation system.
- For the time being reservations will have to go through the contact center.
- Reservation Priorities:
- International Sales - Red Weeks.
- National Sales - Elite weeks and white weeks.
- Reservation Policies - Holdbacks.
- Call at the earliest time available to find that the resort is fully booked. It is Impossible to have the hotel fully booked in that short a period of time.
- Concerns about members booking multiple units of one floor plan for a specific time period causes availability challenges. For example, a member might reserve four Registered Weeks in the Residence. This reduces availability for others.
- Room allocations - how is this done?
- Room allocation is a complex matrix made up of different priorities.
- Sales.
- Hotel.
- Member investment.
- Exchange companies.
- It is a very difficult job because there are so many competing priorities.
- This process is done every week for each arrival day.
- It is impossible to get it right all the time.
- Room allocation is a complex matrix made up of different priorities.
- Conventions - they are competing with owners for space.
- Convention in November made getting reservations at restaurants impossible.
- Presumably, conventions will come only during off seasons. Also, they will not use member inventory.
- Golf was congested as well.
- East Cape - What is going on there and how long will it be before construction starts?
- Infrastructure in the form of roads are being built now.
- The property is as large as Nuevo Vallarta, if not larger.
- There may be a sales floor there now, but not much else in the way of construction.
- Golf courses may be the first amenities to be built, but that is only speculation.
- Structures with complex infrastructure are likely to follow.
- Supposedly, the largest pool in the world will be built there.
- The top priority within the company is to complete the Park. East Cape is planned to follow. Therefore, it will likely be after 2020 before construction increases.
- Pets - Will they ever be allowed?
- Not likely. The owner is not a pet owner.
- More importantly, allergic reactions to dander and other animal related residues among guests are to be avoided. Therefore, it is unlikely the hotel will allow guests to bring their pets.
- Pool chairs.
- Still have trouble with guests hoarding chairs.
- Develop an app that would track chair use.
- Punta Pool area - towels are taken away if chairs are not occupied for a specific period of time.