Orange Lake Vacation June 25, 2008
We checked into Orange Lake Resort and Country Club on June 15th. The first week of the stay was fine and we were enjoying our stay very much, so much so that we had decided to purchase a unit during our sales tour on June 18th.
On June 23rd at approximately 11:30pm the troubles began. We had a long day at the Disney parks and were very tired but there was a loud commotion going on outside. My daughters came running frightened into my room scared out of their wits saying that there was a man outside their window with a knife chasing after someone. I picked up the phone and pressed 0 to get the operator. There was no answer after 10-15 rings. I then pressed the Fire and Emergency button on the phone. Again, it rang 10-15 times with no answer!!! The commotion had died down at this time so I put on my robe and went outside. I saw some people standing outside down at the end of the road but no one near our unit. So I went back inside thinking it was all over.
A few minutes later I heard a woman screaming loudly. The children again came running into our rooms scared saying the man with the knife was outside their window. I picked up the phone and tried the Operator. Again, no answer! I then again hit the Fire and Emergency button on the phone and again no answer. This is the fourth time I tried to contact internal security with no response so I called 911 and spoke with a police dispatcher. I told them what was going on and they dispatched a sheriff's unit. By this time I was in the kitchen and looking out the window and I saw the large man with the butcher knife chasing someone around and heard the women screaming at him for him to stop and him shouting "let's go!" a bunch of times. The whole time I was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher.
In a few minutes the police arrived and I saw them put the man in handcuffs. We tried to settle the kids down and call it a night. My 9 year old daughter was (and still is) extremely upset over the situation and was crying and asking if we could leave and go home in the morning. I was obviously upset and left a voicemail at about 1am for our QA Rep Candice Barrera to call me and that I wanted out of my contract.
The next morning I called for Candice and found out she was out of the office on her day's office so I left a message for her supervisor, Carla Araujo. At first the receptionist didn't even seem interested in taking a message and said I would have to wait until Candice returned, I said that this was not acceptable and started telling her the story of what happened. She agreed that this needed to be addressed that day and said she would have Carla call me back as soon as possible. (Unfortunately I did not get her name; this all took place on June 24th.) I called a couple of more times and was assured that I would get a call back that day. Needless to say, that call back never happened.
On June 25th at about 9:30am I went to the Sales Office onsite and asked to speak to Carla. I was told that she was not in yet and that I could wait for her or wait for Candice who was scheduled to come in at 11am. I chose to wait and speak to Carla.
I waited outside for a while and then went back in and asked the same person if I could speak to Carla. He remembered me of course and said he would ask her to come out and speak with me and then asked me my name. He went back and an few minutes later he came out and said that she was in a meeting and that I should wait to speak to Candice at 11am. I told him that this was not acceptable and that now wanted to speak to Carla's boss and that I was not leaving so he might as well go get someone right now. He left and a few minutes later Carla came out.
Carla did not appear to be interested in hearing my story and in fact seemed argumentative about it. She told me that the reason no one was answering the phone is that all the security people were all outside trying to deal the situation when I know for a fact that there was no one outside except the guy with the knife! I tried to explain that I was the person who called 911 and basically she was argumentative and made me feel as if she was calling me a liar and that I was just trying to break the contract. This obviously infuriated me even more and she said that all I had to do was to put in writing that I wanted out of the contract. I asked for a piece of paper and began writing my request.
The situation could have and should have been handled completely differently and perhaps my ownership here could have been salvaged but the lack of responsiveness and the argumentative nature of my dealings with Carla made sure I was not going to go forward with the contract. If perhaps she had returned any of my numerous calls and tried to assure me that this was a fluke I might have stayed but her refusal to even return an upset customers call added with her attitude and refusal to even speak with me at first when I was in the office was just too much.
This is not my first experience at a time-share and I understand that sometimes these types of things happen but the fact that no one was available to answer the phone; even the emergency number combined with the unresponsive nature of management forces me to execute my option to cancel this contract.
I want to make sure that as far as the records go the reason for cancellation is noted by the time-share governing organizations in Florida is for Security Concerns and Managements Unresponsiveness and NOT some other made up reason such as financial hardships on my part. I will be following up with the Florida State / County / City government, whomever is responsible for tracking these issues, to ensure that this happens.
I also will be contacting RCI and making sure they are aware of the way we were treated as well as posting this review to their website so that other RCI customers can be aware of the security lapses here at Orange Lake. I will also be looking for as many travel related customer review websites and offering this feedback to them as well.