On March 3, 2026, we went to SeaWorld. It was a rainy, not very pretty day. A loud group of people was giving out “free” vacations with only one exception; you had to sit through a sales pitch on Wyndham Vacations. They told us we would get one 3-day and another 7-day vacation, because of our past bad experience with Wyndham By Request. On our honeymoon, we asked for a bottle of Champagne to be delivered to our room. What we got was a bottle of beer floating in ice water. We really should have known.
They scheduled us for the next day, an experience that took much longer than we expected as we were on vacation. They sold us the moon and the stars, and we were hooked. Our salesman, Pedro Blum, told us how great the resort was, how easy it was to get to Disney and that it was the only property on Disney that wasn’t a Disney resort, and how easy it was to get to all the parks. He showed us a beautiful four-bedroom suite that we easily saw bringing our entire family to. We are empty nesters, so we knew that a four-bedroom was too big, and we asked to see a smaller room. Ed said that they did not have one available to be shown, another red flag. We were promised bonus points because we purchased them right then, and our ‘free’ vacations were set up.
We tried to book the ‘free’ three-day, only to be told we would have to sit through a two-hour presentation to use it. We explained that we already purchased membership but were told that this was mandatory. Pedro told us if this happened, just explain that we were already “Owners”. Given a three-day vacation, needing to block two hours to sit through another sales pitch was time we did not have to spend, so we decided not to use it.
In June, four months later, we were so excited about going to Florida again to live for a weekend in luxury, so we booked our first vacation with Wyndham, at Bonnet Creek where we bought our membership. We boarded the dogs and took Breeze Airlines to Orlando International Airport. Sadly, reality crashed down on the first trip we took.
It was a late flight, so we were very tired. This would be our first mistake. Our receptionist said that the only room left was the one for disabled people. As I did not know the difference, we took it. Then we had to speak to another person who, it seemed, had no other task but to verify that we were checked in, and to take us to the third person, “the concierge.” This person told us we needed to attend a twenty-minute orientation and scheduled us for it the next morning. Start to finish, this process seemed to take about half an hour, but then we had to wait another twenty minutes for someone to come along with a golf cart to take us from reception to tower six. We finally got there and went to our room, which had a bag of laundry and a bag of trash sitting outside the door. These were large housekeeping bags that apparently were just left there by the maid. We got into the room and found it to be dingy and did not have a pleasant smell. We were tired so we unpacked and went to bed. Under the covers, I felt a crunch. I was stupid and assumed that it was my imagination. When we went to make the bed, I looked down on the bed and saw a bug. My husband captured the bug. After taking a picture and confirming it was a bed bug, I freaked out. My husband was not that nice. He called and demanded a new room. The tower manager said he would have to send someone up and then he would see what could be done.
We got up and went to breakfast and reported the bags that were still outside our door to the front desk, and then to the orientation, where we were told it was a two-hour session. We moved the bags ourselves so that the smell would dissipate.
The resort sent up two men to document our plight with the bugs. They said that they would take our bags and have them steam cleaned with our clothes in them. We were going to Disney, so we grabbed our bathing suits and a change of clothes. They assigned us new quarters, which were amazingly clean and bright.
At the orientation, we explained that we already were owners, and the concierge the previous night told us it was a 20-minute orientation, and the woman checking us in seemed more concerned with getting the name of the concierge we spoke with than that we were lied to. Since we were on vacation and had plans, we said we did not have time to sit through another 45 minutes of anything and would come back later. We returned to our room to get ready to go to the parks.
We went to take the shuttle to Disney only to be told that the hotel adjacent to Bonnet Creek had shuttle service, but we couldn’t use it, despite Pedro Blum in sales having told us that there was a shuttle when we bought, which was a primary decision point for us in buying and deciding to stay at Bonnet Creek. They suggested an Uber. For more expense, we could be dropped off many yards from the entrance of the park, and another expense would be taken back. So, another promise made and broken.
We got back from Disney, having to take another Uber, and noticed that our bags were not in the room as they assured us, they would be. My husband called the front desk, and they informed us that the machine to clean the bags had malfunctioned and they needed another 12 hours to clean them. So, we had no clothes to sleep in. They assured us again that they would have our bags brought to us first thing in the morning. Because we had only our bathing suits, we had no choice but to go out. We went to the hot tub, which was a misnomer because it was not hot.
After two days and little sleep, we went to bed that night. The next morning our bags were still not delivered to us as we were promised. We called the front desk, and they said they would bring them up. They finally arrived about an hour later than promised, after breaking the initial promise of the previous day.
When we got back from our second day off the property, the tower manager, Jose Jimenez did apologize to us for the delay in getting our bags, confirmed that the first room was indeed infested with bed bugs, and told us he was going to refund our points. As of July 16th, we still do not see those points in our account, so we could not schedule another vacation even if we wanted to.
Our vacation to Orlando was horrible. We went to the airport the next day and came home.
We never heard from anyone else at Wyndham about our terrible experience, though we have gotten numerous emails about booking our next vacation, and even one that our points were expiring. How that is even possible given it’s only been four months, and we have not seen our refunded points or our bonus points truly makes this seem like a scam.
We did get a survey email and filled it out honestly, expressing our dissatisfaction with Bonnet Creek and our nightmare experience. We got one email from Jessica Rispoli to follow up on that. We replied to her with days and times we would be available to speak and have never heard from her again.
If we had all the money in the world, we would sue them for negligence, dishonesty, and breach of promise. They give you ten days after the contract is signed to change your mind, but since the first time we used the “Ownership” was four months later, we have a binding contract. We are trying to talk to someone about getting out of the contract and have even paid it off because this is one way that they will cancel. This amount is not small, but we will never go to a Wyndham resort again.