I just got back from taking my family to Sun Village for the weekend, I had been there before and enjoyed it so I decided to go back and I have to say that this is definitely going to be my last trip.
It seems that the management has decided to cut costs by reducing the quality of almost everything there. I suspect this is because they had a large number of locals visiting the resort and somehow didn?t get the connection between taking people?s money and having to provide a service in return for it, preferably the same service advertised to get the money in the first place.
The daycare they generally provide for guests children during many hours of the day was closed with no explanation. The food at the main cafeteria was of considerably lower quality than what we have encountered there before, much of it simply uneatable. The wait staff horrendously inattentive, unable to provide silverware or drinking water in any kind of timely fashion, and only brought it grudgingly when asked to. The soda fountain and coffee machines in disrepair dispensing soda water and hot water respectively.
The oriental style restaurant that had previously required reservations was now wide open for anyone to come in and sit down, however the quality of the food there was tremendously watered down from what we had experienced in our previous visits, as was the atmosphere, we could hear the wait staff and cooks complaining to each other about how many guests they had had to serve that day and where did all these people keep coming from etc. Not very nice to think that the people preparing your food are definitely not into it and wishing you would just go away.
It took them four hours to check us in, as they turned around and gave our rooms to someone else while we were eating lunch (which they invited us to do while they "got it ready" - we had prepaid in cash in Santiago) the second set of rooms they gave us turned out to be under repair but the third time was the charm and they managed provide us the accommodations we had paid for, well almost because one of the rooms was downgraded since it was all they had available.
For those who haven?t been there the place is spread out all over a hillside so getting from your room to the cafeteria or the lobby is the equivalent of climbing 7 flights of stairs with a nice hike thrown in. I counted and I do not exaggerate, there were 85 steps from my room to the cafeteria, over 100 to the lobby.
Generally when we have gone in the past they had these little golf cart type things they could drive you around on if you didn?t feel like working out on the Stairmaster all day on vacation. There are phones placed at various strategic locations and you can call for a cart if you need one. We tried this about 5 times throughout the weekend and 4 times over 2 days and were told "no, we are busy with guests and we cannot do that" as if we weren?t guests. The final time we tried to call the person at the front desk who actually took the phone asked us to ?stop f######g with them?.
I did manage to have a fairly relaxing weekend but it could have been a LOT better for the money, (ended up spending about $800 for 2 nights with 4 adults and 2 young children) and I certainly hope that foreigners who visit are treated better than those of us who live here and make the mistake of speaking Spanish while visiting resorts and are thus greeted with discrimination by staffers who obviously don?t appreciate guests who are unlikely to buy their timeshare pitches.
Since Sun Village is obviously uninterested in local business I guess me not going back there ever is a win all around.
It seems that the management has decided to cut costs by reducing the quality of almost everything there. I suspect this is because they had a large number of locals visiting the resort and somehow didn?t get the connection between taking people?s money and having to provide a service in return for it, preferably the same service advertised to get the money in the first place.
The daycare they generally provide for guests children during many hours of the day was closed with no explanation. The food at the main cafeteria was of considerably lower quality than what we have encountered there before, much of it simply uneatable. The wait staff horrendously inattentive, unable to provide silverware or drinking water in any kind of timely fashion, and only brought it grudgingly when asked to. The soda fountain and coffee machines in disrepair dispensing soda water and hot water respectively.
The oriental style restaurant that had previously required reservations was now wide open for anyone to come in and sit down, however the quality of the food there was tremendously watered down from what we had experienced in our previous visits, as was the atmosphere, we could hear the wait staff and cooks complaining to each other about how many guests they had had to serve that day and where did all these people keep coming from etc. Not very nice to think that the people preparing your food are definitely not into it and wishing you would just go away.
It took them four hours to check us in, as they turned around and gave our rooms to someone else while we were eating lunch (which they invited us to do while they "got it ready" - we had prepaid in cash in Santiago) the second set of rooms they gave us turned out to be under repair but the third time was the charm and they managed provide us the accommodations we had paid for, well almost because one of the rooms was downgraded since it was all they had available.
For those who haven?t been there the place is spread out all over a hillside so getting from your room to the cafeteria or the lobby is the equivalent of climbing 7 flights of stairs with a nice hike thrown in. I counted and I do not exaggerate, there were 85 steps from my room to the cafeteria, over 100 to the lobby.
Generally when we have gone in the past they had these little golf cart type things they could drive you around on if you didn?t feel like working out on the Stairmaster all day on vacation. There are phones placed at various strategic locations and you can call for a cart if you need one. We tried this about 5 times throughout the weekend and 4 times over 2 days and were told "no, we are busy with guests and we cannot do that" as if we weren?t guests. The final time we tried to call the person at the front desk who actually took the phone asked us to ?stop f######g with them?.
I did manage to have a fairly relaxing weekend but it could have been a LOT better for the money, (ended up spending about $800 for 2 nights with 4 adults and 2 young children) and I certainly hope that foreigners who visit are treated better than those of us who live here and make the mistake of speaking Spanish while visiting resorts and are thus greeted with discrimination by staffers who obviously don?t appreciate guests who are unlikely to buy their timeshare pitches.
Since Sun Village is obviously uninterested in local business I guess me not going back there ever is a win all around.
