Wyndham Kingsgate

Although there are no elevators (units are two and three floors), quietest rooms are on the top floor. All on property activities are within walking distance. Exercise room has been updated and miniature golf has new fairways and greens. Not too hard but putts true. It is a safe resort with security at the front gate. Restaurant is seasonal and they should make better use of it. Many attractions are within ten minutes to an hour. Just about every chain restaurant is just down the road, plus some fine dining establishments.

If you have a large group the three bedroom, three bath lockout sleeps 10. Indoor and outdoor pools are next to each other as is the tennis courts, game room and movie theater. Here you have the best of both worlds. Stay on property for a week or venture off property in which you will never see all Williamsburg and vicinity has to offer in just one week.

Just wrapped up a visit at Wyndham Kingsgate in Williamsburg and wanted to provide a review of the resort. This was my family's first visit at the resort as new owners and we were very happy with our stay and the resort overall. October is considered shoulder season in Williamsburg and I would guess the resort was somewhere in the range of 50-60% occupancy. As a result some of the amenities were running at limited functionality (restaurant and bar were open limited hours Fri - Monday, Marketplace was closed for the offseason, outside pool is open until mid-October however the pool bar is not operating, outdoor activities desk was closed although everything you need was available at the indoor desk, and there were very few organized activities scheduled although there is plenty to do at the resort without organized activities). The resort staff were friendly and very helpful in all regards.

Check-in was quick and painless (we checked in on a Thursday) and the parking pass tango provided only limited pressure to attend an 'owners update' which we did not do. Note: If you want to avoid the sales staff getting your parking pass arrive before 1:00 (sales are only available between 1 and 10PM in the offseason) and take the chance you may have to wait for 4:00 check-in. We had a two bedroom unit on the second floor of building 14. One note here is that there are no elevators and entry takes you through the side of the building and up several short flights of stairs. Having two young children and the associated gear required for an extended trip away from home this proved to be a noticeable detail, although there was plenty of parking in front of the building which greatly limited walking distance to the front door. The unit opens to the living room which was a good size. The kitchen and dining area are off to the right and separated from the living area and the two bedrooms and bathrooms are off to the left. The master bedroom was large with a king size bed, two nightstands, a long dresser, and a desk. The desk was in an area that I believe was previously home to the whirlpool tubs that were removed as a part of recent renovations. The bathroom was average size with only a shower (no tub in the master) and a single vanity/facet. The guest room had a queen bed, single nightstand, dresser, and not much room for anything else. Plenty of room for two guests, however there is not much additional living space in the room. The guest bath had a tub/shower combo with a door leading to the guest room and another into the living room. There was a sliding glass door that led out to a long deck with four chairs and a small side table. Overall the size of the unit was very comfortable and provided everything we needed. Given the smaller size of the guest room I can see why the units are specified for 6 and not 8 like many other 2 bedroom timeshares we have stayed in. The renovations were noticeable with newer furniture and countertops with plenty of local artwork and newer style fixtures and colors that stayed with the Williamsburg theme.

There are lots of activities available at the resort including:

• Two outdoor pools (one larger pool for adults & kids and a smaller pool for adults only) • Indoor pool with a small locker room with shower and bathroom • Outdoor hot tub • Two outdoor tennis courts (rackets and balls available for use) • Miniature Golf course (clubs and balls available for use) • Playground with fairly large wooden playset • Two game rooms (one with games targeted at the 5-10 year old range and another with more of the violent video games along with a pool table and air hockey table) • Single screen Movie Theater with recent movies playing • Computer room with about 3 computers available (wifi is also available in all the rooms) • Board games available for check-out • DVD rental available (costs extra)

One thing to note is that there is a mandatory $5 per unit per day charge for the above listed amentities. I thought the fee was very reasonable as we used much on the list above.

Most of the organized activities were for adults (casino night, beer tasting, bingo, and most of the movies were adult themed movies). The only organized activity for kids was a bear stuffing station that cost extra above the activities fee (and maybe the bingo night could be considered for kids as well). Most of the timeshares we have stayed at in the past have had almost daily kids activities such as crafts, treasure hunts, ice cream socials, etc.) but since we were not in prime season was not surprised there were limited organized activities.

The resort is centrally located 5 minutes off of I64, 10 minutes from Busch Gardens, 5 minutes from the Colonial Williamsburg visitor center, 5 minutes to William and Mary College and Merchants Square, and right at the intersection of Route 60 and Richmond Highway so plenty of restaurant and shopping choices literally minutes away.

What we liked best:

• Good size unit that was clean and nicely appointed • Well layed out resort with plenty of amentities • Helpful and responsive staff • Noticable presense of on-sight security staff (guard gate at the entrance to the resort) • Plenty to keep the kids busy and happy (we spent one day almost entirely at the resort) • Good prices for food and beer at the on-site restaurant

Liked less or could use improvement:

• More organized activities for kids • Small size of the second bedroom • Squeaky floors that make noise in the units above very noticeable

Overall we thoroughly enjoyed the resort and would recommend to others for a visit to Williamsburg.

This was a great place to stay. I was worried with some the bad reviews. I was prepared for the $50 draw in, I knew to not get that. I got the top floor and we didn't hear anything! The floor does creakwhile you walk so I can see noise being made when you have people above you. Clean, modern, up to date. Nicer than other timeshares I've been in. Can't wait to return next year. The wireless internet never did work in our building. Just go to the pool house and we were able to get it on our laptop.

We rented here for Spring Break 2010. Overall, it was a very good stay. We traveled with our five year old daughter, and she had her own room, which was a huge plus. The resort's location puts you within a short drive of all of the area's attractions. It would be nice to be a little closer in and go for a walk in the evening, but that is not possible from the bypass road it is located on.

The outdoor pool was open due to an early heat wave (96 F in April!), which was great. The indoor pool is unusably small for the number of units/guests here.

My biggest issue with the place is that it is very loud. Every floorboard seems to creak. You cannot take a single step anywhere in the unit without creating a racket. Ditto for the folks upstairs. Fortunately, they were on a similar schedule as we were, so it did not result in any lost sleep.

I wouldn't stay here again, but that is as much about spending another week in Williamsburg as anything else. For a long weekend, however, I would certainly consider it.

Location: Off of Route 60 just west of Williamsburg. This puts you closer to Williamsburg than all but a few properties, but still close to all of the restaurants and stores just a bit further west on 60. The directions were not very clear about what to do after turning off of 60, so once you pass K-Mart, you’ll go past 1 residential street, then the resort is on the left.

Check in: We arrived at 5:30 and the line was out to the door. Only 3 stations of 5 were staffed. Of course, all 5 “concierge” stations were staffed. It took 40 minutes to get through the line, but check-in was smooth once at the desk. At the concierge station, were given our welcome packet, which was mostly samples of personal products. Since we already had Williamsburg tickets, we were offered $75 in gift cards to attend a Wyndham evaluation consisting of 22 questions, which we took.

Room: We were on the 2nd floor of Building 11, in one of the renovated one-bedroom units. The unit would have been a bit crapmed for a family of 4 for a full week, but we were only there for a long weekend. The unit was nicely done: tile floor in the bathroom, solid counter surfaces in bath and kitchen counters & backsplash. Tiling on back kitchen wall. Safe in closet with digital lock. Very clean with only a few minor nits to pick: only 1 nightstand in bedroom and a shortage of outlets, not counting the pair that was strangely set near the ceiling. My wife was not a fan of the new pillow-top mattress – it was so soft it made her back hurt. There is a new HDTV in the living room, but cable was analog only. The screen was on the small side (around 27 inches) and it kept adjusting itself to try to fit the standard TV picture on the wider screen. You can probably turn that off, but I didn’t bother trying to find out how. We only had 2 pillows for the queen bed, but housekeeping was prompt to bring more. Maintenance was also prompt: the vent control on the living room air vent was broken, so I called it in. I got voice mail but they called back within 5 minutes and were there in 10. After getting a new vent, the whole process was done with problem addressed in 40 minutes. The room was well stocked with dish washing supplies and paper goods, as well as two small boxes of laundry detergent. Parking close to the unit was not a problem.

Amenities: We were traveling with kids who were looking forward to using the amenities. Weather was warm enough for mini golf, which was on a worn course (several obstacles were broken and left on the course) on indoor/outdoor carpet that was still OK for entertaining young kids. They also loved the game room with lots of video games running on free mode: mostly shooters and drivers, but enough other kinds to add some variety, including an air hockey table. Video games, including Wii, were in a caged area within one of the two game rooms, but we didn’t play since we have them at home. The indoor pool looked nice, but was closed for some reason. The hot tub was outside, so we didn’t use it. The on-site eatery was also closed during our stay.

Timeshare talk: I knew enough to expect that the “Wyndham evaluation” was going to be more than 21 questions, but what actually happened really turned me off to Wyndham. For a half hour or so, we chatted with the sales rep about our current property and how we use it, building up to his pitch on Wyndham’s point system. The he said “I’m going to pull up you RCI account to see if it’s configured correctly.” I told him I was not comfortable with that and he replied “Since Wyndham now owns RCI, I can do it whether you give me permission or not.” That, to me, is totally unfair (information is power in negotiation), so I called an end to the meeting and walked out. My wife stayed behind long enough to find out that we needed to do an evaluation of the session to avoid being charged for the cards we received. We did, and when the second rep doing the evaluation asked, I told him why I was unhappy and that it made me wary of doing any business with Wyndham. He then replied “Since Wyndham now owns RCI and the most properties in the business, you don’t have much choice.” Maybe that kind of arrogance works for some customers (maybe it’s how they get people to pay full price for properties that can be had a resale for a fraction of their price), but it was a total turn-off to me.