Do Not EVER EVER EVER Support Hilton Grand Vacations Club - They Are The WORST

Friends, I've tried to keep quiet and bite my tongue since we got back from our honeymoon because I didn't want to complain. I had an idyllic wedding and a fabulous honeymoon with my amazing husband, Keith, which I'm very thankful for. I couldn't have asked for a better companion in life and on our Hawaiian adventure together and every minute I spent with him was perfect. He and I made our own fun and had a great time despite the myriad of things that started going wrong (starting with this and then going right into the horrible identity theft with the Roy's Restaurant gift card that I talked about earlier). 

Now, for those who don't know, we were very lucky to have been given our honeymoon by a friend of a friend as an enticement to be in his movie. It was a very kind and unnecessary thing to do and we were blown away by his generosity. Still are. He didn't need to do that and after everything that went down I kind of wish he hadn't because it definitely wasn't worth the stress that it caused.

This is the lobby for the Hilton Grand Vacations Club in Waikoloa Beach on Kona Island. Just like Roy's, although it is very nice, we never would have stayed there on our own. In fact, the only reason we even went to Kona was that this is where the guy's timeshare was. We were planning to go to the Disney resort on Oa'hu. We should have.

I'm not going to bore you with the details about getting the room transferred into our name and the politics behind all that noise beforehand because it's unnecessary. It's silly, really. Because once we arrived in Hawaii, we didn't have a care in the world. This was our room.

This was our bathroom. We were in heaven. We couldn't believe our luck. We couldn't believe we'd be staying there from Monday until Sunday. It was awesome.

This was the view from our balcony. Not too shabby, right?

On Wednesday morning I awoke with a sore back and wanted to soak in the tub. After running out to grab a danish and coffee at one of the clubhouses (another thing that caused problems later), we went back to our room and I had just enough time for a soak in our tub before going to our dolphin quest adventure. Notice anything weird about this tub? That's right, NO SPOUT. Where does the water come from? Do you see a sign? Do you see instructions? Were we ever told how to use it? NO.

Plus, look how close it is to the closet. What's in the closet? CARPET. All that tile and then they put stupid carpet in the closet. Stupid design plan.

I filled the tub and then had to use the restroom, so I turned off the tub (at least I thought I did) and went to the restroom. Soon thereafter I heard a splash and saw water coming to my feet (I had the door closed, so hadn't noticed it overflowing). I screamed out to Keith - who'd been on the balcony - and he ran in, hit a pocket of water, and fell, hurting his arm.

Poor guy. Poor sweet love. We quickly used a bunch of towels and got up all the water; in fact, we had towels to spare. About five minutes later, we got a knock on the door. It was some bellman saying water had gone into the room below. I couldn't really understand how that would've happened so fast, but whatever. The guy got some other workers and they put a bunch of fans in the room within five minutes for the few wet spots on the carpet and just to be safe. They said they'd have it done by the time we got back from the dophin adventure and it was no big deal. In fact, he said it happened all the time because (and this is key) they put the wrong size drain pipes in the tubs. Since they were too small, the tubs don't drain properly which results in stuff like this happening all the time. Huh.

When we got back from the dolphins, everything was completely dry. Still, they wanted a little more time to de-humidify everything and asked if we were OK changing rooms. Sure, no problem. Sadly, we were put into a sub-par room farther away with a ton of stuff that didn't work (namely, the shower), and we were left to stay there the rest of the time. Actually, that room felt more like a prison because we were terrified they'd lock us out, take our stuff, or worse. But, I digress.

The first sign of trouble came in the form of a voicemail from the manager. I didn't like the way she said they'd let us know "their findings" from the flood damage as though we were somehow at fault. Yes, it was a mistake, but we thought it was a fine, upstanding, fancy establishment, and as the guy told us, "this happens all the time." Oh, and I should probably mention that I'd been crying pretty much non-stop since it happened because I felt like I'd ruined our honeymoon. To try and help, Keith offered to go to the front desk and just make sure everything was kosher and help ease my mind. Like I said, I've got an amazing husband.

When he returned, he told me the bad news - they were holding us responsible and said we'd have to pay the damages before we left on Sunday. Although they didn't have an exact number, they guessed it'd be between $5,000 and $16,000 and we couldn't leave until we paid. We couldn't believe it. We were stunned. Flabbergasted. The next day we met with a guy about the timeshare presentation (because we had to in order to get discounts on our adventures) and he said in 25 years he'd never heard of them billing someone. He said we wouldn't have to pay. When we returned that day, we had another voicemail saying to let them know if there was anything they could to help us enjoy our stay. I assumed the timeshare guy had let them have it and realized we weren't paying that stupid bill. I hoped it was a dead issue.

(I know I used this picture at the top, but I think it's important to mention again). The rest of the week we tried not to think about it, but, needless to say, it was a black cloud over the rest of our stay. Fearing the worst, we took ALL our stuff with us EVERY day when we left the room. Keith stayed up late every night researching building codes and doing tests with the water flow. Yes, we enjoyed our time together, but that black cloud was never far from our minds. We didn't know what we'd do.

The night before we left, there were two voicemails waiting for us about "our bill." No one had said anything to us for days and then suddenly they were panicked. Of course, they could have just sent it to our room so we could see it, but they didn't. We weren't planning to check out; we had an early morning flight. The whole time we were waiting for the plane, we were sure we were going to be arrested for not paying. I know it's dramatic (obviously we watch too many movies), but we weren't going to relax until we were home. I was terrified and I hated seeing Keith so stressed out. When they turned our last plane around after we left the gate, I thought he was going to have a heart attack. He was certain the police were going to be there to arrest us. Again, we know, too many movies.

Now, we hadn't just run off, we'd left contact information for them to speak with our money manager (who also just happens to be Keith's mom). When she spoke to them, they told her all these lies and half-truths (specifically that we'd ruined a total of THREE rooms, which is completely untrue, especially when you consider that the people underneath us didn't even have to change rooms), which are almost more offensive to me than them coming after us for the money. I mean, don't they have insurance?!?! The back and forth went on for weeks, months. They were wanting over $2,000 (which is better than the original quote, but still ridiculous) and we simply don't have that kind of money (nor should we pay those freaking crooks for an obvious design flaw on their end). To add insult to injury, at the same time they were "working with us," they were also going after the acquaintance who'd given us the timeshare and trying to get him to pay for it. Threatening him. This enraged him, which enraged his wife, which enraged our friend, who then came after us. For months we were getting it from every end until the wife was threatening to SUE us. The worst part of all is that I feel like my friendship with the guy (whose friend had given us the time share) is permanently damaged. They all took the Hilton's side and decided we'd made this huge mess and never even asked us what happened. You know if it had happened to any of them they would've fought it. And, honestly, if I didn't care about my friend, we never would have paid it. But it's not right for the timeshare owner to be stuck with it. He was generous enough to give us that trip and shouldn't have to be involved in this drama at all. That's not right. So, yes, we finally paid it and I'm super pissed about it. Everything was so overpriced in that area and we would have been much happier in a Motel 6 by the beach (where they wouldn't charge us for some water on the floor or made up such elaborate lies). My faith in the Hilton company, brand, and integrity is forever shattered. I will NEVER stay in any Hilton again, nor will I ever return to that awful place. Not only were they lacking Aloha spirit, but they ruined our once in a lifetime honeymoon and then punished us for months. When we see Hawaii on TV now, we cringe. The place I wanted to go my entire life and it's ruined for me now. Thanks, you jerks. I hope our hard-earned money was worth it. Now go f*ck yourselves.