My family has been coming to Casa Ybel for 6 years now, always in February. This year we are coming the week after Thanksgiving. I was wondering if they typically do any maintenance during that week. I don't trust the front desk to be honest.

What reason(s) do you have for not trusting the front desk or reservationist?

I hope you have a great vacation.

I have likewise a good reason for thinking they are not being honest:
I sent an e-mail to the manager Ramerez(Hospitality) regarding an e-mail from one of our board members to me last week.
My reply from Casa Ybel was:
Your e-mail was blocked by postmaster casaybelresort.come (this could be either Cris (Hilton) or Rameriz (hospitality)from the front office at Casa Ybel.
I have an e-mail to that effect.
Now I know why I could not use the wireless web connection to receive my e-mail during my stay in July.
I had to drive back home and use my web connector for my Verizon phone.

Now read this:
When I then asked for www.casaybel.com I kept getting
Casaybelresort.com.on my computer in stead. Now I know why:
Along with all owners and guests using the wireless web service (paid by the owners, I assume) can not receive any of the more than 200 web sites provided and serviced by Cyberstreet, a local web server in Ft Myers. They told me: You are blocked!
Cyberstreet informed me that our managers obviously through the programming for the wireless had blocked all access from the owners to these webs.
I think that is dishonest, and it hurts all the 3700 owners trying to use their computers during their stay at Casa Ybel.
A company in Sarasota admits they have a contract from Casa Ybel to make the controllable web connection the way it is.
You just do not expect Americans to block the freedom of speach for owners and guests at Casa Ybel
I am open to any suggestions to again use our rights to open communications in these United States.

During world war two Denmark was occupied by Germany, that is when you realize how much value there is to freedom of speach. The Germans blocked our short wave radio reception, worried about us getting some real news from the Allies. That created a good job for us kids to run around town and distribute papers printed by our resistance movement during the night.
If that is all Hospitality and Hilton aim do to providing us with blocked web services, what are they doing in all other areas to block us from the full use of our own Resort?
I am starting to feel that we need to examine our new budget very deeply and compare with others on our Island.

Wow, this discussion sure turned heated! I love Casa Ybel and I think if I owned a time share it would ruin the experience for me. To answer your question, the reason I don't trust the front desk is simple. If they disclosed maintenace work like the pool being closed for week, no one would want to stay during that time! If I called to make a reservation and they told me that the pool was closed that week I would change my vacation. My 12 and 8 year old love the pool and that is where we spend the most time when we are there. If no one wants to stay, they don't make money. So why would they tell the truth if someone asked? I am sure they would have some general response like "there is always the chance the pool will be closed for maintenance", or "we do not know if or when the pool will be closed". I have read this website posts for several years even though I don't own because I know the owners would be honest and for as long as some of you have owned here, you would certainly know when things get done around there. Thank you for your answer. It was the only one actually related to my question.

Michele

You opened this discussion, and now you have had the last word.

Perhaps this topic can now be closed.

Maintenance weeks are carried out in September, so you should not have a problem in December.

Paul:
What do you think about my new report that our website is blocked at Casa Ybel?
Do we need that?
I hope Chris is not involved, but as manager for our Hilton contract he should be aware of this.
Why did he agree to allow this?
I am afraid the owner is correct in her mistrust.
I consider this mistrust, when you do something that drastic and do not admit or announce your intents to the
owners that are paying his salary.

Carl
I think it is quite diabilocal if somebody has blocked internet access to certain sites that owners want to use during their stay at Casa Y'bel. Particularly if it seems like a competitor blocking out his competition. Either way, it is worth taking it up with the resort and timeshare management to ask what is going on.

Carl,

If true, which I seriously doubt (except for possibly your email address) I'm not sure I can blame them, because of all the misinformation you have posted and all the grief you have given everyone over the years.

David. Please explain the misinformation and grief that you are talking about.

Carl has to have pretty thick skin to take some of the disparaging comments slung his way. I don't always agree with Carl, but no one has done more to further the financial interests of owners via his web site. And he certainly gives us food for thought on a variety of issues that affect all of us as owners. Hang in there Carl and don't let a few complainers discourage you from your vigilance.

Mr. Froilan Ramirez,General Manager of Casa Ybel Resort, was kind enough to explain what I considered an anomaly and I will clear up the accusations by explaining the setup as reported to me.
The wireless service is provided through Comcast and supported by Independent Phone Services in Sarasota.
Our Boards have mutually approved the service
agreement,and any problem is resolved (including phone services) by on-site resort staff.
My basic problem with contacting Mr. Ramirez was the input from the board that had a wrong address listing.
No attempt to block casaybel.com web was ever made.
The setup requires a wireless disclaimer to be clicked which then defaults into casaybelresort.com. for guests on property to view general Casa Ybel information, which is done in most Hotels as a natural source of information.
A guest or owner can then navigate away from the default page to the full web itself. That is when I had problems as the same page came back again and again.
Mr. Ramirez did mention that individual laptops have various programs and firewall for e-mail access that can have problems which on-site resort staff can resolve.

I conclude that I found a very high level of professionalism in his willingness to submit the answer to me and settle the problems I had faced. I apologize for raising the issue, and pleased with the quick response towards a solution that was acceptable and made sense.

Thanks to Mr. Ramirez.

Thanks, Carl. That was good news, and it is pleasing to see that problems can be resolved quickly and willingly be the resort.

Carl,

Apologizing for "raising the issue" is far short of apologizing for calling Mr. Ramirez dishonest, while comparing Casa Ybel management to the Nazis. I trust written apologies are on the way to both....less you continue to lose credibility. While you are at it, you may want to send an apology to Mr. Jackson as well.

Dear Dave!
I do not know who you are, you are one of the reasons for having to make us go "under ground" or private in our "family" type discussions between owners by forcing ourselves to use secret pass-words in order to talk to each other?.
I believe openness is a quality we need to create and maintain a balance of trust in each other. No one is here to hurt each other! We need understanding.
Your need to be Incognito is a sign of mistrust.
The last one that appeared on our Forum was traced to be e-mailing us from a Federal Prison in New York State! which gave me goose pimples! (What was he in for?)
I was sorry to see you introduced the word "Nazism" out of nowhere which made me sick. Having lived under it in Denmark for 5 years would make you understand why. Hiding our Jewish friends and allied pilots in our loft before my dad was able to make a clear path to Sweden to help them get away, was not a fun thing.
If you were reading the Forum right, I was told by experts we might have a censorship problem, and I had some problems of my own due to certain experiences and I tried to correct it.
At least I was pleased to say we thought we had a problem, we talked, and could shake hands after word.

May the world find ways of doing the same.

Carl,

Who I am has nothing to do with your negative postings and personal attacks. I called you out to the fact that you called Mr. Ramirez dishonest and then you were not man enough to appropriately apologize. It is the content of your postings which potentially damages the use and value of my week.

I own in Building H, right next to the boulders, which by the way I could care less about. In fact, the boulders have been an nice improvement. I have owned my week for well over a decade. I also vacation at Casa Ybel during other times of the year. I believe we met by the pool once.

I will continue monitoring this website and blog to hold you and all your naysayers accountable to Casa Ybel and its hundreds of owners. If, in the future, I believe you are in anyway jeopardizing the value of my week or antagonizing Hospitality, you will hear from me and I will copy management on my reply.

If it is your intent to continue blasting management, hospitality, Mr. Jackson, etc, then give up this site. However, if the intent was to share ideas and information to enhance our vacation experience, then I encourage you to continue. The past couple of postings such as "Pet Friendly", "Oil Spill Update", and "Good News for FGH", are perfect examples of the content that this should focus on communicating.

Good Day.

Thank you for revealing yourself.
And also for not mentioning the Nazis again.
I hope you can enjoy our open conversations, all for the benefit of keeping Casa Ybel in top condition as the resort that caters to owners and make them feel they can move around our resort without certain newly created barriers or lacking pool equipment.
I heard so many comments about the boulders in July, owners are still hoping to get their 2o some years old original shortcut to the pool returned to them.
I never used personal words as stated by you to hurt our general manager Mr. Ramirez in a personnel way. I hardly knew him, most of my contacts were with old time Hilton folks. I have never heard any negative comments from Mr. Ramirez. His name is not even mentioned in the opening paragraphs! He is very professional at his post, and answers mail without delay.
Mr. Jackson and I had a long time disagreement behind us, granted, but why keep it up, he is not a consultant for the board any more.
Why go back to that again.
We still have the web site going in spite of him, and I do not have any scars from his very physical approaches during our board meetings.
And yes, Casa Ybel was broken up by Mariner as a part of secrecy kept form owners except Mr.J. who was involved to give approval as President of FGH, but never informed owners. We could have made a bid to hold the resort together as one.
Please do not bring these items up again, it is water over the dam.
I should place the many good comments I have in my files from old as well of new owners telling us that our Time Share facility was unusual in that we had a Forum.
The lack of feared secrecy and also healing of problems that you can find in any development gave them a desire to purchase units in a healthy community of thousands (3800) owners, not just "hundreds" as you wrote.

We are planning to require your e-mail as security for entering remarks in the Forum. Your e-mail with your own choice of password will be your own new entry code.
Peace, let us get back to work!

Well said, Carl. I also wondered why David concluded that you called Mr. Ramirez dishonest. Demanding that you send an apology to Messrs. Ramirez and Jackson (who has been out of the picture for quite a while) and threatening to tell on you if you jeopardize the value of your week, are weird.

David, your postings sometimes have a modicum of positive content, but are often overly combative and, ironically, given your accusations of Carl, sprinkled with personal attacks. My guess is that your job does not require diplomacy. You recognize, I‘m sure, that this forum in which you occasionally vent your spleen, is due almost entirely to Carl. I believe you should cut him, as well as others, a little more slack. This forum, in my view, should continue to discuss issues that are problematic, and it would be nice if one could do that and not be subject to ridicule.

The enhancements you described, Carl, will be positive changes. No more Turtle Soup and his ilk. And we can disagree openly (and, hopefully, in a civil manner) without compromising the rental efforts.