Roger N.
Yelp
We used Sunriver Resort and stayed in one of the Fremont Crossing vacation rental homes for four nights. The home plenty large for our family and quite comfortable. Location was very close to the village and while I am not a big fan of resort communities, this was comfortable and fun.
However, I will not be giving Sunriver Resort my business in the future and recommend all of you consider the following.
Price: The per-night lodging was quite modest given the size and condition of the house in which we stayed. It was clean with amenities for laundry, full kitchen, 2.5 bathrooms, large family room, etc. However the taxes and additional fees were approximately 40% of the overall price of the total room rates and these were not communicated in advance. So when you are budgeting, and staying in the vacation homes, budget 40% above the listed prices. I am used to add-ons but this was as large as I have ever seen it (I travel all over the world).
Problems: If everything goes OK, then, as in most places, the experience is fine. However, our family group experienced two significant problems.
1) Our group stayed in multiple homes in Fremont Crossing. In the house my brother-in-law stayed, there was a prominent stench of something rotting. They concluded it was a dead animal in the wall somewhere. The management offered a different place to stay, but only for one of the four nights that was booked since everything else was "full". They also provided a 50% discount. The problem will all of this is that the smell had to have been obvious to the house cleaners and to the previous tenants. So they knew, going into the situation, that this would be a problem.
2) In the home myself and my family stayed, on the 2nd day of our stay we noticed the smell of a natural gas leak. It became more significant during the day and finally, after concluding it was coming from the cooking range, we phoned the front desk. Long story short, we missed an evening event to keep the house open for ventilation, and only after the 3rd phone call to the font desk and informing them our next call would be to 911 did they send maintenance. In all three calls, we used the term "gas leak" and maintenance did not show up until 2 hours after the first call. The maintenance man arrived, barely spoke, did not introduce himself, was in an unmarked truck, not in uniform; he pulled the range top off the counter and found the local shut-off valve for the gas. "Let's see if that will do the trick." he said. He said that whenever "they put that stuff in the gas lines, we can always smell it.". This is ridiculous since the smell of gas (actually the smell of the chemical they add to the gas) always means there is a leak. Shutting off that valve did cause the smell to stop but we were without the cooktop for the duration of our visit. Upon calling to complain after our return home, Scott at the front desk told my wife that we had been offered an alternate place to stay (this is not true, nobody offered us anything and we had to threaten calling the gas company and 911 befoer they sent anyone to address the problem). He was not willing to offer any compensation for this.
It is my speculation that the gas leak in that place (#2 Fremont Crossing) has yet to be repaired so if you go there, don't use open flames. I do not think I have ever been treated with such negligence at a resort community or by any hospitality organization.
