Liki Tiki Village

Clean, and comfortable enough, but very dated, and certainly not what Hilton vacations led us to believe the quality of accommodations. TV's are modern but that's the most current feeling item. If you're coming for the timeshare marketing don't let them put you here.

The Good: We had a renovated 1 bedroom-1 bath in building 800 so it was very comfortable and had everything we needed to cook. Only one large pot and 2 frying pans but enough to make basic meals. Not much for food storage so for leftovers, bring storage containers. A broom was included, paper towels, one tea towel, 2 dishcloths, one sponge, a few packets of dishwasher detergent. Laundry was in the bathroom and included a few packets of detergent. Bed and bedding was comfortable for us. Most importantly, our room was very clean. We had a view of the lagoon and the amenities were pleasant. You could rent a boat or paddle boat, play basketball or tennis, the active pool was fun and the quiet pools enjoyable. We liked the sandy lagoon area for relaxing. The provisions shop had basic groceries but you can also order from Walmart nearby. We went to Aldi (5mins) This hotel is a lower end Hilton but the price paid for a renovated room was cost effective. I liked the activities they have. Some are additional $ and others are included. Wawa is close for gas. The okay: The Waterpark is really for little ones so older children may be disappointed. The only restaurant on-site is the pool restaurant. I missed having more options. The service is friendly but minimal. You will mostly fend for yourself. Think of this spot as a temporary apartment with minimal service to temper your expectations. The icky: It is a timeshare resort and we saw a couple being convinced to do the tour. It was a bit a pressure, not our favorite. When you go to get your parking pass is when the sales pitch will occur. We had already agreed to do the presentation and decided time shares aren't for us but it only took 2 hours of our time as promised so that was good. We had issues with traffic in this location. It's spring break and it took over an hour to get to Universal. It took 30 minutes to come back from Disney. It was challenging to make the left turn out of Bali St. While you are fairly close to restaurants and shopping, you will have to drive everywhere. This spot is good if just enjoying the resort but if part of your holiday is to drive less then this is not a good location. Choose this hotel if: you have younger children and don't plan to be particularly active outside of the hotel. You are on a strict budget but you want to have some bonus amenities. As for us, we don't dislike it here but we don't love it so we will cross this one off our list and choose another location next time.

This review is less for those just checking out the property, and more for those who may have received a Hilton vacation-club marketing-promo like I did, and stayed here for 3 nights at a very low cost paid ahead, required to attend a presentation/sales-pitch, and promise of points and stay-credit. HVC refers to Hilton Vacation Club, this is also referenced as Hilton Grand Vacations - not sure of the difference in their business model. HH refers to Hilton Honors - the Hilton Hotel (non HVC) rewards program. About how they hooked me on to do the marketing stay: I am regularly staying at Hilton hotels and a Diamond HH member, I was on a Hilton customer service call related to something else, where on the end of that call they asked "Would you be interested in talking to (something I don’t recall how was described)? We'll give you 2500* points" (*I may have heard the points amount wrong), it is really not enough points to have much weight but somehow I bit anyway. So I got transferred to someone that asked about travel blah blah and as me and my wife usually go to Orlando once per year it was a "good deal", offered me a 3 night stay at any Orlando HVC property, even at a Hilton hotel if that was a better fit - at very low fixed prepaid cost, and it would include a $200-stay-credit as well as 10,000 Hilton honor points. They had other options also, like a Cruise - and I had 12 months to use the “free” stay. When I was reluctant, they offered me 18 Months and to waive some sort of Make-more-money-fee. So, I bit on it and paid. After doing that and finishing the call, she said she would now initiate giving me the 250 points - I had to laugh at that and explained they said 2500, and that 250 is a joke worth pennies - regardless that is what they were going to give me. Funny thing - I never did receive those points at all - not worth my time fighting over. A week later - they start calling me, I picked up a couple times, they wanted me to schedule a visit, I explained it will be a while, but they kept calling every week, I learned the numbers and just ignored them. In January I called them to book, I had my dates - of the 8 HVC properties in Orlando area, only 1 had availability, and it is the least-rated one as far as I could figure out. They did offer other hotels, like a doubletree - I asked if Waldorf Astoria or something higher end was an option, but it was not, I told them this was their chance to convince me the club is a great thing, but still no other option offered - so I chose Aqua Sol. I tried using an app for this reservation but that is not possible, as a non-member you have just a limited ability to see your reservation when logging in with reservation info. They screwed up my name and spelled it wrong, a clear indication that HVC does not really share any data with HH, human error airgaps are error prone. About the property: This is my first stay at an HVC - my only comparison is a non-marketing stay at a Marriott Vacation Club property in Orlando (Universal/Seaworld area), that property outshined Aqua Sol in several subjects. Aqua Sol did not become an HVC property until April of 2024 (Was Liki Tiki Village), our stay was in March 2025. Check-in is odd, you can’t stop outside the reception, not enough room, they send you to a registration-parking area, in which funnily they reserve all the closest spots for their own staff, lazy staff perhaps? During check-in the staff member did not seem all that with it, perhaps just a bad day? (Although the same staff member also checked me out, seemed very confused about who I was and confusing me with what I assume are the next guests coming into the same room). I was there at 3, they made sure to tell me check in time not until 4 - but did a pre-check and gave me a key that can access common areas and pools. Once they had (pre) Checked me in, I was told I had to go to the other side of the lobby and get my parking pass (this practice seems really stupid to me, wasting my and their time for multiple people being involved in a single check-in, Marriott does the same thing, so I assume there is some point to it, perhaps they try upsell stuff with some customers?). Parking-check-in asked what my room number was, I said I don’t know, don’t have it yet, gave my name, they started looking it up, they could not find it, I explained possible mis-spell of my first name, that didn’t solve it, the other parking-check-in-lady came over and pointed at something and they said quote “Your name is in backwards” which I took to mean first in last and vice versa… anyhow after 2 more minutes I got my parking tag. In the room waiting period we walked the entire property and noticed all the 5 story buildings are being renovated, some done, some underway. There was also many 2-story buildings, they did not look renovated on the outside but we do not really know. From a location/layout perspective we talked about that it would be nicest to be in one of the smaller buildings. At 3:50 I got the message room was ready, when picking up the keys I asked about the reverse name, they said no it is all correct (so I have no idea what the other side of the lobby talked about really, some excuse in their own lookup method probably). Unit was in a 5 story (800). We got the top floor, which does have higher ceilings inside, and better views - we got pool side view. A 1 bedroom suite, you can tell it has been renovated, but for the most part a good job, it is nothing special though, just a normal apartment unit basically with tile floors and a decent kitchen and bath - all clean. The layout of the TV and the couch is silly, TV cannot be swung, so we moved the couch, but it then gets a direct hit of A/C air.. not the best layout - should have had a swingable TV mount. They do have an issue with plumbing sewer ventilation in this unit, can tell by flushing the toilet it sucks to get air from both toilet and bathroom sink, something they should have addressed or failed to properly inspect during renovation - it is clearly a lack of pipe ventilation. It would not surprise me if this worsens and things start stinking. I attached a picture of the hot water tank and its plumbing, nothing wrong with it really, but the amateur install of PVC pressure pipes looks rather shabby compared to everything else. The room had a washer/drier and an ok bed - the pillows we got does not compare to regular Hilton hotels, nice and lumpy. The balcony was nice. The pool areas are a bit small - the “water park” being the biggest, great for kids and such, probably not as attractive for just couples. We did not use the pool areas as we did other things off property during this stay. One thing I wish they had was a walk path around the pond - they do have mini golf, some worn down paddle boats, and 4-wheel multi person bicycles, there really is not a lot of room for the bicycles to get around, mostly just between all the parked cars. We did not use the restaurant/bar - it appeared to be typical pool-side type stuff. So overall I rate this an average property, nothing wrong, but also nothing all that special as I would expect for something that is supposed to attract me to HVC. Compared to mainstream suite hotels I would say it’s about the same, just an annoying check-in process. Way more floor space than in a 1 bedroom Embassy or Homewood Suite, and a full kitchen and Washer/Drier is nice - so it is definitely worthy a higher charge than a regular suite hotel room. About the Sales Pitch (or Presentation as they call it): Of course, I had done some googling on all this ahead of time, and had no intention of buying in. But who does when they go there? For us it was not unpleasant like it has been for others, but it also was not a good experience. It was informational, and a couple cups of bad coffee, it took 2 hours and 20 minutes total. We had to travel to another property for this, which is annoying in itself, but understandable when you see the setup and amount of staff they need to try lure you in. I could have sworn the initial rep I talked to said it was a 1 hour thing, but every piece of paper now said “up to 2 hours” - had I realized that I may have opted out. I did know it required both me and my wife to be there. We had to show our ID’s, the filled out some stuff, we had to sign some paperwork, which I found to be a red flag having to sign something prior to even talking to them. I read through the paper, it was just unnecessary BS, probably some way to make you feel like “I have committed some so might as well do more”, but it did not have any NDA type language which is why I am sharing details here. One thing it did say now is “Presentation will take 2 hours or more”, so before we signed, I struck out the “or more part” as I had not agreed to that previously, they did not seem to care or notice. 5 minutes after scheduled time we had a “rep” come and get us, we went to his desk and it was all small talk for 10 minutes, likely intended to establish friendship and a personal connection. Then we talked for 20 minutes about our travel habits - and we got presented with how much money we would spend on travel in the next 20 years, it was $98,000 their computer said. Funnily enough my wife did a similar calculation on her phone during that and got a number that was about half - we didn’t confront, as we had agreed to just smile and be agreeable to make this whole process go as fast as possible. We saw a presentation that explained how this program works, you pay a fixed amount (which can be financed), you then get a set number of HVC-Points added to your bank every year, which you can use to stay at any of their properties anywhere in the world. Points are good for 5 years before they expire if not used. You get this benefit by “purchasing your ownership”, so you get it every year for life, and supposedly ownership can transfer to your children and grandchildren, as long as the annual Maintenance fee is paid. He “recommended” the lowest package, which has a cost of $44,000, it gives you 5500 HVC-Points annually. When I started asking some questions, he quickly said there is a special today, of $27,000 for that package. I don’t think he wanted to keep talking details around cost and things at this point, I was jumping the gun on his presentation. At some point he actually managed to say, “No-one comes here with the intent to buy”. I pointed out that I am not one to purchase something on the whim, and especially when there is a “must do it now to get this deal” demand - my argument being if I come back in and I say I want it at their special price from a few days ago, they won’t deny me - he said they would, so I asked if the people coming in tomorrow will get the same deal? Somewhat abruptly he got up and said to meet out front to take a golf cart and go look at a unit. Very little was said during this, we saw the apartment, a 2-room this time, it was nice. He actually did manage to say that where we are staying at Aqua Sol, it is a very newly obtained property and not yet up to HVC standard - something I question in itself, what the plan would be and why they put us up there - and to me seeing this nicer one makes no difference as we have no way to know what the rest of them look like. We got a piece of paper with our “special quote” - where the total now is just under $24,000. It also had an optional financing option for 10 years at 17.99% and almost $800 in fees - which would bring the total to around $50,000. I did ask some questions they could not answer properly - such as they claim they have over 7000 properties worldwide, well - that is all Hilton Hotels and including “HVC partners”, which can be other brands like Marriott even. They said there are 400 some HVC properties, not sure how many of the Hilton Hotels can be used, since there are over 8000 of them, some are excluded, and they could not tell me which. They show a table of typical HVC-point costs per week in various seasons in various locations. When I asked if we could use the website and do an actual reservation test to see real world numbers, the answer was no. Also - when staying at non-HVC properties, there is a per-stay fee, which now is $150 something for Hilton, and $180-something for non-Hilton. The annual fee “estimate” is $1405.90 per year now. When I asked about annual fee increases the answer was “Not much, probably something like $20 per year” - something I know to be a lie, previous googling has shown significant increases over time. When he realized we had no intention to buy - he left the desk without a word - and a minute later some other guy comes over. He does another attempt for a few minutes, one funny-to-me word exchange was like this: Sales: Why can’t you make a decision today? Me: I do not make decisions like this on the spot, I need a day or two. His face lights up: You could make the decision tomorrow? Me: Yes, I just need to do some research first. Sales: research? Well that changes everything. And his face went dark again and he said he would have us go to another area to check us out and get our “goodies”. Well - it was not checkout, we got to sit with a 3rd person that did a final attempt, and another try it out option: We could pay $1800 now and get 10,000 HVC-Points to use in the next 18 months. Questioning a bit there are strings, you have to use the first stay at 1 of a very few properties which they have Presentation-setup, so we have to go through it again. No other fees etc and the $1800 would go toward the full package if we signed up. He gave up quickly, although he did actually leave it open for me to take the deal the next day (they never called). Finally, we got to the “checkout line” - where it was very apparent everyone doing this gets different things. Someone in the line got a 1 week vacation apparently. For our $200 stay credit - this was not really that good, it is just a single-night credit up to $200, and I had to choose between 6 Hilton brands on the spot, they printed a certificate for this brand, and I must Mail it in with a receipt after a stay to get that $. He said the 10,000 points would show up within 48 hours, it has now been 3-4 days and still not there. I guess I will have to call and complain if I want that to show up. So It is a “pretty good sales pitch”, it definitely makes you feel like it is a great deal, and it probably will be for some, if you pay outright anyway - but for us there is just way to many red flags: ⁃ Why is the deal only good today? (This should be a red flag in any transaction of a commodity, there is no supply problem here) ⁃ The finance option is a joke - most people that do take this probably can’t afford the $24K out of pocket - if they don’t realize the cost doubles its on them ⁃ The program has some good points, but the non-HVC at Hilton stay fee really should not be there ⁃ Sales tactics include evasion and lies - that is not a good tactic for people that pay attention ⁃ Inability to do a full demo of the reservation system - simply thinking we will trust their example stay costs is ignorant ⁃ No information about “sell ability” If they did come up with an accurate and much more detailed info, including the terms and the contract one has to sign, ability to play around with actual reservation system, realistic info on fees (and who and what changes them) etc - then I might consider it - but no, I will never take a “you must buy it now” pressure.

We booked 3 nights in a 2 bedroom King Suite using hotels.com. The photos on both hotels.com and the Hilton site made the suites look very nice and modern. Apparently, not all of the suites have been remodeled. The suite we had (203 -D) looked to have last been refreshed in 1999. The carpet was dingy, stained and had holes in it on the stairwell and gaps in the threshold where the carpet and tile meet. The furniture in the living room was very uncomfortable. The couch looked like it was from the 70s and was made out of a fabric that was irritating and itchy. The other chairs were wicker (aka patio chairs) and super uncomfortable. Both TVs we used had vertical lines in the panels and were small. The beds were comfortable. The showers were average with weak water pressure. The resort grounds were mediocre. The arcade is a joke and I'm pretty sure some sort of scam. We purchased $20 of credits (plus $2 fee) and in less than 10 minutes we played maybe 5 games and were out of credits. Check-in: The check-in process was relatively smooth. We were charged a $75 resort fee (not sure if that is a single fee no matter how long your stay or if it's based on length of stay). They also charged me a $300 deposit ( for damages) which will be refundable as long as there are no damages. After getting all checked in they send you to a separate desk to get your "parking permit". At this desk you do get a little parking permit, but the only reason they have you go to a separate desk is so they can pitch their timeshare BS and try to persuade you to do a tour. I would not recommend this resort since I feel like we got the bait and Switch treatment. Had we stayed in one of the recently renovated suites I may have had a different experience, but I will not be giving them another shot.

Hilton has remodeled this property and a great job! Great place for families or solo - I am enjoying my full condo ! It is quieter than Orlando area resorts - still close to Disney and Universal by car - if you like some pool time and peace in-between the theme parks - still close enough and some downtime after or before.