We have stayed at the Parc Soleil Hilton Grand Vacations Club twice. Once two years ago when nearly new, and the second visit just last week. I have a family of four, with two kids age 5. First, the staff is superb in the lobby, in the pool area, and in most places around the hotel. It is hard to beat their level of service and I would equate it to a top tier resort.

The pool area with its two pools and five saunas is well maintained and kept up. The one water slide is very fast - so fast it scared my five two year old daughters. Great slide, but young kids can be frightened by it. The playground next door is also a great facility, as my girls loved it with the well padded astro-turf. They may trip and fall down, but when they are ready to cry, they realize, "Hey, that did not hurt!"

The elevators in the buildings are quick and efficent. The hallways are nice as is the lobby. The rooms are another story. The furninture we noticed after our first visit was a little beat up. After the second visit, much more beat up. It is nice but not holding up well. In addition, the cleaning staff has been cut back on (probably because the time shares are not selling well - more on that in a second). So cleaning for a seven day stay is only one day. The other six days they will make the beds and change the towels if you ask. The problem is the kitchen. We came and it was barely clean. The dish drainer by the sick was absolutely fility. It took two calls for someone to come up, look at it, and tell us they would bring up a new one. The new one the drainer was clean, the silverware pocket had food in it! We gave up. Dishes and silverware were in the main tray to dry.

It is unfortunate as the rooms have some nice touches. Televisions in every room, in the one bedroom unit, you get a tub with a faucet in the ceiling as well as a separate shower. In the studio, you get a standard hotel room but with the high end tile that comes in the one bedroom, losing the bathtub and one of the two sinks. The one bedroom has a full kitchen. You can make anything you want in it and in addition, they have grills outside you can use. We used them one time buying the charcoal at Winn Dixie for $3 (or you can buy it from Hilton at the nice store they have on site for $7). You call up the staff and they put out the charcoal when you are done so you don't start a fire. Again, the excellent service.

We got the sales pitch both times to buy a time share. However, for the high prices to sign up and then the maintenance fee every year you pay for about $1000 or more, it does not make sense finanically no matter how you cut it. Right now, I can go online to hilton.com and use it like a hotel now since they cannot sell the units. The one bedrooms are for about $200 a night, the studios a litlte more than $100 - or a standard hotel rate. So I can stay in that hotel in a one bedroom for 5 nights for $1000 - or about the maintenance fee for a week per year if I purchase the time share - not counting that $10,000-$20,000 I have to pay up front. To save two days on a on bedroom hotel room per year, or $400, it is going to take me a very long time to make up those thousands I put down up front. They try to sell you on the "guaranteed vacation for life," but basically you are locked into Hilton or their partner properties, and the payoff can take as long as 50 years. So you never break even on this "vacation investment." Your kids might beneift if you bequeth it to them,but then they are saddled with the annual fees.

So for a short visit and if you can deal with the declining quality of the rooms, everything is great. For a long term investment, stay far away.