"Your Otter Crest Resort, with its panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean, is famous for its natural wooded beauty and rugged, jetting rock cliffs. The unique coastal environment at Otter Crest offers children and adults alike the wonders of marine life. The local towns of Newport and Lincoln City have lots of sightseeing, shopping and wonderful dining and entertainment. Otter Crest Resort offers all of the fine first-class amenities WorldMark owners have come to expect."
Otter Crest was one of the very first resorts in the WorldMark system. The WorldMark history shows that there were 6 units in the system at the end of 1989 and one of those units was at Otter Crest. From the above description it sounds like a very nice place. But things weren't all bright and shiny at Otter Crest. The December, 1996 edition of the newsletter contained this announcement:
"With Gleneden in full operation, after Jan. 1, 1997, your Vacation Planning Center will no longer book reservations for The Inn at Otter Crest. For all of us, Otter Crest has been an old friend, and a favorite for many of you. Your Board of Directors looked long and hard for ways to keep this long-standing favorite. With only nine WorldMark units and critical maintenance issues facing the resort, the only action that made sense was to build a new coastal retreat as close as possible to Otter Crest."
1996 was before my time with WorldMark but I'm sure many owners remember the Otter Crest resort. The fact that it was closed is somewhat significant in that it illustrates that it is possible to shed a problem resort from the WorldMark family.
What I find more interesting is illustrated in the following table, which shows the weekly credit values for the Otter Crest and Gleneden resorts and the percentage increase you would have paid to move from Otter Crest to Gleneden.
| Otter Crest | Gleneden | % Increase | |
| 1 Br Red Week | 7,000 | 8,000 | 14.3 |
| 1 Br White Week | 5,000 | 6,000 | 20.0 |
| 1 Br Blue Week | 2,000 | 4,000 | 100.0 |
| 2 Br Red Week | 8,000 | 10,000 | 25.0 |
| 2 Br White Week | 6,000 | 7,000 | 16.7 |
| 2 Br Blue Week | 3,000 | 5,000 | 66.7 |
| 3 Br Red Week | 10,000 | 12,000 | 20.0 |
| 3 Br White Week | 7,000 | 8,000 | 14.3 |
| 3 Br Blue Week | 5,000 | 6,000 | 20.0 |
Look at the differences in those credit values. A one bedroom Red week jumped up by 1,000 credits. A one bedroom Blue week doubled in cost, from 2,000 credits to 4,000 credits. The other weeks show similar large increases.
Two things come to mind concerning the credit allocations. Otter Crest had a total of 9 units when it was closed and the announcement for the Gleneden resort indicated that there were a total of 80 units there. I'll assume that some of the credits generated by the opening of Gleneden were designated to offset the credits that were lost when Otter Crest was closed. That would prevent any reduction in the total number of credits and keep things in line with the legal requirements. But if you replace low credit requirement units with higher credit requirement units it is not a 1 to 1 unit replacement. Replacing the credits allocated to the 9 units at Otter Crest probably required only 6 or 7 units at Gleneden due to the higher credit values at the new resort. The total credits stay the same but the number of units is reduced.
The other thought is that since Otter Crest was one of the first WorldMark resorts and had low credit values, were there any protests when new resorts came in at higher values? A 14 to 100 percent increase in credit requirements is not a minor adjustment, it's a big jump. These days the higher credit values on some of the newer resorts are a hot topic for some owners. Was that the case back in the 1990's? Was there talk against moving from an 8,000 credit 2 Br Red week model to a 10,000 credit Red week? Or did those owners recognize the value of a new resort and were willing to accept the higher credit values? Any long time owners out there who can provide some insight on this subject? It would be interesting to hear your thoughts.
