Bizarro Island

September 4th, 2010 |

This is one of those stories you both hate to hear about for the sake of visitors to our area, and also can’t help but shake your head at when you hear it. According to reports, Dells Island Resort (formerly Antiqua Bay) had been going through bankruptcy proceedings and at the same time someone within the organization was fiddling the electric meter. Then, right before one of the biggest holidays of the year, their electricity was shut off forcing them to close. That’s the bit where you feel bad for anyone who had reservations at Dells Island for the holiday weekend.

Capture from Dells Island Resort Website 9/4/2010

Now, if you were to visit Dells Island Resort’s website you’d see that the “real” reason they shut down was in “protest”, not because they had no power. (One can only assume that if they weren’t protesting, customers would be filling the hallways while wandering down to the darkened indoor water park with flashlights in hand. ) “Protest”, that’s a bit silly. To their credit, the resort has according to their website, found other resorts to honor customer reservations including; Chula Vista Resort, Rhapsody Resort & Spa, Cedar Lodge & Malibu Inn.

While you hate to hear about folks having their holiday plans thrown in the bin, a quick look around the web could have saved them some grief. Reviews of Dells Island Resort have been downright awful for some time. Not just regular awful either but multiple exclamation point awful as in, “Stay Away At All Costs!!!” or “DO NOT SAY HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” which are just two of the more recent review headlines at Trip Advisor. Among Trip Advisor reviewers, 67% did not recommend Dells Island Resort. The resort didn’t fare much better with the folks posting their reviews to Expedia either, garnering just 2 stars. Suffice to say anyone searching the web for reviews would have ample reason to reconsider their choice.

And speaking of bizarre, folks still searching for the old “Antiqua Bay on Google would be greeted with this….

Google No 1 Search Result for "antiqua bay"

It seems the old Antiqua Bay website had been tagged to catch folks looking for Mount Olympus Theme Park then send them on to Dells Island. This practice is not looked upon well in the world of online development and marketing, but it can work on unsuspecting searchers.

At first we read the news reports about Dells Island as a bit of a curiosity. A surprising number of Wisconsin Dells businesses have been in the process of, or facing bankruptcy proceedings with very little press coverage. While you don’t want others misfortune turned into a spectacle, we’re seeing that reporting these bankruptcies as they came up may have saved some visitors to our area some grief. We’ve also seen that taking a good look around the web before you make your reservations can also help visitors avoid problems. While not all customer reviews are fair or even honest, over time you do begin to build a trend which is worth paying attention to.

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