I just received the assessment bill yesterday and it was due the day before!! What a shocker!! I am very diappointed and angry at Sapphire. When I was there in July, my room was in such bad shape, I inquired to see if any renovations were going to happen soon and none of the employees could offer any info. I asked Marcia and she was such a snob about it, she acted like she was too busy and walked away. I had a right to know at that point what was being planned, ESPECIALLY since a whopping amount of money will be coming out of my pocket. I own another timeshare in addition to Sapphire and they are honest and just raise our maintenance fee gradually when they know extra money is needed; a much fairer way to handle it. This separate assessment fee is too high and was sneakily thrown on us!! From other's feedback, I am not the only one who received it late!!! Sapphire has a lot of nerve to spring this on us and do it at the last minute. People just don't have that kind of money to pay a bill like this immediately without any warning!! I am seriously thinking of selling my week...Sapphire has been a disappointment for many years now...service, accomodations, maintenance, etc. Wyndam did nothing to improve the resort, they actually have made it worse!
Has anyone talked to others about grouping together to fight this?? If so, count me in. I have no intention of paying it. They can take their threats and shove them! I even emailed them yesterday to ask them to explain this assessment bill and why the due date was before I received it, etc. and they never emailed me back. They are rude and disorganized! St. Maarten was my favorite island for 13 years until now...thanks Sapphire for ruining a good thing!

Just received our assessment bill from the Sapphire too. Ironically we decided just last week to try to sell our timeshare there and my sister wants to sell her three week timeshare there. I am livid about this assessment. Our unit has been in bad condition for the past two years and we have complained and wondered where our maintenance fees were going. No where evidently! If a group is started to fight this assessment I'll gladly jump on the bandwagon. There must be something we as a group can do. Does anyone out there want to buy our four weeks in January? Not likely.

J,
Yes it sucks, I have to come up with $1900. This is a luxuery item for us which is budgeted. Owners since 94. As far as I'm concerned the decline of the Saph about 8 years ago, but then again St Mar is not what it was in 1994.

If you go over to traveltalkonline.com click on the SXM People talk at the top and you'll see a lot of talk going on over there about the assessment fees. Jeff Berger also has a site for timeshare owners especially for these assessments. Seems that the Pelican and Atrium are following Sapphires lead with these fees.
Rumor has it that Sapphire is using the $$$ to offset another development in the DR and/or Egypt. So who knows.