DAYTONA Beach front SHORES — One of the beachside’s longtime independently owned hotels is rated atop a prestigious new record of the nation’s Top rated 25 family members-welcoming accommodations.
The beachfront 91-area Sun Viking Lodge, at 2411 S. Atlantic Ave. in Daytona Beach Shores, scored the very first-position ranking on a listing of the Major 25 Inns For People in the United States as part of the 2022 Travelers’ Selection Best of the Best Awards presented by travel web-site TripAdvisor.com.
In saying the leading spot, the Sunlight Viking Lodge completed forward of an array of accommodations in locations that incorporated Anaheim, California Branson, Missouri Santa Cruz, California Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Pigeon Forge, Tennessee Ocean Metropolis, New Jersey and Williamsburg, Virginia as properly as five motels in the shadow of Walt Disney Planet in Orlando.
“It’s a source of delight for absolutely everyone right here,” claimed Amy Alexon, the hotel’s common manager. “It’s the employees that did this. That is the cause we have so many very good reviews. We’re like a family in this article. When you search at all the lodges we beat on that listing, all the h2o parks, it is a substantial honor.”
Made Just Proper:Sun Viking Lodge celebrates 50 many years in Daytona Beach Shores
The Travelers’ Option awards honor travelers’ beloved locations, accommodations, dining places, matters to do and further than, based mostly on the opinions and opinions collected from vacationers and diners all over the globe on TripAdvisor more than a 12-month time period, in accordance to the website.
The awards are break up into two amounts: Best of the Most effective and Travelers’ Option.
The Very best of the Best designation is the website’s best honor.
It considers the top quality and quantity of traveler assessments and rankings to rank the greatest accommodations, places, shorelines, points of interest, dining establishments, airlines and activities in specific categories and geographic spots, in accordance to the internet site.
Travelers’ Choice Most effective of the Most effective award winners stand for the prime 1% of TripAdvisor listings, the web site said.
Other properties on the Best 25 household motels listing consist of Celebration Suites in Kissimmee (at No. 5) Marriott’s Harbour Lake in Orlando (No. 8) Sanibel Moorings in Sanibel Island (No. 11) Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa in Orlando (No. 16) and Marriott’s Cypress Harbour Villas, also in Orlando (No. 17).
A time of alter at Sunshine Viking
For the Sunshine Viking Lodge, the TripAdvisor award arrives during a time of changeover.
A year in the past, in June 2021, the resort was sold by its longtime partner-and-spouse ownership crew of Gary and Barbara Brown to new house owners Ty and Tovah Lohman of Ormond Beach for $8.5 million, in accordance to Volusia County Home Appraiser records.
Moving on:After much more than 50 several years as hoteliers, Brown spouse and children sells Daytona Beach’s Solar Viking Lodge
The Browns had owned and operated the hotel because 1971. Despite the fact that their son, Greg Brown, experienced at first stayed on as general manager, he stepped down from that position at the stop of May perhaps to concentration comprehensive-time on online video creation operate.
Ahead of that improve, Alexon experienced been promoted to standard manager in January, relocating into that job after much more than a ten years in many roles at the hotel in which she experienced began as a front-desk clerk. Furthermore, the hotel’s assistant general supervisor, Joel Pape, started out at the resort just about four a long time back in the upkeep section.
Ty Lohman, the hotel’s new operator, pointed the spotlight at the hotel’s management crew and personnel for recognition for the TripAdvisor honor.
“Amy has a fantastic crew that normally takes great treatment of the attendees,” Lohman stated. “This is genuinely about her and every person she’s acquired there. It is an legendary lodge that has a lot of amenities to present households. They worked genuinely challenging, so they’ve earned this.”
In turn, Alexon made available gratitude to the Brown spouse and children for instilling the spouse and children-helpful attitude that continue to characterizes the resort.
“I confident do pass up the Browns,” she said. “I uncovered a good deal from them. They ended up remarkable.”
In offering congratulations, the purpose of the Brown household in acquiring Daytona Beach front as a vacationer place around 5 decades also was heralded by Bob Davis, president and CEO of the Lodging & Hospitality Association of Volusia County.
“This is a great, incredible reward for a relatives that has presented their lives to the business below,” Davis reported. “What that signifies, that took a long time.”
When the Browns very first opened thei
r resort in 1971, there was a great deal of regional converse about the opportunity effect of a new vacationer attraction that would open later that year in Orlando.
From 2019: Sunlight Viking Lodge owner chronicles changes in Daytona Beach front
“There was a good deal of speculation about whether or not Disney World would enable Daytona or harm Daytona,” Gary Brown stated in early 2021 as the Solar Viking Lodge marked its 50th anniversary. “If you look at heritage, I think it did the two.”
Even as Disney’s mammoth empire loomed ever-greater, the Sun Viking Lodge endured.
It weathered gasoline shortages, wars, wildfires, financial downturns, the affect of the Sept. 11th assaults and, most not too long ago, the coronavirus pandemic.
Resort staff praised for award-winning hard work
Reached by mobile phone, Greg Brown also acknowledged his parents’ part in defining the Sun Viking Lodge practical experience about a lot more than 50 many years at the helm.
“We truly feel blessed to get the award,” Brown explained. “Obviously, my mother and father performed a massive part in that, as very well. The entire staff members has to be counseled for all their challenging get the job done and generating every person happy.
“We have a pretty solid staff, even as a result of the pandemic,” he claimed. “The problems with staffing shortages have been challenging on everybody, but the main is there, and it saved us likely.”
Labor scarcity difficulties are nonetheless a variable at the lodge, said Pape, the assistant general supervisor. Ideal now, staffing for the hotel’s housekeeping division is about 20% beneath normal summer season levels, he said.
Assist (genuinely) preferred:Volusia dining places, motels wrestle to seek the services of personnel
“But we all have to action up as a team and get the position carried out in any case,” he claimed.
Alexon stated that a employees celebration social gathering is in the setting up stages as a reward for the TripAdvisor honor.
“It’s seriously going to increase morale,” she explained of the award. “We’re likely to have a big occasion to celebrate the workforce.”
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