Vacation 'tours'

Y'all can bad-mouth these all you want....but we own a timeshare, and we love it! use it all the time! so if any of you want to go - PM me your address and phone #'s and I'll be glad to send them in as a referral.

Seriously, we went to several of these 'tours' for a couple of yrs and finally found one that made dollars and sense to us, bought one about 5 yrs ago. :lol:

 

I have several friends who have and use timeshares. They absolutely love it.

 

When Hubby & I were in our early twenties & dating I was called with an offer of a 5 day cruise & 3 days in Florida if we went on a tour. It sounded wonderful to us. The tour wasn't scheduled until we returned from the cruise. When we showed up at the location where the cruise was supposed to depart ... we realized we would be spending days surrounded by tons of kids (even though we didn't have any yet) because we were going to be cruising on Disney's Big Red Boat. The ship was supposed to make a stop on different island's each day. Unfortunately it was hurricane season and because of the rain & rough seas, the boat wasn't able to make one stop during our trip. I'm not a drinker normally ... but we spent far more on drinks during that l-o-n-g cruise than we did on the cruise itself. I don't recommend taking a cruise during the rainy season

When we arrived back on land in Florida, we headed for our hotel in the rain. The salesman who had scheduled the tour offered to take us to breakfast the next morning. We met him at the resteraunt. After eating he suggested we leave our car in the parking lot & ride with him. BIG MISTAKE!!! It was pouring down rain. We didn't have a car and we were stuck with the idiot. I was a college student with a part time job. Hubby had just returned from Iraq and was working at a decent but not high paying job. He was renting a home. These folks kept pushing us to purchase a time-share for some unbelievable amount of money. I was amazed they would even waste the time on an unmarried couple who didn't even own a home yet. After 3 hours, the guy still refused to return us to our car which was still sitting in the parking lot of the resteraunt. It was pouring rain. They wouldn't let us use the phone to call a cab. My hubby was as patient as he could be ... for as long as he could ... but he did finally lose his temper & start threating bodily harm to the salesguy if we weren't returned to our car immediately. We were young & gullable back then ... but if I ever take another "tour" I will be certain to have my own car available so I can leave when I decide the "tour" is over.

Luckily the last 2 days of our time in Florida were sunny and beautiful. Even though the cruise didn't go as planned, and the "tour" was a little upsetting ... I was in good company and hubby-to-be & I had a great time.

 

Attempted to do that with Disney. After we lost almost 2 1/2 hours listening and waiting, we got up an left (without a discount) as it looked to not be coming very quickly. They were cutting into our precious little time we had. Just my experience.... (Note: We did go in the first thing in the AM, and that this was several years ago... fwiw)

 

RUN.....FOREST....RUN

 

If they offer you coffee, donuts, sandwiches, etc, don't take them up on it. That time does NOT count towards your tour time.

If you really want to buy a timeshare, it's best to buy a resale. Waaaay cheaper. Also, I would suggest that you don't buy into an Orlando resort unless it's a very, very popular one, it's Disney Vacation Club or that where you want to go every time. Most of them are hard to trade out of because the Orlando market is so saturated with them.

 

After living in Florida for 20 years, most people buy re-sale, not timeshare. Most people like Disney Vacation Club and never had any problem with it. Be sure to ask someone who is an expert about which one is most popular and easily sell-out.

 

Hey that ain't too bad! Some of the ones on there say "Presentation not required"

 

A couple of stories from when I liven in California...

1. From a "Drop Your Business Card" bowl, I "won" a trip to Lake Tahoe. The deal was that I would ride a tour bus with a lot of other winners. We get our rooms free, as well as $25 cash (in quarters) to gamble. Food was not offered, but it's cheap enough as it was (99¢ breakfast all day at a couple of places). I ended up spending about $500 on shopws and, of course, gambling. On the trip hope, the tour guide played some games, which I won one. Foir a free trip back to Tahoe. I gave it away because I couldn't afford another free trip.

2. While driving here to chack out houses to move to, we (me and my wife at the time) stopped at Laughlin (Las Vegas for yuppies). While there we decided to spend an hour at a promo for some time shares. We promised each other that we wouldn't give in, we just wantedf the "free gift" (a 35mm camera which looked real good in the ad). The salesman gave his schpiel, but we held firm. I think he was actually surprised we refused to sign the contract. Finally, he called over his manager and told him the we just weren't going to sign. The manager looked at both of os up and down, then turned to the salesman and said, "Ok, take 'em out and gift 'em." Not kidding, those were his exact words.

One more...
3. My first "free trip" was taken with my first wife. It, too, was a trip to Tahoe. Everything went well, we had a good time. Then, on the bus ride home, we got as far as Sacramento, and was supposed to transfer to another bus that would take us to San Jose (were we lived). Unfortunately the bus had left early and stranded us (as well as others). We needed to get back that morning, since we were both working, so we ended up taking a bus to San Francisco and planned on taking the commuter train from there to San Jose. No one told us, though, that the bus station in San Francisco was in the middle of the Mission District (the local "combat zone") and we had to walk (no taxis) the whole length to the train station. Wife was looking like a scared mouse and I kept telling her to just walk like you lived there. Nothing happened, expet it makes for a good story.

 

oh i need to read closer! the one at hilton head sounds awesome!

you go first and tell me how it goes! :mrgreen:

 

what's the address for the one you found?

 

who you talkin to sugar?

 

I'm talking to you sweetness!

 

the restort in hilton head or the website of the shady tour place?

im a little slow....

 

We've done this lots of time and think it's a fantastic way to save money. We love staying at timeshares becaues you get pretty much a little condo, with at least one bedroom, a family room and a full kitchen.

We've done the little weekend deals in Williamsburg, Niagra Falls, and a few other places. We've also done full-week deals in Williamsburg, Orlando and Hawaii.

Before we had kids we used to do timeshare presentations everywhere we went on vacation. We did a weekend in Williamsburg and didn't spend a single cent of our own money the entire trip, except for the $99 for the resort. We even did Orlando for a full week without spending a single cent of our own money. We did a presetation every single morning. Once we ran out of things we wanted tickets for, we just did them for cash. And everything is negotable, so we made out great on that trip. Since we've had kids we don't do them as often. Typically once, maybe twice, per trip.

We have found that the key to this is to come up with your story in advance and then stick to it no matter what. We just say that we were interested in getting more information because we've heard so much about timeshares, but that we don't vacation very often and don't have the money available to spend right now. It helps when you say that you only take one big vacation like every 5 years. It makes it really hard for them to find a way to make that work with the cost of a timeshare. No matter what you say, keep it simple and stand firm. They will hard sell you. They will put several different people in front of you, who will present several different packages. They'll make it sound amazing and taylored specifically to you. Just stand firm, and pray for it to be over. It typically takes around 2 hours, even though they'll tell you it's only 1. If you do it early in the morning you'll get a free breakfast out of it, which will help take less time out of your day. As it starts to wind down, you can metion that you have a reservation somewhere, which will help speed things along.

If you tend to sway or have trouble saying no... then absolutely, positively, do NOT go to a timeshare presentation.

 

thansk Crysta for the awesome info!

 

My dad perfected getting free stuff and vacations out of deals like this. I remember sitting through a two hour presentation on campsites as a kid for a WEEDWACKER!

Most of the time it worked out for them, one time they got a really nice fellow who knew right away they were not going to buy and he wanted to meet up with his GF so they let each other off the hook. Another rep got very irate when they discovered dad had no intention of buying into their services.