Today we went to our first timeshare presentation in quite awhile. We haven’t liked Westgate timeshares since we saw the “Queen of Versailles” a couple of years ago. Such wealth and waste. Anyway, we decided to check them out and I’m glad we did. For as bad as we think Westgate is, they employ so many people. That’s a good thing.
We got there around 9:45 AM. It was only about five miles from our “home.” We filled out some paperwork and then waited in the lobby for awhile. Eventually a nice young man, Rick, came out to greet us. He kept asking us if we knew another person taking the tour. They seemed determined that we knew her (she was from San Diego). Anyway, eventually the other Californian joined us for awhile and we got another salesman, Zac. We were supposed to get breakfast but had to ask (by this time it was 11:00 AM)/ We were very hungry. They had a nice breakfast buffet of eggs, sausage, grits, muffins, croissants, coffee and tea.
Beautiful grounds, clearly well maintained.Each of their resorts have a town center with a grocery store so that you don’t have to leave resort grounds. Thiey used this as a selling point.Looked like a nice shopping center.The buildings and grounds are grand in size, decoration and scale.Very reminiscent of Vacation Village properties.
Pretty woman short cutting to the presentation.Granite everywhere.Over sized light fixtures that were nice looking.Very nice.At about this point I was considering the maintenance staff, sales staff, housekeeping staff, security staff, accounting, and on and on. They provide a lot of employment to a lot of people.We were taken to a theater to talk about being from California and who else we knew. It was a strange theme to the experience.Wall of fame, David Siegel has met many celebrities.Arnold with Mr and Mrs Siegel.
We hadn’t had breakfast and I had to finally ask for food or we were going to leave and go get breakfast. It was decent.
Our salesmen(both of them) kept leaving us for long periods of time. Not sure what was happening but this was the most disorganized sales pitch we have ever heard. I don’t think we were the only ones being left for long periods of time either. We did get to see the units – lovely. Much prettier than I thought they would be, especially since they are only a three star type resort on RCI. The sales pitch seemed too good to be true but we had to “buy it today only.” Hate that but it’s so standard and don’t understand why. If they’re selling something – why won’t it be there tomorrow so we can do our research to check out some of their claims and promises?
Had we bought, they would provide us with these advertisements. The scheme would be that we would post these on bulletin boards or walls where we go and other’s traffic. There are tear sheets at the bottom to claim your $99 3 night stay. The tear off tags would be tied to us and our account would be credited $75 dollars for everyone that stays and does a presentation. If they purchase, we would get $625. It was implied that many pay their maintenance fees this way.After much talking we went on a tour.The grounds are massive and it gave me a sense of how the Siegel’s could think their massive home was acceptable.Well maintained grounds.Again, very reminiscent of Vacation Village. Entry leads to two doors.Stainless steel and granite standard.Nice dining area and living room.Big flat screen, and screened in porch.Interesting sink, not sure how functional, master bedroom beyond.Master, bed looks comfortable.Large soaking jetted tub just off the bed, again, found in Vacation Village as well.Master bedroom TV and patio access.Lovely bathroom.Nice shower and private commode.Each unit has a washer and dryer.This patio is right off the pool.Zak was our presenter, a nice fellow, from Monaco.The lock off unit was open and we dashed in for a quick look. Zak told us it was a studio. Looked like a one bedroom to us.Small but still nice kitchen. One of those cool under the sink dishwashers.Studio bedroom.Studio bedroom TV and cabinets.Studio bathroom.On the way back, these were the villas.Lots of water features. Zak told us you don’t have to worry about allegators if you stay in the middle off the lake.A model of the entire resort.
We finally got out of the presentation around 1:00 PM. By that time we were very tired and just went home. We made baked potatoes and steamed vegetables for linner. I fought Michael for his computer (mine is totally broken). We also played with our new Wyndham account. Not sure if it will work for us yet but we’re going to try it out for awhile and if we don’t like it, we’ll sell it on EBay. We’re hopeful we can get what we paid for it – but even more hopeful it will work well for us and our travels. We talked to Lexi and she said it’s flooding on our street. She sent some pictures and it’s pretty amazing. We so need it in California but don’t want flooding. Glad she didn’t have to work today and could just stay safe at home. (Only hope our roof on the mobile holds up.)
