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I have considerable stuff to talk about from our 18 days in Florida, which I will be posting in the next few days as time allows. I will start with this since it was our first full day in Orlando.
Even with nearly 20 years of timeshare tours under our belt, this is one we had a bit of apprehension about. We had 3 days to kill before the rest of the family arrived and decided to get some Disney tickets by touring.
We decided on a mostly-honest approach. Our tour guy (a manager he claimed) sent us to the buffet and disappeared, leaving his questionnaire sheet, so I looked it over.
We answered the interview fairly honestly--been timesharing for 20 years, vacations mean a lot to us, 95 exchanges so far, checking into a 3-bedroom at OL through RCI on Saturday--stuff like that.
By the time he asked how much we spent on the motel room we were staying in before OL, and we said $34, and asked us how much we paid for our weeks and what our annual fees are, he pretty much wrote us off, and told us as much. The only thing he had to offer was an EOY for $10000. Coincidentally, we started with an EOY almost 20 years ago, so we guess we haven't progressed much.
(After we booked our motel rooms through Hotwire, we found out we could have stayed at the Gaylord Palms for $49/night.
)
There were the normal, required little white lies (you have to own in Orlando in order to have any trading power, an EOY at Westgate will get you Disney Getaways, stuff like that), but since he was willing to spare us from the rack and the cat o' nine tails, we let him get away with the little stuff.
Interestingly, Mr. Seagull is building a new highrise, and I believe I heard water park come out of Guido's mouth, but I confess to a certain amount of ADD when sitting with a timeshare salesman. Wow! Go figure. A new highrise and a waterpark. What novel idea.
Sure enough, when we went outside and looked over yonder, there was new highrise going up, bigger than the one Mr. Seagull is building in Branson.
We really talked about some very intereting things. I asked why Mr. Seagull doesn't tear down those old, dated, single-alphabet buildings, and put those owners in new highrises, thus getting room to build more new highrises. Guido said because Mr. Seagull does not control those buildings anymore, they're associations do.
Then he got up, saying we were obligated to 90 minutes, starting at 9:49. He looked at this watch and I at my cell phone, and we mentally set the timer. He got up and disappeared, yacking it up around the big room with the other 50-or-so salespeople just standing around, applauding all the new owners as they were announced, so that they could move over across the barrier into the VIP area.
He even went outside for about 15 mintues. We just sat and listened to everyone around us, getting pitched in several languages, mostly for EOYs. Then he came back, handed us the survey sheet and pointed to Gifting, which we had already located ourselves.
Gifting involved four lines in three different locations in two different buildings.
From the time we arrived until the time we got back into our car it was over three hours, and some in that final line were not very happy campers, which they might well have been (campers), since they did not buy either.
The premium Westgate is offering and that almost every Google Discount Disney link leads you to is two 1-Day Passes for $25. Most of them are combined with a 3 Day/2 night or 4 Day/3 Night lodging offer.
Yes, Westgate does have an on-site Disney ticket center.
We were not on the lodging package and got 4 Disney passes for $125. The best price elsewhere seems to be $71.36 each, so I we got $160, two breakfasts, a bit of information, and some friendly conversation for our time.
Those we passed the discounted tickets on to, at our cost, did not seem to appreciate our sacrifice, nor express any interest in doing what it takes to get them themselves, so I guess that will be end of that for us.
Even with nearly 20 years of timeshare tours under our belt, this is one we had a bit of apprehension about. We had 3 days to kill before the rest of the family arrived and decided to get some Disney tickets by touring.
We decided on a mostly-honest approach. Our tour guy (a manager he claimed) sent us to the buffet and disappeared, leaving his questionnaire sheet, so I looked it over.
We answered the interview fairly honestly--been timesharing for 20 years, vacations mean a lot to us, 95 exchanges so far, checking into a 3-bedroom at OL through RCI on Saturday--stuff like that.
By the time he asked how much we spent on the motel room we were staying in before OL, and we said $34, and asked us how much we paid for our weeks and what our annual fees are, he pretty much wrote us off, and told us as much. The only thing he had to offer was an EOY for $10000. Coincidentally, we started with an EOY almost 20 years ago, so we guess we haven't progressed much.
(After we booked our motel rooms through Hotwire, we found out we could have stayed at the Gaylord Palms for $49/night.
)There were the normal, required little white lies (you have to own in Orlando in order to have any trading power, an EOY at Westgate will get you Disney Getaways, stuff like that), but since he was willing to spare us from the rack and the cat o' nine tails, we let him get away with the little stuff.
Interestingly, Mr. Seagull is building a new highrise, and I believe I heard water park come out of Guido's mouth, but I confess to a certain amount of ADD when sitting with a timeshare salesman. Wow! Go figure. A new highrise and a waterpark. What novel idea.
Sure enough, when we went outside and looked over yonder, there was new highrise going up, bigger than the one Mr. Seagull is building in Branson.
We really talked about some very intereting things. I asked why Mr. Seagull doesn't tear down those old, dated, single-alphabet buildings, and put those owners in new highrises, thus getting room to build more new highrises. Guido said because Mr. Seagull does not control those buildings anymore, they're associations do.
Then he got up, saying we were obligated to 90 minutes, starting at 9:49. He looked at this watch and I at my cell phone, and we mentally set the timer. He got up and disappeared, yacking it up around the big room with the other 50-or-so salespeople just standing around, applauding all the new owners as they were announced, so that they could move over across the barrier into the VIP area.
He even went outside for about 15 mintues. We just sat and listened to everyone around us, getting pitched in several languages, mostly for EOYs. Then he came back, handed us the survey sheet and pointed to Gifting, which we had already located ourselves.
Gifting involved four lines in three different locations in two different buildings.
From the time we arrived until the time we got back into our car it was over three hours, and some in that final line were not very happy campers, which they might well have been (campers), since they did not buy either.
The premium Westgate is offering and that almost every Google Discount Disney link leads you to is two 1-Day Passes for $25. Most of them are combined with a 3 Day/2 night or 4 Day/3 Night lodging offer.
Yes, Westgate does have an on-site Disney ticket center.
We were not on the lodging package and got 4 Disney passes for $125. The best price elsewhere seems to be $71.36 each, so I we got $160, two breakfasts, a bit of information, and some friendly conversation for our time.
Those we passed the discounted tickets on to, at our cost, did not seem to appreciate our sacrifice, nor express any interest in doing what it takes to get them themselves, so I guess that will be end of that for us.
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