Already took tour but didn't like our guide

[patkingpin]

When we were in Disney for our Honeymoon in September 2007, me and my wife took the DVC tour. We were more than impressed with the DVC program, but our guide is why we decided not to do it. We are planning a trip this October 2008 and are interested in learning more, but we are afraid that we are now connected to the same tour guide. Is there a way to insure that we don't get that tour guide?

The main problem is that he really confused my wife and basically talked down to us the whole time. He kept telling stories about how he uses it and has tons of his relatives stay with him and how if we had a huge group come down then it would help us. We're newlyweds, we were kind of looking for more of a guide that would realize that we want it for the two of us. It didn't happen and it really turned me off to the program. On top of that it turned into a 5 hour presentation on a day that we wanted to catch up on rides that we missed. All throughout the presentation he stressed that it wouldn't be a problem because he could give us fast passes. Well, after we told him we wanted a day to think about it, the fastpasses were a thing of the past.

I don't care about the fastpasses themselves, we went during a downtime and lines weren't that long to begin with, but it is the principle of the deal that had me concerned.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Patrick.

 

[SleepyatDVC]

Call DVC directly and ask who the guide assigned to you is. Your original guide may have "moved on" and a new guide was assigned to you.

If it is the same guide as before, ask them to re-assign a guide to you. If they ask, you can just tell them that his style just wasn't comfortable to you.

Good luck.

 

[Robo-Daddy 3000]

On top of that it turned into a 5 hour presentation on a day that we wanted to catch up on rides that we missed.

5 hours?!?!?

 

[SSRFred]

I'd certainly ask for another guide. My guide was wonderful. I said I needed a week to think about it and still got the passes. After the week, I did sign on from the comfort of my home. No pressure, no assumptions, that's the way it should be.

 

[Brian Noble]

Sounds like a Westgate refugee.

 

[disneynutz]

The "tour" should take about a hour. Talk to a Guide Manager and tell them what type of Guide that you would like to work with. Check out all of the DVC threads here on the DIS and consider buying resale. Good Luck.

 

[patkingpin]

5 hours. I even just asked my wife to make sure, lol.
We sat in the first room with the comfy chairs and the juice for an hour listening to family stories of his. Then we took the walking tour to the villas and the pool and back again. This took another hour. After that, we went into the room with the computer so we could play with the numbers and we talked for another hour with him about it. Then he left us alone to play with the numbers for about an hour because nobody could find him to tell him that we were ready to talk again. After an hour of him trying to talk us into becoming members after we told him we wanted to go back home and look at our finances (which he seemed to think was the worst idea ever), we finally had ice cream and left.

 

[Mtnman44]

I am the only one that thinks who your guide is matters VERY little unless you plan on a lot of adding on and stuff in the future? They all sell the same thing at the same price. You can always just buy via resale also. Once you get the guide to send you the contract paperwork, you may never have to deal with them again if you don't want to. They are just salespeople really.

 

[patkingpin]

We considered the resale route. My question there though is our guide told us if you do resale then you wouldn't be able to finance any of it. Is that true?

 

[disneynutz]

5 hours. I even just asked my wife to make sure, lol.
We sat in the first room with the comfy chairs and the juice for an hour listening to family stories of his. Then we took the walking tour to the villas and the pool and back again. This took another hour. After that, we went into the room with the computer so we could play with the numbers and we talked for another hour with him about it. Then he left us alone to play with the numbers for about an hour because nobody could find him to tell him that we were ready to talk again. After an hour of him trying to talk us into becoming members after we told him we wanted to go back home and look at our finances (which he seemed to think was the worst idea ever), we finally had ice cream and left.

Sounds like five hours.

 

[DisFamily2006]

We had a similar situation with our original guide. When we got ready to buy a couple years later, I just called into the main number and requested a different one. It was very painless and our new guide has been nothing but good.

 

[Chuck S]

We considered the resale route. My question there though is our guide told us if you do resale then you wouldn't be able to finance any of it. Is that true?

As others have said, you can easily change your guide. But some resale brokers can arrange financing, or you can arrange it privately. But it is usually at higher rates, and higher closing costs, than Disney...so it may even out. Plus, you'll have access to your points right away by going through Disney. Finding the right contract, going through right of first refusal and closing on a resale usually takes a few weeks, sometimes longer.

 

[SleepyatDVC]

I am the only one that thinks who your guide is matters VERY little unless you plan on a lot of adding on and stuff in the future? They all sell the same thing at the same price. You can always just buy via resale also. Once you get the guide to send you the contract paperwork, you may never have to deal with them again if you don't want to. They are just salespeople really.

True, but since this would be the guide they would HAVE to deal with in order to get him to start, send, process the paperwork, and answer any questions they may have, they want a SALESPEOPLE they feel comfortable working with now!

 

[JimMIA]

We considered the resale route. My question there though is our guide told us if you do resale then you wouldn't be able to finance any of it. Is that true?

As President Clinton said, "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

The guide is not technically lying, if you assume that he's only talking about Disney financing. He's right, Disney won't finance a competitor's sale.

However, as Chuck said, some resale brokers have financing arrangements in place. You'd have to compare rates and prices to see which method would work best for you with all costs considered.

Another way to finance a resale (or direct purchase) is through a home-equity line. Those rates would usually be lower than either Disney or the resale broker's financing source, so using home equity with resale might save two ways.

 

[summergolf]

Sounds like a Westgate refugee.

our Westagate guide beat us up for 4 hours

 

[AKV707]

It sounds like you had a terrible experience. I would definitely call DVC and request a different guide and let management know the experience that you had.

We bought in July and our guide was great. No pressure, did not deny us fast passes when we said that we were not buying that day. I think that the whole experience was around 90 minutes, maybe 2 hours because we spent so much time in the AKV models.

The DVC guides are known for low pressure sales. I don't know where this guide came from, but he is either a terrible fit for DVC or was having an incredibly poor performance day.

Don't let this bad guide influence your ultimate decision, If DVC is for you, and you can afford to do it, go for it!

 

[AlisonB]

I wouldn't be surprised if we had the same guide as you! We were collected from Animal Kingdom at about 1pm for our tour and were expecting to be back by 3pm latest....it was gone 5.30 before we got back to collect our car! And no...we didn't sign up so there was no paperwork to fill in!
Were the guide's initials BC by any chance?

 

[alldiz]

My guide is Nelida Mora...1-800-827-7136...

she is very nice....added on a few weeks ago to the WL.....
didn't try to sell me on anything else but what I wanted.

Called MS with me and had them "hold" a ressie till my points came through.

Do buy DVC...
Do get another guide.

BTW I purchased 1st contract through the timeshare store(sponsor on these boards)....
very easy....they do have financing....10 or 11%.
Good luck
Kerri

 

[nunzia]

My guide is Gib and I was very upfront about how I was waiting for DGC to buy from Disney and that I was buying a small re-sale to get in the system. I have no intention of ever hitting the 160 points, so I needed the resale to be able to add on DGC at a smaller amount than the 160. He was wonderful about it, no pressure and understanding. When my resale closed, I must have been in some system with him assigned, because my Welcome Home email came from him. He's a good guide (ie salesperson)

 

[AKV707]

My guide is Rob Shapiro. He has been great. No pressure on the tour. We just did an add on with him. It was a 25 point add on and he did not try to sell me more. He did mention the incentive levels, but he realized quickly that all I wanted was the 25. He approached the add on with the same care and enthusiasm he showed when we first bought in.

Not that i don't expect him to try to sell me additional points in the future. He did leave us a voice mail when we atOKW welcomong us and mentioning the 2057 points for OKW if we ever wanted to add on there, but no pressure and not intrusive. A great guy!