Resort presentation

[lvillotta1]

I was looking around the internet yesterday and found a site with many different hotel chains that were offering some inexpensive lodging with tickets to WDW if you sat in on a 90min presentation. You also had the option of adding more days to the parks etc. I called the number and talk to a customer service rep and asked about the presentation and she said there is no pressure to buy into the vacation club at all. But for the life of me I can not remember the website as I was at work with a different browser. I wanted to know what other cathces there might be that I may not be seeing? Has anyone done this? The company did tell me that every travel business in the state of florida has a ST number at the bottom of their website and I can call for reviews and their ratings. TIA

 

[Marionnette]

I was looking around the internet yesterday and found a site with many different hotel chains that were offering some inexpensive lodging with tickets to WDW if you sat in on a 90min presentation. You also had the option of adding more days to the parks etc. I called the number and talk to a customer service rep and asked about the presentation and she said there is no pressure to buy into the vacation club at all. But for the life of me I can not remember the website as I was at work with a different browser. I wanted to know what other cathces there might be that I may not be seeing? Has anyone done this? The company did tell me that every travel business in the state of florida has a ST number at the bottom of their website and I can call for reviews and their ratings. TIA

The Disney Vacation Club resort tour is very low-pressure but you're not going to get free tickets from doing it. You might get ice cream.

Other timeshare presentations will range from moderate to extreme pressure to sell you an interest in their property. The 90 minutes that they claim it will take will end up being closer 2-3 hours from start to finish. If you are married, both spouses must attend. If you have children, they will be whisked away to a play area while you do the presentation. You will be passed from one sales person to another if you say no to their offer. They will increase their incentives and lower their prices but they will not let you go until they either have your name on a contract or they have exhausted a long list of sales pitches.

Do yourself a favor and make sure that you know what their timeshare is selling for on the resale market, if you're really interested in buying into one. I suggest reading TUG and Redweek. If you're doing this just to get a couple of free tickets, think long and hard about how precious your vacation time is. Do you really want to waste a day of it being browbeaten by sales people and their managers?

Having said all of that, my brother did a Hilton Parc Soleil timshare presentation last summer and he said it wasn't terribly bad. He didn't get park tickets. They offered a room at a reduced price. He's divorced, travels for business and has a ton of Hilton Honors loyalty points, plus he owns a contract for over 250 DVC points. The sales person couldn't do a "divide and conquer" attempt since there was no spouse present. He couldn't convince my brother that it was worth it to invest in a timeshare when he scores enough loyalty points every year to stay there for free for a week. The sales person gave up before the 90 minutes were over because he knew my brother was not going to sign and he wanted to move on to the next potential sale.