Time share tour Vistana Villages: Good, Bad or Ugly?

[tlens]

Another member on DIS has related his experience with me on his time share tour at the Vistana and essentially told me it was fairly painless. Did he luck out or is this the experience of most? I won't do it if it's a hard sell.

 

[tink2dw]

 

[MiniMissMinnie]

Hi !
We stayed there in january and we did the time-share tour. But as I was on holiday with my parents, they were the ones they tried selling the time-share to. We only did it, so we could get discount Disney tickets

We began the tour by eating breakfast - basic but OK, and after that we saw a movie about "the joy owning a time-share", and then the selling began.
Each family had a sales-person. Unfotunatly we had the most persistent ( spelling ??) of them all. It was suppose to last 1½ hour, but actually it took about 2½ hour.
When all the other families had gone, we were still there!
My parents were getting kinda mad, and at last they were "allowed" to go.

But I don not think, that every tour is like that, we just had a terrible sales-person !

But it is worth it - we saved about 300 dollars on tickets.
But it's your choice

Have a nice trip.

Warm regards

Marie

 

[kalamazoo]

We had an experience similar to that of MiniMissMinnie. We took the tour more because we did want to see what kind of a deal it was rather than to get the money (though getting the money didn't hurt). I guess the fact that we showed an interest caused our talk to be extra long. In retrospect, while we are not the type to interrupt (after all they are paying you for your time) we should have cut them short or made it clear that we would not give them more than the time they had indicated it would take.

We took the tour in the morning and didn't know quite what to expect. They had promised a free breakfast and also a tour about 1- 1.5 hours long. When we got there there we had to wait at reception for about 10 minutes. When the salesperson showed up, they brought us to a play area where our ds would stay during the tour. We brought our baby dd (well, young toddler)with us. I think she was too young for them to care for anyway.
Then they launched right into the presentation - no breakfast to be seen. Of course, we hadn't eaten earlier so we were pretty hungry by the time the whole thing was done. We ended up getting a free lunch instead - good sandwiches, pastries, fruit and lots to drink. Our ds had been missing us (and they had fed him only pastries - it was all they had in the play area)and our dd had gotten cranky about having to sit around for so long and I finally had to nurse her to sleep during the presentation. Our salesperson really did not seem to care about our personal comfort. She even seemed impatient when dd got squirmy (after about an hour of sitting around) and yet she persisted for another hour or so!!. Even if we did want to go for it (it really is not worth buying into IMO), that salesperson would never get our business.

We were kind of annoyed by the whole thing and the salesperson seemed miffed that we didn't bite. The experience did not put us off doing time-share tours but we sure would do it differently next time.

 

[tlens]

Thanks everyone. I really hate the hard sell. I'm a purchasing agent and get it everyday so that's the last thing I'd want on vacation. I thought if it's just an hour and then we're out of there it'd be ok but anything over 1.5 hrs is a waste of time.

 

[ttfn3]

Wow! I wonder if we all got the same persistant salesperson. We also went to the timeshare presentation - or should a say pressure sales pitch - in May. We had some time and my DH was curious about their offer. We went a large room with lots of other prospective newbees and had a continental breakfast. Our son joined the other kids in the play area while we watched the movie (pretty hokey/very laughable IMHO) and then talked to a salesperson. She pretty much got hung up on selling us the concept of timeshare ownership. She kept looking for the person that she could sell the warm and fuzzy aspects of timeshare ownership. We totally misread how detail oriented my DH and I were. Hello!?! We both wanted the nuts and bolts - which she wouldn't even get to until almost 1.5 hours into the presentation - and even then she was having a hard time devulging everything. We cut her off and told her that we had an appointment and had to leave. We asked for a copy of the contract to review during our stay there and she about flipped out! Did everyone else find it difficult for them to answer your direct questions?? We NEVER would commit to such an investment without thoroughly reviewing everything and thinking about it for at least 24 hours. I finally told them I wanted my son and my DH said we were out of there. They wanted us to sign some piece of paper prior to getting our money for our time - but we refused to sign it. Okay - I digress. It wasn't my cup of tea - and I think it wasn't a good deal moneywise.

If you hold to your 1.5 hours and get out of there - it may be worth it. It was the only unpleasant thing about all whole stay at the Vistana Village. It was a wonderful resort and the rest of the staff were very pleasant.

 

[AZKathy]

What did you receive for sitting through the presentation? (i.e. discount theme park tickets)

 

[andychris14]

we are staying here in 18 days. I am a little afraid. I do not want to be there more than 1 1/2 hours. I was told that the children are welcome to stay with you. Maybe I should tell my children to start acting up 1/2 way thru.
Any advice to the timeshare pitch? We did one already last vacation. We told the guy upfront that we were not interested. After breakfast he told us numbers and we said no. That was it. We were out of there in an hour.
I guess that normally doesn't happen.
WISH ME LUCK!!!

 

[iluvtig2]

Is it worth it?

iluvtig

 

[robinb]

The bonus for taking the tour varies. Your best bet is to call Vistana Villages and ask about their current promotion.

I stayed at Cypress Pointe many years ago for 2 nights in a 3 BR for only $159, including a rental car. That was worth it to me. I told them I own at DVC and wasn't interested in a different timeshare. I also verified that the tour would only take 1 1/2 hours, and it did. I also took a Westgate timeshare tour (pure hell) and a DVC tour (heaven ... we bought!).

If you're only in it for the goodies, it really helps if you're the kind of person who can say "no". Sometimes again and again. It also helps if you don't try to "please" the salesperson. They are trained to give you the hard-sell and will take advantage of your good graces. You don't have to be rude, but with some salespeople it helps .

 

[6_Time_Momma]

You don't HAVE to take the presentation in order to stay at VV, do you??