I've done the timeshare thing before (three times now, actually). $315 total for the two tickets, or each?
Anyways, be prepared for one of two different kinds of experiences (or perhaps something in the middle). Old school timeshares will grind you down and try to make you feel terrible. They'll say things about how you must really not love your SO to not be purchasing (serious). They'll spend 3 hours literally just grinding and grinding. They'll always present more and more offers and they'll be both relentless and endless about it. Heck, that timeshare even started to phone me at home and got even more insulting at the end of it. Of course, the wife and I had the expectation it would go like this so we had a great laugh about it, and still do. At that place they even went all the way with ringing the bell for each purchase and having all the sales people congratulate them on their purchase.
Other presentations won't go for the extreme hard sell, but will still be hard sell. They'll show you a video, someone will talk about what a timeshare is, and then they'll bug everyone in the audience about how much they'd spend on whatever dream vacation they want. They'll then pull the used car salesman version of the missing dollar trick and work out how much cheaper their deal is for your dream vacation. The trick is, of course, you're not going to spend $5,000 on all your vacations so the savings numbers don't add up. After that they'll sit you down and have one (or occasionally two... probably for training) representatives chat with you and tell you the deal. This type of presentation is less nasty, but still hard sell. They will work hard to sell you on the item, and they will come up with different offers to try to get you to buy.
Something like 10-30% of people who go to the presentations actually do buy. I'd guess perhaps 5% of them will actually be able to get good value from their purchase. The only type of person I can see that will get good value from a timeshare is someone who can vacation anytime (with the way the resorts go, almost always there will be lockouts or red weeks or whatever they call it whenever you want to spend your points), would normally spend at *least* $1-2k/week on vacation accommodations per year (every year without fail), and is happy with the specific locations offered. I suppose there might be a few of the old school timeshares still out there that lock you to a certain week at a certain place. Those are basically useless to anyone except literally someone who wants to visit that place every single year at that time.
Some places will claim to be vacation clubs instead of timeshares. They're the same thing, but there are different legal aspects to each one. A timeshare company has stricter rules on how it must treat clients, for example, and in Florida I believe they have cooling off rules.
All places will tell you that if you leave the deal you will not be able to get any of the freebies they offer in addition to it for people that sign (these are outside the free gifts they offered you, which they have to give you by law). Talk about pressure! You'll be happy you walked away. And I really, really doubt any timeshare place would turn away a customer willing to give them their money, so I'm certain they're full of BS on that point.
Watch for strings attached to gifts, especially "free" vacation time. We were gifted 1 week of stay for free. We managed to make it work for this trip, but were very lucky, since very few places actually have anything available except in the middle of winter (minus holidays). The "free" trip also cost $250 in fees. All at places that will bug you to go to another timeshare presentation!
(Makes me happy, I like free junk).
Another one, which we threw away offered 3 nights free. Except that you have to pay $250 to use them ($50 refunded after you take them), you give them 3 random places to stay, and they get to choose wherever you're going. Oh, and they're not resorts, the fine print says they'll pick any hotel or motel in that area they choose. And no holidays, or dates surrounding holidays, or weekends. I can offer 3 nights in any area on the planet for $250 if you give me those restrictions. Heck, I managed to stay in Washington DC for $42 a night the other year by picking a fleapit motel.
Got scammed on a "three course meal provided by a professional chef". Arrived and the meal was some dried up chicken breast, plain rice, and a ceasar salad from a bag, all served up in cheap hotel buffet equipment. Well, at least they did feed us.
I've even heard of scams where they give you some ridiculous prize (say, an 80" TV) and tell you that the only way you can have it is if you take it home with you right there on the spot. Heard a story of a pissed off person dragging a grandfather clock behind their car in spite.
IMHO, if you can have the heart of stone that would let you take candy from a baby, skin thicker than a lizard, and understand the free stuff isn't what it appears to be, a timeshare presentation is a great way to get some free stuff. Also, don't forget about wasting at least 3 hours, probably 4 or 5 when you're done with it.
If you're wondering what the expected outlay is if you purchase, almost every single one was within the $15k-$20k pricepoint for the first offer, and went down to $5k on their last offer (with reduced benefits). One went all the way down to $1k (with basically nothing). They all offer ~20% APR financing without a credit check, but you can pay it off immediately if you have the cash. Do not trust the number of points they tell you that you will need will actually give you the amount of time you expect at the average resort. The ones you are shown are very much cherry picked to be in somewhat popular places that aren't popular resorts, and they're in places where the weather is only sometimes good, and thus the number of weeks of cheap accommodations available there is high.
