Saturday, October 17, 2009

Birthday Fiasco

So I found a free two night stay in park city online... I figured it was a timeshare presentation but I figured I could sit through a presentation if it meant a free weekend away. I knew when we left that my finance teacher said that a time share is just about the worst use of your money and that if you buy one you need to get it from a timeshare resale site because they are about 60% cheaper. As we were sitting waiting for the presentation I asked Ryan what excuses we should use to decline. Yet somewhere between that and the end of our presentation we were actually considering it. Thankfully there was no way we ever could have done it because we just don't have the money but my hat goes off to the people at Westgate for being REALLY good at selling! Somehow they did get us to decide to book a three night stay which can be redeemed at any Westgate over the next 2 years. The kicker is they charged us more than a three night stay would usually cost. (Don't worry I just read the agreement we signed and we have a five day grace period in which we can write a certified letter to get the money completely refunded) Looking back on it now I can see how everything they did was all a part of the closing techniques and the fact that I couldn't see it while I was there scares me! Ryan and I are so stingey with money but I think we are easily sold by salesman. They didn't know it but they were pulling on Ryan's heart strings because one of his fondest childhood memories was skiing in park city with his family for Christmas. In his mind he was going to re create this memory with a time share. What finally snapped us out of our funk and opened our eyes was when we found out that we weren't even staying in the place they were showing us ...
We were looking forward to experiencing this

(There's a tub like that in the rooms!)



Turns out that since this is fall break for most of Utah, October 16th is a really popular time to try to get a free hotel stay. They had something like 90 people they were presenting to and something like 15 rooms available so they sent us to some other hotel in Park City that isn't half as nice. In fact they are "green" which to me means cheap. It's annoying because all the lights are dim and the hot tub is hardly ever on.
so what we got was this...
this is a standard tub in a bathroom so tiny that I couldn't get a picture of it without being in it!



We did have a cool little back porch with a fireplace that led right to the jacuzzi that was almost never on for use...


To make matters worse, Ryan has been feeling kinda sick lately but by the time we got all settled in he was feeling like death. He didn't think he'd ever felt worse and he was running an outrageously high temperature. It was a little scary. His fever broke around 3:30am and he took some nyquil to sleep. So rather than hit up garage sales in the morning for my class as planned the day looked like this.


Live and learn I guess...

3 comments:

Alyssa said...

Oh no... So sorry your night ended in sickness!!!! What a way to make a "timeshare" experience even worse!!!...we did that WG one once too...and they were all booked that weekend too and after being sent to another hotel no where near as nice as the one you were put up in(the one we were sent would have had your skin crawling). They somehow found room for us at the real place...It was kind of creepy I agree but, the kids had a good time.

Blythe said...

Sad! The salesmen are really good at those places, they suckered in my mom and dad once and they have not yet used their "visits" to the "premium resorts" that they pay for monthly, they are always booked when my parents want to go, and it has been 5 years now!Hope Ryan feels better soon!

ShaunaJorgenson said...

So sad. Not exactly the way you want to spend your birthday and poor Ryan! Hope he kicks this fast!