Getting Schmoozed.
We took a trip to Palm Springs last weekend. I know, you ARE supposed to be over fifty years old to enjoy the city. But there are other ways. I recommend going to a time share presentation. It is educational, an adventure, and you will usually walk away with something. We went to a fairly painful one in Tarzana a few months ago, and the "90 minute presentation" turned into about three hours of getting passed from person to person in an effort to wear down our resistance, while the price seemed to get more and more reasonable. We obviously didn't buy anything, but walked away with vouchers for two tickets to Disneyland and hotel accomodations for a couple of nights in Anaheim and more for Big Bear. There are a lot of conditions that make these difficult to use, but they were free, and I think we'll make it hapen.
Then they called us and invited us to "try out" one of their resorts in Palm Springs. Two nights accomodations would be fully paid for, and we would recieve $60 in vouchers we could use at various places, including a gas station and a few restaurants. Unfortunately, we booked at a pretty busy time and got moved to a so-so "resort." But it was absolutely free! We attended a practically enjoyable tour of the other resort, and they really stuck to the promised ninety minutes. We were kind of amazed. They really didn't try too hard to make the sell, and if we had been trying to get the price down by waiting, we would have missed our chance altogether. I was thinking about how nice our salesguy was, and have a theory that the difference in presentations may have been cultural. The LA experience was almost theatrical, most of the staff there were pretty pushy and kind of creepy, trying so hard to make that sale, to get ahead. In PS, our "tour guide" was pretty interested in who we were, where we were from, found lots of common ground, and seemed to really enjoy himself. In the end when we said no, he kind of nodded and said, "It's probably not the right timing for you too, huh?" Almost makes me WANT to move to a retirment city. Not really, but I think you understand.
Anyway, we had a very nice, relaxing time. Plus, we were able to look forward to getting away for a while, which is part of the fun. Oh, we also walked away with another voucher for five nights accomodations in Oahu. No airfare, so that is a bit impractical, but the company proved themselves properly thankful for our time. Anyone else have any good stories about one of these?