The business of vacations

I have had the travel bug for as long as I can remember.  The habit of escaping to other places and discovering new ways of being began with my fiction addiction, of course.   And it was a matter of course that our humble family vacations involved packing up the station wagon and driving north for a day, to spend the next two weeks with the family in Minnesota.  Early on I learned that the world was wide and the daily routine escapable, regardless of finances.

After my MorMor retired, she embarked on a series of travels to Hawaii, Israel, Italy, England, and Norway (of course.  Everyone returns to the homeland, right?)  I remember reading her Christmas letters.  Rather than the usual newsy one-pagers, hers were a pastiche of travelog, historical and cultural tidbits, and idiosyncratic escapades.   Hand-written in a spidery cursive, they filled over a dozen pages.  Mom was invariably exhausted and busy with Christmas preparations, and had neither time nor inclination to plow through them, but I enjoyed them immensely.  There was always a leitmotif.   Her friend Hope had a sweater crisis in Hawaii.  During the Italian trip, customs inspectors at every border viewed her new, unworn shoes with suspicion.  Etc, etc.

I came to understand that travel was about navigating comfort zones, as well as time zones.  Little things like purchasing aspirin acquired adventurous proportions when done in a strange place.

When I graduated from college and moved west, my goal was to prove I could take care of the business of living.  Once I established that, I began budgeting for a life of travel.   I did not want to wait until I retired to have adventures.  Every other year I planned a big 3-week trip outside the country.  The in-between years were spent on local trips, camping and staying in bed and breakfasts. I usually traveled with friends, most of whom knew the ropes of researching places, transportation, and lodging.    I also usually covered a lot of ground, thinking, "I'll come back some day and stay here longer, become part of the local scene."  There are trade-offs to both approaches of course.

It took 20 years, though, before I experienced vacationing as a business.  That's when I went to my first time-share presentation, at the Worldmark offices in Vancouver, WA.

Mind you, I have never been interested in resorts:  they are the fast-food of the travel industry in my opinion.  Regardless of the location, you always have the same type of room and set-up.  It's usually luxurious of course:  pools, hot tubs, spas, boutiques, well-appointed kitchens, restaurants.  But you are totally divorced from the place:  you shuttle or drive from the airport to the resort, and the only locals you meet are those paid to cater to your needs.  You are, in fact, an object, a product of the business.  You know what you are getting, and what you are getting is pleasant, but it's not interesting. Hamburger and fries to go, please.

The presentation interested me solely for one reason:  I became convinced that lodging expenses would continue to rise until they were beyond my means.  This was a chance to maintain a traveling lifestyle while I could afford it.  Also, my niece was going to be spending a year at York University, so it would be a nice way to visit her and travel around England.

So, I swallowed the bait, bought the timeshare, and embarked on a new traveling life.

All in all, it was worth the money for a while.  Resort traveling is made for couples.  We went to Cabo, Santa Fe (for our honeymoon), Hawaii (D's first trip there), and numerous local beaches, alone and with family.  It was always comfortable, lodging was affordable, and we were mainly interested in being together.

Then, the business began to be less user friendly.  We couldn't get reservations at places and times that we wanted, and the quarterly cleaning fees were raised.  It became annoying that we couldn't bring Carbon.  Rising air fares put the more exotic locales out of our reach.  The over-selling of shares and changing of rules made the weekend getaways a thing of the past.  Worldmark's customer service became non-existent, and they sold to Wyndham, which was not much better.

I jettisoned the whole thing during a trip to J-H's more luxurious time-share in Cancun.  We traded to Grupo-Mayan which only charged cleaning fees when you booked a stay, and which promised that we could easily rent out our unit when we did not stay.

Fast forward past days of unemployment and declining finances.  We still managed to travel:  yurts, campgrounds, airbnb trades, the occasional beach trip.  However, it galled D beyond measure that the time-share was just sitting there.  And then came the phone call....

THREE NIGHTS IN LAS VEGAS!  FREE AIR FARE!  FREE DINNER AT PLANET HOLLYWOOD!  and all we have to do is sit through a 90-minute presentation (and lie about our financial situation.)

D really gets depressed with winter weather, so I reluctantly agree that, yes, this might be nice.  We drive over during a Friday rush hour on an absolutely gorgeous day, to be imprisoned in a glass-windowed office building in a strip-mall.  The windows are covered with blinds, the staff are all wearing tropical shirts, and the front office features a TV with a very strange show:  the actors are all clothed monkeys, mouthing words that are captioned below while a voice over narrates the surreal plot.  I'm still trying to figure out what it has to do with selling time shares.  Usually they have videos of luscious couples on tropical beaches.

D fills out the form (because I refuse to commit to the lies) and Jerry, a short elderly man with thick white hair, tanned skin and a professionally smile-wrinkled face, walks us back to the presentation room.  Tropical-beat music is blaring, and we are presented with a tray of Costco cookies, coffee, and soft drinks.  The room is filled with small round tables:  two chairs facing front, one facing the back.  We take the front-facing chairs, and Jerry starts to work us.

He is also the manager, so he has to leave us for a bit.  He gives us a travel survey to fill out, and I start knitting.  That's when Jerry the Autocrat makes his appearance.   My knitting is ordered away.  We are expected to work for our "gifts."   Attention on the process, eyes front during the presentation, and you'd better laugh at the jokes and raise your hands when appropriate.

Really?

It's a pretty lame presentation.  Shannon, an extremely obese man in his 30s, paces back and forth, trying to generate enthusiasm and a sense of camaraderie.  His fellow salesmen chuckle and nod their heads and say "that's right!"  The rest of us sit, eyes front and center, nodding occasionally.  Jerry leaves us for a bit and D mutters comments to me that I am positive will get us thrown out WITHOUT OUR GIFTS.  Then Jerry returns for the followup presentation.  Waiving cruise ship brochures, he talks about steak houses:  they're all great, but some are better than others.  Apparently he's trying to appeal to the snob factor, but what about the vegetarians in the audience?

Whew, now it's time for the individual sell job.  This is where Jerry the Car Salesmen surfaces.   "What will it take to put you in the driver's seat TODAY!?"  He does the routine where he leaves and comes back with a better offer, which actually is not better.  He compliments our financial acumen.  He disparages other time shares.  He smiles and smiles and smiles.  And, when D finally makes it clear that We.... Are.... Not... Buying, he pouts.

It's ugly.  And I'm not even sure I'm going to like Las Vegas.

He marches us into another room where we wait for our gift.  That's when the closer appears.  We go through the checklist:  did Jerry treat us well?  what could he have done to sell us?  etc etc.  I mention that one way to improve the presentation is to turn down the music.  Apparently that cannot be...no it's not about building energy in the room, it's about protecting privacy.  Some time in the past, a landlord was seated at a table next to a tenant who was planning to skimp on his rent payment to accommodate the time share payment.  The landlord lost it, fists flew, and they had to be separated by the salesmen.  And since then, they've blared the music.

We think we are done, but I make the mistake of asking about selling our other timeshare....flip goes the paper, out comes the pen, and a new offer appears.   D almost loses it.  We hear about changes in real estate laws in Washington and how they affect time share selling.  We are warned that we cannot be asked to another presentation, we cannot receive another gift, in fact we must sign a waiver declining the VIP offer.

Gladly.