To say that our Disneyland trip was subsidized by two “vacation ownership” clubs, would fail to recognize the effort Brad and I put forth. After all, we subjected ourselves to the challenge of two sales pitches in exchange for six hotel nights and four Disney tickets. TrendWest and Shell Vacation Club have similar products and each banks on the logic of ownership over renting. Motel 6 was named for its room rates, both clubs tell us, playing on our fears of inflation.
TrendWest has a friendly staff, lively music. The staff at Shell seem stressed and offer us Subway sandwiches, ham or turkey.
After hearing our preference for camping and “alternative” travel options, The TredWest team offers to bring us into the world of “guaranteed” vacations at luxury resorts for around $6,000. The Shell family points out that our $70,000 investment would give us more vacation than we would know what to do with.
What’s to think about, really? If we’re going to continue to vacation, if we’d rather be in a 1,000+ sq ft condo than a tiny room, if we believe prices are going to continue to rise…The clubs bring the same pressure to the close of the presentation. These real estate bargains are good at the time of our meetings only. Sure, we can buy later, but we won’t have the same benefits. We forfeit our free house keeping and matching club points and a few other bonuses I can’t remember.
Through the gate for our second day at Disneyland, I was much relieved that rejecting such fine vacation opportunities hadn’t voided our Disney passes. If fact, with the help of our Black Gold Cooperative library cards, we were able to upgrade them to annual passes. The very limited, never go on a weekend or at holiday time, SoCal Select passes. Just in case we make it back this way sometime in the next year… Or maybe you'd like to borrow them...
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