Finally I’m here in sunny Orlando…did I say sunny? It’s kind of overcast, about 70 and breezy. Nice day for active stuff but not for beaches and pools. But that’s ok with me. I just have to get one meeting out of the way and I’ll be ready to unwind. Unfortunately I scheduled it for 1:15 in the afternoon, what was I thinking? Now my day is shot. Can’t really go anywhere in the morning and it will be too late by the time I’m done to do much in the afternoon.

I wandered around the grounds. Mystic Dunes is beautiful and I finally settled on a lounge chair by the pool near my unit. It’s the one with the Tiki Bar. I didn’t realize how tired I was until that moment because I no sooner sat down and my eyes began to close. I had a nice nap in spite of the kids shrieking as they slid down the pool slide under the waterfall. Kids don’t care if its overcast. They’ll swim anyway and turn blue.

Just before noon the activity director arrived. DJ, party director, it was time to get the show rolling. The music came on and raffle tickets were being handed out. The quiet time was at an end so I made my escape for lunch.

Since I hadn’t had time to explore the area outside the resort yet I settled on lunch at Kenzie’s, the clubhouse restaurant. The breakfast I had there wasn’t bad, the french toast was a little under cooked but the bacon was perfect. I played it safe with a hamburger for lunch. It was quite good if a little pricey. Typical for a resort. The service was good and the waitress friendly.

Then it was time to go to the meeting. My plan was to go to this meeting update on my time share with “no” firmly on the tip of my tongue. These meetings are very informational and I always learn something but they also have to try to sell you points. Its a way to keep the business healthy. I understand that only too well from my days as a business owner.

My 90 minutes passed pleasantly and quickly and it was time to wrap up. My sales person was putting together numbers for me to take away and think about. It would freeze any increase on my account for 18 months which is a good thing. But when she tried to put it through she found there was a previous freeze that had not been released. Her price $8.49/point. My old freeze $3.13 / point. Oh Oh! If I sign off today I will loose the $3.13 price. It wasn’t a last ditch sales ploy, I remembered when they froze it the last time. I really hadn’t wanted to upgrade right now, another year or two would be better for my plans but to do that would cost me $5.36/ point more when I was ready to upgrade and that’s a lot of money.

What’s a committed timeshare owner to do? Taking a deep breath I agreed to sign on the dotted line.  I now have enough points to be a trial Gold member. That opens up tons of new options and gives me time to save for the full gold membership which I really want to reach.

My workmates will be happy because that little financial decision just committed me to at least 5 more years of full time work. It is a real estate transaction complete with closing fees so it was after 4 pm before all the paperwork was done, the mortgage in place and I was ready to go back to my villa and have a breakdown. I was both excited and nervous. This had not been my plan but it made the most financial sense and they gave me a trip to Maui, HI and 2 round trip airfares to make me feel a little better. I can live with that.