Tag Archives: Time shares

Oh Oh What Did I Do!?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

The Valley Inn and Town Square, Waterville Valley, NH

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Thanks to my friend Eric I have the lyrics to that song that kept running through my head. Willie Nelson’s On the Road Again. I think the 2nd verse says it all!

 On the road again
Goin’ places that I’ve never been
Seein’ things that I may never see again
And I can’t wait to get on the road again

I think that should be my theme song.

But today’s post is a little housekeeping. I didn’t take the time to have pictures ready to share when I told you about the adventures I had just getting “on the road again” to get here. I had some pictures of the interior but I was lazy and did not take any outside. Well, I’m going to rectify that omission now.

Here’s the Valley Inn.

That’s just the entrance . The building spreads out from the entrance.

My unit is the 2nd floor just to the left of the entrance as you look at the picture.

One more picture of the front. I had to get the sign in.

Around the back is the swimming pool.

There’s a pool table and game room next to the towel room and changing rooms for the pool and that about sums up the resort. So let’s get to the Town Square.

The Town Square is basically a liitle shopping mall but it’s designed to function as more of a gathering place. It’s right next to a little pond called Corcoran’s Pond that has certainly been very popular with this hot weather.

Here’s the pond.

Ahhhh Summer on a pond..can’t beat it.

These kids know how to keep cool!

And there you have it. This was my introduction to Waterville Valley.

New Hampshire Photo Contest

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Living first in New York State and now in Massachusetts, I am very familiar with our neighboring state of New Hampshire. But I am familiar in a day trip/ drive through to somewhere else kind of way  or in my younger days as the place to buy alcohol on a Sunday and illegal fireworks (legal there but not in Mass.) for the 4th of July.

I made one memorable motorcycle trip with my brother. It was in the fall and we biked the Kancamagus Highway to see the fall colors. I have two thoughts on that…COLD! but Spectacular. Nothing like seeing those views without being limited by the car window.

So this year I had some points left over on my time share to spend but I didn’t want to do anything expensive. I’d just returned from my “big” vacation in Sedona in May and was still trying to replenish the coffers. As you know if you’ve been following for any time my car has been doing it’s best to prevent me from making any progress in that regard.  So I searched the time share list for some place close enough to drive so that I could avoid airfare and car rental costs. New Hampshire popped up. The time share had openings and was within the points budget. It also met the other criteria like driving distance and time off from work  so I booked it.

Once I had the dates, I happened to see a TV ad for New Hampshire Dream Vacation Photo Contest. It took a little searching online to find it but the idea meshed perfectly with my plans for this vacation. I know that New Hampshire is a beautiful, scenic state so my purpose was to visit interesting places like the Lost River Gorge and look for photos ops. I want to take my time setting up the shots and really try to push my photography skills to the next level. Adding in a photo contest would just give me a little more incentive.

The rules require that the person submitting the photos be in the picture or they can use others in their party but they want people having fun. Well I am a party of 1, so I guess I’m going to learn to use either my remote release or the timer on my camera. Works for me.

You also have to have an “Official Sign” to hold in the picture so I downloaded that.

As with most photo contests I’ve seen there are 3 phases. The first is to have your picture qualify. That’s usually pretty easy. I’ve never had one disqualified.

The 2nd step is a bit harder and it’s where I usually fall down. This is the popularity contest part. The photos are online and  the more people to vote for your photo the higher you rank in the standings. It’s like the popular vote on Dancing with the  Stars or American Idol. I don’t usually send anyone the link so I only pick up “accidental” votes. In other words someone happens to be browsing the pictures and happens to think one of mine is good or cute or something and votes for it.

The end result is that I have had a couple make “semi-finalist” but that’s as far as it goes.

The final decision is  made by a panel of judges but since I’ve never actually won a photo contest I don’t know if I’ve ever got to that level.

Well, this time I plan to do things differently. Photos were the reason for the trip so coming up with 5 photos that meet the contest criteria should be achievable.  I’ll upload them per contest directions and I’ll show them here with the link to vote. Maybe with your help I can move from the pack of semi-finalists into a finalist spot.  Watch for the update and photos at the end of the month!

Bucket List~ Sedona

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Some things are just a given for this trip and others are up for discussion or negotiation. Plus you may provide some suggestions that will change our plans.

Here is where we are right now.

We are booked into the Sedona Summit. Check in is a Saturday and we will check out the following Saturday. The room type is a 2 bedroom “lock off” which is nice. If it’s anything like the “lock off” I had in Florida it will give both Sandy and me a lot of privacy.

We haven’t booked our flight yet but one of us will have to drive to meet up with the other. I will check fares from Providence to Phoenix, Bradley International to Phoenix and Albany to Phoenix and then run the results by Sandy. I expect we’ll fly out of Albany unless there’s a big saving from one of the other airports. Bradley would mean a hotel room where TF green (Providence) or Albany would just mean we stayed at one of our homes and then took 1 car to the Park & Fly which is quite a savings right there.

I flew Delta the last time I went to Phoenix but a friend of mine always flies Southwest and she said the fares are much less expensive plus “Bags fly free” on Southwest LOL. I did check their website and they have a web special that is always much cheaper than the other airlines. It will just depend on what kind of connections we can get.

When I went to Sedona in 2008 I had an early flight and arrived in Phoenix about 11 am their time. I was in and out of the airport in no time and in Sedona by 2:30. Check in time is 4pm and in 2008 that was strictly enforced . I was told to come back at 4.

My friend’s father drives a trolley in Scottsdale, AZ which is between Phoenix and Sedona so I was thinking that if we get a flight that gets us into Phoenix early, that we could take a side trip to Scottsdale, take the trolley ride with Julie’s father, I think she said he goes by “Boston Jim”, have lunch in Scottsdale and then drive the rest of the way to Sedona. Julie said the trolley trip takes you into “Old Town Scottsdale” and is well worth the detour.

Once we check in at the Sedona Summit we’ll head back out to the supermarket to stock up on whatever we want to have on hand for the week. We’ll certainly eat some meals out but it’s most cost effective to cook some at the condo.

If there’s anytime left over and we’re not too tired we might explore a little or maybe go up to the Airport Mesa to see the sunset. Usually we just kick back to “recover” from the travel.

Wow look at all the stuff I’ve written and I haven’t even started the bucket list yet.

Well, looks like that will have to be another post.J

　

　

　

Next trip..Sedona, Arizona

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Hello everyone J It’s another stormy day in Massachusetts. My friend JR is torturing me by reminding me he is headed to Florida this weekend to warm weather and sunny skies.

Orlando, Fla Sept 2010

I’ve wrapped up my stories from my South Dakota vacation so it’s time to turn my attention to my next vacation.

Back in 2008 I took a vacation in Sedona, Arizona.

I went alone that time as no one was available to join me

on the road to Sedona...Oct 2008

and I was in a “use it or lose it” mode for my time share. While my sister was with me in Rapid City, I told her to think about where she wanted to go next. We kicked around a lot of ideas, including Yellowstone, Jackson Hole and Yosemite. In the end we decided on the Grand Canyon.

On the South Rim, Grand Canyon 2008

When I went to Sedona in 2008 I made several trips to the Grand Canyon including taking the Grand Canyon Railroad

Grand Canyon Railroad

 

so I suggested we use my time share and go to Sedona again. There were a lot of things

that I didn’t get to see in spite of a very busy sight-seeing schedule so I don’t mind a return trip plus everyone needs to see the Red Rocks of Sedona at least once. They are a great complement to the Grand Canyon.

Arizona 2008

Originally we were going to try to book the timeshare for September but when I went online to check availability there was a 75% off sale as long as we went before May 31.

The time share is based on points and I have 5000 points to spend/year. Expecting Sedona to come in around 7500 points I had banked some extra from 2010 so a 75% off sale left me plenty to book a 2nd trip. With vacation packages so inexpensive at the moment the biggest advantage to a time share is that we can prepare some of our own meals and save on restaurant costs. When we went to Rapid City, we used a vacation package. It was extremely reasonable but without kitchen facilities our meal cost were a big part of the cost of the vacation.

Sedona Summit, Sedona Arizona

But back to Sedona, I have reserved the timeshare for the middle of May. Sandy is retired so getting away is not as much as a problem for her as it is for me as I have to get the vacation time approved. I had discussed the time with my supervisor before I finalized the dates but now they are changing the vacation criteria. I’ve informed work that it’s too late to change my plans now so here’s hoping the approval process will go smoothly.

The other consideration is that Sandy doesn’t like it really hot and Sedona is the High Desert so Mid-May should be warm but not too hot.

We’ll be starting the planning process now and I’ll share that with you as we go along. If any of you are familiar with the Sedona / Grand Canyon area and have recommendations, we’d love to hear your suggestions.

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I think I’ll include a list of the things we are thinking about doing and we can add or subtract from there. I’ll try to put that together for tomorrow’s post.