I feel like I am back in Shanghai’s Knock off Market- with everybody scurrying to get your money before anyone else does. Maybe it was the time change or the jet lag or the 6 hours waiting at DFW or 6 hours in planes – but it seems like a real hard sell here. We are doing a little tour this morning so we can get something “free”. I guess I will figure out what the free thing is later – probably too tired last night. This morning, I am boiling my water for my tea. I am sitting on our 3rd floor small room’s terrace and it seems weird that the sun is NOT coming up over the ocean – not used to that.
The Really Hard Sell
Sunday morning we tried to sneak out of our Velas Vallarta hotel before one of our hotels sales lady stopped us. She was desperately (and rudely) trying to make us not go on our timeshare presentation appointment at Paradise Village. She threatened us with the possibility of the tour taking 5 hours and being stranded over there with no way to get back. (it only took 3 hours and they did pay for our taxi back) After seeing Paradise Village we know why she tried to stop us. It was way better than this place. Anyway, this was my first time attending a timeshare sales pitch. Martine was our first salesman, free breakfast, tours of the condos, a lot of talking about “points” and a lot of numbers being thrown around. He even sic’d the manager, Clay, on us. After not seeing a “sale” in his future - he handed us off to Mike to give us some more numbers and different options. When the second guy didn’t close the deal – another guy came over with enticing discounts to offer. They worked really hard and wrote a lot of numbers but alas they didn’t get anywhere with us….. Three salesmen! What a pain and a waste of good pool time. We are expected to do another Monday morning. I may try to play sick and see if I can get out of it but I probably won’t cause Cathy would kill me and we are supposed to get a free massage for attending.
Monday - I didn’t play sick, we both went and this time we got 6 different salesmen/women at this presentation but we never got to see the rooms – just a lot of table switching. Hopefully all the rooms don’t look like what we are staying in - small and with a really uncomfortable couch. Definitely not a selling point. We made it out of there with our almost free 2 massage certificates just in time for the water aerobics. The Water aerobics were Fun but the workout was sort of defeated by an in-pool bar being just 5 feet away with great tasting strawberry marguerites.
Went to the outside restaurant for lunch and I had another great bowl of black bean soup. Unfortunately, I don’t think Cathy will let me have another…… remember our room is very small.
