• The TUGBBS forums are completely free and open to the public and exist as the absolute best place for owners to get help and advice about their timeshares for more than 30 years!

    Join Tens of Thousands of other Owners just like you here to get any and all Timeshare questions answered 24 hours a day!
  • TUG started 30 years ago in October 1993 as a group of regular Timeshare owners just like you!

    Read about our 30th anniversary: Happy 30th Birthday TUG!
  • TUG has a YouTube Channel to produce weekly short informative videos on popular Timeshare topics!

    Free memberships for every 50 subscribers!

    Visit TUG on Youtube!
  • TUG has now saved timeshare owners more than $21,000,000 dollars just by finding us in time to rescind a new Timeshare purchase! A truly incredible milestone!

    Read more here: TUG saves owners more than $21 Million dollars
  • Sign up to get the TUG Newsletter for free!

    60,000+ subscribing owners! A weekly recap of the best Timeshare resort reviews and the most popular topics discussed by owners!
  • Our official "end my sales presentation early" T-shirts are available again! Also come with the option for a free membership extension with purchase to offset the cost!

    All T-shirt options here!
  • A few of the most common links here on the forums for newbies and guests!

Stroll down Tug Memory Lane

pittle

TUG Review Crew
TUG Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2005
Messages
4,034
Reaction score
2,146
Points
599
Location
Goodyear, AZ
Resorts Owned
Vidanta Grand Luxxe
Buganvilias Sky Suites
Pueblo Bonito Em Bay
I missed the dial-up Prodigy days thankfully. But I was here for the indented list days.
I remember those indented lists! Some were really long! I do not remember the big yellow Prodigy logo at sign in, so must have been there at the same time as you. It looks like we signed up for the new system a day apart.
 

Sandy VDH

TUG Review Crew: Elite
TUG Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
9,848
Reaction score
4,227
Points
648
Location
Houston, TX
Resorts Owned
Wynd VIP Plat GF, HGVC Elite, WM, HICV, +
Fern Modena and Ray Harper were my introduction to the old TUG system. Both were my Timeshare Heroes!

dori

Fern's Birthday still pops up on my FB reminders. It is nice to see we live eternally in cyber space.
 

pedro47

TUG Review Crew: Expert
TUG Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
22,068
Reaction score
8,532
Points
948
Location
East Coast
All I can say is Thanks to everyone. I have learned so much about timeshare, world events, restaurants, and travel over the years. Also, we have saved some Big Dollars just from reading from this awesome website and from the many knowledgeable timeshare owners. Their advice have been right on point.

Thumbs up to this website.:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:.

“Where Knowledge Is Power” By Bacon.
 
Last edited:

dioxide45

TUG Review Crew: Expert
TUG Member
Joined
May 20, 2006
Messages
47,354
Reaction score
18,922
Points
1,299
Location
NE Florida
Resorts Owned
Marriott Grande Vista
Marriott Harbour Lake
Sheraton Vistana Villages
Club Wyndham CWA
How do you find your first post?
Click on your blue username, then select Profile Page. Then click on the Postings tab and scroll to the bottom and pick "Find all threads by mpumilia". Then go to the last page.

Looks like your first post was about people with rental listings not replying to inquiries.
 

WinniWoman

TUG Review Crew: Veteran
TUG Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2010
Messages
10,762
Reaction score
7,057
Points
749
Location
The Weirs, New Hampshire
Resorts Owned
Innseason Pollard Brook
Click on your blue username, then select Profile Page. Then click on the Postings tab and scroll to the bottom and pick "Find all threads by mpumilia". Then go to the last page.

Looks like your first post was about people with rental listings not replying to inquiries.


Thanks! I didn't even remember that thread from2010. That was when I was looking for a rental at Worldmark West Yellowstone for 2011. I had never rented from a timeshare owner before and was looking for advice.

And boy- little did I know 2011 would be a very intense year for me and my family.
 

pedro47

TUG Review Crew: Expert
TUG Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
22,068
Reaction score
8,532
Points
948
Location
East Coast
Dioxide45, Thanks for the Information. My first post was in 2005. It was about the Commander-in-Chief Passport.. The gold lettering with the word Passport was missing from her new Passport.

Liked mupmillia, we did not know that was going to be an issue. Thanks to the heads up and to the many suggestions and excellent advice. That’s problem was resolved. Before our transatlantic trip to Europe.
 

T_R_Oglodyte

TUG Lifetime Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
16,115
Reaction score
8,063
Points
1,048
Location
Belly-View, WA


Laurence put together a new version of his bbs several years later, as more advanced scripts became available. This was the "indented post" version some of you long-timers recall. Then at some point he convinced Bill Rogers to spring for commercial bulletin board software that was available by then, going with Universal Bulletin Board (UBB). I believe this was around 1999 or 2000. Laurence sort of faded away after that, leaving me the main bbs administrator. We were still running UBB in 2003 when the "no politics" policy went into effect, after a very painful contentious period that almost tore the entire TUG community apart and caused us to lose several active and valuable volunteers.

We became a victim of our own success as our UBB became hopelessly out of date and just could not handle the volume of messages we were generating. Messages and user records were stored as individual files taking up much too much then-expensive disk space, and exceeded UBB's ability to keep track of all those files, which resulted in a need to keep the board purged of older messages. This caused us to lose a lot of valuable history. We purchased vBulletin software in 2004 that efficiently stored its data in compact database files, but it took us (i.e. me) about a year to learn the system and get it customized to meet our needs. We spend several of those months trying to find ways to convert the existing UBB user information and existing posts into vBulletin, but finally threw in the towel and just went live with vBulletin software in June 2005. Everybody had to re-register as a new user. That's why you see so many people with June 2005 registration dates. Only a few volunteers who helped test the system before going live have registration dates a few months before this. Old messages could not be carried over and only a few that were deemed essential were manually copy/pasted from the old board to the new -- any of them that still exist are probably in the archive files.…

Looks as if the migration to UBB occurred Dec. 3, 2000. Courtesy of the wayback machine:

upload_2019-4-18_8-29-21.png


I joined in Fall of 1999 and remember the old "indented post" system. I remember you could spoof any name you wanted when you posted, and people didn't always play nicely.
 

T_R_Oglodyte

TUG Lifetime Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
16,115
Reaction score
8,063
Points
1,048
Location
Belly-View, WA
How many remember the original "Boiled Pizza" thread? Or the original Mugwump Towers threads with Kurt and Tony?
 

Sandy VDH

TUG Review Crew: Elite
TUG Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
9,848
Reaction score
4,227
Points
648
Location
Houston, TX
Resorts Owned
Wynd VIP Plat GF, HGVC Elite, WM, HICV, +
My first post on this forum....

I am not sure what cruise this was, I will have to go back and look, but I think it was our big group to Alaska. But I was the travel agent that book a group of tuggers, going on a cruise. I passed along group perks, by providing a rebate to everyone on their share of the tour conductor space the group received.

TUG Cruise Rebate Checks are coming soon!!

:D I will be processing rebates this week. They should be in the mail next week. Rebates will be $130 Per cabin. If you shared a cabin I will be sending $65 to each party in the cabin.

Look for the rebate checks to arrive in the next week or two.

Cheers
Sandy
 

AwayWeGo

TUG Review Crew: Expert
TUG Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
15,686
Reaction score
1,630
Points
699
Location
McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.
Resorts Owned
Grandview At Las Vegas

[triennial - points]
Fern Modena and Ray Harper were my introduction to the old TUG system.
I don't remember Ray, but The Chief Of Staff & I both remember Fern very well, from making her acquaintance via TUG-BBS to having lunch together at the South Point buffet right next door to Grandview At Las Vegas.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 

Ironwood

TUG Member
Joined
May 25, 2009
Messages
1,079
Reaction score
207
Points
274
Location
North of the 49th!
I joined early 2009 and my first post was in June of that year asking about Club Intrawest at Mt. Tremblant, Quebec. That resort is still there and thriving but has been under new ownership for a number of years. Drove by it two months ago on a ski trip, and I'd trade in again if only we could.
 

Makai Guy

Administrator
Joined
Jun 3, 2004
Messages
4,546
Reaction score
1,340
Points
649
Location
Aiken, SC, USA
Resorts Owned
Spicebush (Hilton Head Island)
I looked at the menu under my user name on the top bar and choose 'conversations', I then went back as far as it would let me.
"Conversations" in this XenForo bulletin board software refers to private message conversations.
 

Dori

TUG Review Crew: Expert
TUG Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
3,060
Reaction score
779
Points
499
Location
Scarborough, Ontario
I don't remember Ray, but The Chief Of Staff & I both remember Fern very well, from making her acquaintance via TUG-BBS to having lunch together at the South Point buffet right next door to Grandview At Las Vegas.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
Alan, Ray had a column on TUG, entitled "Ride With Ray". He was probably the original "almost full-time timesharer", along with his lovely wife Darlene. They spent about 7 months of the year in timeshares, by cobbling together owned weeks, extra vacations and Last Calls. He was a tremendous source of information on how to search for great resorts, and so much more. We met in the hot tub at Summer Bay Resort in Orlando. He was wearing a Drake University ball cap, and I happened to comment that I had taken several satellite courses towards my Masters in Education through Drake. We got to be good friends and DH and I would meet Ray and Darlene for lunch every year in Florida.

We also had lunch with Fern at the South Coast on one of our many trips to Vegas. We were at the Grandview during that visit. Such a lovely lady, who gave us so many tips on timesharing.

Dori
[edited to repair quote]
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Larry M

TUG Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2012
Messages
300
Reaction score
162
Points
253
Location
Raleigh, NC
My oldest is here. It's in response to why I would sell a timeshare. It's from January 2012.

The most interesting thread is here. It discusses an offer I got from the association to take a paid-for timeshare I couldn't use off my hands for $150. This thread also started in January 2012.

Larry
 

TAG

TUG Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2005
Messages
111
Reaction score
11
Points
378
Location
Philomath, Oregon
We date back to the Fern days, too. We found TUG after we purchased our first timeshare (*gasp* a developer week). The amount of help/knowledge available currently is light years beyond what was available back then. And, back then the amount of advice was ground-breaking!
 

urban5

TUG Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2005
Messages
458
Reaction score
24
Points
378
Location
New England
Resorts Owned
Royal Cancun
I was introduced to TUG by pjrose a good friend of ours in the late nineties who by the way I introduced to timesharing. She got us doing a winter vacation to the Bahamas in 1984 then in 1985 we went to Cancun and bought a Royal Resorts timeshare. We then told her about the Royals and she followed suit and purchased several weeks. She eventually evolved into the Royal Resort expert on TUG.
 

amycurl

TUG Review Crew
TUG Member
Joined
Sep 26, 2011
Messages
3,070
Reaction score
3,115
Points
449
Location
Greensboro, NC
My first thread, October 2011, was about a foreclosure sale at our home resort. But it is clear that I had been responding to others' threads for awhile before starting one of my own.
 

Passepartout

TUG Review Crew: Veteran
TUG Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2007
Messages
28,461
Reaction score
17,213
Points
1,299
Location
Twin Falls, Eye-Duh-Hoe
I was introduced to TUG by pjrose a good friend of ours in the late nineties who by the way I introduced to timesharing. She got us doing a winter vacation to the Bahamas in 1984 then in 1985 we went to Cancun and bought a Royal Resorts timeshare. We then told her about the Royals and she followed suit and purchased several weeks. She eventually evolved into the Royal Resort expert on TUG.
There is a username I've thought of often. I hope she is happy and healthy, though she hasn't been seen in these parts for too long.

Jim
 

richardrose

TUG Member
Joined
May 6, 2017
Messages
25
Reaction score
24
Points
63
Resorts Owned
Royal hawaiin
I too joined tug in the later half of 1990s i think 97. And i do remember fern madona and those of us living in northern california used to get together outside san francisco. Great time. I remember the african timeshare deals, etc.i still have tug business cards i hand out to owners with questions.

Richard
 

Dori

TUG Review Crew: Expert
TUG Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
3,060
Reaction score
779
Points
499
Location
Scarborough, Ontario
My first post, in June of 2005, on the new forums, was to recommend a side trip to Moraine Lake, to one of our members nicknamed Shaggy. I can't remember how many posts I had in the old system, but it was several thousand.

Dori
 

Glynda

TUG Member
Joined
Jun 8, 2005
Messages
3,781
Reaction score
2,552
Points
599
Location
Charleston, SC
Resorts Owned
Bluegreen Points Lodge Alley Inn.
Brewster Green (two weeks).
I don't remember Ray, but The Chief Of Staff & I both remember Fern very well, from making her acquaintance via TUG-BBS to having lunch together at the South Point buffet right next door to Grandview At Las Vegas.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

I remember Fern, many of the others and your use of "Chief of Staff" which always makes me chuckle. I think I started reading here around 2000. I've been trying to recall the name of the Thanksgiving "amazing or famous" turkey recipe? Was it Kat's?
 
Top