TUG Orlando get together Jan 23, 2019

[LauriBuck]

We'll be in Orlando the week before.

 

[AwayWeGo]

We signed up today for a timeshare reservation for the week of the Jan. 23 TUG get-together at Golden Corral.

While RCI was running its sale on points reservations, we reserved a 2BR unit at WestGate Vacation Villas, out on the west side of the Disney Gap, near Orbit One & Magic Tree, etc., checking in Jan. 19, 2019.

This will be our 1st stay at a WestGate timeshare. Hoping for the best.

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

 

[Rsauer3473]

Once again we will have our annual TUG get-together at the Golden Corral in Orlando! We want to see everyone there again!

Looking forward to it already!

Joan and Ron

We just purchased a home in The Villages and will be able to attend for the first time. Looking forward to the meeting.

 

[moonstone]

We signed up today for a timeshare reservation for the week of the Jan. 23 TUG get-together at Golden Corral.

While RCI was running its sale on points reservations, we reserved a 2BR unit at WestGate Vacation Villas, out on the west side of the Disney Gap, near Orbit One & Magic Tree, etc., checking in Jan. 19, 2019.

This will be our 1st stay at a WestGate timeshare. Hoping for the best.

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

I snagged an 'Extra Vacations' week there a couple of years ago to tag onto our VV@P week. Since we were only travelling a few miles we arrived around 3pm after stalling and killing as much time as we could. Of course the room wasn't ready so we just parked ourselves in the comfy chairs in front of the front desk. At 4pm I asked about our room and again told it wasn't ready yet. Then dozens of young people in fancy dress started showing up and checking in. We found out it was a local high school prom night and many students were staying at Westgate!

At 6 pm after being told once again the room wasn't ready I asked to speak to a manager. After a bit of a wait a young woman appeared and I told her we weren't pleased at the wait when our reservations clearly stated check-in was at 4pm. After some checking on the computer she offered us the large half of a 2 bedroom lockout in the tower and said we could have the smaller half within an hour. We took her up on her offer and proceeded upstairs. Our room was on the top floor facing north(?) and we ended up being able to see the fireworks from all the parks every night! It was worth the wait! I don't know where all the young people stayed but we never heard them all weekend.

Take a timer if you are going to the "update". I went armed with printouts of recent sales numbers, TUG info and also complaints against Westgate and their sales tactics. We had our gift and were out in less than 90 minutes!

One of these years we'll be in Florida instead of Belize in January and we'll be able to attend the get together.


~Diane

 

[AwayWeGo]

Take a timer if you are going to the "update". I went armed with printouts of recent sales numbers, TUG info and also complaints against Westgate and their sales tactics. We had our gift and were out in less than 90 minutes!

I think the cell phone has a timer built in. Even so, we won't be signing up for any kind of WestGate update or sales pitch unless the freebies offered are substantial.

In truth, we feel semi-funny about taking a WestGate reservation, mainly because of the negative opinions we have absorbed from the experiences people related right here on TUG-BBS over the years. The late John Chase (timeos2, may he rest in peace) said the WestGate resorts & timeshare units are mostly all right. It was the WestGate overaggressive sales practices, he said, & owner-unfriendly operational policies that griped him most about WestGate. He called it Wastegate.

(John Chase said a good way to get the WestGate sales weasels to quit pestering you to sign up for the old hard sell is to sign up to take their presentation on the day you'll be checking out, then just don't show up.)

We realize we're taking a chance by signing up for a week in a WestGate Vacation Villas unit. We had planned to hold off 2-3 more weeks till the Last Call bargains started showing up at RCI for the week of the TUG Golden Corral get-together, even realizing that our chances of snagging a 2BR unit would diminish week by week. Rather than hoping for lightning to strike, we grabbed the 2BR WestGate unit while RCI was running its latest sale (which ran through yesterday).

We're proceeding with as much open-mindedness as we can muster. If it all goes OK, we'll say so in our TUG timeshare review & give credit where credit is due. If not, we'll add our voices to those who have gone before, the ones who tried to warn us.

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

 

[moonstone]

DH signed up for the 'update' just for the freebies (I cant even remember what it was). When we sat down I confirmed with the sales guy that it was to take 90 mins and then set the alarm on my phone. The meeting went pretty fast once I pulled out my papers and told him what we had paid for our week (in 1982) and how little we paid for our points (that we had just used less than 25% of, at VV@P) several years prior. I didn't think it was high pressure at all. YMMV. The unit we had was very nice!

~Diane

 

[silentg]

Don’t want to overstep, but if there are TUG members available the week before the 23, ( 16th or 18th) could we have a Tug get together then too? It’s always nice to meet other TUG members, Is this OK Joan? You can still get together on the 23rd?
Silentg

 

[AwayWeGo]

Don’t want to overstep, but if there are TUG members available the week before the 23, ( 16th or 18th) could we have a Tug get together then too? It’s always nice to meet other TUG members, Is this OK Joan? You can still get together on the 23rd?
Silentg

I have no problem with back-to-back TUG get-togethers.

The Chief Of Staff & I will be in town that prior week as well, so if that gets arranged, please let me know.

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

 

[silentg]

Anyone else? Joan do you reserve a spot or just show up?

 

[silentg]

January 15th is good for me. Should we get together at the same Golden Corral?
Let me know who can come.
Silentg

 

[ronandjoan]

We signed up today for a timeshare reservation for the week of the Jan. 23 TUG get-together at Golden Corral.

While RCI was running its sale on points reservations, we reserved a 2BR unit at WestGate Vacation Villas, out on the west side of the Disney Gap, near Orbit One & Magic Tree, etc., checking in Jan. 19, 2019.

This will be our 1st stay at a WestGate timeshare. Hoping for the best.

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

Alan, I thought that was a WASTEGATE resort , will be interesting to see

 

[ronandjoan]

Don’t want to overstep, but if there are TUG members available the week before the 23, ( 16th or 18th) could we have a Tug get together then too? It’s always nice to meet other TUG members, Is this OK Joan? You can still get together on the 23rd?
Silentg

Of course

 

[ronandjoan]

Anyone else? Joan do you reserve a spot or just show up?

we just show up and go to a corner

 

[ronandjoan]

Well I'm putting it on my agenda and hopefully nothing keeps my wife and I away. I live in Port Charlotte so it's just 2 hr drive for me.

We always drive over from St Augustine, which is a 2 hour drive too

 

[Sugarcubesea]

At the meeting in January of 2019, will you be deciding the get together date for the following year in 2020. I’m determined to try and make one of these

 

[AwayWeGo]

Alan, I thought that was a WASTEGATE resort , will be interesting to see

We are more than a little nervous at the prospect of checking into WestGate (renamed Wastegate by the late John Chase, on account of his experience-based familiarity with what he described as owner-unfriendly practices by that timeshare company).

Our distillation of The Wisdom Of TUG as applied to WestGate is that their resorts OK & their units are nice, & it's mainly the unrelenting sales pressure that tarnishes the experience. John Chase's more broadly negative view, as I recall, was shaped mostly by company policies that affect owners, more than by the vacation experience of WestGate exchange guests.

However that may be, we have a measure of concern bordering on anxiety over our WestGate reservation, which we signed up for only because time was getting short & our chances for snagging a 2BR reservation were shrinking for our desired January week.

So, for 26,500 RCI points (+ exchange fee), we took the 2BR unit at WestGate Vacation Villas before it disappeared. (Later, after the 45-day window opened for Last Call, etc., we did spot some available non-WestGate units. Too late. We lost our nerve & did not wait that long to commit, thus ending up with WestGate. So it goes.)

We'll show up & check in with as positive an attitude as we can muster & after our WestGate week we will write up as even-handed & honest an account as possible to send in to the TUG Resort Reviews section. (Depending on the freebies offered, we might also sign up for the old hard sell, WestGate style. We'll see.)

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

 

[Panina]

We are more than a little nervous at the prospect of checking into WestGate (renamed Wastegate by the late John Chase, on account of his experience-based familiarity with what he described as owner-unfriendly practices by that timeshare company).

Our distillation of The Wisdom Of TUG as applied to WestGate is that their resorts OK & their units are nice, & it's mainly the unrelenting sales pressure that tarnishes the experience. John Chase's more broadly negative view, as I recall, was shaped mostly by company policies that affect owners, more than by the vacation experience of WestGate exchange guests.

However that may be, we have a measure of concern bordering on anxiety over our WestGate reservation, which we signed up for only because time was getting short & our chances for snagging a 2BR reservation were shrinking for our desired January week.

So, for 26,500 RCI points (+ exchange fee), we took the 2BR unit at WestGate Vacation Villas before it disappeared. (Later, after the 45-day window opened for Last Call, etc., we did spot some available non-WestGate units. Too late. We lost our nerve & did not wait that long to commit, thus ending up with WestGate. So it goes.)

We'll show up & check in with as positive an attitude as we can muster & after our WestGate week we will write up as even-handed & honest an account as possible to send in to the TUG Resort Reviews section. (Depending on the freebies offered, we might also sign up for the old hard sell, WestGate style. We'll see.)

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

A friend of mine trades into Westgate every winter for two week. He likes it there so he never goes to other Orlando resorts. He says it’s not fancy but nice, clean and has everything he needs.

 

[silentg]

Just say no, no, no and unplug the phone in your timeshare.
We look forward to seeing you. We are going on January 15th!
Silentg

 

[silentg]

Just say no, no, no and unplug the phone in your timeshare.
We look forward to seeing you. We are going on January 15th!
Silentg

Just to clarify we are going to Golden Corral on January 15 at 2 pm. Not to Westagte.
Silentg

 

[AwayWeGo]

We will be going to Golden Corral for he scheduled TUG get-together 2PM on Jan. 23.

If there's a separate TUG event there on Jan. 15 at 2PM, we'll plan on going to that also.

Let us know.

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

 

[breezez]

We are more than a little nervous at the prospect of checking into WestGate (renamed Wastegate by the late John Chase, on account of his experience-based familiarity with what he described as owner-unfriendly practices by that timeshare company).

Our distillation of The Wisdom Of TUG as applied to WestGate is that their resorts OK & their units are nice, & it's mainly the unrelenting sales pressure that tarnishes the experience. John Chase's more broadly negative view, as I recall, was shaped mostly by company policies that affect owners, more than by the vacation experience of WestGate exchange guests.

However that may be, we have a measure of concern bordering on anxiety over our WestGate reservation, which we signed up for only because time was getting short & our chances for snagging a 2BR reservation were shrinking for our desired January week.

So, for 26,500 RCI points (+ exchange fee), we took the 2BR unit at WestGate Vacation Villas before it disappeared. (Later, after the 45-day window opened for Last Call, etc., we did spot some available non-WestGate units. Too late. We lost our nerve & did not wait that long to commit, thus ending up with WestGate. So it goes.)

We'll show up & check in with as positive an attitude as we can muster & after our WestGate week we will write up as even-handed & honest an account as possible to send in to the TUG Resort Reviews section. (Depending on the freebies offered, we might also sign up for the old hard sell, WestGate style. We'll see.)

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

I would never buy one of them, but I book them often when II has $99 platinum deals. We only use of 2-3 days for the weekend. I have never had much of an issue with sales department. They ask once and objection handle once and then let you go. They typically call phone you have given them midweek to see how things are going and then try one last time. The resorts are generally nice. Not as nice as some of Wyndham's newer stuff, but for $99 I am not complaining. The last two times I was in a Westgate in Orlando, I booked a 1 bedroom but was upgraded to 2 bedroom at resort for no additional costs.

 

[HitchHiker71]

We will actually be in Orlando that week from Jan 20-25, staying at The Fountains resort from BG, using the 9000 point one year trial package we purchased from BG prior to joining Wyndham. We will add this to our calendar and try to attend. Our young adult children are coming with us (19, 21, 24), so we may or may not be able to actually make it depending on our plans for that day.

Checked in with Mrs Hitch, aka the boss, and she very much wants to meet fellow TUGGERs so we have added this event to our calendar for Jan 23 and plan to be there!


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[TheHolleys87]

We haven’t eaten at Golden Corral for a number of years, so we have some questions. Isn’t it a fixed price, since it’s a buffet? Do you pay on entry or exit? We might come early to eat and then enjoy meeting with y’all — have dinner reservations but not until 8:30, so a late lunch will be good!

 

[HitchHiker71]

We haven’t eaten at Golden Corral for a number of years, so we have some questions. Isn’t it a fixed price, since it’s a buffet? Do you pay on entry or exit? We might come early to eat and then enjoy meeting with y’all — have dinner reservations but not until 8:30, so a late lunch will be good!

You pay upon entry, fixed price buffet style with a few options IIRC.


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[TheHolleys87]

You pay upon entry, fixed price buffet style with a few options IIRC.


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Thanks!


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