Vacation, Adventure & Lessons Learned-part 5

When we got to Ft. Lauderdale, we had to check into the "Welcome Center" for our vouchers. As we enter, there's a couple standing there, the woman was irate. "No shuttle to the ship, hotel and rooms dirty and disgusting". We looked at each other, and just couldn't wait to see this! What did she mean no shuttle to the ship? "You have to drive yourself to the ship, then pay for parking for the days you're away." Cost? 45.00 for the four days and three nights aboard ship. Yippee, another "surprise". Then we are called in back to see a man by the name of Brian, who proceeds to tell us, we will want to attend another sales pitch. "It's not a time share", he reassures us. "It's a vacation package, only ninety minutes long, you can time it and leave after that amount of time has past. And you get four free tickets to go on the Jungle Queen, where you will see the homes of the rich and famous, then taken to an island, where you will eat all the free Barbecue ribs, chicken and shrimp, you want. That's worth ninety minutes of your time, isn't it?" Well, it did sound good, they were free. Something to do, while back on land. All we need is a 40.00 refundable deposit, just to reassure your attendance. So, we agree, then proceed to check into the hotel. Which by the way, wasn't dirty and disgusting! I will go into that later, with the show and tell part. At check in, sis was handed another bill for 24.00, same charges as the one in Orlando, for two nights, which was going to be split one day, one night, then the cruise, one day, one night when we got back.

The sales for the "vacation package" turned out to be a different concept on time sharing. The meeting was late getting started, Linda kept saying, "tick, tick, time is ticking." It started about thirty minutes late, our ninety minutes took about 3 1/2 hrs. Yes, we got our free tickets and sis got her deposit back.