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October 19, 2017 - 11:30 p.m.
"timeshare presentation" or "ellis island"

Hey Journal!

Today we had a fun day in Vegas but we actually did less today than we did yesterday! We took it a little easy AND we had that timeshare presentation. Oh boy.

So, as you know, we got three nights free in this hotel, a $100 voucher for any shows or attractions, and $200 off a future stay at any Hilton hotel. In exchange, we had to sit through a two hour time share sale. I was dreading this so I can't wait to fill you in on the details now that it's over.

I woke up this morning a little earlier than Dan at about 8:00. I did some things on my phone and then when Dan was up we went out to get breakfast. We found this highly rated place with cheap breakfast called Ellis Island Restaurant. It was a short walk from our hotel.

It was actually really good. While we waited for a table, I played a PacMan slot machine and won $5. Of course, when we were done I tried it again and lost $20 so it didn't turn out as well!

We had breakfast and I got the country fried steak which I didn't realize was pork, not steak. Interesting. We are actually going to go back tomorrow to get the steak and eggs because it looked really good!

Next we came back to our hotel and had about 15 minutes before the big timeshare scam!

At 1:00, we arrived at the timeshare office and it began. First we were handed a card and told to go to a kiosk to take a survey about what kind of vacations we like to take. We answered semi-truthfully and then took a seat to wait.

This woman came over and introduced herself and she seemed nice enough but she was a little wacky. She talked to us briefly, introduced herself, and we proceeded into a big room to watch a "guest speaker."

Now this guy was a real weirdo. He is some full of himself guy who has a boxing related talk show on some no name channel. He thinks he's a super big deal but if he was, he wouldn't be doing talks at a timeshare presentation. I'm actually confused about his purpose because 3/4 of his presentation was about him, his life, and the boxers he's met and like 1/4 was actually about some of the cool places you could experience if you buy in to this scheme. I just feel like so much of it was wasted time because why do I care about his childhood in Miami!? It was so irrelevant!

After that, we never saw him again. We went upstairs with our lady to the 57th floor and, after getting some free snacks and beverages we sat at her desk for her to explain the how the points work.

It's such a complicated mish mosh. We actually sat with her for 2.5 hours and in that time she really just explain how you use your points. She never actually told us how much it would cost. It's like the whole pitch is to get you excited about staying at these nice places you will have better access to by becoming an "owner" and making it sound like you pay nothing for them. They throw out these wild numbers of how much you'll spend on vacations over the next 30 years and then tell you how you'll pay with points from now on so you'll really save so much money!

After lots of point info, we took an elevator ride to another floor and saw some staged rooms. There were really fancy suites and some smaller studios. They were all very nice.

We went back to her desk and she showed us more about the points and then this other woman came over to FINALLY tell us about the money! We determined we would need a very small package 3,400 points/year. So small it's not even on the chart! For that: $24,500 paid now (or over time with a 12-16% interest rate! Ha! Then, each year, an 871 maintenance fee! It's unreal.

So let me cut to the chase. If everything worked out perfectly, it may be a fair deal. But if we didn't take as many vacations as we thought or circumstances changed it would be a big loss! Also, reviews of this online say that it's super-hard to get the dates you want at the hotels you want. She claimed that was no problem at all! Of course.

Dan and I knew going in we were not buying anything. We never changed our mind but it's so weird, they hype it up so much and you actually start to get excited and feel like it makes to most sense in the world. You feel guilty turning them down, too!

After 2.5 hours we were itching to get out of there. Dan wasn't saying anything like "no" so I had to save us. I just said "it just doesn't seem like something we can do right now." We had to say that a few times and it was a little awkward.

Finally she pulled the plug and we had to wait for some guy to come over to try to offer us a "preview" package. One year of points for $1,675. We declined.

Then we had to go to a desk to get our "gifts," the vouchers and our refund of the hotel room cost.

Anyway, once it was done I feel like it wasn't terrible but it was really awkward to say no and I can see how people get roped in and swept up in it and wind up buying these things. What's crazy is I would never walk in and commit 25,000 + almost $1000 a year to something on the spur of the moment but I could see how it happens! I felt tempted even though I knew I wasn't doing it and it was a bad deal!

Afterwards, Dan and I talked about all the reasons why it makes no sense and came up with some really big flaws in the whole scheme!

So, it was an interesting experience and we got a lot of goodies out of it. Not bad for the reward but still not my favorite situation to be in!

After that we came back to our room and tried to find a use for our $100 credit. Dan found a show called Paranormal which is a mind reading magic show. It has excellent reviews on Trip Advisor and at $48 a ticket, we had nothing to pay!

The show is tomorrow at 4pm.

We took a walk down the other end of the strip to pass through all the casinos and stuff. We ended at the Palazzo where we put $20 into another PAC-MAN slot machine! The money went down quickly and soon I had nothing. Dan put ONE more dollar in and after two spins, I got the bonus round! Big reels with 90 lines! They spun automatically racking up more free spins as it went. I think in the end I got something like 20 free spins. Maybe more. There were lots of wilds and that helped my total! On one of the last spins, every row was a wild! That may not have been the best outcome because it MAY have been better to have had a good item in the first line with all wilds after it, but it was good enough for me! On that one roll I got over $100 and my totally after the bonus round was $224.86! Nice return on my $21 investment!

I immediately cashed out and we went to get our money!

Then we walked back to our hotel. We decided to go to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner which wasn't a bad idea but there was some table of loud and obnoxious people literally screaming every minute or so!

We finished there and got back to our room just before 9 so we decided to watch Scandal and HTGAWM! Two more shows we won't have to catch up on when we get back! Especially nice since we are coming back on a Wednesday and have work the next day! Eek!

Anyway, we showered up and now we're off to bed! Tomorrow we don't have any real plans except the show we booked at 4! In other news, some of the 3rd Generation Pokemon are being released at noon Vegas time so I am excited to catch some new Pokémon. Wahoo!

Until tomorrow...

Goodnight. :)