Christmas in Lake Tahoe
This year we decided to go out of town for Christmas. As luck (or maybe not) would have it, Melanie got a call about a month ago offering a 3 night stay at the Lake Tahoe Resort (a nice timeshare) for $199 with a $75 Visa gift card if we agreed to attend a 90 minute timeshare presentation. I figured for $45 a night in a 2 bedroom unit, it would be worth it to listen to the salesperson tell me how great an "investment" a timeshare is. More on that later.
Since we would be traveling on Christmas eve, we let the kids open half their gifts at home and we took the other half with us to Lake Tahoe. It was quite a task packing all those gifts and the other essentials for a 3 day trip with 6 people! The weather called for sun on Thursday through Saturday, with snow coming in late Saturday and all day Sunday. We decided against getting chains and hoped we could make it out without them (we were lucky). We arrived around 3pm and got settled in our rooms and went to Chevy's for a "happy hour" dinner. How can you pass up steak fajita nachos for $5??? After dinner we went to the grocery store and got some things for the next few days. We let the kids open 1 gift before going to bed and then settled in for our first night. Well, at least until Logan decided it wasn't time to go to sleep and kept me and Melanie up until 11pm.
Christmas day started with breakfast (once the kids woke up around 10am) and the opening of gifts. Having received most of what they asked for, the kids retired to their room and we got some reading in. Later the kids went swimming and watched a few movies.
Saturday brought more relaxation, swimming for the kids, and a trip to Hansen's Resort for some tubing. Hansen's has two 400+ foot runs that the kids seemed to enjoy. The only real problem was that we got there pretty late in the day and the snow wasn't as packed as it was earlier (slower tubing) and it was pretty packed out. The kids got about 5 runs in and we called it a day. We decided to come back first thing Sunday morning when they opened and see if things would be better.
We arrived around 8:50am on Sunday and nobody was there! The girls had the whole place to themselves and clearly took advantage of it. The runs were twice as fast as the day before and it was obvious they were having some serious fun. I even paired up with Kaylee and went down once. Definitely a lot of fun!
We got back to the room after 10am (checkout was 11am) and got things packed up and loaded in the car. Driving back we hit quite a bit of snow and the kids really enjoyed it. Traffic was minimal and we had a great trip home. This was our first trip away at Christmas time and it was a nice change. Not sure if we'll do it again soon, but it was nice to break up the routine and have a lot of fun together.
Now, I need to briefly go over our experience at the timeshare presentation. I know the salespeople can be pushy, but ours seemed to go beyond pushy and crossed over the line a few times. She had the nerve to say Melanie and I had no romance outside the home and that we didn't value our kids because we didn't see the necessity of owning a timeshare. What??? I sat in disbelief as this lady rambled on about the most ridiculous arguments for owning a timeshare. We told her right from the beginning we were only there because they called us and gave us the great rate in exchange for us attending the presentation. Even after hearing that, she still thought she could make us "her newest owners." Some may think owning a timeshare is a good deal, but this deal clearly was bad. It was $38,000 for the purchase and $1,500 a year in HOA fees. This would basically get you a week in a 2 bedroom unit at one of their resorts across the world. If you really sit down and do the math, it's an absurd idea to even consider this as a viable option. I ran numbers to see the true cost over 10, 20, and 30 years and would be happy to discuss them further if anyone is interested.
Well, that's about it for my first real post. Hope you enjoyed it and have a safe and Happy New Year!
Jason
P.S.--You can view photos from our trip by clicking the link below:
Lake Tahoe Photos
Since we would be traveling on Christmas eve, we let the kids open half their gifts at home and we took the other half with us to Lake Tahoe. It was quite a task packing all those gifts and the other essentials for a 3 day trip with 6 people! The weather called for sun on Thursday through Saturday, with snow coming in late Saturday and all day Sunday. We decided against getting chains and hoped we could make it out without them (we were lucky). We arrived around 3pm and got settled in our rooms and went to Chevy's for a "happy hour" dinner. How can you pass up steak fajita nachos for $5??? After dinner we went to the grocery store and got some things for the next few days. We let the kids open 1 gift before going to bed and then settled in for our first night. Well, at least until Logan decided it wasn't time to go to sleep and kept me and Melanie up until 11pm.
Christmas day started with breakfast (once the kids woke up around 10am) and the opening of gifts. Having received most of what they asked for, the kids retired to their room and we got some reading in. Later the kids went swimming and watched a few movies.
Saturday brought more relaxation, swimming for the kids, and a trip to Hansen's Resort for some tubing. Hansen's has two 400+ foot runs that the kids seemed to enjoy. The only real problem was that we got there pretty late in the day and the snow wasn't as packed as it was earlier (slower tubing) and it was pretty packed out. The kids got about 5 runs in and we called it a day. We decided to come back first thing Sunday morning when they opened and see if things would be better.
We arrived around 8:50am on Sunday and nobody was there! The girls had the whole place to themselves and clearly took advantage of it. The runs were twice as fast as the day before and it was obvious they were having some serious fun. I even paired up with Kaylee and went down once. Definitely a lot of fun!
We got back to the room after 10am (checkout was 11am) and got things packed up and loaded in the car. Driving back we hit quite a bit of snow and the kids really enjoyed it. Traffic was minimal and we had a great trip home. This was our first trip away at Christmas time and it was a nice change. Not sure if we'll do it again soon, but it was nice to break up the routine and have a lot of fun together.
Now, I need to briefly go over our experience at the timeshare presentation. I know the salespeople can be pushy, but ours seemed to go beyond pushy and crossed over the line a few times. She had the nerve to say Melanie and I had no romance outside the home and that we didn't value our kids because we didn't see the necessity of owning a timeshare. What??? I sat in disbelief as this lady rambled on about the most ridiculous arguments for owning a timeshare. We told her right from the beginning we were only there because they called us and gave us the great rate in exchange for us attending the presentation. Even after hearing that, she still thought she could make us "her newest owners." Some may think owning a timeshare is a good deal, but this deal clearly was bad. It was $38,000 for the purchase and $1,500 a year in HOA fees. This would basically get you a week in a 2 bedroom unit at one of their resorts across the world. If you really sit down and do the math, it's an absurd idea to even consider this as a viable option. I ran numbers to see the true cost over 10, 20, and 30 years and would be happy to discuss them further if anyone is interested.
Well, that's about it for my first real post. Hope you enjoyed it and have a safe and Happy New Year!
Jason
P.S.--You can view photos from our trip by clicking the link below:
Lake Tahoe Photos
