# Thank you TUG for making this family's Christmas special



## whitewater (Dec 24, 2016)

Wanted to say a huge thank you to Tug Admins and members who make this a robust place to learn and enjoy vacations.  Earlier this year we rented at Bonnet Creek and liked it so much that I started looking around to see what it would cost to get into wyndham timeshare and stumbled across Tug Wyndham advice articles.  Read-up (a lot of reading) then We purchased 2 timeshare contracts via ebay and soon to be +1 adopted via Tug.  So happy with purchase and price paid.  Surprised my wife (usually not a good thing) and for once she was pleased. 

The help, advice, learnings, research, reviews, and encouragement have been great and every time I log on I dream/think about our last & now upcoming vacation plans.  Really has changed my outlook & balance in life.  I was finding that I was not taking vacation because I did not have solid plans and many times would wait till last minute 1-2 months then plan travel.  With this method work kept getting in the way and my vacation was not getting used.  Since purchasing my next 13+ months are mapped out and blocked out on my work calendar.  Funny how doing this has made these times sacred work is now planning around my vacation plans (for once).  This has been a great change in our family lives.

We are just finishing our first week at Wyndham Reunion and getting ready for our 2nd week here in Orlando.  We surprised our kids with a trip to Orlando with our family friends the 1st week & my parents are joining us for week 2 to do the Disney Christmas thing.

This has been a great week and with our future plans cemented in I feel like we are starting a new chapter in our lives where we do more things as a family together.  

Thanks for helping us find a way to spend more time together.  Below is a picture of all of us at SeaWorld with our friends and family (minus me) at Reunion waterpark enjoying timesharing.    Best I could do as most pictures are minus one of us.   

Thank you and Merry Christmas from a grateful family!


----------



## Gracey (Dec 24, 2016)

What a beautiful family and sweet post!  Merry Christmas to you and yours


----------



## buckor (Dec 24, 2016)

Awesome! And for the same reasons  we love Tug! We had never been in a "real" vacation until this year. Now we've taken a couple already and are looking forward to the ones we have booked next year.

As you said, it has changed our lives!

Merry Christmas! 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J320AZ using Tapatalk


----------



## ronandjoan (Dec 24, 2016)

buckor said:


> As you said, it has changed our lives!
> 
> Merry Christmas!
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J320AZ using Tapatalk



Yes, agree!  TUG was soooo helpful when we first bought and I probably learned everything I know about timesharing from TUG and TUGGERS, many of whom have become good friends, not only in person, meeting up when we are in the same area or timeshare, but also even as "online" friends. 

Really appreciate everyone here and the TUG staff!!!! Thanks to all!


----------



## enutts (Dec 24, 2016)

Couldn't have said it any better!! Tug has provided me, and I'm sure most of us, with a wealth of knowledge and confidence regarding timeshares and taking the leap to buying resale and really learning how to make it work and experience real vacations and family memories.  Thank you to everyone and Merry Christmas!!!


----------



## happymum (Dec 24, 2016)

Ditto!


----------



## pedro47 (Dec 24, 2016)

Ditto. Time sharing can be so much enjoyment & fun for the family. Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays to your family.


----------



## littlestar (Dec 24, 2016)

Beautiful family! Tug educated us back in 2005 and we've never looked back since.  Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year!


----------



## kathleenpeyer (Dec 25, 2016)

I would also like to thank all the volunteers  on TUG for their help, advice, tutorials and selfless efforts to help all of us. Everything I know about timeshares I learned from TUG and I have avoided many a pitfall thanks to all of you. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and a joyous holiday to those of you who are celebrating any other holiday at this time of year.


----------



## Jan M. (Dec 25, 2016)

Merry Christmas to all of you on TUG!


----------



## AnnaS (Dec 25, 2016)

Thank you for sharing.  Beautiful family.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! Have fun creating so many wonderful memories.


----------



## silentg (Dec 25, 2016)

TUG is and has been a great resource for us. I am still learning and trying new ways to exchange. Looking forward to some new adventures in timesharing in 2017! Happy New Year to all of you!
Safe travels!
Silentg


----------



## am1 (Dec 25, 2016)

The honeymoon phase of being a wyndham timeshare.  Hopefully you get more enjoyment from your ownership at the resorts before the other shoes drops and managements decide to cancel 1 or 2 of your reservations because they were overlapping or for some other unnessecary reason.


----------



## BellaWyn (Dec 25, 2016)

am1 said:


> The honeymoon phase of being a wyndham timeshare.  Hopefully you get more enjoyment from your ownership at the resorts before the other shoes drops and managements decide to cancel 1 or 2 of your reservations because they were overlapping or for some other unnessecary reason.


It's Christmas.....  happy family that made some great memories, more thanks to TUG than WYN because they are not out of pocket thousands of $$'s. 

Give them that .....  the WYN bubble may eventually pop but for now, Merry Christmas OP!!  Lovely family and wonderful holiday!   It's the primary reason we all got into TS in the first place.  Am delighted for your family and friends.


----------



## vacationhopeful (Dec 26, 2016)

While some Wyndham owners are NOT HAPPY CAMPERS regarding rule changes, there are many more owners who say "This does not apply to me." 

Whether a new owner or an old owner OR a big owner or a small owner .... what does effect ALL OWNERS is bad management, inexperience staff, poor furnishings ... along with combining and compounding issues: cash flow, bad planning, lousy reservation system, under-performing/untrained employees. 

Is it management ethics? Or stupidity of the employees? Or lack of checks & balances of corporate cash or cash-equivalent commodities (ie Wyndham points) in their accounting practices? 

And which Big Accounting firm has been certifying the numbers ... to shareholders, Wall Street, bankers, investors, owners and state governments?


----------



## bnoble (Dec 26, 2016)

I bought my first timeshare (Wyndham resale) a decade ago this month, and have been a satisfied owner ever since. Indeed, I quickly added two more weeks to my portfolio, and have had a number of fantastic vacations both within the Wyndham system and elsewhere via RCI---two institutions that TUGgers love to hate!

In that decade, I've found that what you write here has been the number one advantage of timesharing for me:



whitewater said:


> I was finding that I was not taking vacation because I did not have solid plans and many times would wait till last minute 1-2 months then plan travel. With this method work kept getting in the way and my vacation was not getting used. Since purchasing my next 13+ months are mapped out and blocked out on my work calendar. Funny how doing this has made these times sacred work is now planning around my vacation plans (for once). This has been a great change in our family lives.



Even had I bought full-freight from the developer once or twice, I still think I'd be a happy owner. The notion that vacation is not optional is the real value of being an owner.  Being a strictly-resale owner just makes it all a little more affordable.

The other thing I still marvel at is that families take vacations in hotel rooms. Hotel rooms! Can you imagine? For the four of us, a 2BR is really the minimum size we'll consider, and we think of "roughing it" as a unit without in-room washer/dryer. Yet, somehow, people do it.


----------



## whitewater (Dec 26, 2016)

bnoble said:


> I bought my first timeshare (Wyndham resale) a decade ago this month, and have been a satisfied owner ever since. Indeed, I quickly added two more weeks to my portfolio, and have had a number of fantastic vacations both within the Wyndham system and elsewhere via RCI---two institutions that TUGgers love to hate!
> 
> In that decade, I've found that what you write here has been the number one advantage of timesharing for me:
> 
> ...


I agree.  This helps me plan and take vacation and do it in places/accommodations that our family of 5 likes.  

So far very happy.


----------



## missyrcrews (Dec 26, 2016)

Bnoble...we stayed in a straight hotel room on our way home from Missouri last year.  I thought I would DIE.  And that was one night!  Certainly not my idea of fun, and made me appreciate our timeshare stays all the more!


----------



## bnoble (Dec 26, 2016)

Prior to timesharing, we tended to stay in either privately-owned homes/townhomes/condos that did short-term rentals, or we'd stay in home-away-from-home kinds of places like Residence Inns. We'll do hotel rooms in a pinch, but only e.g. as a waypoint on a longer road trip or when there aren't any other viable options.


----------



## buckor (Dec 26, 2016)

missyrcrews said:


> Bnoble...we stayed in a straight hotel room on our way home from Missouri last year.  I thought I would DIE.  And that was one night!  Certainly not my idea of fun, and made me appreciate our timeshare stays all the more!


Since we started timesharing this past year we haven't even considered a hotel room! It is amazing the difference!

This year we've stayed at Bonnet Creek, Panama City, Emerald Grand Destin, Great Smoky Lodge, and Smoky Mountains. We've already booked BCR in March, and Branson in July (two 3BR units for so my brother and his family, our grandparents, and a half sister I've never met can all vacation together). Plus I know we'll book those little weekend get aways.

 Already talking with my brother about taking all our kids to DC in 2018 so we can introduce them to nation's history.

Yep, wouldn't change a thing!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J320AZ using Tapatalk


----------



## Jan M. (Dec 26, 2016)

missyrcrews said:


> Bnoble...we stayed in a straight hotel room on our way home from Missouri last year.  I thought I would DIE.  And that was one night!  Certainly not my idea of fun, and made me appreciate our timeshare stays all the more!



I just read your post to my husband and we are still laughing. We were trying to figure out when was the last time we stayed in a hotel/motel on vacation. We think it has been thirteen years! We recently spent a week with our five year old granddaughter at a resort we've stayed at before through RCI that we all really like. It is a small resort and almost all of the units are efficiencies: full kitchen, smaller bathroom, a room divider that you can pull to screen the queen murphy bed from the living room/dining area and a patio or balcony. There are many things about the resort that we and our granddaughter love so even though we could have stayed at another resort in a two bedroom/two bath unit we actually chose to go back to this resort. But this is our idea of roughing it now and it is still light years better than a hotel! We are so spoiled.

Yes I know we are paying our monthly maintenance fees but they have been a part of our monthly expenses/budget for so long that we basically think of the lodging part of our vacations as being paid for/free when we go. About three weeks before this past Easter I saw a sale on flights to San Antonio. So I looked to see if there was anything open, found 6 nights at La Cascada and booked them hoping to find the last night we needed later, which I eventually did. When my husband walked in the door from work I asked him if he could arrange his work schedule and wanted to go to San Antonio for a week. His face just lit up. Two round trip non stop flights from Fort Lauderdale to San Antonio with us sharing one checked bag $208 total. Having that washer and dryer makes everything easier, deciding what to take, packing it and paying for a minimal number of bags. I called the resort for some information on the area and they talked me out of renting a car for the whole week. I was so glad I listened to them as we ended up not renting a car at all. I checked out the bus schedule online and decided we should be adventurous, that we could always take a taxi for the return trip to the airport if we didn't like it. The bus stop is literally right at the airport and about two blocks from the resort. $1.35 each way so $5.40 total for the two of us round trip. A block and a half walk from the resort to a nice HEB grocery store to buy food, beer for him, wine for me and some great deals on Living Social and Groupon for several restaurants and we were set for the week. We only spent at the very most maybe $100 more on food and restaurants than we would have spent during a week at home. People ask us all the time how we can afford to vacation like we do! We would never be taking impromptu vacations like this if we didn't own the timeshares. The timeshare life has been wonderful for us.


----------



## BellaWyn (Dec 27, 2016)

Jan M. said:


> I just read your post to my husband and we are still laughing. We were trying to figure out when was the last time we stayed in a hotel/motel on vacation. We think it has been thirteen years!
> 
> People ask us all the time how we can afford to vacation like we do! We would never be taking impromptu vacations like this if we didn't own the timeshares. The timeshare life has been wonderful for us.



The lovely thing about this thread is that it is less about WYN and more about TUG and a reflection of the value (not always intrinsic) that TS'g has brought to our lives.  For all of the discussions back and forth that happen here in TUG, for good and bad, note that this particular thread was started by a fairly new TUG member that stopped to remind us all why we still show up.  We show up to TUG, to our vacations and to the re-visiting of the many good memories brought to our lives because we chose to "force" vacationing to a higher priority.   

Timesharing, and TUG, definitley raises the standard of expected quality and teaches us improved economies of how to go about it.  As much as we would all like to have the crystal ball to the future, it's really what we make of the present that counts the most.  The OP took the time to stop, express appreciation and share some very special, happy moments as he begins his journey into what is now so much a regular part of the more experienced TUGGER's lives.  It was thoughtfully and generously expressed.

Refreshing and appreciated.


----------



## chapjim (Dec 27, 2016)

am1 said:


> The honeymoon phase of being a wyndham timeshare.  Hopefully you get more enjoyment from your ownership at the resorts before the other shoes drops and managements decide to cancel 1 or 2 of your reservations because they were overlapping or for some other unnessecary reason.



Grinch!


----------



## BellaWyn (Dec 27, 2016)

chapjim said:


> Grinch!


Given the beating he has been taking from WYN over the last 5months...  he has significant justification for the jaded posturing.  But again, thread is not about WYN, but TUG and the good stuff TSg has brought to us. He's had a few of those also, just really bleeding right now.


----------



## am1 (Dec 28, 2016)

Just trying to give the opposing view.  Yes the resorts are great yes tug is great and help a lot in making the most of timesharing but the industry is built on scamming buyers.  Wyndham is at the front of the pack when it comes to poor management.

I do not want anyone to read this thread and then buy a timeshare at rack rate not realizing what a mistake they made.


----------

