# Summer Bay--Orlando



## OdysseusSun (Mar 2, 2011)

*Summer Bay Vacation Club Experiences*

My wife (a lawyer) and I are currently staying at the Summer Bay here in Orlando. It's not a bad resort.

We have been trying to learn more about Summer Bay since we attended a presentation last Sunday, which stretched to more than three hours. The "free breakfast" turned-out to be a few donuts and the promise of "60 minutes" of our time wasn't even close.

We left the presentation with many questions and concerns. Then, yesterday, after investigating the company, visiting various time-share forums (such as this one) and travel forums, having a lengthy conversation with an RCI representative, etc., we went back to the big, fancy headquarters building here to try to clear-up some of our questions with the sales manager, Al Morel. But, though he had told me to come to meet with him, we were not allowed to see him, but, instead, had to speak with another sales representative for about another hour.

I don't pretend to be an expert on time-shares, Summer Bay Resorts, or vacationing (though I have certainly done my share of the latter). But maybe the information I have turned-up can be of use to others, so I shall present it here. If you find errors or misunderstandings, I hope you will supply corrections and/or additional information.

Don't expect to hear the word "time-share" or even "interval" during any Summer Bay presentation. The whole thing is presented as a "vacation club" in which you purchase "points" which can be traded for Summer Bay or RCI vacation weeks at any of a large number and variety of vacation resorts and even cruises (it seems).

If you watch Clark Howard on CNN or follow his website, you know why Summer Bay doesn't use the word "time-share" in relation to their "product". The time-share industry has a terrible name, is probably defunct, and, if you own a time-share which was marketed as an investment (which they almost always were), you probably know that you are lucky indeed if you can sell one for pennies on the dollar.

So Summer Bay is some kind of "vacation club", whatever that is. All that was discussed was points, though, at one point, we were taken to see a shiny, new three-bedroom unit. Our representative told us this was mandatory (to get our $100--not $150--in restaurant gift cards), even though we protested that the one-bedroom we were currentlty staying in met our needs and was already more than familiar to us. We never understood why we were shown this "unit" and our representative stood outside and seemed to have no interest in it or in telling us anything about it.

After a lot of smoke and mirrors, here is the deal we were offered during our original three hour plus presentation. During the entire presentation, our representative kept using the example of 100,000 "points". But, finally, we were told we could buy 60,500 "points" for about $35,000 up front. In addition, we would have to pay $800 yearly "maintenance fees" and $239 yearly "membership dues", including dues to RCI. We were shown this offer on a piece of printed paper, which we were not allowed to take with us.

It proved to be very difficult and time consuming to try to learn what could be done with these points or what they might be worth to us. We were shown something called "Market Place Rewards", which seemed to me to be more smoke and mirrors, though we were told that it was worth about $6000, but we would get it for free if we purchased "points" in the "vacation club". Examples of how this could be used--for items from stores, car rentals, etc., turned out to be about a 10% discount, something anyone can easily get for nothing if they shop carefully. We were told that the "unit" we were shown could be reserved for a week's vacation for about 100,000 points. Other (RCI?) resorts were shown to us online which, depending on the time-frame, could be reserved for from 4500 to 9000 to 40,000 "points". As I mentioned before, the term "weeks" was never used.

Let me add at this point (in case you've never attended a time-share, or whatever, presentation), we were told, of course, in no uncertain terms that we had only that day, or the next few minutes to make up our minds to buy or not to buy. This is typical, but deplorable, and a dead tip-off that something is rotten. If something is worth a certain price today, it will be worth approximately that price for at least a week. I think the industry and Summer Bay, in particular, do themselves a great disservice with this "trick", but it must be effective with some people or time-share sales teams wouldn't universally use it.

When we declined this offer, we were asked at what price we would say yes. Well, it's not my place to set their prices, nor a wise negotiating tactic. Finally, our representative went to get her "sales manager" to see what she could do for us. The "decide now or else" and "sales manager" tricks reminded me of the way cars used to be sold before dealers got smarter after the recent great recession, which put many of them out of business

Our representative returned with another lady and a corrected offer sheet which, again, we were not allowed to take with us. Maintenance fees, in my memory, were never committed to paper. Now the "deal" had, of course, changed. Now we could purchase 100,000 points awarded every other year for a mere $12,500 up front, with $378 yearly maintenance fees--today only! If we wanted to buy 600,000 points per year, that would cost $45,000 up front, with $1000 yearly maintenance--today only!

Since it was impossible to know exactly what we were buying and we resented the high pressure of "today only", after almost three and a half hours of trying to learn all we could, we declined again. OK, thanks, good-bye.

Now it was time for the "evaluator" to replace our representative. This lady asked us if everyone was "nice". Yes, of course they were, they wanted big money from us. Then she asked why we said no. We answered that we were philosophically opposed to the "decide right now" trick. She answered that, oh, didn't we know, that's just Florida real-estate law and, if they didn't abide by it, they could lose their license. I answered, "Real-estate? Nobody ever mentioned any real-estate." The lady told us that, of course, it was real-estate and that we would have gotten a week, a deed, and would pay real-estate taxes. We were shocked, because all we had been told about was a vacation club ("Crown Club") with points. Mmmm, maybe this explained why were shown the unit?

We grabbed our restaurant gift cards and got the heck out of there.

For the rest of that day and the next, we checked-out Summer Bay online, studied everything we could, called RCI, discussed and argued our presentation with each other--wife and husband. I found this very useful forum. From RCI, I learned that you can purchase their points for two cents per point. From what I had gathered, Summer Bay Crown Club points could be used with RCI on a one-to-one basis. This was later confirmed.

But I still lacked sufficient information to assign an approximately correct dollar value to the points, in terms of their exchange value. What I finally worked-out as a rough approximation was that, if I took their best deal, it would take me about 10 years before I might come out "ahead"--if maintenance fees and dues remained constant (a highly doubtful proposition).
This doesn't seem to me like a great deal for our situation, but maybe it could be for some people.

So we went back to try to question the sales manager, but were instead assigned another, more experienced sales representative. She said that, indeed, they were selling a one week time-share interval with a deed, but in the form of points. She said they couldn't sell points for anything like as little as two cents. She said the deal we were offered was way too much for too little. Haha. She admitted that we had been told a lie about the fictitious Florida real-estate law. But she acted like she couldn't believe anything we were telling her. We had no proof, but I did have my notes. This representative told us that the best deal they could offer for 100,000 points was $29,000 up front and about $1200 yearly fees, plus the $239 yearly dues. This would be about a thirty year payback, at best!

You own nothing you can sell. You have no investment. Your vacation options and what you can spend your vacation dollars for are limited. I say, save your money, run in the other direction (with whatever incentive you can get out of them) and avoid this kind of pitch like the plague. You will be so much better off.

Another way to look at it is like this: Let's say they were offering  the three-bedroom, fancy condo we looked at. It has a view of a little, stinking, black lake that I certainly wouldn't let anyone I love get into, but the view isn't terrible. Let's say they'll sell you a week's use of this condo per year for a $29,000 "investment" and $1200 yearly fees, which seemed to be our final, "best" offer. There are 52 weeks in a year, say 50 are usable to "investors". This means that they are selling the condo for $1,450,000 total. They are also saying that to provide services and maintain this unit, their costs are $60,000 every year (and certain to rise). For this money you can purchase a more luxurious condo in Clearwater, Sarasota, Ft. Myers, or Miami on the ocean or with an ocean view. You will pay nothing like $60,000/year for maintenance. In Tampa, right now, you can buy a nice, brand-new two-bedroom condo in the city for less than $60,000. These options are actual real-estate that can be sold. The condo we were shown might be worth $150,000 maximum, but they want to sell it to you for $1,450,000 and ream you for more money every year. No wonder time-shares can't be sold for anything like what people pay.

What have some of the rest of you figured-out for the cost vs. the value of these or other vacation club points?


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## Sandy (Mar 6, 2011)

Hello OdeysseusSun,


Welcome to the smoke and mirrors of the timeshare sales event. No wonder this industry gets a bad name. 

I own at Summer Bay Las Vegas, but your comments about Florida make me think you are talking about the resort in Kissimmee, outside of Orlando. Am I right?  I have stayed there too, in the 3 bedroom lake houses.  Wonderful.

A bit of background.  We have owned timeshare since 1980. As a result, we are seasoned timeshare travelers and owners.  We first bought in the Bahamas, but eventually added to our units. Fortunately for us, none of our purchases have been at "retail" price, although we have been on tons of timeshare presentation like the one you describe.

Seems like the sales sharks ask these astronomical numbers because they sometimes get a bite.  Most timeshare units are sold for about 12-15,000 in the front door.  However, for the smart consumer, you can probably get the same unit for less than $2000, with some notable exceptions.

We have owned in the Bahamas, Hawaii, South Africa to get into a very cheap ownership for trading), Australia (to get into the points program, and finally Summer Bay in Las Vegas.  South Africa and Australia were deals we learned about on TUG.  

We have travelled all over the place!  We used our timeshares mostly for exchanging through RCI or Interval International (the other major exchange company).

My overall impression after more than 30 years of timesharing is that we love timesharing.  But our love affair is mainly because we have NEVER PAID FULL PRICE FOR A TIMESHARE!  I REPEAT, WE HAVE NEVER PAID FULL PRICE.  Oh yeah, we go to the presentations sometimes to check out a new facility, or maybe because the gift they are offering is worth our time. But we know how to avoid any commitment to purchase.

As an example, after reading through many posts on TUG, we learned about some fantastic deals, costing less than $1000.00 We purchased Summer Bay for less than this, YES, the same units which they were showing to you for $35,000.  Can you see why we are satisfied with our purchases?

What you should do is this: read through much of this TUG forum, especially those sections that explain stuff for newbies.  To get a sense of pricing, check out some of the sellers on eBay. This will give you a reasonable idea of the actual selling pricing structure. 

In my opinion, the reason why the prices are so low is the reason many things are now priced lower than they were a few years ago, including real estate.  Baby boomers bought timeshare when their kids were young.  My kids grew up vacationing in timeshares all over the place.  Now most of us BB don’t need these many timeshares, and of course we do not need to carry the high costs if we bought through retail.  As a result, there is glut of timeshares available. 

Check out EBay to see what I mean. Type in the name of a city or a resort, and timeshare and you might be surprised at the prices.  The resorts need to keep owners in the mix in order to maintain their maintenance program and keep the properties up to par.  

Now, much of what I just said does not apply to a few high-end resorts (Marriott, Hyatt, etc.)  However, even with my elcheapo weeks, I have stayed at all of them, including mostly Gold Crown or Five Star resorts. 

We love timeshare, but then we bought at very good, cheap prices, and we have gotten excellent use of our weeks and points.  

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have other questions. And there are many more here on the Tug board who are more experienced than I am and who might chime in too!

Take care, 
Sandy


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## holidaygirl2 (Mar 13, 2011)

My husband and I currently own DVC points and being from Saskatchewan, Canada we had to purchase them at full value from Disney.  We were looking into purchasing more shares but through resale.... much cheaper than direct through Disney when my husband ran across Summer Bay on an e-bay auction. He put in a bid to max out at $100.  He won the bid....... personally I don't think it should be call winning.  Anyways we purchased a 1 bdr annual Red floating week at Summer Bay in Orlando (it is actually quite a ways outside of Orlando) for $51.  All the title costs were included in the price, we had to pay the annual fee which is as expected.  We received a copy of our "deed"  last week but are still waiting for Summer Bay to record it on their records before we can book our summer vacation.  They feel that their records should be updated within a week or so and tell us the week we would like in August still has availability, here’s to hoping.  Personally I love my DVC and would not have gone any other way, but the difference in purchase price is just to much, my advice to you is if you are going to buy a timeshare because that is how you decided you are going to holiday do not rule out purchasing through e-bay or other resale companies


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## tm3phd (Jul 15, 2011)

*old school timeshare Vs Conservation Of Net Worth/FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE*

:whoopie: 
First, That sounds like AL!!!! Second, You are never going to get a lawyer or financial advisor to endorse timeshare or points ownership unless you break down the Financial Intelligence.. The hazard in timeshare is the developers & human resource managers continue to hire the same old marketing and sales management/techniques instead of hiring or promoting employees that have proven track records in timeshare as well as first hand knowledge and skills in "Financial Intelligence" and "conservation of net worth" as well as "budgets" and Inflation/Deflation knowledge/skills.!! Truly, I know some great points ownership deed programs and points spending rewards, however the ownership programs require consumers to demo cash flow management skills Vs impulse spending.  Timeshare/points ownership should not be sold as an investment in kind to stocks, bonds, and mutual funds nor investment property..!!! Danger...!! Timeshare is nothing more than a strategy/ownership and if you manage misc dollars-you could significantly decrease your medium to long term vacation expenses and pass on a vacation legacy..Emotion gets people in the deal but FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE makes the program stick!


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## tm3phd (Jul 15, 2011)

*old school timeshare management block FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE*

:whoopie: 
First, That sounds like AL!!!! Second, You are never going to get a lawyer or financial advisor to endorse timeshare or points ownership unless you break down the Financial Intelligence.. The hazard in timeshare is the developers & human resource managers continue to hire the same old marketing and sales management/techniques instead of hiring or promoting employees that have proven track records in timeshare as well as first hand knowledge and skills in "Financial Intelligence" and "conservation of net worth" as well as "budgets" and Inflation/Deflation.!! Truly, I know some great points ownership deed programs and points spending rewards, however the ownership programs require consumers to demo "cash flow management skills" Vs impulse spending.  Timeshare/points ownership should not be sold as an investment in kind to stocks, bonds, and mutual funds nor sold as investment rental property..!!! Danger...!! Timeshare is nothing more than a strategy/ownership and if you have the skills to manage misc dollars -you could significantly decrease your medium to long term misc vacation expenses and create a vacation legacy for your family..Emotion gets people in the deal, however FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE is the KEY/STRENGTH!


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