January 2021 -- Will TUG People Be Getting Together Again In Orlando ?

[rapmarks]

And we would have brought Jonah. He was two months old that day

 

[TheHolleys87]

After all our plans and total reservations for 2 months, Ron’s pulmonary doctor yesterday said “No travel.” He has an underlying lung disease which is not good at all as catching the virus would probably not mean a recovery.
He said he would still go,but pretty soon realized that that probably would not be a good idea. We called our St Augustine timeshare where we have FIXED January weeks but they said “No problem... we can find weeks later for you. “ A very understanding timeshare management!!
We had other different reservations in several places but I had purchased the cancellation insurance for all . Even Alaska Airlines agreed “Don’t go!” And refunded our total cost ( not just a credit but a refund.)
Thus, we will miss you all, as that has become a fun annual January routine for us —- and we can look forward to 2022.

Sorry to hear! Best wishes for future travels!

 

[dioxide45]

We will only be in Orlando from the 17th to the 22nd this year. But even if it were held that week, I probably couldn't make it. That is the week we are hitting five DVC resorts in five days. Gotta make the most of it. We had planned on staying the week after, but retraded out to a week in February.

 

[ilene13]

I can't understand what you could be thinking. Have you not heard? There is a PANDEMIC going on and we have been advised by trained scientists not to congregate -- all the more so in Florida, which is a super-spreader state.

I totally agree with you, as a Florida resident I can't believe all the people who want to come here!! We will never mitigate this virus if we don't follow medical guidelines and stay home. Florida had over 11,000 cases yesterday. IMHO if you are going to have a meeting, do it over ZOOM!

 

[silentg]

Let’s skip it until we can go safely in 2022

 

[AwayWeGo]

I have been in denial since before Christmas, but reality is now pushing through -- the outlook for the possibility that The Chief Of Staff & I will go to Florida this month is dim & growing dimmer.

We are grateful that our health is basically OK, other than some chronic conditions that are reasonably well managed. Even so, & even with Covid-19 vaccine now in the picture & soon to be available (we hope), we are reluctant to venture far out of the house, much less to go Florida timeshares for 1, 2, or 3 weeks.

I hate the idea of giving up the resort reservation we made months ago, but increasingly it appears that discretion will be the greater part of valor this year, meaning our reservation will simply go by the board (hard as that is to swallow).

The Chief Of Staff says we won't be giving up our Florida trip this year, only postponing it. I applaud her optimism, but I'm not sure when or whether we will (a) feel safe going to Florida & (b) find timeshare bargains later in the year like what we're giving up this month. (Not only forfeiting the reservation we already have, I mean, but also losing out on some of the outstanding Last Call & similar RCI Orlando-area off-season bargains that have been showing up on the RCI website recently.)

If we're not in Florida this month, needless to say we won't be at the TUG informal social event in Orlando this January, if the get-together happens. It's always such a pleasure to reunite with TUG friends & to meet new TUG acquaintances if new attendees were to show up. I hate the idea of missing out.

It's not definite that we won't be going. But it's the closest thing to definite without being final.

So it goes.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[ronandjoan]

Nice to have an update from Alan (Away We Go), although saddened that their trip may be cancelled too. Of course, some people who will be in FL can always get together, and we will look forward to an “official” 2022 gathering.

I did mention that we had cancelled everything we had planned for two months, but we would have been going to several different places which would increase our exposure.

The great news is that as I reported, since we had purchased the Platinum Interchange and DAE (now 7Across) cancellation insurance for the exchanged weeks, that they refunded the exchange fees as well as the weeks. Our FIXED weeks at the Townhouses at St Augustine Beach and Tennis Club have been changed to the 4 weeks beginning Nov 27 which will connect with the other FIXED weeks owned there to make a 10-week stay next year – in the same unit. Such a great considerate timeshare resort!

 

[moonstone]

The Chief Of Staff says we won't be giving up our Florida trip this year, only postponing it.

We are in the same boat! We have 3 weeks (so far) booked starting Oct. 23rd and really hope it is safe to travel by then and that the majority of folks have had the vaccinations. We really missed our annual dose or 2 of Florida in 2020.

~Diane

 

[moonstone]

Our FIXED weeks at the Townhouses at St Augustine Beach and Tennis Club have been changed to the 4 weeks beginning Nov 27 which will connect with the other FIXED weeks owned there to make a 10-week stay next year – in the same unit. Such a great considerate timeshare resort!

We will miss you by just a few weeks! We will be at The Beach Club (2 Ocean Trace) from Oct.31st to Nov.7th when we move down to Palm Coast for a week. We hope to be getting our condo up by the pier ready for our own part-time occupancy during our 2 weeks in the area.


~Diane

 

[ronandjoan]

We will miss you by just a few weeks! We will be at The Beach Club (2 Ocean Trace) from Oct.31st to Nov.7th when we move down to Palm Coast for a week. We hope to be getting our condo up by the pier ready for our own part-time occupancy during our 2 weeks in the area.


~Diane

Great. We could still get together in Palm Coast. Ron has two cousins there that we visit every year.

 

[moonstone]

Great. We could still get together in Palm Coast. Ron has two cousins there that we visit every year.

I think we will still miss you as we are only at Palm Coast for a week beginning Nov.7th. Unless there is something very pressing with the renos on our condo that requires us to stay in the area longer, will be heading back to Canada very early on the 14th. We will wait and see.


~Diane

 

[AwayWeGo]

It's official. We won't be going to Florida this month. The faint chance has evaporated. Sorry to say, we will have to miss the January TUG Orlando get-together this year.

The Chief Of Staff says we're not canceling our 2021 Florida vacation. We're just postponing it, she says -- till February or March, once the Covid-10 danger subsides. We'll see.

Meanwhile, our Jan. 23-30 timeshare reservation will not be going to waste. In our place, old friends-for-life in the Tampa FL area will be checking in for a nice timeshare vacation using our reservation. We got'm an official Guest Certificate so everything is on the up & up.

Ironically, the reservation our friends will be using represents the 1st time an RCI Platinum Unit Upgrade request has come through for us. So our friends are getting a nice 2BR A+B or possibly A+C unit, instead of just a 1BR "B" or 1BR "C" unit.

The timeshare resort is Vacation Village At Parkway, so what our friends are getting, rather than a true 2BR condo, actually will be 2 side-by-side stand-alone 1BR units connected by a vestibule off the main hallway. Regardless, they'll have plenty of space no matter how they choose to use their doublewide timeshare condo.

We put in for Unit Upgrade & Resort Upgrade shortly after we made the reservation last May -- 1st time we requested those. Just this morning we received E-Mail notification from RCI that an upgrade came through for a 2BR unit instead of the 1BR partial-kitchen unit that we reserved.

We understood that no upgrades were guaranteed, but we did not know how we would be notified, or when, or whether upgrades were optional when & if offered. So 1 time when we were logged on to the RCI website, I opened up a "chat" box with an RCI Vacation Guide.

The guide explained that if a Unit Upgrade or Resort Upgrade came through, we would be notified 3-14 days ahead of check-in. Plus, the upgrade (if 1 came through) was not optional. Once we requested it, then if we got it -- WHAP ! -- we got it, meaning our reservation was automatically switched, either to a larger unit at the same resort if we got Unit Upgrade, or to a completely different Orlando timeshare complex (that we had selected among the possibilities offered) if Resort Upgrade came through. So there was a certain amount of suspense waiting for the 3- to 14-day upgrade window to open up, even though when it did open we had already bailed out on the idea of using the reservation ourselves. So it goes.

We hope that when January 2022 rolls round, we & all our TUG friends will be in good health & that a goodly group of us will once again be able to get together informally in the Orlando area for a long-overdue TUG reunion.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[AwayWeGo]

This is check-in day for what was supposed to be the start of our 2021 January vacation at Vacation Village At Parkway, Kissimmee FL. We reserved 1BR partial-kitchen unit, then got upgraded to 2BR by RCI.

Unfortunately, because of concerns over covid-19, we're not traveling & won't be checking in.

Rather than see our outstanding resort reservation go to waste, we gave it to good friends-for-life who said they'd enjoy an Orlando-Kissimmee vacation. We got'm a Guest Certificate & everything, so everything is on the up & up.

We've had our 1st dose of Moderna covid-19 vaccine & expect to get our 2nd doses in 3 weeks or so. Emboldened by that, we made ourselves an RCI reservation for check-in the end of February at a timeshare just 3½ miles east of Vacation Village At Parkway (FantasyWorld Resort, where we stayed just once before).

We're sorry we missed out on a possible TUG Orlando get-together this month, but we're encouraged by the prospect of a gradual return to something like normality.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.
​

PS: E-Mail from our Florida friends reported that they're all checked in at Vacation Village At Parkway, in an A+C unit in 1 of the new buildings. Very nice, they say. They even signed up for the Sunday morning sales pitch & got out after 2 hours without buying anything -- collected a $100 Visa gift card & everything. (I congratulated them on surviving the authentic Orlando timeshare experience.) So far, so good.