Timeshare Soap.

[AwayWeGo]

O.K. By Me.

Shucks, Gilchrist & Soames is pretty much in the same upscale bracket as Crabtree & Evelyn, right ?

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

 

[LUVourMarriotts]

I don't think my wife and I have ever used the soaps provided at the timeshares. We have always brought our own. We buy 4 oz. lockable pump bottles (at Container Store) and fill them with our shampoo and conditioner. We also love travel sized items, so we bring a bunch of travel sized liquid Dove bath/body soap.

So I guess my answer is, don't even put soap in the villas, keep down the MF's.

 

[philemer]

We love the free toiletries at hotels & condos---usually. No sensitive skin here. Come on, you know you use them too.

Phil

 

[dioxide45]

So I guess my answer is, don't even put soap in the villas, keep down the MF's.

I wonder how much of a resorts budget is spent on these items. I wonder what it works out to per week and if one could do better buying their own products. I would like to think that they get a large quantity discount and the cost per week is low, but you never know, its not like they are spending their money. They are spending the owner’s money.

 

[dioxide45]

We love the free toiletries at hotels & condos---usually. No sensitive skin here. Come on, you know you use them too.

Phil

We do use them sometime. I don't think of them as free though, nothing is free. We as a customer paid for it one way or another.

 

[AwayWeGo]

Mickey Mouse Soap -- Not That There's Anything Wrong With That.

That time we took the whole bunch to our outstanding Orlando timeshare for Thanksgiving, it was our daughter-in-law's 1st Orlando vacation in a non-Disney resort. (She was & is a bigtime Disney fan -- not that there's anything wrong with that.)

The Chief Of Staff & I got there 1st. To ease our daughter-in-law's transition into luxury non-Disney accommodations right close to The House Of Mouse, we grabbed up all the Gilchrist & Soames resort soaps, etc., from the master suite bathroom where she & our son were to stay for the week, & replaced those high-end toiletries with a comparable supply of official Walt Disney Resort Mickey Mouse soaps, shampoos, conditioners, lotions, etc., that we sneakily bought via eBay specially for the purpose several weeks before our trip.

That creative el switcho on resort soaps was not enough to transform our independent timeshare into a little corner of Disney World. Even so, our daughter-in-law greatly appreciated the gesture & enjoyed the Mickey Mouse toiletries in her suite. Not only that, since then she & our son & grandson have gone back to that same non-Disney resort several more times for more Orlando vacations. Who'd a-thunk ?

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

 

[jberndt10]

No soap left behind

I always bring my own shampoo (a vanity thing). The rest of the family uses what is provided. I take any unopened packages home cause they are great when the boys go to camp. We do buy a foam soap for the kitchen sink for hand washing, I just don't like using bar soap for my hands, ok I'm spoiled. I also must admit if the timeshare provides dish soap I take what's leftover of that and use it in our camper. Oh, and I take the coffee packages too, we bring our own. I figure we paid for it. My husband thinks I'm goofy.

 

[AwayWeGo]

All The Little Soap Slivers Are Used Up -- Time To Go Vacatation At A Timeshare.

We're out of here later this week -- headed to Gatlinburg Town Square, our 1st straight-points timeshare exchange. (Before this, we've either exchanged week for week or taken RCI Last Call & Instant Exchange deals -- 1st time for everything, eh?)

Everybody should do Gatlinburg once, they say, so this will be our time in Gatlinburg.

I am trying to soften up The Chief Of Staff for another timeshare vacation next month -- before some of our overripe timeshare points expire. But she's a hard sell, so this might be all the timeshare vacationing we'll be doing till January. So it goes.

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

 

[lvhmbh]

I am allergic to Aloe (in any form) so I don't use soaps or shampoos provided by timeshares or hotels. Even on cruises I use my own. We bring (or buy) Ivory for soap and each use our own shampoo. Funnily enough, I discovered my allergy at our timeshare in Aruba as they provide Aloe products for our use. Linda

 

[rapmarks]

I always bring my own shampoo (a vanity thing). The rest of the family uses what is provided. I take any unopened packages home cause they are great when the boys go to camp. We do buy a foam soap for the kitchen sink for hand washing, I just don't like using bar soap for my hands, ok I'm spoiled. I also must admit if the timeshare provides dish soap I take what's leftover of that and use it in our camper. Oh, and I take the coffee packages too, we bring our own. I figure we paid for it. My husband thinks I'm goofy.

I always wondered if it was okay to do it. We don't drink coffee, but I bring those packets home. My brother in law claims I am stealing them.

 

[AwayWeGo]

Thou Shalt Not Steal.

My brother in law claims I am stealing them.

If you go out to the housekeeping staff person's service cart when nobody is looking & grab up extra coffee packs, soaps, shampoos, etc., that's stealing. If you take home the items furnished in the unit for your use, that is not stealing. Shux, those items were put there for your use -- mox nix whether you use'm at the timeshare, on the way back, or after you get home.

If you take your own burnt-out light bulbs with you & swap those out for the good bulbs in the timeshare-unit lamps & fixtures & refrigerator, that's also stealing. (My cousin recently checked into an airport Ramada where the room they put in him in had 100% burnt-out light bulbs in all lamps, thanks no doubt to the larcenous behavior of whoever stayed there before him. Sheesh.)

Ditto if you take home the extra T.P., boxes of tissues, etc., that were placed in the unit strictly as spares -- that's also theft.

I broke a juice glass at a nice Orlando timeshare 1 time -- accidentally dropped it onto the tile floor of the kitchen & it smashed into 1,000 bits. I was a timeshare-exchange rookie at the time, & fully expected to have to pay for a replacement when I confessed my sin to the front desk person. Those things happen, they said, & thanked me for letting them know. Great. But if I took home a timeshare juice glass, that would be stealing.

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

 

[johnmfaeth]

Alan,

Some elements of our alleged society will never cease to amaze me. Taking ones burned out light bulbs and swapping them, amazing. Hope they don't waste a lot of time in church.

 

[Rose Pink]

(My cousin recently checked into an airport Ramada where the room they put in him in had 100% burnt-out light bulbs in all lamps, thanks no doubt to the larcenous behavior of whoever stayed there before him. Sheesh.)

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

Why would anyone want to go to all that trouble (not to mention suitcase space) to "save" a few bucks. How stupid. How much is one's integrity worth? Apparantly not much to that thief.

 

[AwayWeGo]

Bulb Snatcher M.O. Used In Wal*Mart Ladies Departrment.

Why would anyone want to go to all that trouble (not to mention suitcase space) to "save" a few bucks.

It does seem odd, bigtime. Yet it seems bigtime unlikely that every bulb in that particular Ramada room would have coincidentally burned out all about the same time, leaving my cousin in the dark when he went into the room right after checking in.

And how twisted is it for the bulb snatcher to go to such premeditated lengths? Shucks, it would have been lots less trouble just to swipe the good bulbs outright, leaving empty lamp sockets, than to bring along a bunch of burnt-out bulbs for the specific purpose of switching. Good grief.

I overheard a conversation recently between The Chief Of Staff & a friend whose favorite undies include 18-Hour Bras, which she said some Wal*Mart shoppers steal in a manner similar to the modus operandi of the Ramada bulb snatcher. She said that brand of brassiere comes packed in a cardboard carton. She took 1 into the try-on room & discovered the carton contained somebody's used, worn & dirty brassiere, instead of a new 18-Hour Bra that was supposed to be in the package. When she told the Wal*Mart attendant about it, the attendant said, "That happens all the time. People go into the fitting rooms & put on new bras, putting the old bras they already had on into the new packages, & then walking out wearing the new 1s, & there's nothing we can do about it. That's why so many bras are on hangers now instead of in packages."

Well, brassieres are not my area of expertise -- far from it (not that I claim any area of expertise anyhow). Even so, it doesn't seem it would be all that difficult for Wal*Mart to add security tags to its merchandise, even undergarments inside packages -- the kind of tags, I mean, that set off buzzers if taken past the tag detectors at the exits without deactivation at check-out.

Who knew Wal*Mart undie-snatchers were more prevalent than Ramada bulb snatchers ?

Sheesh.

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

 

[Rose Pink]

(not that I claim any area of expertise anyhow).
-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

But I thought you were expert at sticking slivers of soap together. Which sort of brings us back to the original topic of this thread.

 

[AwayWeGo]

A Little Know-How Is A Dangerous Thing.

But I thought you were expert at sticking slivers of soap together.

Well, yes, I am good at that -- also at loading the dishwasher & fixing WhirlPool/Sears (etc.) dryers. Not sure whether that adds up to actual, you know . . . expertise.

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

 

[AwayWeGo]

Putting The Toothpaste Back Into The Tube.

Here's a badly needed invention -- low-tech, should not be at all difficult to produce.

I'm talking about a little plastic threaded adapter, double-ended, threaded on both ends to match the insides of toothpaste tube caps.

Screw partially used tubes of toothpaste into both ends of the little adapter, then squeeze all the remaining toothpaste out of 1 tube into the other tube of toothpaste. The result = 1 mostly full tube of toothpaste, instead of 2 mostly empty tubes.

I guess the only problem would be the risk of detonation if somebody tried doing that with a partial tube of Crest at 1 end & a partial tube of Colgate on the other end -- kind of like pouring coca-cola & pepsi into the same glass.

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

 

[Texasbelle]

As the timeshare world turns

It's hard to remember what each timeshare group provides. Silverleaf doesn't provide hairdryers and other than soap, you may or may not have small sizes of needed bath products. Escapes! [Cooper] timeshares used to provide everything but food in the kitchen. When they expanded, they stopped providing napkins, plastic wrap, etc. They still have foil wrap as well as the expected paper towels. Escapes! in Galveston had spa name products at first, but now have generic hand soap and have been giving us a zip case with deodorant soap, shampoo, conditioner and lotion with the Escapes! logo upon check-in. The Landing @ 7 Coves has always had a large bottle of dishwasher soap [seems more economical and I would never take it home.] I always bring a bottle of antibacterial soap, some antibacterial spray and extra toilet tissue if not traveling by plane. Now about tissue, I feel the MINIMUM amount should be 1 double roll per guest allowed for a one week stay. I have been known to take a roll home for the next trip. For example, there are only 2 of us staying in a 2 bedroom and the next time there will be 6--I feel we have paid maintenance for 6 both times. When we left China, we brought back kleenex and tissue we had brought, but left clothing, converters, a purse. Made no sense.

 

[Kel]

I like to use my own soap, shampoo, lotions, etc. I don't like the smell of a lot of the lotions and shampoos they put in hotel rooms. The only thing I like is a bar of soap for the bathroom sink. And, I bring my own blow dryer.

 

[nicklinneh]

OUR CHURCH collects these items from parishioners and forwards them to a local homeless shelter. -ken

 

[pjrose]

Our TS provides decent-sized bars in the tub/shower, and smaller ones at the sinks. Some of the housekeepers throw out the partly used bars and replace them with new ones. (Some leave the partly used bars in the soap dish, so I don't know what the policy is.)

I do like having soap available, and I'm happy with what they provide, but I'll bet it'd be a lot less wasteful and less expensive to have some kind of liquid shower-soap dispenser on the shower wall.

 

[Glynda]

Soap etc.

I look and am impressed if the toiletries are a name I recognize to be "upscale" but I bring my own Dove bar for bathing and my own shampoo and conditioner.

We're at Bluegreen's Big Cedar now and they have a basket of Gilchrist & Soames products (shampoo, conditioner, body butter and soap) on each bathroom sink. We had mid-week cleaning service yesterday and they took away the barely used bars of soap and bottles of shampoo and completely replaced them. THAT was a waste!

 

[AwayWeGo]

Compact Fluorescent Timeshare Bulb Snatchers.

And how twisted is it for the bulb snatcher to go to such premeditated lengths? Shucks, it would have been lots less trouble just to swipe the good bulbs outright, leaving empty lamp sockets, than to bring along a bunch of burnt-out bulbs for the specific purpose of switching.

A professional timeshare resort manager in Florida recently reported that (a few) unit occupants have been unscrewing the energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs out of the the lamps & fixtures & replacing those with old-fashioned energy-wasting conventional light bulbs -- as though resort staff wouldn't catch on.

Hard to understand why folks would resort to such low-level larceny, now that prices on those cute little twisty bulbs have come way, way down.

In any case, what makes it specially vexing to the timeshare resort, in addition to the cost of replacing stolen twisty bulbs, is that the resort gets an energy conservation discount from Florida Power in exchange for replacing all the incandescent bulbs in the whole resort with low-energy compact fluorescents. So if too many low-energy bulbs revert to high-energy bulbs because of larceny & the power company finds out about it, the timeshare's price break on electricity could become endangered.

To cope, the resort manager is sending somebody with a clipboard into each unit to run a check-out check-list of all the lamps & fixtures. Reported bulb snatchers will then be billed for compact fluorescent bulbs to replace the 1s the snatchers took home as souvenirs.

I'm guessing it would be a good idea also to install little placards -- someplace where unit occupants will notice them -- briefly explaining the deal with the power company & putting occupants on notice that somebody with a clipboard will be going through the units after the occupants check out.

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

 

[Beaglemom3]

I don't use any of the toiletries provided in TS's or hotels - I prefer my own brands, but I do take them home and donate them to the high school football team's locker room!
and O

UR CHURCH collects these items from parishioners and forwards them to a local homeless shelter. -ken
__________________
http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/5001/21us.gif

I do similar.
My fitness club (Longfellow Club-Sudbury, Ma.) periodically has a big collection drive and donates them to our troops overseas and in VA & military hospitals. The thank you cards are beyond touching. I also take them to homeless shelters/halfway houses in between drives. I travel a lot !
When I tell the housekeepers about this at different resorts, they always make sure I get a couple/few more.
Beags

 

[PStreet1]

We, too, usually collect the ones PLACED IN OUR UNIT, and donate them; sometimes we use them. I was stunned when an acquaintance, with a lot of money, said they always take the extra toilet paper and kleenix--maybe that's how they got so much money, one toilet paper roll at a time.