"Vacation Ownership"

The following blog post may take 90-120 minutes to read...possibly longer, depending on interest...but if you do somehow finish reading the entire post, it WILL change your life!!!

Back in June, our family was on one of our occasional trips to the "Fishing Store" (a.k.a. Bass Pro Shop) when we were approached by a salesman who enthusiastically invited us to enjoy a luxurious family vacation at the Bass Pro Shop's premier resort in Branson, MIssouri. For just $59 up-front, we could enjoy two nights' accommodations at Big Cedar resort. PLUS we would receive two $25 Bass Pro Shops gift cards! The only catch was, that we must agree to attend a 90-minute tour of Big Cedar resort during our stay so that we could "see how great it was" and "tell our friends all about it". Great deal, right? We thought so, anyway. We took the bait, coughed up the 59 bucks and scheduled our resort vacation. We picked the first weekend in October for the trip. The kids didn't have school that Friday, so we figured we could drive to Branson after school on Thursday and come home whenever we wanted on Saturday. It was going to be great! Justin finished his last dental appointment at 1:30 Thursday afternoon, drove home, packed up, and we were on the road by 3:15.

Branson is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Lake Ozark, so we thought we'd get to the lodge somewhere around dinner time and then find someplace to eat. We followed the GPS to the address on our reservation confirmation letter, which took us through downtown Branson and led us straight to....the Radissson? What? This can't be right. Where's Big Cedar Lodge? This looks nothing like the website. Where's the horseback riding? Where's the lake with the canoes? Where's the mini-golf course? Where are the heated pools? No, this certainly was not a mountain resort lodge. This was a downtown Radisson hotel, with nothing but a few landscaping rocks and bushes for scenery. We were perplexed.

Justin pulled out his cell phone and dialed the phone number for the salesman at Bass Pro. The woman who answered the phone said that the particular salesman who sold us the vacation no longer works there. We spoke with a supervisor. The supervisor said that he was sorry about the "misunderstanding", but while the 90-minute time share presentation was indeed at the Big Cedar Resort, our accommodations were at the Radisson in downtown Branson. Woah. We certainly were not expecting that. Nothing had ever been mentioned about our accommodations being anywhere but at Big Cedar. What a disappointment! Now, don't get me wrong. The Radisson is a nice hotel. We probably would have been fine staying there if we hadn't already spent months perusing Big Cedar's website, making plans and telling our kids all about fishing at the lake, swimming in the heated pool and playing mini-golf for three days and two nights. What was there to do at the Radisson? We decided to wait until after dinner to check in to the hotel.

We ate at Fuddruckers. While there, we called Big Cedar to see how much a room there cost. Maybe we could just pay our own way and forget the stupid tour....$425 a night!?! No, that wasn't going to fly. We headed back to the Radisson. On our way back, we got pulled over for a missing taillight cover that had fallen off the van on the way to TOFW a few weekends ago. No, we hadn't gotten it fixed yet, and apparently now every time we hit the brakes we were blinding people behind us with the open high-beam light. Luckily, the officer was nice to us and just told us to get it fixed. No ticket.

We got back to the Radisson lobby around 8:00p.m.. The vice-presidential debate was on t.v., and two grumpy old men were sitting there watching it, with the volume quite low. Justin and I headed to the check-in desk where we explained to the nice ladies there all about the dishonest salesman at Bass Pro, and how we had a very clear understanding that we were supposed to be actually staying at the Big Cedar Resort, not just touring it. While the sympathetic desk-workers were doing all they could to make things right, my children, tired and restless from the long trip and late hour were dragging our roller suitcases in circles around the lobby. I really thought they were behaving pretty darn well and were proud of them for keeping their voices low and not running around climbing the walls or anything totally crazy. Apparently, my standard for behavior is lower than other people's, however, because one of the grumpy old men watching the vice-presidential debate turned around in his chair and shouted, "Hey! Could you kids be quiet?" Excuse me? I couldn't believe the nerve of that guy! If he wanted to listen to the debate, why didn't he just go up to his hotel room? Or at least turn up the volume so he could hear better? What did he expect from a busy hotel lobby? I was so bugged. Luckily, at that moment, the lady at the check-in desk announced that she had pulled some strings and gotten us a room at the Big Cedar Resort! What a relief. So, as late as it was, and as tired and grumpy we all were at this point, we loaded up into the van one last time. We had to stop at Wal-Mart on the way though and buy a pack and play because we weren't sure they'd have one at the Lodge. By around 10:00p.m. we were pulling in at the beautiful Big Cedar Resort. We were all ready to get some sleep and wake up Friday morning with a fresh start on this so-far rocky family vacation.

The resort certainly was everything it promised to be. The view of the lake was beautiful, the accommodations were top-notch, the facilities, pools, walking trails, and restaurants were fabulous. We woke up early on Friday and spent some time walking by the lake, and around the lodge, playing on the playground, and eating at the bakery. Then, Eden and I went back to the room for a morning nap while the boys went to the pool with Justin.

Our Accommodations....Finally:



The view from our room:

Another view of the lake:


Some sorry attempts at a family photo, using the timer setting and an unopened pack-n-play box as a tripod: (where are you when we need you, Erin Summerill??)

"Everybody quick! Look at the camera before it...takes...the...picture...."

Austin watching a boat go by:

I'm receiving inspiration in this one...see? My face is all lit up:

Where did Austin go?

Checking out the mini-golf course, playground and bakery:






Our 90-minute tour was scheduled to begin at 12:30. There was a supervised play area provided for the boys to stay in while we attended the presentation. We started out in a little room full of people where a sales rep named Keith told the story of the boy and the starfish....the one where even though there were more starfish on the beach than he could possibly save, he was going to try to save as many as he could by throwing them into the ocean one at a time. Keith then told us that he was selling "vacation ownership" in order to change people's lives. Even if he couldn't save everyone, he wanted to do everything he could to help as many people as possible afford dream vacations they otherwise could not afford. After Keith explained the program, we were then handed over to our own personal tour guide named Michael Scott (no, seriously, that was his name) who showed us a couple of lodge rooms and told us what everything would cost. The 90-minutes we were planning to spend on the "tour" came and went and we were still hearing the pitch. TWO AND A HALF HOURS LATER...we were finally done, only after saying "no" to as many different "final offers" as one might expect to hear from a used car salesman. It was really rather infuriating. To be honest, Justin and I both kind of liked the whole idea of "vacation ownership". We liked the "point" system that allowed members to stay at different resorts all over the world at any time of the year. What we didn't like, was that in order to be able to use the "points" the way we wanted to, we had to buy in to the program THAT DAY. If we waited until we were actually able to go home and think things over, or until a little later down road when we had paid off some of our student loans, we would lose the ability to stay at any of the other resorts and we would only be able to vacation at Big Cedar. So, even if we might have been tempted to invest in their system of "vacation ownership", the mere fact that they were pressuring us to buy in now or never was enough to turn us off entirely. It didn't help either that the offer kept getting better and better each time we said "no". Points that started out costing over $3 a piece dropped in price to $2, then $1, and finally we were offered to enter into a "trial period" where we could purchase 9,000 single-use "trial" points for $900 with the option to buy into the ownership program at any time during the next 12 months and still get the charter to use points at other resorts....oh wait....but earlier he said that if we didn't buy TODAY there was NO WAY we could ever get the ability to stay at other resorts. Hmmmm. That's weird. So totally bogus, I tell you! By that point, it really didn't matter how good the deal was, we weren't about to buy anything from this company! Justin stood up, basically called the guy a liar, picked up our Bass Pro gift cards, and we left.

This sign was across the highway from the entrance to Big Cedar. Justin and I had to laugh:

By the time we got out of the sales beating, we barely had enough time to stop at Wal-Mart to return the pack 'n play (the resort ended up having one and we were done using the box as a tripod, so we didn't need the one we bought anymore) and buy some red tape to cover our exposed taillight before heading to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede dinner & show that started at 4:45. We got to the dinner show a little disgruntled. The kids were all over-tired and melting down, Justin and I were still fuming about the timeshare speel and we weren't completely sure that the Dixie Stampede was going to be worth the $170 we had forked out for tickets. To our delight, the show was wonderful, the food was deluctable, and the expense was well worth it. Finally, things were looking up for us on our Branson vacation. For dinner, they served a ton of food, including a whole rotisserie chicken for each person. Brock took a look at the chicken on his plate, looked at me and asked, "Mom, is that a pig?" I laughed pretty hard. We brought home A LOT of leftovers. After the show, we decided to go for one last swim before tucking the kids in for bed.

Blurry Branson (This is what Branson would have looked like BEFORE I got Lasik!):


Austin eating a leftover chicken on the way home:

One last swim:




Yes, even Eden enjoyed the waterslide!!!



This morning, I woke up with an epiphany. What exactly does the term "vacation ownership" mean? Being able to invest in something that is of value, that allows you to go where you want, when you want to go. A place that will accommodate your family in comfort and style. As I thought it over, I suddenly came to realization that what we really need isn't a membership at some fancy resort club. All we really need is an RV!!!

On the way home, I asked Brock what he liked most about our vacation in Branson. He said, "We got to swim at the pool, sleep in a really cool hotel and watch cartoons all day!" What more could you want?