If anyone ever receives a phone call, fax or ground mail package from these people... Hang up or throw it in the garbage and dont think you missed out on any great deals!
After receiving the video in the mail along with all the other official looking brochures and other details, I was pretty stoked on this vacation. However, 5 days prior to our departure a representative called to advise that they overbooked the cruise on the Imperial ratsnest - the Regal Empress and that our dates had been pushed back by 2 days which completely changed all of our plans we had made around this.
Granted, they gave us an upgrade to a Wyndham Resort called the Bonaventure Resort and Spa. Ten years ago, this might have been an upgrade, but the place was falling apart and was maybe a 2.5 star venue.in any event, we were required to go on a timeshare tour where we got a rather soft-sell from a very nice lady who was surprised they put us up at such a nice place as the Bonaventure.
It appears that RCI (the timeshare exchange group) uses the Ramada Plaza people as bait for their timeshares tours and pay a portion of the cost of your vacation.in hindsight, that cant be much money considering the fleabag accomodations that Ramada Plaza puts people up in.
Later that day, we embarked on our cruise aboard the Regal Empress. Apparently, this is the official cruiseline of RPR... Well, with only one ship... It's hardly a cruiseline. We paid for an upgrade to an outside cabin thinking that we would get a nice view. Rather we got a dinky little cabin with two single beds with mattresses from the 60's and porthole with a windy so filthy you could even see outside.
The saving grace was that the food aboard was great and our cabin-boy (likely an underpaid, overworked illegal immigrant) was extremely pleasant and helpful. The casino and nightlife was pretty fun too and we won some money out of the deal.
Our real beef with the whole vacation came with trying to get some additional restitution from RPR with regards to the complete change in our travel plans. We probably called 6 different times and asked to speak to supervisors each time and were told they would call back... This never happened. The call centre staff were extremely rude and lacked basic intelligence and lifeskills.in the end, we got nowhere and embarked on our trip hoping to be surprised by the upgrade that they gave us at the Bonaventure... Which was nice, but definitely a run-down, once-beautiful resort with a pool and an ex-Linda Evans' spa.
When we got to Orlando to redeem our next voucher to stay at the Amerihost, we found out that there was another scheme there where they hooked you into another timeshare outfit called Interval International (no doubt a spin-off from RCI). If you sat in on their timeshare salespitch, they would pay you $128US in lieu of free Disney tickets.
What occurs to me as interesting is that Ramada Plaza Resorts seem to simply be a marketing company for these timeshare companies to suck folks from all over the world into coming to Florida to buy-up flea-bag motels, hotels and used-up, beat-up accomodations so that the owners wont have to refurbish them or otherwise lose their investment.
In the one timeshare presentation, they tried to get us to buy into a new development for US$11K for a one-week share for a two-bedroom condo in the far west-end of Ft. Lauderdale. This means that the place was selling for US$572K which seems absurd to me. However, it got more interesting... When we told them we werent interested, they tried to sell us condos on the beach that they said were repo's from bankruptcies, marriage breakdowns, etc for US$6K.
Well, luckily we just werent interested in buying property in hurricane-ravaged south Florida because we found out later that these places were not repo's, but rather were so badly damaged by the hurricanes that people could no longer afford the upkeep and some had simply walked away from them. Therefore, please watch out for these timeshare people as they will sell you anything including the fact that they live in the area... Most of them are used-up, used-car salesperson or realtors looking to make a quick buck. The people we dealt with were nice, but there were others who got the cheesy hard-sell jokers who wouldnt take no for an answer.
I can help but think that the timeshare companies and RPR are somehow in kohutz together regarding poor real estate deals everywhere in Florida and other parts of the USA where they are allowed to operate. Only in the enterprising USA, would such sleezy people get away with the types of things that we experienced and those additional examples cited in this website. I only wished I had done this research prior to ever dealing with these jokers and hopefully this and other reports get out there to people everywhere.
David
Calgary, Alberta
Canada
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