My advice to you is to Run from these people! What you say means nothing to them unless you want to buy their facades and empty promises.
Here is our story: A woman approached me and my children as we left the restaurant to go to the car. My husband was paying the bill. She wanted to give us tickets to the local amusement park if we would go to the "presentation." I was noncommittal and told her it was our last day of vacation and that we already had tickets. She stated that we'd be out in about 90 minutes and that she would give us $80 in cash instead of the tickets. She used the money to talk to our kids about having $80 to spend at King's Dominion. They were going crazy. Still non-committal, I awaited my husband who was ambushed when he came out.
She was going to give us a free vacation too. The destinations were ho-hum and not ones I would take even if it were given to me. I guess that's why they also had St. Thomas Virgin Islands inserted in the list for the vacation giveaway. This woman clearly and deceptively enticed us - made us think we'd just listen to a presentation then walk out with $80 dollars and a free vacation to St. Thomas. We thought OK - if that's all we have to do. We were NOT greedy for any of this! She was the greedy one - determined to invade our vacation and do whatever she could to get us to comply. Then she said we'd have to pay a $20 deposit which we'd get back after the "presentation."
I was a little concerned because up until that moment she never mentioned that we'd pay something up front. The next day we get to the place - loud music is playing - I felt like cattle at the stockyard just being processed with phony people acting like we're the greatest thing ever. We were wary and skeptical as we awaited the "presentation." It almost felt cultish. Some of the "salespeople" gave me the creeps - I just wanted to fufill the minimal requirement, get our $ and go. We got there at 8:30 and were still there at 11:30.
We'd sat through an infomercial type presentation while our kids were in daycare (this wore on us heavily as the time passed - after all this was our day to go to Kings Dominion and here we were being held captive.) We were taken on a tour which meant nothing to me or my husband and then back to a table to discuss our travel preferences and packages.
We told our guide that it was 11 o'clock - we just wanted to get our kids and go. We did not have the type of $ to invest. She said that her manager would be by to see us to "confirm" that she'd told us everything (what a crock!) and then she left us waiting. She told us that she wanted four referrals. It appeared that it was just going to keep getting more and more involved. We were beginning to lose our cool.
You know in the "presentation" they talked about the reason that vacations are taken so that we can spend time with our families. Yeah right - they certainly were not helping us do that at all! We got up and found our guide and told her that we weren't waiting anymore. It was the last day of our vacation and we'd been told the night before it was not going to go over 90 minutes and here it was 3 hours and counting! This cocky hispanic looking man told us that we wouldn't get our "gifts" - my husband looked him in the eye and said you tell my kids that! He said fine - go get your kids. Which my husband did.
(We later found out that the daycare wasn't going to let our baby stay in the daycare because she wasn't potty trained (a topic never discussed with us prior to leaving her) and my 12 year old daughter was wandering up and down the halls trying to find us. They claimed to have paged our guide, but she never called back. Some man took my children back to the daycare and told the daycare workers to let the baby stay - they resisted at first, according to my daughter, but the man overruled them. (I wish I'd known this was going on - we'd have been gone quick!)
Since we were beginning to make a scene and say that this "presentation" had gone way beyond what we were told, our kids were hungry and wanting to go to Kings Dominion, and their time was up, some man (must've been a manager with ranking) came and took us to the "cashier" who gave us our $20 deposit plus the $80 cash we were promised. We felt like we were escaping from jail. She also gave us the "free vacation" brochure which very interestingly DID NOT have the St. Thomas, Virgin Island destination listed! On the way home we told our kids to never get excited about the "bait" that the lady offered the night before.
We flung the "free vacation" voucher out the window with a smile! It felt so damned good! We were angry about 1) how the first lady used our kids to get us to do what she wanted. 2) How she said we'd be out in 1 1/2 hours 3) How she stated the St. Thomas destination would be a viable offer for the free vacation when in reality it was not on the list we were given at the end of the "presentation." (I resent some one on an earlier rebuttal stating that people should not agree to go to one of these things and that we're greedy for saying yes.
These vultures do NOT stop at no the first time! They rearrange their offers until you simply agree to their enticement just to get them off your back! So shame on those people - if you (the vulture) would listen to us the first time - you'd back off. That's ok - should there ever be a next time my husband and I plan to get very rudely graphic and make a terrible scene!)
We got out of there without signing a thing! We got what we were promised, but we practically had to go into "fight" mode to get it.
These people don't care if it's your last day of vacation or if you are financially able to successfully do this - THEY DON'T CARE!!! They say no pressure; bull! They will try to show you all the things you want, get you excited, admit that you want to vacation and you deserve to vacation, and try to wow you with the presidential suite. I was only impressed with the living room area and the kitchen and dining room.
My thought is why do you need to cook in when you're on vacation anyway? We are far more classy than whatever it is Fairfield could offer. Shame on you Fairfield for scamming nice vacationing families just trying to spend a little quality time together. Believe me we did not want to say yes to you and did so only to get you off our back and to get $80 for your bugging us to go to that useless "presentation."
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