The lure of the modern time share: a vacation the kids will want to go on

THE BALTIMORE SUN

PAY FOR IT, AND THEY WILL COME. That was the part of the pitch that caught my attention.

My husband and I had been sitting in the salesman's air-conditioned office for more than the 90 minutes that was required of us in exchange for this free weekend at the resort.

We'd been listening -- well, I had been listening -- to the salesman's high-speed lecture on the value of purchasing a time share. You pay what amounts to the price of a nice used car for the right to vacation for one week at this or some other fancy resort -- forever. (Some restrictions apply.)

My husband was acting the way most husbands act during these sales pitches. He sat there like a stone -- you couldn't have detected a pulse -- while the salesman babbled on. He didn't want to be there. He'd rather have been getting a colonoscopy. And he made that abundantly clear without ever saying a word.

For the entire 90 minutes he was silent. He just kept watching the slide show on the salesman's computer screen.

Finally, I said to the uneasy salesman, "Pay no attention to that man in the chair. Talk to me. I'm the decider."

Salesmen still haven't learned to establish eye contact with the wife, I thought. They still think the guy is in charge. Even if it is a van for me, the car salesman can't help but talk to him.

Anyway, there were a lot of numbers on the chalkboard in front of us, and I was starting to think this whole time-share idea might be doable.

We'd saved our pennies, but there was no way we'd ever be able to purchase beachfront property south of the Crimean Sea.

Even if we had the $3.2 mil, I didn't want the work of keeping up a second house. I didn't want to worry every hurricane season. And I didn't want to feel guilty if I didn't spend every spare weekend driving there.

Time shares had cleaned up their act, I knew, since the days when the ownership might go bankrupt or let the upkeep lapse.

According to the American Resort Development Association, about half of time-share buyers are baby boomers like us, and it's because brand names we trust, such as Hilton and Marriott, have gotten into the game.

And the new time-share model allows owners to travel to different locations at different times of the year, instead of being stuck going to the same place during the same week every year.

But then the salesman said the magic words: "It is a way to get the kids to vacation with you."

Book your time-share week in some sexy place like Cancun or Aruba, and suddenly a week with the 'rents doesn't seem like such a loser idea to the kids.

This year, we will go to the Delaware shore again. Same as we have the past, I don't know, 25 years. Only this year, the kids aren't coming.

Well, Jessie might show up for a day or so -- it's not that much of a drive for her friends to join her. But Joe isn't going to make it. He'd rather use his hard-won vacation days for something else.

As the draw of family weakens, I thought, it will need to be sweetened with something else. Something exotic. Something adventurous. Or at least something different.

For two decades, there had been comfort in the traditions of our family vacations. Now, I suspected, the sameness had become boring. Once the kids could make plans of their own, two weeks of sand and surf with the family had lost its hook.

At the end of the pitch, the salesman left the room for the requisite 15 minutes of private time, for my husband and I to make a decision.

"I bet there are cameras on us," my husband said, finally speaking.

When the salesman returned, we signed. He said 99 out of 100 couples do. I am guessing that 99 out of 100 boomers want something that will lure their kids -- and eventually, the grandkids -- on vacation with them. That was what did it for me.

"Your husband," the salesman whispered when he took me aside. "He is very quiet. I have never met anyone like him. Most men say something. They cannot help but say something.

"He must have a very high IQ."

"Yeah," I said. "That's it."

susan.reimer@baltsun.com

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