The Winner Beware

Usually when your friend tells you she’s going on vacation, you have a twinge of jealousy in your voice when you say, ”Have a fun trip!” Well no one should envy me. Without reading the fine print (mistake number one) I was selected from a “drawing” at my local Bennigan’s Restaurant for a trip to Williamsburg, VA. In my mind I think,”OK, safe enough to win something like this. It’s not a trip to Paris or Bahamas where things could get messy.” We had never been to this part of Virginia, so what the heck? Yes, it could have been a lot worse, but c’mon!

The representative on the phone said something about an Inn and something about a plantation. We win 2 gift cards to Bennigan’s. We get $150 gift card to spend there. All we have to do is secure $75.00 on a credit card and we’ll get that money back when we get there. So what’s the catch? We have to sit through a presentation of the wonders of timeshare ownership. We’d done something similar before and survived. All the details would be in the e-mail, no sweat.

Maybe you think I’m an idiot. I can’t help it. I have an insatiable need to travel. It’s free, we’d work out any kinks, right? Well…

So in the e-mail there is no mention of where we are staying. Just a map of the area with a big star at the Plantation House. I figure that’s where they want us to go. There is no phone number included in the e-mail, but I figure if I really wanted to get in touch with someone I could e-mail them. Things seemed self–explanatory…

 

So the stress starts with the dog. I found a kennel to take our dog Samantha. I could not submit my friend to all the trouble of dog watching this time. This kennel stuff was new to me, but was so proud when I handed the lady my rabies papers and kennel cough, bla bla bla. “Has she been treated for fleas?” she asks. Ugh, the one thing I forgot. She gets a little cranky, but agrees to keep her after a passing inspection. She comments on how spoiled she is and drags her away. Okay, now I’m wondering if all this should really happen. Reluctantly, I go home and finish packing. We leave around 12:00 in the afternoon and hope to make good time. Within 30 minutes, we encounter traffic and for the most part, it’s a slow go the rest of the way. Living in Southeastern PA, it takes about five hours to get down to Williamsburg. Eight hours later, we finally get into town and the map that was provided turned out to be very confusing. Tired and stressed, I enter a convenience store and a friendly employee tells me she'll help me in a minute. As I'm standing there a strung out man is staring at me. I smile politely and he walks behind me.

After a minute, he whispers, "I'm so nervous." So I bite. "Why?" I ask. "'Cause that cop is outside, and I'm so @&#*  up right now."

"Well, you should be nervous. Why don't you get some coffee." I teasingly say. At that, the nice lady begins to help me and I quickly exit. I start to wonder, does that happen a lot in Virginia?

After receiving wrong directions we finally arrive at the Plantation House. The snooty receptionist tells my husband he was not to come there, but go to the Patriot Inn where we are supposed to be staying. When we get there, there are no rooms. The lady informs us we will have to have a room where we just came from and gives us a room number there. Back at the Plantation House the snooty girl says she’ll check if they have any available and takes her time. Announcing they did have something, she gives us the keys to the same room we told her we were assigned.

The room was very nice so no problems there. We woke early the next day to meet our "guide" who would take us on a tour of Williamsburg and then back to the office to make us feel like lowlifes for wasting his time. Colonial Williamsburg, from the car, looked like a nice place to spend time if your kids are older and might actually care you're spending money to look at old crap. I did learn in the 1930s John Rockefeller stumbled upon Williamsburg, which had become abandoned and overgrown. Because of him, it's the money hungry tourist attraction it is today.

 

Well, the fun began when we went back to the office and our guide Wes started out nice, and by the end became a monster. He started twisting what we were saying to prove his point on how we would benefit from wonders of a timeshare. He got backup and we still wouldn't budge. Then, when we thought we could finally get our day started at 2:00 he tells us to exit through a certain door to receive our "prizes" and we get hit with one more person chaining us to our chair and reselling it all over again. Remember what we were "promised"? The only things we got were a $75.00 giftcard with our $75.00 deposit put on it. (That's the $150 I mentioned earlier--interesting how they word things.) We were only to get 1 Bennigan's $25.00 gift card but since they didn't have any they added that amount to the card. I am not ungrateful, I just like to get what I'm promised. When I mentioned this to Wes, he pretty much said to shut up and be happy with what I got. We got out as soon as we could to recover and get on with our lives.

The only plus to the trip was the city of Hampton, about 20 minutes from Williamsburg. The beautiful town on the Chesapeake Bay is also the home of the Virginia Air and Space Museum. It's the home of the Apollo 12 Command Module and and a DC-9 passenger jet you can go into. We had a great time. Then to dinner on the patio of a nice hotel by the water. The crab quesidillas were so good.

We left early the next day to encounter more miles of traffic on the way home. We survived (gameboys helped) and our dog Samantha survived too.  We discovered how creative the people of Virginia are with their license plates.  We had a lot of fun reading them on the way home. But the important thing is, I learned a valuable lesson: I like being home. I don't need to travel to have a good time. Whether it's long delays at an airport or never ending traffic woes, it's not worth taking multiple vacations for us. I'll take playing Candy Land at home any day.