We woke up early enough to get ready for a sales pitch we
had signed up for at the time we arrived to the hotel. The reason we signed up for it was to get a
$100 credit at the hotel restaurant and two free breakfast vouchers. The lady at the concierge said that it would
take 90 minutes or so and we were not obligated to buy anything. I assumed it was the standard time share type
sales pitch and I know I have no need for a time share, so it would be 90
minutes for basically $130 or so.
Before the pitch we went to the breakfast restaurant and
ate. They have a buffet for $17 a person not including tax and tip. Like most
people I cannot eat $17 worth of breakfast food nor can Daniela so we ordered
off the menu more reasonably. I assume
the vouchers will be for the buffet. I
had a bagel and bacon and Daniela had the all American. She had orange juice
and I had coffee (hers came with coffee too).
We took maybe about 20 minutes and that got us just in time for the
appointment.
We had to fill out some paperwork then we were brought
upstairs to the penthouse where we received a different sales pitch than I was
expecting. Instead of trying to sell a time share they were selling something
called Eccentry Holidays. The idea is that you pay a membership cost and then
$200 a year and get vastly discounted prices on 4 and 5 star accommodations
around the world. When I say vastly
discounted they were showing things like $300 a week or so for many of the
places. It would be required to rent for 7 nights/8 days. They have their own
deals with lots of properties and it all in all sounds like a great deal. The
sales guy was very personable. Former golf pro on Carnival cruise ships. The pitch also brought a short tour of the
property but not much really. A quick look at a renovated condo style room at
the Newport Beachside which is an older hotel.
In the end it actually took about 3 hours to get through everything and
we did not buy in. The suggested startup
price for 3 weeks as he presented it to us was a bit over $10000 because of
Daniela’s student idea (said it was supposed to be for 2 weeks but he could
toss another one in). By the way it was the manager that did the offering and
not the sales person. I think 3 weeks
typical would be $20000 when I looked at the charts he was pushing around. We didn’t do it because first it is insane to
commit to something like that. Second we will be doing more Peru travel than
anything else. Third there is a limitation to the dates of availability of a
property it appeared. In any event we earned our dinner and breakfast credits
through it all.
After the pitch we walked out to find lunch and went to a
Colombian restaurant named Meg Chuzo which is apparently a slang term for
Colombian shish kebab. I had something called a maicito which was a mixed bowl
of grilled chicken with yellow corn, cheese and a few other things and was
quite tasty. I had one Presidente and one Aguila beer each because the
Presidente on draft ran out. Daniela got
a soup and an arepa which is meat on a corn tortilla. However the soup was so filling we took the
arepa home. She had a passion fruit
juice too.
After lunch we walked to the supermarket and bought some
water, fruit and cheese then headed back to the hotel. We got changed and headed down to the ocean.
It was still very very windy out so we tested the water
which was warm but ended up in the outdoors Jacuzzi for a little while then in
the regular pool for a while as well.
They both were heated as far as I could tell. After a long while in the pool we got back to
the room and showered and dressed and got a quick dinner at the restaurant bar
at the pier because we were trying to be quick so Daniela could Skype with her
sister. Unfortunately her sister got detained and we rushed for little reason.
We sat out on the pier area at first but it was too windy and moved to a place
protected by the building. There I had a bacon cheeseburger and Daniela had a
grilled chicken panini. I had an iced
tea and Daniela had a hot tea. They had
a guy playing guitar and girl signing which was nice. The food was ok but nothing spectacular. They
did serve me rare like I asked though. One thing to notice in Miami is that
every restaurant includes tip in their totals so far. So if you come down here
make sure you read the receipts and don’t double tip the staff.
After dinner we went back to the hotel. Daniela had to do
some work on the laptop and I decided to head to bed.
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