With regard to timeshare presentations, there are two thoughts that often come to my mind:

"Nothing in life is free...." and "There's a sucker born every day...."

And I recall both of these quotes as a very happy SXM timeshare owner for about 25 years now give or take....but we bought ours in a location we knew well after 15 years of annual trips to the island at the same time of year and we knew, island-wise, what we were getting, and having already experienced enough of the other Caribbean islands, we knew SXM was IT for us.

We didn't buy it in pursuit of a freebie or go to the presentation out of curiosity but with a genuine desire to see what it was about on SXM and what they were offering. The villa we were thinking of buying was about six times the purchase price of the Towers time then, and we did know the max time we could be on the island at that point in our lives was a week or two at best in any given year.

We had been offered the opportunity a few years before to 'take the timeshare tour at The Pelican and receive a great free gift' for doing it and had refused each of the young men hawking them on Mullet Bay Beach. At this point, I don't remember if they gave us a gift at The Towers presentation or not but it really wouldn't have mattered either way.

We made all the mistakes - we bought directly from the developer but we bought the time of year we wanted, the view we wanted and the unit configuration we wanted. Our big mistake was in not purchasing two weeks in the same unit as opposed to the one we bought at the time but who knew back then if it would even be built? We spent only the amount of money we could afford and/or were willing to lose at the time on something as silly as a Caribbean retreat if things went wrong - no more and no less. And we did go into it all with our eyes open to the fact we might lose it and wouldn't have much leg to stand on trying to get our money back, already having known a friend who lost a bundle in an island property transaction that went bad.

But considering, at the time we were contemplating an island villa purchase, we still feel we got the best deal for us with our timeshare purchase. We've subsequently bought additional weeks on the resale market but to this day the back to back week we wanted has still never become available to us on the resale market and that's about our only regret.

Oh, and btw, the villa we were going to buy that year was ultimately destroyed in the storms of '95 and never rebuilt so to this day I still feel we got the better part of the game and we still hope to enjoy 'our time' for many years to come.

But again, even with the offer of freebies, if I had no plans to buy in the first place, there's no way I would give up a couple of my island vacation hours in pursuit of something for nothing. To each his own, but my vacation time is too valuable to waste on something I probably don't want or need anyway.

Who's to say what the Westin may or may not have given, and I guess the only way to know for sure is to go back and take advantage of the offer (or perhaps have them take advantage of you?).

But again, not saying anyone's right or wrong, and admitting we're all entitled to spend our vacation time in whatever pursuits make us individually happy, I don't get wasting my valuable vacation time on something I know I don't want and never will. But that's me....and again, I have no regrets at all in our purchase beyond those I've already stated here. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />