Comments on Coast to Coast free three day offer

[agesilaus]

Just like many of you I have been getting the free three days of camping emails and deleting them as the arrived. But we finally decided to check out their offer:
1) They had a hard time sending us a confirmation email.
2) We were south of the twin cities in Mankato with the idea of heading north. They sent us to an urban park just north of the twin cities called Ham Lake. A hit against them before we even got there.
3) Ham Lake resort is old. Has twisty dirt roads and the lake is almost empty.
4) The check in people put us in a site with the work campers. W/E no sewer. Full sun no shade. There are plenty of open shaded spots with FHU so I guess this is a message to Coast to Coast campers.
5) The road in is somewhat long dirt and narrow with trees on both sides. I dread the idea of running into someone pulling an RV going in the opposite way.
6) Even tho old the park is well maintained just not improved.
7) Went to the Coast to Coast presentation:
a) The young guy doing the talk was a terrible salesman.
b) When anyone mentioned the poor sites they were given his answer was: "Its free isn't it?"
c) Coast to Coast was never mentioned that I noticed. Nor was RV camping
d) The whole thrust of the talk was their cabins and time shares
5) At the end he came by and I said "we are campers and are not much interested in cabins of time shares." That was it, he brushed us off and handed my wife forms for two 'free' gift cards. The website was impenetrable and oddly only sort of worked when used on a phone. Still no cards have arrived weeks later.
6) Our fridge was on the blink and we needed a card, which I ordered from Amazon. Turns out the email had the wrong address for the park and we had to get to package returned to sender. Took weeks to finally get the card via a RV dealer im Yankton SD, two stops away and at twice the Amazon cost.

So now you know what to expect.

[LMHS]

My husband and I have been to 2 timeshare presentations and bought one. Supposed to have been part of one of the big timeshare outfits. But we could never use our time any place other than where we bought at (Fontanna Village, NC). We tried to sell it (they said they would buy back) but turned out the salesman lied about everything and it seems that the company wasn't responsible for what the salesman said. We ended up defaulting on the timeshare after 8 years because we couldn't reserve any of the cabins as they were always booked no matter when we tried to reserve, but we could get into the little campground for free for a couple of years, then that stopped being available (they said it was sold but it wasn't as it's still part of Fontanna Village 40 years later). Why should we pay for something they won't let us use. The other timeshare was in Stuart FL. Since we used to live there and still had family in the area, we were very interested in it. The only thing we could tour was a prototype of what the apartments would look like. It all looked great. It was all great until my husband made the mistake of saying that we were there on vacation and we would need to call our banker in NC to make sure the funds were available for us to write a check and for him to run a credit check on the company. That is when things got nasty and the salesman threatened to beat up my husband. My husband tried to diffuse the situation which was something he was normally good at (he used to be a bartender at one of the bars in that area for several years and could always talk the violent drunks down). We left in a hurry. Never had the urge to go to a timeshare presentation again. And those timeshare condos were never built. Like I said, we had family in the same town as well as the neigbouring towns. We asked them several times about the condos. It was apparently a scam. The first one we were lied to. The second one we were threatened with physical harm. I'm a little scared to go to another timeshare presentation.

[agesilaus]

valhalla360 wrote:
Never went but always came across the like other time shares.

Promise lots for free stuff for sitting thru a quick sales pitch. In reality it's a long intense hard sell and you have to argue for your free stuff as they go off on ever wilder sales pitches.

That's the strange part of this CtC sales pitch. We watched a 20 minute video and the inept salesguy just gave up at that point and never even took us on the tour. And the video never mentioned CtC? Getting the freebe was a minor pain but not from that salesman he just handed over the code numbers. I was expecting the car salesman hard sell but we did not get it. Not even the soft pitch.

[valhalla360]

Never went but always came across the like other time shares.

Promise lots for free stuff for sitting thru a quick sales pitch. In reality it's a long intense hard sell and you have to argue for your free stuff as they go off on ever wilder sales pitches.

[ford_truck_guy]

Not RV related answer but I answered one of those once...

drove an hour to take a "tour" of a mountain retreat to get a free set of Ping Golf Clubs ….

Showed up, was paired with a salesman and off we went, after the 1st property, I told hem we were campers and was there for the free clubs..... With that, he turned around, dropped us off at the front and I got my clubs and off we went !

[ferndaleflyer]

Butler I don,t think coffee is free at McDonalds. But maybe someday you will be old, no one paying attention to you and the fellowship of a McDonalds group will be welcomed. But an elitist wouldn't understand I guess.

[agesilaus]

Lwiddis wrote:
I just avoid those “gift or free camping seminars” completely. Why put yourself through that stuff?

A moment of weakness I guess

[ken56]

You have any idea how much a membership is to one of those parks they want to sell you? Hold onto your hat. I am a member of C2C and joined back in 2012 but I had my home park 7 miles away from my home. We used our home park as much as our membership allowed us to. At that time our membership to our home park cost us about 3 grand and we found it to be quite useful. IF there is a C2C park that you might wish to join near you or even at a vacation destination it might be worthwhile for you to join but only you can determine that.

We have used our C2C membership all over the country where there were participating parks and we still use it today when we travel. Some of the parks are older yes. Some are more of the resort type. We stayed at Rushmore Shadows when we went to Mt. Rushmore. VERY nice park. We stay at Abita Springs when we go to New Orleans. Older but pleasant park. We go to Mountain Lakes Resort in Guntersville Alabama. A decent park all about fishing right on Lake Guntersville which is part of the Tennessee river. We are headed to Myrtle Beach in October to a C2C park for 2 weeks...10 dollars a night but the park can add resort fees and 50 amp electric fees and such so it will cost me about 140 dollars more than just the 10 bucks a night for those 2 weeks.

As I said, it's up to you to determine if it would be advantageous to you to join...and you have to have be a member of a home park to join. That's where they get you.

[PButler96]

Lwiddis wrote:
I just avoid those “gift or free camping seminars” completely. Why put yourself through that stuff?

Some folks cant resist standing in line for an hour and a half to get a free $1.75 breakfast lol. What about the geezers who line up 15 minutes prior to opening at Harbor Freight, to get a free $0.99 pocket flashlight with dead batteries, then they go suck up free coffee for hours at McDonalds while taking over the tables.

[Lwiddis]

I just avoid those “gift or free camping seminars” completely. Why put yourself through that stuff?