Question re: "RV Camping Resort" time-shares at Lake Havasu?

[RimCountry]

We got a phone call the other day from an outfit called Colorado River Adventures telling us that we had won a bunch of stuff... $100 gas certificate, a 10" android tablet and 20 free nights camping... all we need to do is sit through an "exciting" 90-minute presentation on their two members-only campgrounds, one on the Colorado River just below Parker Dam (Emerald Cove Resort), and the other just up the highway on the lake (Havasu Springs Resort).

Now, we've done these time-share things before, mostly for condos and destination resorts, so we're going into this with eyes wide open... we've perfected that glazed-over "we're watching the clock and we ain't buyin' nothin'" look, so that's not a problem. I'm more interested in any actual camping experiences that anyone may have had at either of these locations.

The brochures they send sure make the places look nice, and the cover letter goes on about modern, convenient amenities and friendly staff and all, and the websites, although a little sparse on the photography, are done fairly well. What's got us most interested in putting ourselves through all of this modern, convenient and friendly excitement is the 20 days free camping that they say we've won, and we can use them at whichever of the two resorts we choose, and take a full calendar year to use them.

So, we'd just be interested in finding out if anyone knows whether or not these places are nice enough to be worth the trouble. Oh, and there's another thing... I didn't see any photos of pop-ups in their promotional material (it does say "no tents"), just rows and rows of $400K rigs with $40K SUVs parked nearby. When we called the sales office and asked about pop-ups, she didn't seem to know the term. For this or any other reason, does anyone think we should avoid these places and just stay with any one of the great state parks in the area...?

[v10superduty]

We got "invited" to one of these presentations way back in 92 on our first trip we ever took. Had no idea then...
I still get mad at myself when I think we wasted about 4 hours of our limited time in Hawaii. All for a "free" supper on a boat that made my wife seasick. :R

Nothing worth anything in life is FREE and even at minimum wage rates, these spiels are not worth 15 minutes of my time. I would rather go and earn some money and pay for my campsite

No disrespect to the OP but I do find it hard to believe anyone would subject themselves to a SECOND one of these sales scams...:h

[RimCountry]

LOL, Phil... sounds like you've been around the block more than once!

I think the worst one we ever sat through was a few years back at a condo complex over in Sedona. When we were still holding firm, mentioning the time and asking repeatedly about the promised freebies after two hours of browbeating, pleading and downright begging, tears and all, the pitchman put away the pictures of his disabled daughter (I kid you not) and brought in The Closer, a swarthy Brooklynite of questionable Sicilian descent, who chose to use insult as his ultimate weapon.

He walked into the room, sat down at the table across from us, slouched forward and took a hard look at my wife's left hand, then asked her if "that" was her wedding ring. It was... it had been there since the day I slipped it on over 35 years ago.

Suzy answered in the affirmative, to which "Vinnie" replied,

"You gotta be kiddin' me... whatta you guys even doin' heah? Tell me da troot... you can't afford dis place even in ya dreams!"

I mentioned that "Vinnie" was Italian and from New York. Well, so am I. Vinnie was also short. I am not. I got a pretty good look at the top of his greasy, balding head as I stood up and came out from behind the table. Had it not been for the calming touch of the left hand that Vinnie had chosen to ridicule, I might have added a fresh assault charge to my long-dormant rap sheet, right there in River City.

You're so right, Phil... what in the WORLD were we thinking!?!?

[Serenlyretired]

One last thought. There has never been a time share presentation finished in 90 minutes in the history of the World. More like 4 hours.

[RimCountry]

Thanks again, everybody... really! We kicked it around last night and decided that your experience trumps our curiosity... we're gonna pass. Given all these restrictions, there's virtually no reason left to put ourselves through an agonizing 90 minutes of hard sell, especially when we had no intention of buying any timeshare membership in the first place, not here, not anywhere, not ever... all we wanted was the free stuff, and if the free stuff can't be used conveniently, well then, to heck with it.

We're thinking that since we have some friends who we haven't seen in awhile up in Kingman, maybe we'll just go see them for a few days, then drop on down to Havasu and see what we can find on our own. Google shows a lot of open countryside along the eastern shoreline of that lake, even what looks to be some private land with a few roads that cut over to the water, and a couple State Parks as backup... kinda do a big loop down to I-10, then cruise on back home through Phoenix. Sounds a whole lot better already!

To "avoidcrowds" of Centennial, CO - Thanks for the tip re: GoogleEarth... I zoomed right down in between the rows of campers at both resorts and didn't see one single pop-up!

[timmac]

I will never waste my time with any time share, big waste of money, I like being a free bird and go where ever and when ever and not tied to a expensive time share and feel that I have to go back to the same place to get my moneys worth.

As for the free stuff I also would not waste my time to deal with high pressure sells.

[Serenlyretired]

At my age (71) I am not about to waste a second of the time I have left at some swindle like this.

[avoidcrowds]

I believe the "free gas" I received at one of these presentations was only for a local station. So, if you never went back to that town, you didn't use all your gas credits. There was a limit to how much you could spend at one time.

Look at the resorts in GoogleEarth. That gives you a better overall picture than their brochures or Websites. I also "won" a stay, near Mt. Rushmore. I looked at it in GE, and decided it wasn't worth the time. We ended up staying in a NF campground, and it was much, much better.

[RimCountry]

Wow... thanks a million... what a racket these guys have going on! As always, you don't get nothin' for nothin', and if you do, that's probably exactly what it's worth! I'll run all this by Suzy and see if we can come up with something better to do with our time off.

[mayo30]

The FREE days are restricted,the gas has severe restrictions in time etc.only $25.00 at a time etc. and I like the part where you are able to hand your membership over to your kids when you die and now they have a whole bunch of more members that are doomed to death to pay annually instead of only you a single membership annually, they now have how many on the hook, nice legacy.

[opnspaces]

You got my interest up so I went looking for an old post about my experience with KQ Ranch which was one of their parks. Here's a link to the post.

Link

[opnspaces]

Never been to those two resorts, but they have/had another in our local mountains that we went to. The place was okay but not great. The things that stood out about the offer was.

If we don't buy now we cannot buy at all for 3 years. Which somehow stretched to can never buy at some point in the sales pitch. So just going for the free weekend and not buying blocks you out for years.


The 20 free days of camping were limited to (if I remember correctly)
no weekends or holidays.
no more than once a month. maybe it was once a four week period I don't really remember. but I do remember that it wasn't anything that a working adult would have any interest in.

[RimCountry]

Thanks, again... and I hope my comments regarding Big Rigs didn't offend. Gotta remember, it's a big world out there! Y'know... if I were still in my 20s, I'd be right down there with 'em from dawn to dusk, burning gas and churning up the river... but I'm not... so I think we'll follow Brian's (bdpreece) lead and take the freebies and run!

I'll also make a note to check and see if there are any pop-ups in the CG.

[bdpreece]

We have stayed at both of these "resorts" and they are not that bad. The big problem is if you really like them and want a membership once you have taken them up on the freebies you are not allowed to purchase a used membership for something like 2 or 3 years and new memberships are in the high thousands. Used can be had for pennies on the dollar. If you are a boater the Emerald cove resort is right on the river. When we stayed there the big power boats start running at daybreak and roar around at full speed till dark. Our biggest complaint was that the park was so heavily used that between the smell from the sewers and the exhaust fumes from the boats we could hardly stand to be outside. They did not like it but we took our freebies and ran.

[globehopper]

yep same here they said i won all this stuff and we were scheduled to go to cherry lakes in socal. we didn't make it i told them no, but they still call. as someone on this forum said if you have a boat it may be worth it. just didn't seem worth the hassle.