beluga

beluga

Monday, November 11, 2013

We prostituted ourselves for $135


It all started when we walked into the wrong Visitor's Center in downtown Charleston.  We just wanted some maps and information about places to eat, tours of the historic area and harbor, you know, things like that.

The gentleman behind the counter told us that if we wanted to save about $135 all we had to do was spend less than 90 minutes at a "presentation" by a new hotel in town.    If we did that, we'd get 2 free tickets to a harbor tour, 2 free tickets for a horse drawn historic tour, 2 free tickets to Magnolia Plantation AND a $25 restaurant certificate.     Hmmmmm.

Since we were planning on doing all those things during the next 3 days, we (I) decided it was worth sitting through a little sales talk.  Jeez, those guys don't like to take NO for an answer.   We got the good sales guy/bad sales guy tag team treatment, and finally I got a bit testy (I was hungry, we missed lunch after all) and let them know in no uncertain terms that we weren't buying today.

Long story short, we got all the promised tickets and used our restaurant certificate across the street for a couple Smithwick's and lunch!    It makes for a good story and tomorrow we'll take the carriage ride and the harbor tour so all's well that ends well.


Since we weren't allowed to take any camera's into the presentation, here are a few from the walk from the "Visitor's Center" to the time share presentation.....




carriage traffic jam outside the restaurant




these clean up bags were offered in a church yard.....




6 comments:

  1. Sneaky, sneaky....
    By the way forgot to say thank you for the "cheers' pic you took a few blog posts back for us. Sure did love it. We planned to take one and send it back, but by the time we thought about it we were 2 margaritas into the project and in no state to operate cameras.
    Nina

    ReplyDelete
  2. That title got my attention. Oh but those sales people can be a nasty bunch of people.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love the water fountain thru the gate...nice pictures!
    Nice you survived the sales pitch...now you can enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I would not have expected this kind of sales presentation in Charleston. Good for you making sure you got what you wanted out of the deal.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh, that big gray looks so tired ....hope they were all in good condition and loved tenderly after their hardworking days.

    ReplyDelete
  6. We did that a couple of years ago in Sedona. Our goal was a free helicopter ride. We sat through the video, toured a couple of properties, and then when they started trying to make us buy something, we looked them straight in the eye and told them we were only there for the helicopter. They let us go early, so that was good. The helicopter ride was worth every minute of the sales pitch. Great pictures of Charleston, it's a beautiful city.

    ReplyDelete