Top 5 Reasons to Rent a Timeshare: Guest Post

Top 5 Reasons to Rent a Timeshare for your Vacation
by Joann Whetstine of Redweek


The best-kept secret to affording a vacation at a luxury resort is - rent a timeshare. Timeshare rentals are perfect for families, retirees, girlfriend getaways, mancations, and even honeymoons. Here are the top 5 reasons to rent a timeshare for your vacation:

1. Budget-friendly. The amazing thing about renting a timeshare is that on a per person basis it can actually cost up to 50% less than a hotel room. When you rent a timeshare directly from the owner you can get a great deal on your vacation accommodations, allowing you to plan for a wonderful vacation within your budget.

2. Space. Who likes being cooped up in a cramped hotel room? This is especially difficult if you have children. Even a suite at a hotel doesn't give the room that an entire timeshare unit does.
When you rent a timeshare you typically get separate bedrooms, a living room, a dining area, a patio or balcony, at least a couple of bathrooms, and a fully-equipped kitchen. It's like a home-away-from-home. The extra space allows everyone to spread out and relax.

3. Amenities. Timeshares are typically attached to resorts, and the cost of the timeshare rental includes the use of the resort's amenities. You'll be saving money and having fun at the same time. Instead of the one small pool and hot tub generally provided by a hotel, at the resort you'll have the choice of many different swimming pools, often with waterpark features. You'll also find kiddie pools and children's playgrounds. There might be tennis, golf, volleyball, bocci ball, and arcade game rooms.

4. Kitchen convenience. The fully-equipped kitchen can turn out to be one of your favorite features of a timeshare rental. First of all it allows you to save money on meals. You can prepare most meals in your timeshare thus preventing the high cost of eating out at restaurants three times a day. This is also a nice touch for families with food allergies. Eating in your own kitchen away from home means you don't have the worry of communicating food allergies to people in a strange city or country. You'll also enjoy the convenience. It's nice to be able to provide breakfast without having to get every one up, showered, dressed and out the door just for a bite to eat. And it's easy to prepare nutritious and filling snacks through out the day for those constantly hungry youngsters.

5. Availability. Timeshare rentals are available all over the U.S., the Caribbean, Mexico, Canada, Europe, and around the world. When you are planning your vacation, no matter where you intend to travel, you have a good chance of finding a reasonable timeshare rental.

Redweek.com is an online marketplace where owners list their  timeshares for rent. Anyone looking for great accommodations can get a budget-friendly deal. Take a look through the listings and see the incredible bargains that are available:   http://www.redweek.com/timeshare-rentals
.

Ripley's Museum - Niagara Falls

Where can you read about the tallest man ever recorded to have lived? Where can you see the biggest prehistoric shark teeth? Where can you spy a model of the chair a man flew threw the air in a la the movie Up!? A portrait made from dryer lint? Replicas of the strangest grave stones ever and the weird rhymes engraved on them? Why Ripley's __ Believe it or Not! Museum, of course, in Niagara Falls. Located right on the main strip of crazy spectacles dubbed Clifton Hill in the downtown Falls area, this museum can't be missed. The outside is an optical illusion of sorts, built to appear as if the building is tipped sideways (and tricky to photograph) and the inside is a history of the bizarre. For whatever reason, my children are obsessed with the crazy, bizarre, odd trivia contained in Guinness World Books and Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Some of it makes me sick to my stomach over breakfast, usually when they are reading and perusing the garish photographs in said books, but truly if you asked my child what was the name of the tallest person ever, well she would kind of freakishly regurgitate that information. (I think if TV trivia shows are around when she is older like Jeopardy, she may earn her keep yet.) Anyways as my faithful readers know we recently travelled to the Falls for a fun graduation/ end of school vacation weekend at Great Wolf Lodge and Waterpark. We had never been to the Ripley's Museum, and so we decided that we would pay it a visit too. Thanks to Lay's Chip Trips, which I have been blogging about here all summer, we got a discounted deal.

                                          

One free child's admission was good to save us about $7. It was a once, or twice, in a lifetime kind of visit, so it was a fun diversion one night. The place was packed and the line up was very large to get in, so if you visit I might be tempted to do so during the daylight hours on a weekday. The cashier was clearly overwhelmed. For more information on how to get chip trips discounts visit Lays.ca or http://tiny.cc/7hudO The prices of admission vary depending on your age and also the number of Ripley's features you visit. The more Ripley's landmarks that you tour, the lower the amount per entry per person. We only did the one museum, because it was all we had time for that day. The cost of admission per adult there was $13.99 and children were $6.99. Some ages were cheaper. Thriftymommas review $$$ out of $$$$$ (Fun and freakish. To see it, is to believe it. But a bit pricey. Thanks to Lay's Chip Trips for making this one affordable for us. Also note if you are staying at a nearby motel pick up some tourist information that gives you coupons for freebies. We had one with us good for one free wax hand souvenir.)

I am participating in the Lay's Chip Trips program by Mom Central Canada on behalf of Frito Lay Canada. I received Lays Chip Trip points and a gift card to off-set the costs incurred to facilitate this post. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Welcome Wednesday and Waterpark Love

I am bringing Welcome Wednesday here with hopes of introducing more readers to my well received travel blog. Follow http://www.takeitfrom-me.blogspot.com/  for more information about Welcome Wednesday. Also today I am including my water park roundup...As some of you know, I blog for Mom Central Canada and have been promoting Lay's Chip Trips. I posted my review of Great Wolf Lodge, Niagara Falls recently on main blog at http://www.thriftymommastips.blogspot.com/ There are many worthy family-friendly locations at the falls and this one was totally worth the drive. I am a big fan on family water park fun and we have visited a few of these excellent spots. Americana in Niagara Falls is a great one to start with and gets a solid 3-4 stars for price and cleanliness. (Excellent deals on now, also you can get park passes with Lay's Chip Trips. Great Wolf was a blast. I rated that one mostly four and five stars. Amazing catering to families. Storytime was excellent and the rooms adorable. This is a picture of the pool below. Lay's Chip Trips can be used here too. Last year we visited Fort Rapids in Columbus, Ohio and it was a solid 3-4 stars too. The water park was the highlight of that adventure. Rooms left a little to be desired in terms of cleanliness.
 

Kalahari remains on my list of not yet reviewed or visited...but I hear good things. Do you hear that Kalahari? PR welcome here.

Niagara Falls - Americana Review

Three years ago we decided to take our young family to the falls for a fun birthday/graduation celebration. Great Wolf Lodge was fairly new and we were novices at waterparks anyways. Truly, we weren't sure how a little girl with SPD (sensory processing disorder) and a variety of other diagnoses would manage all that input at three-years-old. So we opted for an affordable spot called the Americana Waterpark Resort. Well, we loved it. We stayed there for two nights under $250 a night and visited Marineland for the first time and just really truly created lovely memories. Americana sends thriftymommastips periodic notices of deals and events and one arrived this week so I thought I would share with you. I give this water park a solid 4 out of 5 for affordability and fun. It's not Kalahari or Great Wolf or Detroit or Ohio worthy excitement. But it sure is affordable and it's a really good place to start. I would definitely go back. Rooms are clean and spacious. Waterslides are fun, a bit smaller and maybe geared more to young children, not preteens or teens. There is a splash area and for tots who like water a very nice toddler waterslide assortment. Food was yummy and location is not bad. Central to everything. So here's the deal. Stay, play and eat for $259 a night. Breakfast, a pizza party and an all included family feast is included with the price. This is a very good deal! Call 1-866-707-0030 to reserve at Americana. Also Americana day passes are available with Lay's chip trips reward points.
For more information on that visit Lay's ca or http://tiny.cc/7hudO
Americana Conference Resort & Spa - 8444 Lundy's Lane Niagara Falls, ON L2H1H4

Bingemans Grand Experiences and Lays Chip Trips

This was too funny for me to resist putting here and frankly here goes Mommy's first attempt at vlogging. Be afraid! Be very afraid! I took my family on a day trip to Bingemans in Kitchener. It's a waterpark, amusement park, camp site with splash pad and various other fun things. For full review come visit http://www.thriftymommastips.blogspot.com/ Also I saved money because I am totally rocking the Lay's Chip Trips promos this summer. For more on that go here: http://tiny.cc/7hud0

Chip Trips

Looking for amazing and affordable family travel ideas this summer? Eat more chips. Thriftymomma is on a blog tour with Lay's Chip Trips this summer and I can hardly wait. The excellent Frito-Lay's promotion means that every time you buy a bag of Lay's chips you get a code on the side of the bag. On the top of the bag there are points. Some say 5 and some say 10. Visit http://tiny.cc/7hud0
and sign up for the Lay's Chip Trips promotion and, no matter where you are in Canada, you can redeem the points for a trip or a voucher for a free kid's meal at Boston Pizza, half price off the second night of a stay at the Great Wolf Lodge and various other motels. I've already sent for a Subway $5 gift card, which cost me 30 points and I can't wait to use my points for more great trips. Mini golf, Laser tag, waterparks, museums, the CN Tower - the sky is the limit! Rewards kick in for as little as 10 points. So have fun, eat chips and see more of Canada this summer.

Disney's New Cruise Ship

What could be cooler than a Disney Cruise? A Disney Cruise on a ship with an onboard waterpark. That's essentially what Disney's newest cruise ship Disney Dream is offering. Beginning next month cruise ship lovers and Disney fans (count me in) will be able to experience this latest adventure courtesy of Disney. While I've not been on the ship and may frankly never be able to afford this I had to show thriftymomma's fans this amazing creation, the first time a waterslide has ever been done on a cruise ship. This one is dubbed the AquaDuck and as you can see it wraps right around the deck extends out over the water in some spots and looks like nonstop thrills. Disney Dream is the third Disney cruise ship, even bigger than the first two, and accommodates some 4,000 guests. Wow! The AquaDuck is being called a transparent watercoaster and it's creating quite a buzz already. The tube dips four decks and winds up in a lazy river. There are three other family pools on board and this amazing experience is expected to be ready for booking November 9th. Can you all say bring it on Mickey?

(Photo courtesy of WDIG)