Make the most of your timeshare ownership by taking advantage of bonus time opportunities

Until you own a timeshare, you may not fully appreciate bonus time. The term bonus time means deeply discounted vacation rates offered either by a timeshare resort, a group of resorts, or through a timeshare exchange company.

Resort Condominiums International, for example, offers two types of bonus timeshare to its members. Extra Vacations are the available days created when RCI members trade their timeshare points or weeks for another travel product, such as discount airfares or a cruise. The result is extra timeshare inventory in certain resort locations and great deals for RCI members. Members can purchase Extra Vacations for a period of one-week and use them for themselves or give them to someone else through a gift certificate.

Last Call is RCI’s clearance-priced bonus timeshare. Last Call timesharing is truly last minute planning, but the prices are incredible. Currently RCI Last Call reservations for studio units are $129 per week; one bedroom units at $179 per week; and two bedroom units priced at $219 per week – discounts well worth making a last minute effort to enjoy.

Trendwest by WorldMark makes the list of best places to work in Hawaii

Hawaii Business Magazine (interestingly the oldest regional business magazine in the US) and the Best Companies Group have recognized Trendwest Resorts, Inc., as one of the “Best Places to Work in Hawaii”.

Congratulations to Trendwest Hawaii, who received this honor in the category for small to medium companies (25 to 249 employees). The company is recognized for creating and supporting a rewarding work environment, providing a progressive benefit program, and promoting organizational values. And as we all know, happy, well cared for employees translate to well-run resorts that timeshare owners and timeshare renters can own and enjoy with confidence.

Currently there are more than 50 Trendwest WorldMark condominium resorts in the United States, Hawaii, Canada, Mexico, and Fiji. The four Hawaii Trendwest timeshare resorts are at Kapaa Shores on Kauai; Kihei and Valley Isle on Maui; and Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. All are fantastic vacation destinations that you know before you go will be safe, luxurious, and convenient to the amenities you and your family want to enjoy.

The play’s the thing for Pocono Mountain timeshare owners

The Shawnee Playhouse Theater has been an entertainment staple for vacationers in the Pocono Mountains since 1979. This summer, for the first time since the theater’s 1979 opening season, the playhouse will offer four different shows each week – a theatergoers delight.

Why the change from four plays that run consecutively to four different plays per week?

According to Jerry Durkin, chairman of the informal playhouse board and a cast member in “Same Time, Next Year,” the idea came after seeing the results of an online survey taken by 650 Poconos timeshare owners. The favorite amenity of the vacation property owners is not golf, skiing, or even just enjoying the mountains themselves – it is the Shawnee Playhouse.

This summer, the charming 210-seat theater that claims to have no bad seats in the house, will present: “A Chorus Line,” “Grease,” “Godspell,” “Same Time, Next Year,” and “The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare Abridged.”

Golf in American’s heartland.

When the top senior golfers in the world tee it up this week at Prairie Dunes for the US Senior Open, they may feel as if they are playing a British Isles links-style golf course. In fact, they will be landlocked in southern Kansas. Often compared to the seaside courses of England and Ireland, Prairie Dunes is narrow, rolling, and guaranteed to be windy. It is an amazing championship golf course, with unique design, a fascinating history, and it has been meticulously carved out in the middle of America’s heartland.

In 1935, Emerson Carey, a successful Kansas businessman and avid golfer, decided that the small town of Hutchinson (between Dodge City and Wichita) needed a masterpiece golf course. Carey commissioned the work to course architect Perry Maxwell, the designer behind Southern Hills, Colonial, and the redesigns at Pine Valley and Augusta National.

The original nine holes at Prairie Dunes were hand built, using only horses, mules and plows to clear and shape the greens and fairways. Roots of native Kansas grass were removed by hand, one wheelbarrow load at a time The only mechanized vehicles used in the construction of Prairies Dunes were the Model T and Model A Fords that transported the workers to the site each day.

It took more than two years for the nine holes to be completed, including time out to repair the damage a classic Kansas twister left on the landscape. The second nine at Prairie Dunes was not finished until 1957, when Maxwell’s son took on the task and added the finishing touches – this time with the help of modern technology.

At the US Senior Open this week, you’ll see the ever-blowing Kansas wind redirecting the players’ shots, and the plum thickets, cavernous bunkers and cottonwood groves claiming far too many balls. You can expect the USGA to have “polished” the greens to lightning fast speeds. So sit back and watch Champions Tour legends Fuzzy Zoeller and Gary Player compete, along with Tour newcomers Loren Roberts and Greg Norman. Of course, at SellMyTimeshareNOW, we’ll all be cheering for Bobby Cole – he’ll be wearing our logo as he takes on this challenging course. And if you planned ahead, you’ll be there to see all the golfing greats at play from your Kansas timeshare resale or Kansas timeshare rental.