In just a few short weeks, you will notice a brand new website for Sundance Vacations. Solid Cactus, a local website design company has been working on the new site since the beginning of January. The new and improved website will be geared toward lead generation. The site will be welcoming with bright company colors, and of course the Sundance Vacations logo. In our research we found that a “fun” website was more attractive than a “corporate” stuffy site. Also with a “fun” site, users are more likely to navigate through the whole site rather than get frustrated on the first page. The site will include a company history, corporate bios, job opportunities, all sponsorships and partners, giveaways, past sweepstakes winners, and so much more!! WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!!

Do you have any ideas for the new website? What would you like to see on the new site?

Sundance Vacations’ travelers have a wide variety of choices including Arizona.  The Pointe Resort in Phoenix is a favorite.  So, if anyone is traveling to Arizona in the near future, read on for my recommendation on the absolute best way to see the Grand Canyon in one day.

We booked a tour with Westwind Airlines out of Scottsdale.  We took a short 1 ½ hour sight seeing flight over the Sonoran desert to the South Rim of the canyon where we landed at the Hualapai airport.  Within minutes we were weighed and escorted to the waiting helicopter. We took a thrilling ride above the ground and then dipped down below the rim where we landed on a small round flat patch next to the Colorado River.  A pontoon boat was waiting to take us on a short float on the brown murky river.

Seeing the canyon from the bottom looking up is an amazing experience (for one thing you can’t fall off) that many travelers don’t get the opportunity to do.  Our river guide told us about the age of the layers and the height of the world’s largest drainage ditch.  Five Stratosphere hotels would need to be stacked on top of each other to reach the rim.  We touched the river for good luck and returned to the chopper.

Skywalk

Back up on the rim we efficiently boarded a tour bus for the very short ride (about 5 minutes) to the Skywalk.  It’s a glass structure that extends out over the edge of the canyon.  All belongings are put in a locker and everyone wears booty’s to protect the glass from scratches.  It was scary and creepy and unnerving and scary and scary.   But my four year old reassured me, “It’s OK mommy, there’s glass to walk on, see.”  We posed for pictures that you have to buy, watched Native American dancers from the visiting Navajo tribe and took some additional photos of the canyon from the area.

Guano Point

We boarded another bus (they run about every 5 minutes) to Guano Point.  Yes, Guano- bat dung.  The point got it’s name from a cave at the base that was used to harvest guano for dynamite and women’s lipstick. The guano operation has been abandoned and the Hualapai tribe now operates a tourist point (probably much more profitable!!). I haven’t seen the entire 277 miles of the Grand Canyon but Guano point has to be the most amazing.  The point is very prominent so views of the canyon are almost 360°.  There are no railings and 1-3 people fall to their death at the Grand Canyon each year (mostly 20 year old males).  There is a safe road that goes out to the point and a café/restaurant that is operated by the tribe.  We enjoyed pulled beef on tortillas, corn bread, mac and cheese, corn on the cob and cinnamon apples at a picnic table under a large tent.

Show me the Money

The excursion cost about $500 per person but that includes the round trip sight seeing from Scottsdale, the helicopter, the Pontoon boat ride, the Skywalk entrance fee, clean and convenient bus transfers and all you can eat lunch at Guano Point.  You can see the canyon for a lot less but you’ll be disappointed!

The Alternative

We did it the “other”way several years ago.  We drove for hours in a car from Vegas (with my mother in law).  We visited the government owned National Park side instead of the capitalist Indian Reservation side.  At this time, private cars were still permitted to drive to the rim parking area.  I believe the government has nixed this because of excessive traffic- I think you board a bus now. We walked out to a railing and read a few small descriptive signs.  Yup, it’s a big hole in the ground.  It was so disappointing I was convinced that I didn’t need to see it again.  Luckily, my husband is quite the salesman because our second trip was awesome!  So, I recommend the splurge.  Come on, that’s why you save money on accommodations, so you can get out there and do stuff!

Re-inspired

I’m so re-inspired that I’m now considering a 6-10 day raft trip on the Colorado.  Those of you who have been reading the blog know that I’ve tumbled out the back of a raft twice on the Lehigh River.  So, John’s going to compare the drowning deaths on the Colorado with the 1-3 fatalities from falling per year to determine if I’m safer up on the rim or tumbling out the back of the raft on class x rapids.   Can you guess that he’s not as excited as I am about roughing it for 6-10 days?

We recently tried one of TAN’s new properties in Williamsburg, Virginia. Sunterra’s Powhatan Plantation. We could not believe how spring had sprung so early in Virginia.The resort was absolutely beautiful, built around an original plantation home, but has all of the modern conveniences. The recreation center was great; it had an indoor pool and Jacuzzi, restaurant and racquetball courts.

The property is located just 10 mins from Jamestown Island and 15 mins from Colonial Williamsburg. We all learned a lot about the colonial days and the local restaurants were amazing.  We will defiantly plan a return trip.

The Snively family.

Brookfield, Wisconsin

Sundance Vacations reaches out once again to claim a Stevie award for 2008. Our nominees are: Best New Product, Best Sales Team, and Best Customer Service Team. Last year Sundance was named as a finalist for Best Overall Company and for the Best Marketing Team. Joe Molitoris, VP of Marketing was named as a finalist for the Best Marketing Executive. Created to honor and publicly recognize the efforts, accomplishments and positive contributions of companies and business people worldwide, the Stevie is a highly coveted award. Best known as “the business world’s version of the Oscars” The American Business Awards are the only all-encompassing national awards program that honor virtually all types of business organizations. This is an exciting event for the company, and we will keep you posted on the results.

Do you have any great stories about our nominated teams?  Let us know who you think the winner will be!!   

Sundance Vacations executives attended the annual American Resort Developers Association (ARDA) convention that was held in Las Vegas last week.  ARDA is the vacation industry trade group.  Many years ago, ARDA attendees were solely timeshare developers.  In those early days, it was lonely being one of the first wholesale vacation companies.  It wasn’t just a perception of being an outsider. It was reality.

The Witchhunt

I remember attending a round table discussion (1994 approx) where a boisterous timeshare developer stood up and called his colleagues to action.  “What are we going to do about these new groups?  We’re building resorts and real estate, what are they building?”  He was clearly referring to us and the message was clear that we were a “cancer” that needed to be dealt with.

Better Method for Sundance Vacations

He was right about one thing. We weren’t building new resort properties.  While he was building x number of units in one location, we were searching and buying on the whole ownership condo market including a couple of oceanfront condo’s in Brigantine Beach, NJ; several townhouses at a ski area in the Poconos and many units at a resort in Myrtle Beach.  To this day, we believe our method is better for client choice.  He had units in one location but was dependent on someone else to help his customer’s trade.  We on the other hand had built our own network of properties. 

We’ve grown quite a bit since then and so has the industry.  Attendees at this year’s convention represented a wide variety of vacation companies including luxury residence clubs, points programs, cruise clubs, new companies to service the easy exchange or trade of inventory and of course, wholesale sales companies like Sundance Vacations.   

We haven’t focused on buying single units one at a time.  Recently, we’ve added several entire resort properties to our inventory.  A thirty-unit complex, Esplanade Suites in Wildwood, New Jersey was added in late 2006.  A twelve-unit oceanfront complex in Daytona  (Sierra Suites) was added in summer 2007. Nineteen quaint cottage units at Woodfield Manor in the Poconos were added in February 2008 and many, many others were added through Travel Advantage Network.

I haven’t seen the mentioned developer in quite a few years, I wonder how much inventory he built since 2006?

-Tina Dowd

Sundance Vacations donated a free trip from the excess inventory list to St. Aloysius Elementary school in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. The school sold over 500 tickets and raised over $2,000. The money raised will help the school with expensive necessities, such as repairs.

Tina Dowd had the honor of picking the lucky winner. Gloria Sadowski of Hunlock Creek, Pa was the winner of the free trip. Her grandson Matthew Sipski a student at St. Aloysius sold her the ticket. “I forgot I even bought a ticket, and when my grandson called and told me I won, I was very shocked. I can’t wait to go somewhere warm,” said Gloria Sadowski.

Sundance has donated to numerous charities and organizations throughout the years. Do you have any favorite charity stories to share? 

-Amanda

A recent cover story for the Vail Trail Weekly caught my eye.  The article entitled “Flashy vs. Frugal” compares the prices of vacationing in the Vail area and makes a big case for a product like ours.  The Vail Trail reports that a no limits trip to Vail for two adults and two children will cost $100,988. for one week.  OK, they included a shopping budget of $60,000 to buy a Russian Lynx Fur coat but even when you subtract out the fur it still tops $40,000 for one vacation.  No wonder I feel like a pauper every time we travel to the area. 

Obviously, the super rich are not the typical Sundance clients.  I was very interested in the frugal side of the article.  The budget trip was $3,620 and included lodging for seven nights at Park Meadows Lodge at $140 per night.  The article referred to a “room” and pictured the budget travelers at a Safeway grocery store filling up a bowl of hot chili.  The total included $100 per day for groceries and $1,940 for lift tickets.

Even Sundance Vacations’ clients can’t escape the price of lift tickets.  We maintain several home properties in Winter Park, Colorado (not Vail) for skiing aficionados.  Our clients aren’t forced into a hotel room, where they utilize the hotel lobby as their living room and the local Safeway as their kitchen.  And we can certainly compete on price. 

Spring skiing is an amazing experience-it’s warm and sunny and almost has a summer beach party feel.  Bands and musicians are playing in the village while skiers and boarders hit the slopes in sweaters (if that much).  Check with the ski area for the season closing date – it may not be too late to grab an excess inventory week.  That price would blow the Vail Trail Weekly budget traveler away!

-Tina Dowd