The Villages aren't for everybody. Some folks like a much quieter, more sedate life style or they may have made close friendships in their existing community or there is something or someone in the area they live in that is really important to them. That said, The Villages does have activities like nobody else. A friend of mine is in a continuing life care community up north. He bought in and lives in the independent living apartments but can move to assisted living when he needs to and on to nursing care and even hospice. He's happy there as he figures he's set for life. We visited him and saw a monthly calendar of activities there and ALL of the activities for an entire month could fit on a single page monthly calendar (there's never more than one activity on a given day). The Villages used to publish a 72-page weekly insert in the newspaper just to cover what was going on at all of the recreation centers. They eventually cut it to 64 pages to save paper but they are only giving highlights of what's going on there. What with the 3,000+ official clubs and who knows how many unofficial clubs, they can't keep up.
As was mentioned elsewhere, if your folks are interested they should come for a visit and take one of the trolley tours to get an overview. If they like what they see, they should consider a lifestyle visit and maybe talk to a realtor (remembering that new houses can ONLY be sold by Villages-official realtors where pre-owned homes can be sold by those realtors or by "outside" realtors).
It's a weird time to move here what with housing prices skyrocketing everywhere. They might get way more than they would think on their current house but might have to pay way more than they would hope to get into the houses here that come available and get quickly snapped up.
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