"I am new" survey answers

[tophunter85]

I know that being fresh off of a trip isn't the best time to jump into a time share but as we just got back from our first family adventure it began the conversation about the future of our vacations.

1) Where do you want your home resort to be? Florida area (open to other areas but this would be a good jumping off point for other trips we believe)

2) Do you want to visit your home resort at least half the time, or do you want to trade more than half the time? Visit home resort at least half of the time

3) What are your 5 top trade destinations? Hawaii, The Caribbean, Western Europe (UK, and Ireland would be the first stop when we finally travel internationally) Japan, Australia

4) How many people do you usually travel with? Family of 2 adults and 2 children (3 and 5 yrs old currently). We would also like to include grandparents or siblings and their families on these trips when we are able so a maximum of about 8-10 on a very few occasions.

5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule? We would shoot to have trips in the off season whenever possible but not opposed to pulling the kids out of school.

6) Can you make firm plans 12 or more mos. in advance? Yes, with some caveats (more details below)

7) Can you vacation for a full week at a time? We would plan on staying for 7-10 nights every other year

8) What level of accommodations do you prefer on a scale of 1 to 5 stars? 3.5-5 (again, flexible and open to starting small and adding to it over time for better accommodations)

9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing? We plan to have a minimum of 10k

10) How much can you afford to spend every year for a maintenance fee that will come due right after Christmas, and increase each year? We understand that the maintenance fees increase yearly so we anticipate a starting expense of around 2k and have done the math as far as 45 yrs out.

11) Are you a detail oriented planner? yes

12) Do you understand that once you buy a timeshare, it may be very difficult to sell or give away, and you are responsible for all fees, until you do? yes

Some other information about us: We are a military family. My husband is 7 yrs from retirement (about 3 years until our final sea tour ends) so any of the questions in the survey pertaining to time and flexibility will all change once we are on shore duty since sea duty has no flexibilty. We would have even more room to maneuver after retirement. We won't be pulling the trigger on anything for a couple of years while we get together a big chunk of money to throw at it. We currently reside in the PNW but all of our family is back east so we would do quite a bit (not all) of vacationing on the east coast. Since we aren't sure where we'll end up living after retirement we aren't exactly sure where we'll end up but there are a lot of reasons to have FL as a home base.

We just returned from staying at a condo near Disneyland for a week. While we were there, we heard the pitch from the DVC folks. It gave us a good reference point and a place to start getting a handle on what sort of expense we would be looking at. The aspects of DVC that we found most appealing (and what would push us towards them if another option were similar in cost and quality). The Disney resorts appeal equally to us as well as the kids. There is also childcare (in a sense) available, which would be cheaper to use their "kid zones" than to always bring along another family member so that we could get some time away from the kids. There is also a flexibility to their program that we would enjoy, banking, borrowing, and renting points (direct from Disney or from members). Having preference at your home resort but there are so many other places at home and abroad that would still give you the quality and "magic" of Disney. The ability to use their points in the RCI exchanges and being able to gift trips or include other family members on our trips on occasion is important. A very minor aspect, but still something to mention are the perks and discounts available to members. However, if we bought from Disney direct, we were told that the only military rates available right now are from the Aulani resort in Hawaii. This is fine, but we would probably end up going to FL more often since it's got the theme park as well as the non-Disney parks. 10% is a good discount but ultimately we want to be based in the location that most makes sense. Sounds like we are sold on Disney doesn't it? But we want to do what is best for our family and would give us good quality vacations every couple of years as a family for the next several decades at least. As a kid we had a condo at Edisto Island that was great to go back to each summer so I'd like to have something like that for our kids. We would plan on vacationing every other year with some exceptions, going on the 3rd year for a big/international trip.

Sorry, that got long quickly but we've got a lot of things that would be going into this decision and I would say we are newbies at the whole world of timeshares but hey, that's why we joined TUG isn't!?! Thank you all so much for any help!

 

[WalnutBaron]

Greeetings! Welcome to TUG and thank you so much for your service and sacrifice for our country.

You've done a great job laying out your objectives and resources, and I think you're way ahead of most of us at this stage in your level of understanding of how timeshare works. Congratulations on finding TUG and asking for help and advice.

Disney would indeed be an excellent choice for you and your family for several reasons: 1) they have multiple properties located in Florida, your desired home resort location; 2) their properties are obviously geared toward families with children and vacations built around DisneyWorld and Disneyland; 3) their quality meets your criteria, hitting 4.5-5 (in my opinion). The only downside is that Disney resale costs are higher than most other systems, and $10,000 upfront won't buy you much in the DVC system. You would probably need something closer to $25-35,000 in order to be able to vacation for 7-10 days--and even then, you'd need to travel in shoulder seasons for the most part. Your maintenance fee budget is realistic and workable.

If the upfront cost is too high for your budget (and it often is for young families), I'd recommend you consider Marriott. The quality of their resorts is excellent, they have many locations both in the USA and internationally, and they have a variety of resorts in Florida. Their upfront resale costs will still be higher than your budget, but probably more like $15,000 instead of $35,000--and their maintenance fees will be in your sweet spot.

If you absolutely can't go higher than $10,000 for your initial purchase and still need 7-10 days annually, you can consider Wyndham, but be careful: Wyndham, while meeting all of your requirements for location and cost, has been creating unbelievable problems for its owners over the past year or so with a dysfunctional website precipitated by poor management of the Wyndham property trust. I suggest you spend a lot of time on the Wyndham BBS before you consider a purchase so you go in with your eyes wide open if you choose to buy into that system.

One last piece of advice, which you will hear over and over here on TUG: BUY RESALE. The Disney, Marriott, and other properties' sales staffs will do all they can to convince you that you should buy from them at hugely inflated and outrageous costs, often 10 times the cost of a timeshare interval you can buy on the resale market. True--you won't get the perks you referenced in your introduction to us, but as you point out, those are a minor consideration. Those become incredibly expensive perks if you buy from the developer, because you can own the exact same property through the resale market at a fraction of the cost. (This, by the way, is less true of Disney than most any other system since Disney resorts hold their value so well and are in relatively limited supply.)

Finally, be sure to spend time here on the TUG BBS for all of the major systems so you can learn all you can. Pay particular attention to the stickies at the top of each forum, where you will find information on each system's locations, maintenance fees, TUG members' ratings of the resorts, and lots of other useful information.

You've done a great job by finding us. Now learn all you can and ask lots of questions. There are many knowledgeable and helpful folks here at TUG.

 

[K2Quick]

We currently reside in the PNW . . .

I'm not sure how much longer you'll be in the PNW but if it will be awhile, I'd highly recommend looking into Worldmark. They pretty much own the PNW and have a bunch of other resorts out west. Not as much out east at the moment, but they do have a few developments in Florida. Worldmark trades about as well as anything out there with both RCI and II.

Here's a link to a listing of Worldmark resorts (note you can only get into the red dot resorts with a resale membership):
https://www.worldmarktheclub.com/resorts/

A 10,000 point WM membership can be had for around $3,000 and a 20,000 point membership for around twice that. If you're patient, you can do better than that on pricing via ebay. 10,000 points is typically good for one week in high season in a two-bedroom unit. Maintenance fees are roughly $700 per 10,000 points.

Buying into Orlando is generally not recommended on here as it is typically a very easy trade and nice units are often available through the exchange companies (RCI and II) for a fraction of what owners pay in maintenance fees. If you must stay onsite at Disney, though, it's best to buy DVC. But if you're willing to stay a 5-15 minute drive to the parks, you can get equal or better resorts (Marriott, Hilton, etc.) at a fraction of the DVC cost.

 

[WalnutBaron]

Worldmark is an excellent recommendation for the needs of the OP. It's a nice system. In terms of quality, it's probably a 3.5 on the OP's scale, so workable. Marriott and Hilton are 4 to 4.5. Vistana and Hyatt are 5. These are my opinions, of course--and since they're offered for free, they're probably worth what you paid for them

 

[tophunter85]

The $10k would be our minimum initial down payment if we purchase within the next couple of years. There isn't really a point in us buying anything until we were back on shore duty as we would be really unlikely to use it until then or even a while after. By that time, we would be almost 100% out of debt besides our current mortgage so we would have more $$ available to throw at whatever it is. So we are thinking really far ahead but that's the best way to do things right??

 

[WalnutBaron]

Absolutely. In the meantime, take time to read thoroughly the BBS here on all of the systems recommended to you--Worldmark, Marriott, Hilton, and Disney. Also, you can go to www.myresortnetwork.com and set up an ongoing alert for resort(s) you think you'd be interested in buying. You'll get alerts whenever a new listing comes up for your target properties. Even if you don't buy, it will definitely give you a good idea of what current asking prices (as distinct from actual sales prices) are for those resale properties.

 

[tophunter85]

That's an excellent idea, Thank you!!

 

[taterhed]

I'll point out that I bought two marriotts (resale) and two Worldmark accounts. I don't have $20k invested in it and I could book WAY more weeks a year than I could ever use.

I think a Marriott (consider a 3br lockoff--IN ORLANDO) would be good for you. You can 'lockoff' the unit into a studio and 2 bedroom You can then use the 2br and trade the studio for another unit--getting two weeks for the price of 1. Also, if you use interval, you can access any Marriott property with some preference (advantage) and that goes a long way. Then, interval will give you free weeks (free being <$500). These can draw some nice exchanges during the off-season.

Lots to talk about, not enough time.
I'd love to answer questions later....let me tell you how much I love my Marriotts AND my Worldmarks.

cheers.