Princeville Ocean Resort Villas. Current pricing and incentives.

Hi, I just attended a presentation here in Kauai on the new Westin resort. It is located very near the Pahio Shearwater. It is under construction, but is promised to be ready for 2008 occupancy. All of the units are being sold as oceanview. None are oceanfront, however,a few units will have full frontal views of the ocean. These wil be treated as oceanview just like the other units. Most units will have diagonal views of the ocean. None will have the spectacular views that the owners of the Shearwater enjoy. The buildings are just being built too far back from the edge of the cliffs to allow that kind of view. All of the units are being sold as two bedroom Lock off units. Starwood has taken over management of the Princeville Hotel and owners of the Villas will have Hotel privileges, discounts on Golf(amount not specified at this time). However, this will not include pool privileges.
The incentives for existing SVO owners to purchase either an annual or EOY unit were the following.
1. automatic 3 star elite status
2.60 K or 100K starpoints, depending on EOY or Annual purchase
3.2008 occupancy
4. the option to purchase 86.4K starpoints for 2007 for $1800

Prices:
season 1-50 EOY $23,800 staroptions 148K starpoints 86.4K
season 1-50 annual $47500 " "

The major price break for existing SVO owners was the discount on the purchase price of the EOY unit. The regular price is $33,500. In addition, if a purchaser of the EOY unit wanted to upgrade to an annual unit within the first year, the upgrade price was set at $23,800.

To me, all of the above was about what I expected. The sticker shock came when I asked what the MF was going to be. $2200/year. !!!! for the annual unit. One half that for the EOY unit.

Ben

Did they say when in 2008 the units will be available? I'm hoping to visit there in summer of 2008 by using my Westin Maui unit and trading at 8 month window.

How many units will there be?

Will they have the same beach access as the princeville hotel or will they have a separate beach?

Oh, those MF's seem really high. That's more than Maui.

Thanks!

reddiablosv said:

Starwood has taken over management of the Princeville Hotel and owners of the Villas will have Hotel privileges, discounts on Golf(amount not specified at this time). However, this will not include pool privileges.

Click to expand...

I find it amusing when Starwood tells owners at WPORV they will have Hotel "privileges", when in fact anyone with a charge card can get the same "privileges". Anyone can use the bars, go to the Luau, use the Spa, access the beach,..

Lack of pool access, high maintenance fees & a voluntary resort -- how many reasons does Starwood want to provide for us to not even think buying in this resort !

3 Star Elite

I am surprised to see the automatic 3 star elite in there as an incentive. Has anyone seen that before?

Is it known for sure if this property is going to be mandatory or voluntary?

Thanks

arlene22 said:

I am surprised to see the automatic 3 star elite in there as an incentive. Has anyone seen that before?

Click to expand...

When I was doing the Owners Update at WKORV - it seemed that Elite status was based on the number of SOs - is this not the case? if so, what are those SO levels?

Also, it seems that whether WPORV is Voluntary and Mandatory is still not quite resolved - it would be great to get SVO/SVN clarification on this.

ciscogizmo1 said:

How many units will there be?

Will they have the same beach access as the princeville hotel or will they have a separate beach?

Click to expand...

179 units; all 2bd/lockouts.

The resort is actually a mile or two from the Princeville Hotel on a cliff above Anini Beach. They promise a stairway down to it.

At Harborside they told us that a 3BR alone, while it has enough SO, would not qualify for elite, because it has to be multiple weeks. Maybe they have changed their tune since then.

the incentives the op listed were for purchasers who were already SVO owners, so for an ey purchase tat wuld always make teh melite and in many cases the eoy would also make someone elite.

I believe the resort is slated to open mid-2008. For some reason June sticks in my mind, but the original construction schedule calls for construction of some areas to continue for a few months past opening. We're planning on going in the Fall just to be sure as I won't be surprised if there are delays.

Princeville is SVN voluntary

longboarder37 said:

Is it known for sure if this property is going to be mandatory or voluntary?

Thanks

Click to expand...

The Purchase Agreement for the Westin Princeville Ocean Resort Villas (which I signed and rescinded) contains a paragraph 7, entitled "Starwood Vacation Network", which provides

" . . . . Membership and participation in SVN is entirely voluntary . . . . "

The Starwood Vacation Network Owner Membership Agreement for the property includes the following language:

16(a) "Owner's membership in SVN is voluntary",

16(h) "If Owner elects to sell the Vacation Ownership Interest(s) or otherwise elects not to participate in SVN, SVN Operator will not refund any payments or fees paid by Owner", and

16 "Owner acknowledges that his or her membership in SVN . . . cannot be transferred or assigned."

vacationtime1 said:

The Purchase Agreement for the Westin Princeville Ocean Resort Villas (which I signed and rescinded) contains a paragraph 7, entitled "Starwood Vacation Network", which provides

" . . . . Membership and participation in SVN is entirely voluntary . . . . "

The Starwood Vacation Network Owner Membership Agreement for the property includes the following language:

16(a) "Owner's membership in SVN is voluntary",

16(h) "If Owner elects to sell the Vacation Ownership Interest(s) or otherwise elects not to participate in SVN, SVN Operator will not refund any payments or fees paid by Owner", and

16 "Owner acknowledges that his or her membership in SVN . . . cannot be transferred or assigned."

Click to expand...

Thay pretty much sums it up for me. Although, I never had any intention of buying - more curious. Sure flys in the face of what a TS salesman told me last week (big surprise...) - that all resorts being built are going to be mandatory.

blujahz said:

Thay pretty much sums it up for me. Although, I never had any intention of buying - more curious. Sure flys in the face of what a TS salesman told me last week (big surprise...) - that all resorts being built are going to be mandatory.

Click to expand...

Lies, Lies and more Lies! I can't wait to go to my next "update" to hear the sales pitch. We have been to three Starwood presentations, St John, Kierland and Broadway Plantation. The "agents" at St John and at Kierland (Jeff Fick) were very knowledgable, helpful, no pressure, very proffessional and actually knew and understood the Starwood system. Broadway Plantation presentation was not very good, it was almost borderline rude.

I think the difference of the three presentations was experience. The St John and Kierland agents had been selling Starwood timeshares for years and were owners. The Broadway agents seemed "green" and not up to speed with the starwood system and were more concerned about selling you today.

tomandrobin said:

Lies, Lies and more Lies! I can't wait to go to my next "update" to hear the sales pitch. We have been to three Starwood presentations, St John, Kierland and Broadway Plantation. The "agents" at St John and at Kierland (Jeff Fick) were very knowledgable, helpful, no pressure, very proffessional and actually knew and understood the Starwood system. Broadway Plantation presentation was not very good, it was almost borderline rude.

I think the difference of the three presentations was experience. The St John and Kierland agents had been selling Starwood timeshares for years and were owners. The Broadway agents seemed "green" and not up to speed with the starwood system and were more concerned about selling you today.

Click to expand...

Personally we have had it with SVO "owner updates". We have encountered rude salesmen in Maui and in Kierland. The guy in Maui wins the prize, because he asked why we are there for the update and made it sound like we were stupid for not buying from him; actually I had to restrain my husband because he did not not want to anything to do with it, but the Concierge convinced us to go for the this "no-obligation" owner update(4500 Starpoints is not worth the aggravation).

The Kierland experience was slightly better & and we had to attend it because of the Explorer package conditions(50,000 Starpoints), but we are amazed at how how poorly Starwood treats its existing owners.

TUG is going to be our source of owner updates and we have no plans to attend any SVO updates anymore.

skim118 said:

Personally we have had it with SVO "owner updates". We have encountered rude salesmen in Maui and in Kierland. The guy in Maui wins the prize, because he asked why we are there for the update and made it sound like we were stupid for not buying from him; actually I had to restrain my husband because he did not not want to anything to do with it, but the Concierge convinced us to go for the this "no-obligation" owner update(4500 Starpoints is not worth the aggravation).

The Kierland experience was slightly better & and we had to attend it because of the Explorer package conditions(50,000 Starpoints), but we are amazed at how how poorly Starwood treats its existing owners.

TUG is going to be our source of owner updates and we have no plans to attend any SVO updates anymore.

Click to expand...

I agree - 4500 SPs not worth it - and we came out with a "why were we there again?" He actually didn't even try to sell us anything really - he was interested in converting us from WKORV to WKORV-N and/or requalifying our resale - but he could tell we weren't buying anymore TSs beyond 3 weeks.

I thought it strange is that when we were in his office - we just sort of sat there not saying anything - before he really knew our backgrond (he thought that we had bought both WKORV and WSJ from SVO) and it was I who had to break the ice - perhaps some weird sales strategy.

I found him relatively honest (although misinfomed about WPORV being mandatory) and not rude and was very personable - but they don't sell WPORV. There focus was WKORV-N - strange that they do not attempt to cross sell resorts. (strange from a biz model standpoint).

Also - to reiterate - I had to stop myself from asking that if WKORV OF units were selling for ~$85K - then why they wouldn't excercise their ROFR and pick-up units in the low 50s and resell them? Heck, they could turn arond and sell them for $70K and make a profit.

I went and did the presentation at Princeville. The rep was reasonably good and it was not very high pressured but with the high M/F and cost of capital, it worked out around $350 per night so not a great deal unless you can make plans 13 months out for prime time.