# Pelican Resort - st martin



## gatordog (Sep 12, 2008)

I see lots of units from Pelican Resort for sale and wonder why so many owners want to sell their units. 

What's overall opinion of Pelican Resort in St Martin?
Does it have strong or weak trading power?  

Thanks!


----------



## dchilds (Sep 12, 2008)

gatordog said:


> I see lots of units from Pelican Resort for sale and wonder why so many owners want to sell their units.
> 
> What's overall opinion of Pelican Resort in St Martin?
> Does it have strong or weak trading power?
> ...



We own 4 weeks at Pelican Resort, and love St Maarten.  Pelican Resort has 342 units, which makes for 17,784 unit weeks.  I'm always looking for good deals at Pelican, but most of the weeks I see for sale are studio 2s or 4s, and weeks in August though October.

Pelican has 8 buildings and we would only own in either the water front or beach front buildings, because the others are a bit of a walk from the water.  (We've stayed in other buildings as rentals and exchanges and the units were nice, and it wasn't that inconvient, but the location by the water is nice.)  Some owners really like their units "up on the hill", which are nearer to the large pool, tennis courts, and the casino.  Nobody likes the dugeon Studio 2s.

The resort is nice enough, but no Marriott.  They are updating the rooms, and are about 70% done, but the updates are still not 5 star quality.  The grounds are nice, and the location is good, and there are a variety of activities either at the resort or within walking distance.  If you want to spend a week in a luxiourious room, Pelican is not the place to stay, but it's a great place to spend the day, or use as a base to explore the island.  Pelican Marina Residences are a different story, with Marriott quality rooms, and priced accordingly.

We never stay in one place wherever we go, whether in the VIs/BVIs, Anguilla, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Mexico, St Maarten, or even Europe, so Pelican is perfect for us.  We like St Maarten the most out of those choices for beach & water activities.  Pelican is in the Caribbean, so we always get offered a bonus week for each deposit with II.  RCI makes no such offer.  It doesn't trade as well as a Marriott ski week in Vail, but it does pretty well.  I have been able to trade for DVC.

If you would like to compare trading power, I can check search first trades to locations you are interested in.  Just let me know.


----------



## Blondie (Sep 14, 2008)

One huge problem is their maintenance fees which are high- close to $800 I think for a studio or one bedroom. I have owned two units there (from the fire sale back about 6 years ago when studios were $968 and one bedrooms were $1,400) and since sold them. That said, we love Pelican and St Maarten. The B buildings on the hill are what I like because I like to be forced to walk- rooms are so HUGE and once I counted actual kitchen/ living room seating for about 11 peolpe! The front Marina units are/were great, overlooking the water, not sure how the new construction impacted that. D building is nice too, but I think the view is gone. If you go to www.royalresorts.com you can see the actual map of the units and their view. Aviod the sleep two studios as they are often parking lot view. Pretty much all units in SXM are nice and really none of them is "Four Season" like. We also owned at La Vista, loved that too, and Royal Palm. Have since sold all of those. We never traded our units but Pelican, having the most units, would likley show up most often as a trade, thus impacting trade power.


----------



## Cathyb (Sep 14, 2008)

Blondie:  Do you get special treatment in reserving the Royals in Cancun when you own at Pelican -- i.e., sister resort priority?


----------



## dchilds (Sep 15, 2008)

*Maintenance Fees and Royal*

Pelican's maintenance fees are pretty high.  I think the current year fees are $702 - Studio 4, $752 - 1 Bedroom, ~$860 - 2 Bedroom, $958 - 2 Bedroom Penthouse.  There was a special assessment about 5 years of ago of $200/year that lasted 3 years.

Pelican onwers can do an internal trade to other weeks at Pelican and to Royal Resorts in Mexico, and we also get "specials" from Royal via email.  I've never done either, so I don't know if the rates are that special.


----------



## KathyA (Sep 18, 2008)

Cathyb said:


> Blondie:  Do you get special treatment in reserving the Royals in Cancun when you own at Pelican -- i.e., sister resort priority?



When you trade your Pelican unit for one of the Royals in Cancun you definitely get a special deal.  When I did it a couple of years ago the fee for trading within "the family" was $100 per week.  WE traded two weeks for the Royal Sands and had a great time.  This was the thing that convinced us to buy at the Pelican Marina Residences when they started buildling them.  They are pretty much a duplicate of the Royal Sands, which was fantastic.

Kathy


----------



## Blondie (Sep 19, 2008)

Cathyb said:


> Blondie:  Do you get special treatment in reserving the Royals in Cancun when you own at Pelican -- i.e., sister resort priority?



Never tried to reserve a sister property but I am sure others have.


----------



## AKE (Sep 24, 2008)

What are they charging for the new units? What are the maintenance fees?


----------



## rachel (Sep 24, 2008)

To add to this post.  I see alot of pelican resort for exchange, more than most caribbean.  why is this?  I have never been to St. Maarten, would this be an Ok trade.  They have trades as far out as 2010.  We usually go to Aruba, Jamaica & Bahamas.  How is ST. Maarten?


----------



## pjrose (Sep 24, 2008)

AKE said:


> What are they charging for the new units? What are the maintenance fees?



The brand new ones - Pelican Marina Residences - are sold with a one-month minimum.  You'd need to check royalresorts.com for costs.


----------



## dchilds (Sep 25, 2008)

AKE said:


> What are they charging for the new units? What are the maintenance fees?



I think the current minimum price for middle floor off season is $79500 for 4 weeks.  I don't know about the maintenance fees.

As for trading, Pelican has some nice units, but stay away from studio 2's.  Like I said before, Pelican has something like 17000+ unit-weeks, and the resort has maybe 500-1000 unit-weeks without owners.  That's a bunch of availability for banking and trades.


----------

