OKay. I'm back from Nanea. Went to the Owner's Update. It was okay; they were pretty nice about it. The first agent did her best to sell us more Nanea. Also, the FLEX program doesn't apply to Nanea, they are still selling deeds. Personally, I would never buy into that FLEX program anyway -- bad deal. We weren't interested in purchasing anything (will have a hard enough time just using our current purchase -- the one bedroom unit here at Nanea. Hawaii is 11 hours away). We actually booked a two bedroom for this stay by banking options from last year. Plus when we bought into Vistana, we were wanting to exchange for the St. John Resorts; which aren't currently available (because of rebuilding after the hurricanes last year). After pointing out several things that I heard 2 years ago (last beachfront property on Maui, best Vistana property, etc.); we declined the offer and got another agent (the closer, I guess). Basically told him (politely) that we weren't interested and just wanted any new information regarding the Marriott takeover of SPG and anything thing else they had to tell us (nothing I hadn't heard of from here). No walk around the property or anything. Then after saying "no thanks" again, we got a third fellow on the pretext that he wanted to ask us questions about the agents (a survey). Then he came up with some other pitch out of the blue (honestly by then I just wanted to go to the beach and the 90 minutes were over)... I don't even remember what he proposed. Something about a free week or something. We told him we weren't going to spend $27K on anything, and that was that. But they were all nice and decent about it.
I got the 15K points for suffering through the presentation about two weeks later. So can't really complain. (Wouldn't bother, though for 6K points). Can't blame them for trying; apparently their current owners are their best customers.
Nanea was a really lovely property. The accommodations were great. Except for that giant bathtub in the middle of the master bedroom's bathroom. Personally think that's a total waste of space. The pools and beach are very nice. Could have used an adult pool (or at least a part of the pool that was 6-8 feet deep). The beach has a bit of an undertow, so I found it a bit rough getting out of the ocean... the snorkeling is pretty good and they have sea turtles there.