We are considering a floating week, 2 bedroom. How stable is Spinnaker? What are the advantages and disadvantages of Spinnaker.
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Carolina Club by Spinnaker
- Thread starter Brenda47
- Start date
Dave M
TUG Lifetime Member
Solid timeshare developer with a good track record. Their resorts are mostly in Hilton Head. Seamless administration. Reasonably good owners' website.
I haven't seen any disadvantages yet from my Waterside ownership.
I haven't seen any disadvantages yet from my Waterside ownership.
The Carolina Club has a weird ownership structure. The development was originally developed as a quarter and eighth share resort that rotate throughout the seasons. Spinnaker owns a bunch of those units and further subdivided them into week timeshare units under a RTU lease when it had difficulty selling the quarter and eighth shares. Spinnaker originally sold some of those units as fixed weeks and some as 1-52 week floating units.
I believe a lot of those fixed weeks sold were prime summer weeks, so it may be difficult to book a summer week using a float week. Spinnaker is still in sales mode for the Carolina Club RTU weeks, but is now only selling the floating units. To reserve a floating week, you reserve through Spinnaker. However, Spinnaker is not the management company of the Carolina Club, as the owners removed them because of some dissatisfaction. It is just an owner like all the other quarter and eighth owners, but they still control the sale, reservations, and MF collection for the RTU units. I believe if you have a maintenance issue, you contact the management company, not Spinnaker. I believe the management company is RMC at hiltonheadusa.com, but it might be Southwind Management (I can't remember). The HOA of the overall Carolina Club decides all matters, such as special assessments and MF's, not Spinnaker.
I found all this before buying a unit, so I passed because I was really unsure of the difficulty of getting a summer week. The people at Spinnaker told me that I should send an email request at 12:01am 12 months before to ensure I get a summer week. They couldn't tell me how many floating week units were available during the summer (in relation to the amount of fixed weeks sold), so I couldn't tell if it was going to be a crapshoot to get the summer week I wanted. Also, if I needed to make a change of plans later in the year, I didn't want to get stuck with a November week, etc.
I ended up getting a fixed summer week at Cottages instead. It's too bad because the Carolina Club units are terrific, much nicer than Cottages. Better than a lot of Gold Crowns I've seen and equal to Southwind Villas, Port O Call, and Egret Pointe. Since they have so many repeat owners coming back for mulitple weeks, they maintain the resort really well. The MF is pretty high $700-800 (for 3Br), but I believe it contains a healthy reserve to avoid any special assessments. The location is also terrific. Probably a short 1/4 to 1/2 mile walk on a private path to the beach, just north of Southwind Villas.
I believe a lot of those fixed weeks sold were prime summer weeks, so it may be difficult to book a summer week using a float week. Spinnaker is still in sales mode for the Carolina Club RTU weeks, but is now only selling the floating units. To reserve a floating week, you reserve through Spinnaker. However, Spinnaker is not the management company of the Carolina Club, as the owners removed them because of some dissatisfaction. It is just an owner like all the other quarter and eighth owners, but they still control the sale, reservations, and MF collection for the RTU units. I believe if you have a maintenance issue, you contact the management company, not Spinnaker. I believe the management company is RMC at hiltonheadusa.com, but it might be Southwind Management (I can't remember). The HOA of the overall Carolina Club decides all matters, such as special assessments and MF's, not Spinnaker.
I found all this before buying a unit, so I passed because I was really unsure of the difficulty of getting a summer week. The people at Spinnaker told me that I should send an email request at 12:01am 12 months before to ensure I get a summer week. They couldn't tell me how many floating week units were available during the summer (in relation to the amount of fixed weeks sold), so I couldn't tell if it was going to be a crapshoot to get the summer week I wanted. Also, if I needed to make a change of plans later in the year, I didn't want to get stuck with a November week, etc.
I ended up getting a fixed summer week at Cottages instead. It's too bad because the Carolina Club units are terrific, much nicer than Cottages. Better than a lot of Gold Crowns I've seen and equal to Southwind Villas, Port O Call, and Egret Pointe. Since they have so many repeat owners coming back for mulitple weeks, they maintain the resort really well. The MF is pretty high $700-800 (for 3Br), but I believe it contains a healthy reserve to avoid any special assessments. The location is also terrific. Probably a short 1/4 to 1/2 mile walk on a private path to the beach, just north of Southwind Villas.
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Dave M
TUG Lifetime Member
I believe Southwind Management handles most of the Spinnaker resorts, including Carolina Club.
I remember now. Southwind management was replaced by the HOA with RMC. Southwind management now just coordinates the RTUs (i.e. reservations) and rents out the Carolina Club weeks owned by Spinnaker. They don't run the day to day management of the Carolina Club anymore, but will be your conduit to the HOA.
Kind of confusing, isn't it? Anyways, the resort is good, the HOA is good, the management company is good, the character of the floating program is a mystery. If you don't need peak weeks, it is probably OK. If you definitely need summer, I would investigate further. Unfortunately, I was time pressed, as it was an ebay auction that I was looking at, and I couldn't find any helpful information from Spinnaker or Southwind in the short time that I had.
The president of the HOA is a TUG member and has his contact information in the reviews. He is a quartershare owner and didn't really know anything about the floating program. He referred me to Southwind at spinnaker.com to find out details of the floating system. If you have a question about the resort itself or the HOA, he is a terrific person to talk to and a great resource.
Kind of confusing, isn't it? Anyways, the resort is good, the HOA is good, the management company is good, the character of the floating program is a mystery. If you don't need peak weeks, it is probably OK. If you definitely need summer, I would investigate further. Unfortunately, I was time pressed, as it was an ebay auction that I was looking at, and I couldn't find any helpful information from Spinnaker or Southwind in the short time that I had.
The president of the HOA is a TUG member and has his contact information in the reviews. He is a quartershare owner and didn't really know anything about the floating program. He referred me to Southwind at spinnaker.com to find out details of the floating system. If you have a question about the resort itself or the HOA, he is a terrific person to talk to and a great resource.
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Thanks everyone. I actually would want to use it only during the late spring or fall. Do you think late April or May would be a problem booking a week.
You are correct about the change in management company.
I called, starting with the resort and was referred to ELEVEN different people. The last person, I hung up on. She was the rudest most incompetent person I have ever tried to deal with. Each and every person I spoke to was. Is this normal for this group?
The former management company told me because of the floating system, I would probably never be able to book my week, even a year in advance. What has been your experience with floating weeks?
You are correct about the change in management company.
I called, starting with the resort and was referred to ELEVEN different people. The last person, I hung up on. She was the rudest most incompetent person I have ever tried to deal with. Each and every person I spoke to was. Is this normal for this group?
The former management company told me because of the floating system, I would probably never be able to book my week, even a year in advance. What has been your experience with floating weeks?
I really don't know about late Spring. As for fall, I noticed that the rentals that Spinnaker has for September were really cheap (less than $1000, I think). So I don't think it will probably be very difficult to book a week during this time period. The Southwind management person I talk to last said that summer weeks were very difficult to book and I really had to do it a year in advance. She didn't seem to think the fall would be that difficult. I've been in Shipyard in the fall and it seems pretty empty.
td0804
TUG Member
How is the trading power of the Carolina Club for a floating week?