I own HGVC on Oahu but also love Marriott Ko Olina. I’ve been tempted to buy an EOY Ko Olina Ocean view. If I come across a great purchase price (less than $3k for an EOYE OV), I might bite but for now I’m seriously leaning towards finding a TUGger who I can rent from occasionally
. There‘s a lot of Ko Olina rentals on Redweek.
Waikiki is completely different than KoOlina. It really depends on the experience you‘re looking for.
Choose Waikiki (HGVC or Wyndham) if your family
- will spend the majority of your time in city, don’t mind crowds and lots of city noise
- prefer lots of dining, shopping and entertainment options including late night options
- prefer a walkable city with public transportation.
Choose Marriott Ko Olina if your family
- doesn’t want to spend their vacation time in a major city with city crowds and city noise
- will spend a lot of time at the resort pool and beaches relaxing
- will spend a good portion of your time drive around the island exploring. Parking is free for Ko Olina owners and exchangers (unlike Waikiki where daily parking is very expensive for everyone)
- prefers things to quiet down in the evening (instead of ongoing noise from various late evening activities)
Just keep in mind, whether you decide to own or trade, during peak travel periods (whenever the majority of kids are out of school), there will be less supply/more demand at these Oahu resorts.
Exchanging
If you can travel anytime during the year and don’t care about the view, you can usually get an exchange into HGVC and Marriott mega resorts on Oahu. Just search the sightings forum to get an idea.
HGVC trades with RCI and generally does an annual bulk deposit over a year in advance. As long as you’re able to travel anytime during the year, just place an ongoing request and include the one bedrooms at HGVC Hokulani (this boutique hotel has less demand than the Hilton Hawaiian Village resort).
Your Vistana week now has II priority access to Marriott inventory before it’s released to the generally public. As long as you’re able travel anytime during the year, you should be able to find availability. Marriott owner will still have first crack for exchanges into their sister resorts. So if you want/need better availability, a Marriott trader would work. Look at the numerous trader threads in the Marriott forum.
Negatives of exchanging:
- No guarantee view (Marriott Ko Olina has the dreaded parking lot views)
- At Ko Olina, exchangers are typically assigned to the lower floors with the upper floors held for resort owners
- Harder to coordinate back to back stays (prefer direct online booking access for arrange HawAii stays across different timeshare systems )
- Have to wait until exchange is confirmed before booking airfare
Negatives of ownership
- Marriott week owners don’t have an internal banking option. They have to deposit their week with II and lose their view preference when they trade back in. All of my other timeshare systems allow me to bank and borrow within their internal reservation system which provides greater booking flexibility.
- HGVC Oahu owners can only book exactly what they own (full unit size, type and season for the full period) during the priority home resort window on the single home week checkin day. The Club reservation typically begins 9 months before checkin at most HGVC resorts where Club inventory is made available to all owners. During the Club Reservation window, HGVC members can book a minimum of three nights in any unit size/type, season or checkin day. This is similar to SVV making StarOption reservations at the 8 month mark where you basically get to choose from the leftover inventory. If you decide to buy a HGVC week for HGVC points, look at the trader threads on the HGVC forum.
For anyone not familiar with the Hilton Hawaiian Village on Oahu, here’s an old description from Hawaii Revealed.
If you haven’t stay at the HGVCs on Oahu, I suggest trying it before buying.
Hi all. I recently stayed at the hhv, lagoon tower, by renting points froma fellow tugger. I was planning on buying into the system to go to this resort in the future and i must say i am glad i did this first. I currently own westin and dvc product and also stay at marriott regularly with ii...
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