HGVC or SVO or ... in Orlando

[weare4illini]

We are just starting to look at buying 1-3 weeks of timeshare in Orlando for our parents or friends visits. We think the brands like Hilton or Sheraton might offer the best experience and value. Has anyone been to both, or one of them and a non brand like Wesgate, and can provide some insight? You will help us focus!

 

[Henry M.]

I own SVO, but in Hawaii, not in Orlando. I have been very happy with their program and I am now up to four weeks with them. What I like about te hotel progrmas is the ability to stay at some pretty nice properties when not going to my timeshare. I do travel a lot in Europe so using hotel points in some of the bigger cities is a good value. To me it is also important to have several properties that I like in the program. I have not had very good luck with Interval International for non SVN exchanges.

I'd be interested in a thorough comparison of the Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton and Starwood vacation programs. I've seen the individual descriptions on this site but it would be interesting to hear from someone that actually owns several of these.

If Orlando/Disney was my primary destination I would probably look more deeply into the Disney Vacation Club. From what I hear, it offers good value and I think it is great to be inside the Disney property, rather than in the resorts around it. We usually stay at the Dolphin hotel when we go there.

Hopefully others with more Florida experience will chime in.

 

[OnMedic]

Hi Weare

We own at HGVC and have family that owns at Westgate. The Orlando HGVC locations are very nice! The Westgate properties are OK, but the aggressive nature and quantity of sales people is a big turn off for many!

Westgate can be purchased fairly economically on the resale market, where as a HGVC resale week will be more money.

Other things to consider are...

HGVC points can be used for as few as 3 night stays per reservation. You may be able to get multiple 3-4 night stays for your annual points alotment. Also, depending on season and size pof ownership, you may also be able to get multiple weeks. See some examples here and here. HGVC is totally flexible!

Westgate you may be able to buy a lock-out unit, giving you two weeks usage (1BR week + Studio week) from of one week ownership. I am not 100% sure if Westgate allows you to spit your week?

Finally, if you ever choose to use your TS, what would you rather have access to... HGVC and their locations or WG and their locations. Both can be space banked into RCI and SFX, and WG I think can also be banked into II.

I hope this helps!

 

[mj2vacation]

Starwood allows for stays as short as one night, and the hotel program for us far superior to either Marriott or Hilton.

I am not a big fan of Westgate. They are typical 70's style timeshare sleeze.

 

[Henry M.]

You can stay for as little as one night at the SVO properties but you can only reserve the short stays 60 (or is it 90?) days before arrival. This could be a problem for high demand periods.

I like the Starwood hotel program independent of the SVO program because of their policy of no blackouts. I earn a lot of Starpoints through my American Express card and I certainly use the SPG program. With the SVO program (with my Maui property) you could get enough points to stay about a week to 10 days in nice Starwood hotels. This is a lot better than the Marriott program. I don't know how the others stack up. However, trading for hotel weeks is probably not the best use of the property. You give up a much nicer room or longer stay with a lock-off unit to stay in an OK hotel room. You can do better financially by renting out the property or trading it for somewhere else if you are not going to use it. There are some exceptions, for example if you are going to high end hotels in Europe you can get your money's worth out of Starpoints.

I find that the hotel programs have great properties, but it is the properties themselves that I like, rather than the affiliation with a particular hotel chain. If I were starting over with SVO, I'd buy a resale unit and then I would get a developer unit to get the benefits of being part of the hotel network assigned back to the resale. This is not a requirement for SVN mandatory units, like Vistana Village, but it is nice to have. The Platinum SPG benefits are also very nice if you travel a lot.

I would say that the major hotel chains are strong competitors and you should probably pick the locations you really like and chose the chain that best serves them and has the nicest properties there.

 

[Bill4728]

Look at both SVN and HGVC advice with this link http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24754

Read and learn about both companies. SVN is tricky with their madatory and non mandatory resorts, so be carefull.

Good Luck