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Is Welk the best?

Welk doesn't sell fixed weeks anywhere anymore from what I've been told. They never sold anything but points at Cabo, Branson, or Northstar.
And as I said, above 540k points and above gets real expensive real fast. A guy posted on TUG back in January that he had just bought 1M Welk points for $125k.....
The extended reservation window isn't open to resale purchasers so those two factors plus Breckenridge opening this fall, should mean even more ski availability.
There's plenty open in weeks 1-8 of 2020 at Northstar, except presidents weekend, week 7.

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I have to admit that I'm completely in agreement with you, Shankilicious. I love Welk! Keep in mind that's a totally uneducated opinion, because we literally never looked at anything else. Our extended family lives in Escondido, so it was Welk or nuttin'! But the cares of the world melt away when we're at Welk, and we love going there.

There's a perk of being a large points owner that I don't often see mentioned here: Depending on your membership level, last minute reservations (i.e. 30-60 days in advance) get a % discount in points. At our level, Platinum Select, last minute reservations get a 20% discount, so a small one bedroom costs 90,000 instead of 120,000 points if I make the reservation less than 45 days in the future. (Keep in mind, these perks don't transfer to resale owners.) My six small one bedroom weeks can stretch to eight!

We're seriously considering upgrading one level and spending winters in Escondido. If we do, then their new catch phrase, "Welkome Home," will be quite on point for us!

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Hahaha! Yeah I didnt add that discounted last minute bonus for two reasons. I don't have it as only owning 240k points and resale owners don't get it.....

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bizaro86 said:
20% of the weeks in Escondido would be 10.4 weeks. So hypothetically, you could see pretty much all of the good summer weeks booked before the 15 months.
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You have a good point. But only 5% of Welk owners are Premiere/Select/Elite/Pinnacle. So the P/S/E/P owners simply cannot book "all the good summer weeks" because there aren't enough of them. There was a post in January that someone paid $125,000 for 1.5 million points making her a Pinnacle owner (she wisely decided to rescind). Since P/S/E/P is only available when you buy from the developer, I just can't imagine that the 5% is going to grow much at those prices.
 
Guitarmom said:
You have a good point. But only 5% of Welk owners are Premiere/Select/Elite/Pinnacle. So the P/S/E/P owners simply cannot book "all the good summer weeks" because there aren't enough of them. There was a post in January that someone paid $125,000 for 1.5 million points making her a Pinnacle owner (she wisely decided to rescind). Since P/S/E/P is only available when you buy from the developer, I just can't imagine that the 5% is going to grow much at those prices.
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To prevent the PSEP owners from grabbing all of the high value weeks, only a small part of the inventory is made available for the extended reservation windows. Even though, I am in that PSEP category, I think this system is a good for all owners
 
Love our Welk Villa that we bought 30 years ago fo only a few thousand dollars after falling in love with it. It is one of 4 systems we own and by far my favorite. We own in Escondido a week which we've kept, never converted. I've written this before but when I walk into our unit it feels like the weight of the world is lifted off my shoulders. It is also a favorite for our friends and relatives.
If I knew what made me relax so much here I would convert our house to get the same feeling.
I have stayed at other Welk Resorts in trades thru RCI but none give me that same feeling. We also own in S.F. at the Donatello, at Orange Lake in Florida, and in Worldmark.
Bart
 
Shank, signed up now, just to say, my family has enjoyed Well Escondido for the last 23 years! I know I had a TUG account back then but it was under a prodigy.net user email, which is long gone. Learned so much back then with TUG , that when an opportunity came up to buy 2 summer weeks at Broadway Hill we jumped. Personally we have loved the consistency of the same 2 weeks in the same unit. Yes, things have changed, house keeping has gotten worse over the last several years, fewer plays, not enough umbrellas (maybe a unique complaint due to our summer use). But the overall experience makes it a vacation we look forward to year after year.
 
TUG25 said:
Shank, signed up now, just to say, my family has enjoyed Well Escondido for the last 23 years! I know I had a TUG account back then but it was under a prodigy.net user email, which is long gone. Learned so much back then with TUG , that when an opportunity came up to buy 2 summer weeks at Broadway Hill we jumped. Personally we have loved the consistency of the same 2 weeks in the same unit. Yes, things have changed, house keeping has gotten worse over the last several years, fewer plays, not enough umbrellas (maybe a unique complaint due to our summer use). But the overall experience makes it a vacation we look forward to year after year.
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I feel like the Escondido property with it's three rec centers and large golf course (especially foot golf) make it a destination I could spend two weeks at, and intend to in 2022 for my 10 year Anniversary.
 
I think that Welk is an okay resort chain but not the best. I have stayed at Cathedral City once and Northstar twice (second time was a free comp because of the disaster of the first visit - - review on file on tug2.). Cathedral city is, IIRC, only 1 BR units. It is a converted apartment complex. It was okay but probably got a B grade. The washers/dryers are not in the units but are located in the clubhouse.

In the OP's post, he mentioned that Welk trades well in both RCI and II. But that needs to be explained a bit. Welk basically pulled out of II. So, the Welk owners have their RCI membership included in their annual MF. That means that the vast majority of owners no longer are no longer in II. If the Welk owners want to exchange through II, they would need to separately pay the annual II membership fee themselves. I think that those resorts that have always been in points no longer can exchange through II. So, if a Welk owner only owns points, I'm not sure if they can exchange though ii. Perhaps, I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, I hope that someone clarifies that.

I think that there are only 5 or 6 Welk resorts. So, doing an internal exchange in Welk is limited.

I prefer Marriott TS because of their in-network preference period in II for exchanges.
 
BJRSanDiego said:
I think that Welk is an okay resort chain but not the best. I have stayed at Cathedral City once and Northstar twice (second time was a free comp because of the disaster of the first visit - - review on file on tug2.). Cathedral city is, IIRC, only 1 BR units. It is a converted apartment complex. It was okay but probably got a B grade. The washers/dryers are not in the units but are located in the clubhouse.

In the OP's post, he mentioned that Welk trades well in both RCI and II. But that needs to be explained a bit. Welk basically pulled out of II. So, the Welk owners have their RCI membership included in their annual MF. That means that the vast majority of owners no longer are no longer in II. If the Welk owners want to exchange through II, they would need to separately pay the annual II membership fee themselves. I think that those resorts that have always been in points no longer can exchange through II. So, if a Welk owner only owns points, I'm not sure if they can exchange though ii. Perhaps, I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, I hope that someone clarifies that.

I think that there are only 5 or 6 Welk resorts. So, doing an internal exchange in Welk is limited.

I prefer Marriott TS because of their in-network preference period in II for exchanges.
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You are correct in that Welk owners have to pay their own II fees. But I am a points only owner and can still "exchange" through II. 90% of Welk owners only own points. They have made a huge campaign of converting deeds to points in the last 5 years.

Right now there are 5 Welk Resorts with the Breckenridge location opening this fall. There are 14 (I believe) associate resorts that we can exchange with for no fee.
 
Oh, I've been misreading it. I thought you were Skankilicious.

But, you're actually just a bad golfer.

:D
 
OldGuy said:
Oh, I've been misreading it. I thought you were Skankilicious.

But, you're actually just a bad golfer.

:D
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I've stepped foot on one golf course in 15 years. I had a cigar in one hand and beer in the other the whole time. #neverleavethecart lol!

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Escondido is okay, but when our kids wanted to go to CA, they wanted to be near the ocean. I didn't care, but they did, and so we stayed at GPR Palisades and then of course Newport Coast for early June that year.

The kids have all been to Welk, but not for a long time. They were kids last time, and now they are 38, 40 and 42 and all have kids of their own. When they saw how inland it was, they just weren't impressed.

Now the Branson Welk resort, I am going to stay there sometime, and I will try out the new Mountain Villas in Escondido.
 
What is 120,000 Welk points or 240,000 points get you for exchange in II or RCI? Is it one bedroom at Marriott or Hilton or Disney? I am trying to get an idea of some comparison. We did like the Welk at North Tahoe and we are still trying to figure out where we should buy for timeshare.
 
Sea&ski? said:
What is 120,000 Welk points or 240,000 points get you for exchange in II or RCI? Is it one bedroom at Marriott or Hilton or Disney? I am trying to get an idea of some comparison. We did like the Welk at North Tahoe and we are still trying to figure out where we should buy for timeshare.
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240k points welk points will get you a 2br almost anywhere through RCI or II except Registry resorts.

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