Not Much Australia in RCI--Maybe Other Exchange Systems?

[Conan]

I have a pretty good trading week in RCI (it sees about 150,000 openings), and I also have RCI Points and Wyndham Plus Points.

I'm starting to think about Australia, maybe Sydney/East Coast/Barrier Reef in October-November 2011. I was surprised how little availability shows in RCI Weeks and Points.

Are there other exchange systems I should be looking at?

 

[Jimster]

Australia

Quite frankly you are in the wrong exchange company for Australia or New Zealand. You will have much better luck with DAE and you'll save money too. Unlike RCI which tries to squeeze every last penny out of you, DAE offers a reasonable service at a reasonable price.

 

[Cotswolder]

I agree with Jimster.

I have been to Australia twice and both times we had no problems getting exchanges through DAE

 

[rickandcindy23]

Try www.htse.net, enter 9999 and the username, htse as the password. There are new listings for winter of 2010-2011 (summer in Australia).

 

[Carolinian]

Go to www.daelive.com and click on availibility, then look at Australia. You don't have to be a member to check out the inventory.

 

[colamedia]

November Great Barrier Reef you're getting into the cyclone season (hurricanes), October is less risky. The earlier you do the Reef the better.

You definitely want to avoid late November - from about 20Nov, it's 'Schoolies', behaviour-wise, it's like Spring Break, except the alcohol is legal or almost legal, at least one person is usually old enough to get it. (Aust drinking age is 18yr old) East Coast during Schoolies is crowded, noisy and a bit disorderly. The first week of October is school holidays, so will also limit availability.


Australia has quite a small number of timeshares, and they're often more towards the quaint standard than resort standard. RCI does have the rental of Oaks apartments in the major cities - they seem to be a reasonable price. II generally doesn't have that much availability 2bed or larger (larger than 2 bed is very rare)

You might actually not want to spend a week in one place anyway, Australia is big, and a long way away, going for 3 weeks and seeing 3 places, is like someone visiting America going for 3 weeks and only seeing 3 places. Do you know any Worldmark owners that you might be able to exchange with? You can drive from Sydney to Brisbane and stay at Worldmark for a few nights at a few places, but unless you're made keen on beaches, you might not be too interested in a whole week at each place. Australian hotels usually have a fridge and tea/coffee making facilities in even the most budget of hotel. You might find that is an easier option than exchanging.

 

[Conan]

Colamedia, thanks for the input.

I'm thinking of September-October because that seems to be the quietest part of the stinger-jellyfish season, at a time when the air and water are still quite warm.

I'm thinking of three weeks in Australia the way I would look at a three week visit to the US. A person coming here could never see the whole country, but if they spent a week in New York City, a week in Florida, and a week in Sedona AZ or Palm Springs CA, they'd go home with some sense of the country.

I appreciate that Australia is too big to do much point-to-point driving, but I also don't want to pay for a lot of internal flights.

What would you suggest as the best month to swim and snorkel?
If you were limited to three or four stop-offs, where would you go?

 

[colamedia]

Depending on where you are coming from and what you think of as warm water June/July is great for swimming on the Great Barrier Reef up north near Cairns, might be a bit cold further south (eg Herron Island) and much too cold on the Gold Coast and further south.
Australia north to south is about the same as San Diego-Seattle - best beach weather in San Diego is not the same time of year as best beach weather in Seattle

If it is just a 3 week holiday, I'd say keep to your original time of Oct-Nov, say mid Oct - early Nov, starting on the Great Barrier Reef and then heading south. Sept-Oct and you get Australian school holidays early Oct with limited availability.

I'd say Cairns or Port Douglas (Great Barrier Reef, Daintree, Atherton Tablelands) and Sydney (Blue Mountains, Grand Pacific Drive, zoo...). Port Douglas is north of Cairns, it has a beach, but it's pretty quiet, a lot of the tours go through it so you still have a lot of options for daytrips; Cairns, not really beach, more about what there is available to do. 3rd spot, depends - how many of you? ages? interests? Do you want to see any major attraction (other than the Great Barrier Reef)? Major attractions I mean Kangaroo Island, Uluru, Kakadu, Great Ocean Road, some people are anxious to see Coober Pedy. Or do you just want a good beach with water temp of how many degrees? (Cairns is more about going on trips to the surrounding sites rather than a lounging on a beach)

Gold Coast is lively, theme parks, probably a cross between Orlando and Daytona, A lot of the timeshares are towards the south of the Gold Coast where it is a bit quieter.
Sunshine Coast is a bit more grown up, not that many timeshares.

NSW mid north coast has quite a few timeshares too around Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie, more laze on the beach spots, though there are daytrips to the hinterland.

Going south of Sydney it will be a bit colder in Oct.

If you check on the old board, there were quite a lot of Australian threads from when Judy was planning their Australian trip in 2006 or 2007??

 

[Conan]

Clearly I've got a lot of homework to do.

We're a baby boomer couple, healthy and approaching retirement. We don't have much use for Orlando-Daytona. Our ideal vacation is a place like Crete, or southern Spain, or Portugal's Algarve, or even San Diego, places where you can choose among city culture, natural beauty, and the seashore. We've also enjoyed the otherworld beauty of Arizona and Utah around Indian Country. We've hiked in Arizona at 44C/111F (carry water!). We liked Scotland too!

We've enjoyed snorkeling in various caribbean islands and elsewhere, so the Great Barrier Reef is what's bringing us halfway around the world. We'll snorkel in water down to 22C/70F if there's something to look at but its nice if the air is between 27C/81F and 35C/95F.

So beyond the Reef and a reasonable number of beach days, we'd want what's unique to Australia, both city life and the natural world.

Does that help?

 

[Judy]

Do you have access to Worldmark South Pacific through your Wyndham Plus points? Worldmark SP has a lot of resorts in Australia.

Other than that, I also recommend DAE. They have an office in Australia and a lot of availability there.

 

[Conan]

Do you have access to Worldmark South Pacific through your Wyndham Plus points? Worldmark SP has a lot of resorts in Australia.

Wyndham lists some of the Worldmark properties, but in practice there's almost always zero availabillity.

Actually when the date comes closer I may post on TUG about making a reciprocal exchange with a Worldmark member. (Rental or assignment of Wyndham reservations is allowed, unlike in RCI).