What Should I Buy?

[Mantell13]

1) Is there a vacation destination you wish to visit most of the time or on a regular basis? if so where? We vacation mainly beaches and Disney. We tend to go to Disney every 2-3 years and the beaches in between. We like east coast beaches and the emerald coast.

2) Do you want to visit your home resort at least half the time, or do you want to trade more than half the time? I think we would trade more than half the time.

3) What are your 5 top trade destinations? Orlando(Disney), Destin, Hilton Head Island, OBX, probably another Florida beach

4) How many people do you usually travel with - total, including yourself? My family of 5 kids and my wife. We like to travel with my brothers family as well and they are 2 adults and 5 kids as well.

5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule? Mainly on school schedule now but we like to travel to Disney during low traffic times.

6) Can you make firm plans 12 or more mos. in advance? We haven’t done that before but I’m sure we can do it if it gets us the best deal and options.

7) Can you vacation for a full week at a time? Yes

8) What level of accommodations do you prefer on a scale of 1 to 5 stars? We aren’t too fancy but probably nothing lower than a 3 star.

9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing? I can afford probably 20-30k but prefer not to spend that much.

10) How much can you afford to spend every year for a maintenance fee that will come due right after Christmas, and increase each year? The presentation we did with spinnaker was $1,100 for every year and $550 for every other year. Seemed reasonable and definitely doable for us.

11) Are you a detail oriented planner? Somewhat but haven’t really needed to be so far.

12) Do you understand that once you buy a timeshare, it may be very difficult to sell or give away, and you are responsible for all fees, until you do? Yes

 

[jp10558]

I think the sheer size of the family might put you out of anything but 3BR timeshares (2BR usually limit to 6 people), and if you're talking your brother as well, I see why in the other thread you do big Airbnb. Honestly, for the amount of people, you're probably better off with house rentals because otherwise you'd need multiple units I think. Not 100% but probably 90% of the time 2BR (6 people) are about the biggest I see readily available. If you can even figure out 3 2BR units and somehow have adults spread out with the kids, your logistics and costs are going to be pretty high IMHO. IN systems if you can get a 3BR, you could fit your family, but the 8 people is 2 people per bed usually, and 2 on a pull out couch. So again, IDK how that actually works out for you logistically.

That all said, HHI does have 3BR in some of the "off brand" timeshares, and Destin does have the Emerald Grande from Wyndham for stupid points costs with 3BR, and Orlando must have some 3BR - I'm pretty sure I saw them in HGVC Seaworld at least. I just think you're probably going to struggle a lot, and be looking at (depending on dates) MFs of maybe $4,600 for one week in a 3BR at Emerald Grande, and RCI cash rates of $1,500 a week in 2BR in HHI or more. I know Orlando (near but not Disney resorts) like SeaWorld can go for $900 a week for a 3BR in December, but the big problem is no one system is going to do all those locations (this isn't unusual), but most of the "hacks" to work around that are just going to be limited (it can be hard to get multiple units or rareish 3BR) and / or cost "a lot" by my estimations.

On the other other hand - I know 8 BR vacation houses can go for $11,000 a week in the summer in the outer banks or off of SC so if you really are playing with $5,500 a week and you're willing to do a lot of hassle potentially, you could probably still beat that with some timeshares ( and maybe by a lot depending. I'm getting 2 2BR units at Massanutten first week of October for $750 total I think for the week, so that's 4 BR that probably could work for your family if you trusted the kids in a unit / or can get them to assign attached units and some kids can sleep on the pull out couches in the living room or share a queen bed) - so there's a lot of variance.

Without example dates I can't really comment on how realistic multiple units or large units etc would be. And I don't know how much the various resort features are worth - multiple pools, playgrounds, tennis, arcades, mini golf, shuffleboard, etc are (and these vary by resort of course, and some cost extra)...