What to buy? Help!

[Juanjuanhijo]

1) Is there a vacation destination you wish to visit most of the time or on a regular basis? if so where?
No specific location. Hoping access to locations will drive us to go to new places

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 50/50

3) What are your 5 top trade destinations?
Mountains, beach, mainly US probably east coast/east of miss

4) How many people do you usually travel with - total, including yourself? 4 2 adults 2 young kids

5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule? Anytime now. Will be school schedule in several years

6) Can you make firm plans 12 or more mos. in advance? Yes

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? 3-5

9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing? 5k

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? This is one of our struggles-making sure the annual fee is worth it. Reasonable probably 1200 -2000 a year.

11) Are you a detail oriented planner? No but the wife does well with that. Likes spending time to find deals

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. Likely would want to get started with a resale.

 

[Juanjuanhijo]

One additional note really interested in great places for the kids. Heavy into pools, slides, splash pads etc

 

[Passepartout]

Don't buy any timeshare. Just rent. Haunt the TUG Last Minute Rentals. They are all under about $125 a day, and that's often less than the owner is paying for annual fees. I suspect you are young, and have upcoming obligations. Like college for those 2 kids, and the possibility of needing to relocate for work. Timeshares are expensive luxury goods. Make sure that all the other truly important things are completely manageable- like the house, car(s), education, insurances and that you are maxing out your retirement before you commit to any long term non-appreciating luxury goods... Timeshares are worth exactly nothing the second you buy, Often people have to pay someone to take them off their hands. We see this every day. Sure, they are great, and many of us have several, but those who are happy with them bought them with excess, disposable funds and if it became worthless, wouldn't keep us from handling the important things in life.

So start by renting a nice TS at a location you can drive your family to and try it out.

Good Luck. I don't want to rain on your parade, but I hate people getting hurt too.

Jim

 

[CPNY]

1) Is there a vacation destination you wish to visit most of the time or on a regular basis? if so where?
No specific location. Hoping access to locations will drive us to go to new places

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 50/50

3) What are your 5 top trade destinations?
Mountains, beach, mainly US probably east coast/east of miss

4) How many people do you usually travel with - total, including yourself? 4 2 adults 2 young kids

5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule? Anytime now. Will be school schedule in several years

6) Can you make firm plans 12 or more mos. in advance? Yes

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? 3-5

9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing? 5k

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? This is one of our struggles-making sure the annual fee is worth it. Reasonable probably 1200 -2000 a year.

11) Are you a detail oriented planner? No but the wife does well with that. Likes spending time to find deals

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. Likely would want to get started with a resale.

5K? I’d go with a vistana mandatory resort platinum 2 bedroom. You’ll have points and can get good exchanges in interval also. Marriott points program is great however, I’m not sure your buy in of 5K is enough. Take a look into Wyndham properties, if you like them you can pick up Wyndham points cheap to free

 

[cbyrne1174]

1) Is there a vacation destination you wish to visit most of the time or on a regular basis? if so where?
No specific location. Hoping access to locations will drive us to go to new places

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 50/50

3) What are your 5 top trade destinations?
Mountains, beach, mainly US probably east coast/east of miss

4) How many people do you usually travel with - total, including yourself? 4 2 adults 2 young kids

5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule? Anytime now. Will be school schedule in several years

6) Can you make firm plans 12 or more mos. in advance? Yes

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? 3-5

9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing? 5k

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? This is one of our struggles-making sure the annual fee is worth it. Reasonable probably 1200 -2000 a year.

11) Are you a detail oriented planner? No but the wife does well with that. Likes spending time to find deals

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. Likely would want to get started with a resale.

If you are Okay with 3 star resorts. Wyndham will get you about 3-4 weeks of vacation for $2,000/year in a 1 bedroom. The pullout couches are comfortable enough for kids. For kid locations look up:
- Bonnet Creek (5 pools, 2 slides, lazy rivers, on Disney property)
-Ocean Walk (an hour from Disney, 4 pools, kids splash pad, 1 slide, 1 lazy river, beach front)
- Glacier Canyon (8 water parks, in the Dells)
- Great Smokies Lodge (3 water parks, near Dollywood).
- Anaheim (Disneyland)

For Exotic Adult Locations:
- 8 Hawaii resorts ** need a Worldmark contract for the Island of Maui**
- Margaritaville in Rio Mar (4 star, Puerto Rico)
- Margaritaville St. Thomas (4 star)
- Fiji (need a Worldmark account)
- Coral Baja ( need a Worldmark account, in Mexico)
- Clearwater


There are over 200 resorts, these are just the ones that stand out. I've been to all the beach locations in FL and they are all nice too. If you research Wyndham, make sure you plan ahead to see if you need a small Worldmark account. I bought the amount of points that I need for just Club Wyndham, only to later realize down the road when my kids are older I'm going to want to visit the Worldmark locations. Without a small amount of Worldmark points, you can't go to Yellowstone, British Columbia, a good majority of California, Washington, Oregon, Maui, Mexico, or Fiji. You can tack on a small worldmark account starting at $569/year just to get access when you need it. I would say 75% of Wyndham's total room inventory is "Club Wyndham". Their Flagship (Bonnet Creek) has 1149 rooms. The other 25% is Worldmark by Wyndham. I don't care what the sales people tell you. It is almost never in your best interest to buy a retail membership. You can get 100% access to the club with both Club Wyndham and Worldmark by Wyndham points. People who buy retail "Club Wyndham" points get access to Worldmark, but they have to pay a $99 fee and only have access to the remaining inventory. The locations I mentioned above require a 13 month in advance reservation. Fiji only has 44 units. Yellowstone only has 112.

 

[BDMX2]

I'm going to kind of add a mashup of what you've been advised already. Try renting a Wyndham resort or two and then if you like it, pick up a resale. That's what we did. We had rented at Bonnet Creek several times and decided we liked it enough to just get our own membership (we had owned DVC in the past, so we were familiar with timeshare ownership). For us, we like owning rather than renting just for the control of reservations. Plus, like you mentioned in your Q&A post, we've explored more places because of our ownership. Our intention was literally just Bonnet Creek and a few visits to the DC area, but we've now branched out and have visited Hawaii, South Carolina, Rhode Island (though we're really close to RI but had never contemplated vacationing there!), and Texas...so far!