We formerly owned prime-season floating-week units at 2 very nice sister timeshare resorts located across the street from each other in Orlando FL. Our deed identified us as owners of specific units during particular weeks -- e.g., B36A10B on our deed meant we owned the connecting 36-A & 36-B lockoff units in Building B during Week 36.
Owning it during that specific week every year did not give us any special priority for using our own deeded unit, however. That's because the use rules, spelled out in the original condo documents for that timeshare, on file with the Orange County FL registrar along with all the other real estate deeds & covenants, dictated a floating-week system. That meant paid-up owners had to phone ahead for reservations.
The choicest prime weeks got snapped up soonest, so it was important to plan ahead & call early for a good week. The later we waited, the slimmer the pickings.
Waiting too long ran into the possibility of being shut out altogether -- getting no reservation for our own use even though we paid all our maintenance fees on time. How could that happen? If nothing was available when we called for a reservation, then what happened to the timeshare that we paid for via our maintenance fee? Easy. If we waited till too late, then our paid-for week was for one of those vacant units that nobody used, that remained vacant earlier in the year -- a perfectly good timeshare week that went to waste for lack of good planning & early reservation.
Fortunately that never happened to us -- although it did happen occasionally to others, who were hopping mad when they discovered they had been shut out because of their own slowness in calling to reserve their floating weeks.
One year we waiting so late to reserve that nothing was left except an October week that we had not planned on for vacationing. Rather than get shut out completely, we took the October week & had a nice surprise vacation. Live & learn.
-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.