Picking my first timeshare purchase.

My family needs to take more vacations!

My apologies if this post is too long.

1) Where do you want your home resort to be? Within a days drive from Southern California, Orange County, so my family can take a weeks vacation and not have to buy airfare if we don’t want to.

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’d say go to the home resort 1/2 the time. Exchanging for bigger trips every couple years

3) What are your 5 top trade destinations? Hawaii, Caribbean, tropical resorts, no specific islands, possibly national parks.

4) How many people do you usually travel with? 2 adults and 2 kids (ages 7 and 3)

5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule? School schedule

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? 4 I guess? I don’t need granite counter tops. Just clean, comfortable units. Most important would be the grounds and fun stuff for kids. Nice pools, game rooms, etc.

9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing? Maybe 2k for the “perfect” situation. But I’m really attracted to the real bargain deals.

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? Ideally < $1000 again for the “perfect” situation I could stretch it a little.

11) Are you a detail oriented planner? Yes

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

Reading the TUG forums has become my favorite past time since I discovered that timeshares could be purchased so cheaply on the resale market. As a result of all my reading, my top considerations so far in no particular order are ......

The Welk in Escondido. It seems like a nice resort with decent weather in the summer months when most of our vacations would be planned. Warm weather is good because the pools will be a big part of what we do. With the Welk I’m not sure how well it would trade to go to Hawaii in the summer though.

One of the Carlsbad resorts like Grand Pacific Palisades, MarBrisa or the Carlsbad Seapoint. Something like the MarBrisa would be reaching the top end of my budget but it looks pretty nice and is part of the Hilton Grand Vacation system.

Do something like the Grandview in Vegas taking advantage of RCI points or SDO in Scottsdale taking advantage of II and its trading power to go to Hawaii, Caribbean, etc in the summer occasionally. Both are within a days drive so they could still be used as a drivable vacation destination.

The Wyndham Grand Desert and be a part of the Wyndham system which seems to be a little lighter on the wallet than Hilton, Marriott, and Starwood but still has locations Hawaii, etc.

I’ve read Worldmark is recommended a lot to west coast travelers. Their MF’s are very reasonable, and it has a great reputation as a solid trader, but in the research I’ve done online not many of the resorts within a days drive seem very interesting to me. Indio seems like the most interesting resort but my wife is from Palm Springs so convincing her to vacation in Indio isn’t going to happen. If I was closer to the Oregon coast I’d be all over Worldmark. Maybe my impression about the Worldmark resorts by me is wrong. I’ve never actually been to one. I’m attracted to the nice pool areas and stuff and I’m not seeing a lot of that with Worldmark in california.

You all have a terrific community here and have taught me a lot already.

Thank You,

Brian

Buy where and when you want to be.
Forget about exchanging. It is crap shoot.
Especially if want to be within reasonable driving distance.

Brian, congratulations on doing the research first. The questionnaire is helpful. Since you are a Western family, you might check out this 'mini system'. www.vriresorts.com These are well managed, clean, well located, have an internal exchange that costs a LOT less than the biggies, and has all the amenities you said were important. You buy into one, and can go to the rest through VRI*ety exchange, or RCI/II to the rest of the TS world.

Disclaimer here: I own at 2 resorts in the network (Sedona and a Utah based one)

They can be bought very inexpensively on eBay, the TUG Marketplace and many other places.

Jim

You are doing a great job researching. Before I got to the part where you named specific places, I was going to suggest Grand Pacific Resorts and Worldmark, both turned out to be on your list.

I own a few GPR and I love them and the management company is very good. They really keep up on the units and the grounds. It sounds like you'd need a fixed summer week, which will be very difficult to find in your ideal price range. You can get an off season week for all the way down to $1.00, but the summer weeks are a few thousand dollars. GPR also has an in house trading system that has all their resorts and a few Diamond Resort and Wyndham resorts. The nice thing about their in house exchange company is that if you want extra vacations, you can rent weeks from it for less than the cost of being an owner. For example, I pay about $1100./year for Grand Pacific Palisades as an owner. If I want extra weeks, I can rent weeks out of the exchange pool for $899. or less. You could buy an every other year deed and rent the in between years and save $.

I am not sure if you could buy Marbrisa in the price range you are looking for. The transfer fee for those contract is over $1,000 in addition to whatever closing costs are involved. It would get you HGVC and you pay something like $135./year for that benefit. Marbrisa has dual benefits. You get everything you'd get as a GPR owner and everything you'd get as a Hilton owner, unless you buy a really old contract that is only GPR. If you wanted to stay at a Hilton in Hawaii, you could use a couple years worth of your marbrisa points to book Hawaii and then use rental weeks in GPR for the other years. Downside is you need school holidays and so do most of the other people who are looking at the rental weeks.

Worldmark is what I would rate as the best overall timeshare program for me. The fees are the lowest, they have the most locations and the customer service is the best. You said you didn't think any drive to locations looked exciting. Have you seen the resort map? Oceanside is a great resort for families. I haven't been to Solvang, yet, but it looks like a fun place to visit. How far are you willing to drive? Bass Lake might be my favorite timeshare of all time, that is next to Yosemite. There are also places in San Fran and both north and south of there. There are so many choices.

If you can afford the initial buy-in, my first recommendation is one of the Carlsbad resorts in the Hilton (HGVC) network. The Carlsbad resorts have nice grounds and pools and you can use HGVC points for a stay in Hawaii.

While the Worldmark grounds and pools may not rise to the level of the Carlsbad resorts, it is a good value given the low buy-in cost, low maintenance fees, and option to rent additional credits from Worldmark owners. There are 17 Worldmark resorts in California and there is also the Worldmark West Yellowstone . It is an exceptional value for exchanging through RCI for Disney and HGVC (some Marriotts exchange through both RCI and II), or II for Marriott, Starwood, Welk, and Hyatt properties.

Your big decision is where you are willing to compromise. Typically, places that have lots of on site activities come with higher maintenance fees. Worldmark is inexpensive but is designed more as a base to explore the area vs a resort to come and hang out around the pool. All the resorts have a pool and typically a few exercise machines and video games, but those are mostly to fill in the time between getting out and about. VRI is a good suggestion. I've stayed at a few of those and they are all typically well maintained and comfortable, but not fancy. However, the ones I have stayed at didn't have a lot of resort type amenities either.
If you mainly want a place to go and hang out at the resort, then you will likely pay more. Given that you are tied to the school schedule, you will want to make sure the place you buy is one you will use. Exchanges are all about competition and being tied to the school holidays means you are competing with more people for less units (many owners will choose to rent their high demand units in the summer rather than deposit in an exchange system).

Wherever you buy, make sure you understand that booking a summer week will be difficult. That means you may want to look at buying a fixed summer week or, if a points system, make sure you understand the booking rules and be prepared to book at the first minute they become available; 13 months is common.
Instead of S CA, have you considered Sedona? Is that too far of a drive? There are lots of timeshares with both the amenities as well as the outdoor activities that would appeal to a family interested in National parks.

Sue

Of the options you listed I'd suggest Grand Pacific Palisades. It's very family-friendly but also large and luxurious enough to satisfy most travelers for many years. It's older than MarBrisa so it's cheaper to buy into. They have both floating and fixed weeks. I've stayed there twice and loved it both times. If I were to buy there I'd want to go during Spring Break or Summers. Spring offers tha advantage of the flower fields and strawberry picking. Summer would be the best time to enjoy the pools and beach. Plus you always have Legoland nearby. I bet you can get a prime floating week 1 bedroom in your price range if you hunt, lowball, and have patience.

Someone mentioned Solvang. Personally, I don't think there's really enough fun in that area for a yearly vacation there. Fun to visit once or twice but I think with a family it'd get old quickly.

Oceanside is great, imo.
You may also want to consider day use as a feature since you're already close in Orange county.

Good job, Brian! A lot of people find TUG after they've bought at developer prices. Doing your homework first will save you big bucks, and will give you something you look forward to using every year.

I'll agree that VRI is nice, clean, comfortable - but isn't fancy. One of my timeshares is VRI managed and I camped out on ebay for quite a while before I could snag a unit there (Lake Tahoe Beach & Ski). I did not see any planned activities for kids at my VRI resort, but there was plenty to keep kids busy anyway. Another group like VRI is Trading Places International (http://www.tradingplaces.com/). Another of my units is a Trading Places managed resort (Lindo Mar, Puerto Vallarta) - I get a lot of enjoyment from it.

Keep asking questions and watch the ebay auctions (and bargain basement, and redweek ads, and ...) until what you want shows up - it WILL eventually!

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my post.

Its nice to see that several people have good things to say about Grand Pacific Palisades since its in an area we like and could see ourselves using. Our kids love Legos and Legoland. The message about booking in the summer months is coming through loud and clear. I will defiantly keep that in mind while searching for units.

Presley, your suggestion about buying an EOY timeshare and just renting a week in the off year is brilliant and something I had never thought of in the course of my reading so far. The EOY plan seemed undesirable at first, only taking a vacation every other year, but looking at it from the angle you mentioned has opened my eyes to the advantages of such a plan. Thank You.

Jim and Sue, I am going to look into VRI. That is a system that I have not investigated. Sedona is not to far. The SDO in Scottsdale has been on my radar so Sedona would certainly be within range as well. The idea of a tranquil Sedona spa day would be a easy sell for my wife.

Going to check out Trading Places too

I am not giving up on the Worldmark system. When so many people have so many good things to say about it. There's a reason for that. Its flexibility and cost are just what I'm looking for. Presley mentioned Bass Lake and yes that is an interesting idea to me. The idea of a annual family trip to Bass Lake is appealing to me. Fishing, kayaking, and the other things a lake like that may have to offer can be a lot of fun and create great memories for kids. It would be kind of like a family going to a cabin on a lake every year. There is something about the familiarity of doing something as a family every year that I love and I could see something like bass lake doing that for us.

I've just started looking for my first TS and I already need 2, Bass Lake and Grand Pacific Palisades. Now I know why people own a variety of different TS.

Questions:

Would the resorts in Carlsbad and Oceanside, or anywhere for that matter, let someone tour or check out the property? I'm sure it would include a hard sales pitch, in which I would decline all their offers.

As someone who doesn't own a TS, is it possible to rent out a week at a Worldmark resort from either owners or the resort itself?

Is the idea of buying RCI points at the Grandview to use at other resorts or buying at the SDO to trade within II just not a very reliable plan for vacationing during summer months or school vacations?

I am curious about Lake Tahoe resorts during the summer? We are not skiers but Lake Tahoe is beautiful during the summer too. Are there any resorts that might fit my interests in the Tahoe area?

Next step is to Join TUG and read user review of all these places I'm so curious about.

I have owned somewhere around 25 Weeks during my TimeSharing career. The most I spent was $25,000 and the least was $100. My advice is rather simple.

Think about travel expenses; think about cost; think about Maintenance Fees; and think about eventual disposition. In addition make a decision regarding Fixed Weeks; Floating Weeks; and Points.

George

Brian, you can frequently rent weeks from owners. Sometimes for less than the underlying MF. Look in the Last Minute Rentals forum. Max price is $100/day. Rentals are also listed up in the Marketplace in the red stripe above.

We HIGHLY recommend that you rent a few times before you buy. In fact it's a viable tactic to just rent and not own at all. No buyer's remorse and no selling headaches and no buy-in cost. Lots to like there.

Jim

beav395 said:

Would the resorts in Carlsbad and Oceanside, or anywhere for that matter, let someone tour or check out the property? I'm sure it would include a hard sales pitch, in which I would decline all their offers.

As someone who doesn't own a TS, is it possible to rent out a week at a Worldmark resort from either owners or the resort itself?

Click to expand...

You can pretty much freely walk around the Grand Pacific properties. You need a room key to access the pool areas, but you can see everything that you need to see by just walking around. You can probably pick up an activities sheet at the front desk or activities desk, too. I've never been to one of their sales presentations. I actually think they have you go to a big sales room and don't actually give you a tour of the resorts or show you any rooms. You could also just book one or two nights from resortime.com and get the whole experience.

You can easily rent out a week or a few days from a Worldmark owner. There are many owners who regularly rent out their points/reservations. There's actually a whole website for owners at wmowners.com or you can post a rental wanted ad in the tug marketplace.

beav395 said:

I am not giving up on the Worldmark system. When so many people have so many good things to say about it. There's a reason for that. Its flexibility and cost are just what I'm looking for. Presley mentioned Bass Lake and yes that is an interesting idea to me. The idea of a annual family trip to Bass Lake is appealing to me. Fishing, kayaking, and the other things a lake like that may have to offer can be a lot of fun and create great memories for kids. It would be kind of like a family going to a cabin on a lake every year. There is something about the familiarity of doing something as a family every year that I love and I could see something like bass lake doing that for us.
Just to clarify: With Worldmark, you own points that can be spent to reserve any resort in the system. So you wouldn't own Bass Lake but have the option to reserve that resort, or the ones at Tahoe, or Monterey or Tucson or.... And the main attraction of Bass Lake is it's close proximity to the south entrance to Yosemite. It's the only timeshare anywhere close. The lake is there as well, but Yosemite is the main attraction.

I've just started looking for my first TS and I already need 2, Bass Lake and Grand Pacific Palisades. Now I know why people own a variety of different TS.

Questions:

Would the resorts in Carlsbad and Oceanside, or anywhere for that matter, let someone tour or check out the property? I'm sure it would include a hard sales pitch, in which I would decline all their offers.

As someone who doesn't own a TS, is it possible to rent out a week at a Worldmark resort from either owners or the resort itself?

Is the idea of buying RCI points at the Grandview to use at other resorts or buying at the SDO to trade within II just not a very reliable plan for vacationing during summer months or school vacations? For school vacation only vacations, it's best to own at a resort you want to use or a points system. Owning at Grandview to exchange puts you second in line for any openings behind owners of that system. In addition, you are then competing with everybody else with school age kids. Not a great strategy for your situation.

I am curious about Lake Tahoe resorts during the summer? We are not skiers but Lake Tahoe is beautiful during the summer too. Are there any resorts that might fit my interests in the Tahoe area? Tahoe has a lot of timeshares and summer is a very popular time for hiking, kayaking etc. The best one on the north side is the Hyatt. Best on the south side (where most of the timeshares are) is South Shore (shared by Worldmark and Wyndham) and the Marriotts. A close third would be Ridge Tahoe up on the Kingsbury grade. The Lake Tahoe resort is too expensive (IMHO).

Next step is to Join TUG and read user review of all these places I'm so curious about.

Click to expand...

See above
Sue

beav395 said:

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my post.

Its nice to see that several people have good things to say about Grand Pacific Palisades since its in an area we like and could see ourselves using. Our kids love Legos and Legoland. The message about booking in the summer months is coming through loud and clear. I will defiantly keep that in mind while searching for units.

Presley, your suggestion about buying an EOY timeshare and just renting a week in the off year is brilliant and something I had never thought of in the course of my reading so far. The EOY plan seemed undesirable at first, only taking a vacation every other year, but looking at it from the angle you mentioned has opened my eyes to the advantages of such a plan. Thank You.

Jim and Sue, I am going to look into VRI. That is a system that I have not investigated. Sedona is not to far. The SDO in Scottsdale has been on my radar so Sedona would certainly be within range as well. The idea of a tranquil Sedona spa day would be a easy sell for my wife.

Going to check out Trading Places too

I am not giving up on the Worldmark system. When so many people have so many good things to say about it. There's a reason for that. Its flexibility and cost are just what I'm looking for. Presley mentioned Bass Lake and yes that is an interesting idea to me. The idea of a annual family trip to Bass Lake is appealing to me. Fishing, kayaking, and the other things a lake like that may have to offer can be a lot of fun and create great memories for kids. It would be kind of like a family going to a cabin on a lake every year. There is something about the familiarity of doing something as a family every year that I love and I could see something like bass lake doing that for us.

I've just started looking for my first TS and I already need 2, Bass Lake and Grand Pacific Palisades. Now I know why people own a variety of different TS.

Questions:

Would the resorts in Carlsbad and Oceanside, or anywhere for that matter, let someone tour or check out the property? I'm sure it would include a hard sales pitch, in which I would decline all their offers.

As someone who doesn't own a TS, is it possible to rent out a week at a Worldmark resort from either owners or the resort itself?

Is the idea of buying RCI points at the Grandview to use at other resorts or buying at the SDO to trade within II just not a very reliable plan for vacationing during summer months or school vacations?

I am curious about Lake Tahoe resorts during the summer? We are not skiers but Lake Tahoe is beautiful during the summer too. Are there any resorts that might fit my interests in the Tahoe area?

Next step is to Join TUG and read user review of all these places I'm so curious about.

Click to expand...

You could find an owner willing to rent a week out to you for worldmark. There are some worldmark inventory on travel websites but not necessarily at all resorts.

I guess are you looking for a resort with all the fancy amenities every time you go? Or someplace were you can take a weekend here or a weekend there?

For Rentals here are two sites

http://tug2.com/timesharemarketplac...hroomsMin=&BathroomsMax=&SleepsMin=&SleepsMax=


Redweek,com

Try before you buy

PearlCity said:

You could find an owner willing to rent a week out to you for worldmark. There are some worldmark inventory on travel websites but not necessarily at all resorts.

I guess are you looking for a resort with all the fancy amenities every time you go? Or someplace were you can take a weekend here or a weekend there?

Click to expand...

We are looking for a resort a family with 2 kids will enjoy visiting yearly or every other year. The resort needs needs to be a place our kids will have fun at and also a place where my wife and I can relax at. Most likely the best way for us to figure out where that is will be to rent at some locations we are considering first. We are thinking about week long vacations not weekend trips.

I'm looking at this eBay listing and I have a question about it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lawrence-We...61405427996?pt=Timeshares&hash=item259483611c

It says its a float week 1-52 but then it also says, "Deeded Perpetual (Week 7, Unit 131)"

So, could I use this for week 7 only or would I have a chance to reserve any week, 1-52?

it seems a little confusing.

beav395 said:

I'm looking at this eBay listing and I have a question about it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lawrence-We...61405427996?pt=Timeshares&hash=item259483611c

It says its a float week 1-52 but then it also says, "Deeded Perpetual (Week 7, Unit 131)"

So, could I use this for week 7 only or would I have a chance to reserve any week, 1-52?

it seems a little confusing.

Click to expand...

Every timeshare has to have a physical deeded unit for county recording. Float weeks will be float weeks, but there will be a specific unit # and week # on the deed that will make no difference to you at all.

the welk resort is nice and has a few pools and slides for the kids to have fun. SInce you live in driving distance from it you could take advantage of the day use perk. I'm not sure when this will be ready but they are adding a Hawaii location to their resorts so you wouldn't have to pay extra to use that resort.

Welk trades easily to Hawaii through SFX and II, probably RCI also.
Liz

Thanks for the input on the welk. Everything I have read about the resort is very positive and it's nice to know it may allow for good trading options to Hawaii. We have yet to visit the welk in Escondido but we are very interested to do so before we make any decisions.

We were in the San Diego area last weekend and we took the opportunity to drive by some of the resorts in Carlsbad. We drove by Grand Pacific Palisades, Carlsbad Seapointe, Tamarack Beach Resort and the Carlsbad Inn. We really like the location of Tamarack and Carlsbad Inn. Being so close to Carlsbad Village and the beach seems like just a fantastic combination. The Carlsbad Inn especially seems to have a premium location with that nice back exit so close to beach access. We also liked GPP and could see ourselves enjoying it but the other 2 being so close to the action was appealing. I haven't see a summer week for sale at either Tamarack or Carlsbad Inn since I've started looking but I bet they fetch a good price.

As someone said earlier in this tread, its going to come down to making a compromise i think. Money, amenities, location, I'm doubtful to find all those in one location within our budget and that's okay.

Brian

Next time you're in the area, you might drop in and ask if they have any foreclosures or owner resales they sell. I know a couple of my resorts have either a bulletin board of owner resales or sales by the HOA of foreclosures. hat happens in 'mature' resorts that are no longer in active sales.

It doesn't hurt to ask. 'Course you won't get eBay prices but much better than retail.

Jim

Brian, I haven't read in detail all the above posts in reply to your question, so if what I'm offering has been covered, then disregard this. But I wanted to add my two cents to your initial post:

Look closer at the Grand Pacific Resorts. They are a well-respected family of resorts with great locations. Unless I missed something along the way, (and I may be wrong on a few things - be sure to check), but here's why I think it'd be great fit for you:

They have a number of great SoCal places, all of which are close to you in OC. They sell fixed weeks, so you could pick an optimum Summer week you know you can use. They offer day use, so you could spend a day here and there, without spending too much, if you wanted a day trip from home. You can exchange with other owners internally, so you can stay at a different time of year at your home resort, if you wanted. You can also trade internally within the GPR system, to go to the other GPR family of resorts. They have an internal rental program, where they can rent your week for you, if you opt not to use it. Your week will exchange well in other exchange companies, if you wanted to trade out.

Buying in may cost more than the $2K maximum you mentioned, but if you shopped around, and tried some of the more affordable resale sites, you may fall into something very affordable that would work well for you. Just make sure to confirm the things i've mentioned. As far as I know, these things are all valid features of a GPR ownership.

Hope this helps,
Dave

beav395 said:

We really like the location of Tamarack and Carlsbad Inn. Being so close to Carlsbad Village and the beach seems like just a fantastic combination.

Click to expand...

Both great places. Carlsbad Inn would give you access to rent all the other Grand Pacific properties and exchange through the GPR in house stuff.

Carlsbad Inn are all sold as fixed weeks with fixed units. You are right, a fixed summer week will cost quite a bit more than $2,000. I'm thinking $8,000, but if you don't mind taking your time, you may pick up on one Ebay for less. The 3rd floor ocean views will cost the most. First floor are halfway underground and some people don't like those. If you won't be sitting in your room or on you lanai much, it won't make any difference to you.

I haven't stayed at Tamarack in over 20 years. I loved it. Going by memory, I like the unit more than Carlsbad Inn, but it was so long ago and it was so exciting to stay there at that time, that it could not be as awesome as I recall. I've seen resales for those, but I think they are all floating weeks. Floating weeks can sometimes be a pain to book if you are trying for a summer week. Here's a listing I found to give you an idea of pricing. Quite a bit less than Carlsbad Inn. http://www.timesharelocators.com/listings-west-coast/tamarack-beach-resort/

Welk Resort

We have owned at Welk for several years and we love it. We bought in Branson (from the developer) and have upgraded several times - before we learned about TUG and resales. So yes, we spent more than we should have but we have enjoyed all of the places we have gone to. We have also been to Welk Escondido and Cabo San Lucas locations and all are excellent. We plan to go to their Lake Tahoe location and they are building resorts in Colorado and Hawaii. We have never had problems trading it either. I would suggest to buy where you want to use. I know a lot of owners at Escondido live within driving distance. We live it Texas which is why we bought in at Branson.