So are you saying you have not been able to exchange into Maui for whale season? That is not unusual. We rarely got exchanges, and we could not get two exchanges back-to-back, when we were able to get one. This is why we bought and actually own 3 weeks at one resort, the same unit view.
We bought resale. We bought on eBay, and believe me, we are thrilled with our purchases because we can get to Maui during whale season, but you cannot call four months ahead to get the whale watching weeks. You really have to call at exactly a year out to get a week at our particular resort.
We are on Maui now. We are staying here for two weeks and are at the end of our second week. While we were here, we had to call at precisely 8:00 AM Pacific Time last year to get the same weeks next year. We own at a small resort of 27 units, and it took 12 years to get the units I wanted on eBay, in the unit type we wanted to own (oceanfront units are rare to see because there are only four units out of 27 with oceanfront views).
My message is buy what you will love and won't mind paying fees to own. Don't buy something you will regret later on and cannot be sold. In other words, get the oceanfront view guarantee.
I will post a picture today of my view from our bedroom.
Our buy-in price was about $3,000 per week with closing costs and $550 per week transfer costs included.