Please Help -- How many of you would be interested in a timeshare on a Ship?

[SeaBird]

I’d forget about RCI Points – your timeshare should offer enough variety that owners will look forward to using their unit each year.

Your timeshare is an all inclusive and that spells disaster for the exchange companies. Many times the exchange companies list the all inclusive timeshare and then demand a separate payment for the all inclusive side of it – that kills the trading power in RCI and II.

Allow folks to rent out their unit if they can’t make the vacation that year or allow them to roll forward their points and borrow from the future. By doing so the need for a 3rd party exchange is minimized and not needed.

If anything, on your web site place the weeks up for exchange and allow the owner to do private exchanges if they wish.

Perry,

Thanks again for your input. I am not sure I understand the benifits in not allowing point trading for the folks that would have time shares on the Sea Bird.

Wouldn't this allow more flexability to the Sea Bird time share folks to be able to either trade for different weeks on the Sea Bird as well as trade with a land based time share?

Thanks.

 

[SeaBird]

No way. Looks like a special assessment every six months. Food, docking fees and mainteance costs would be very high.

Pedro47,

Thank you for your input please read post number 12 above, and see if you would be interested if there were NO weird special assements popping up???

And if you were interested would it be in a Luxary trip or exploration trip?

Thanks.

 

[taffy19]

SeaBird,

I promised to go to our marina today and find out some information for you. The Dirigo II wasn't in her slip today as she was chartered to the Channel Islands. I went to the marina office to find out where I could get some information on this boat and the owner.

Here is information on this old 72 foot Alden schooner and information too on the charter operation. It seems to be tied up with a sailing club too. I also have the name and phone number of the owner of the boat in case you like to speak with him. I spoke with his partner today. Let me know if you would like me to email it to you?

We have been on this beautiful wooden hull schooner when they had open house in our marina. They seem to have open house every once and a while to get people interested in our area. They also advertise in the LA Times and in Westways from the AAA (Automobile Club of America).

I also found out that they go to Mexico and the owner doesn't live onboard.

 

[pedro47]

I would be interested in a luxary trip.

 

[PerryM]

And my consulting fee is...

SeaBird,

Windjammer went thru the same elation of being wooed by II and RCI. However, both placed so many draconian limitations on the all inclusive that they abandoned them for TradingPlaces.com. I was not privy to what went on but when you join both you do have to provide them with inventory.

All inclusive timeshares turn out to NOT have the unbelievable trading power one imagines – most all inclusive exchanged force the person to add big bucks for each person attending – the cost of the food is NOT included by the developer. Since you are the developer you could indeed have this part of an all inclusive. But, many II and RCI folks just assume your all inclusive would add a food charge and just skip over you.


One of the clauses I added to our Windjammer agreement was the ability to rent weeks on their other boats in the fleet to the public. They were very upset when I did list a week on the Legacy for rent on eBay – they called and demanded that I remove the listing – I simply read them the clause I inserted in the sales contract and they let me alone. I got someone to pay 80% of the going Windjammer rate.

So owners on your ship can easily rent their week on eBay, www.MyResortNetwork.com, and www.RedWeek.com with no problems – why get an exchange company involved in the first place? But I guess it’s a sales tool.

A point based system, with a holiday procedure, will give all the flexibility anyone needs to actually use their points on your ship. Allow them to cancel reservations up to 30 days before sailing and roll those points forward to next year and to borrow points from next year so they can use a larger cabin or bid for a holiday week.

Holiday Weeks:
Most timeshare owners all want to go on vacation the same time – at the holidays and when the kids are off of school. The most clever holiday system I’ve seen is used by a number of Destination Clubs:

Points:
You should base your points on the rental rate for a cabin and week. E.g. 4th of July week in a certain cabin should rent for $5,000 for the week = 5,000 Points. This opens all kinds of flexibility to your point program.

Sell Point packages which at a minimum will cover the cheapest cabin at the cheapest week. E.g. 2,500 points would be the minimum account size. Folks can buy more and you can offer quantity discounts. E.g. 2,500 Points costs $12,500 (10 years of rental at 50% discount) buying a 5,000 point package might be 10% cheaper or instead of $25,000 its just $22,500. The MF is based on the price per point, e.g. each point’s MF is 20¢ a point or for 2,500 points that’s $500 per year.

If the person is 500 points short of getting their dream week and cabin allow them to rent poiints from other owners or you rent for $500 and they get 500 more, one time, points into their account. There has to be a limitation here which could be no more renting points than they have bought (over the life of the timeshare) in this case only 2,500 points can ever be rented from other owners or from you.

Holiday Tokens:
For each 10 points you get 1 Holiday Token, e.g. on 2,500 Points you get 250 Holiday Tokens. (This is used as to not get points and tokens confused)

1 year before, like 2008 for today, you open all 10 holiday weeks (just an example) to bidding. Each owner decides how to bid his tokens. If they really want New Years, then they would bid all 250 tokens. If they have 2 dates, they might bid 100 tokens for 4th of July and 100 tokens for New Years and roll forward 50 tokens. If they don't really care which holiday week they bid 25 tokens each for the 10 holiday weeks - could get one and only cost them 25 tokens with the rest rolling forward to next year.

You can allow them to bank and borrow tokens just like your points. So if the have to have New Years they could bid 500 tokens this year (borrow 250 from next year) but next year you'd not have any holiday tokens at all. (But could borrow from the next year)

After 30 days the bidding (which is done on your internet site) ends and the computer sorts the tokens bid and awards reservations – if duplicate bids, the time stamp when the bid was entered is the tie breaker.

If you don’t get your holiday this year, the tokens roll forward and next year the would have 500 tokens and could bid all on Christmas if they wish. (Could also borrow 250 from the next year and bid 750 tokens - if they win all tokens bid are taken)

This is the most fair system I’ve come across; its based on the size of the account and the flexibility of the owner.

 

[SeaBird]

Perry,

This is great information and thank you for spending the time sharing your knowledge and the layout of which system has the most "fairness". Your idea of managing our own point and token bank with today’s internet and databases is easy to do and quite possibly the way we might approach this.

Are there any other readers of this post that agree or disagree with this approach?

Also in talking with different resort folks it appears that using a floating week based system may be the best approach, any thoughts?

Thanks again for this wonderful dialog.

 

[bruwery]

No, I would not buy into this. Even if the contract guaranteed no special assessments. It's too easy to book an affordable cruise whenever or wherever I might want to go, without the hassles of "ownership". Maybe I just don't appreciate boats enough, but in my experience, they're money pits.

Regarding the "exploration" idea: There's certainly no way I'd pay somebody big money up front to entitle me to 20 years worth of "working" vacations.

I can imagine telling my wife - "Okay, we've spent all this money to have this great vacation, but we're not actually going to relax. You're going to dig holes with a toothbrush while I sift through the dirt looking for fossils..." I'm pretty sure she'd beat me to death with a frying pan.

Now, to mention a concern I didn't notice in the previous postings: My loving wife (the one with the violent frying pan) is a selective eater. What if she doesn't like your chef's cooking? With only 20 suites, there would be a limited budget, and therefore a limited menu. I'd be stuck with taking a vacation every year where I know in advance that the food will be a disappointment.

Also, you have a fixed revenue plan, but your costs will increase over time. How will you offset that? One inevitable result will be a decrease in the quality of the food, to the point that 10 bathrooms for 20 suites won't be enough...

I can't help but think that you'd be taking on far more headaches than you need with this endeavor.

Can you find 1,040 people that would buy into this boat? Almost certainly. Can you make a go of the enterprise while operating in accordance with your current vision? I'm skeptical, therefore I'm not one of those 1,040.

MB

 

[SeaBird]

Bruwery,

Thank you, I certainly would not want you wife to beat you with the frying pan, unless of course this was part of the entertainment and we would provide better then a toothbrush for the digging.

One clarification, the revenue plan is not fixed it would be comparable to a costal time-share so the focus would be NO special BOAT fees, all of the fees would be kept to what a reasonable costal time-share person would expect to pay on a comparable layout feature and function.

As for the Bathrooms I think that if the ship was to be converted to luxury then it would have to have a bathroom with each stateroom, the work ship idea would be more in the shared model. So for all you readers that might consider a luxury plan this would be set up with suites and amenities that would be incredible.

Hope this helps.

 

[SeaBird]

SeaBird,

I promised to go to our marina today and find out some information for you. The Dirigo II wasn't in her slip today as she was chartered to the Channel Islands. I went to the marina office to find out where I could get some information on this boat and the owner.

Here is information on this old 72 foot Alden schooner and information too on the charter operation. It seems to be tied up with a sailing club too. I also have the name and phone number of the owner of the boat in case you like to speak with him. I spoke with his partner today. Let me know if you would like me to email it to you?

We have been on this beautiful wooden hull schooner when they had open house in our marina. They seem to have open house every once and a while to get people interested in our area. They also advertise in the LA Times and in Westways from the AAA (Automobile Club of America).

I also found out that they go to Mexico and the owner doesn't live onboard.

iconnections,

Great, thank you for the information on the 72 foot Alden. This would be similar and the boat looks fantastic. The Sea Bird is a little larger so will have much more space for comfort she's 177 feet long, and a little more dogged as see doesn't count on the wind

I will also try to contact them for more ideas and information, thanks again.

 

[SeaBird]

I still need everyones opinions, please let me know.

Please don't stop an the votes and answers I am very interested in everyone’s opinions and still would like to get input on the following questions;

Luxury versus Exploration Adventure?

Amenities and what you'd expect to have?

Best travel spots for the ship to be at?

Whether a point system would be better than a floating week purchase?

Why you would do this or wouldn't?

What would you want to see before you would sign up?

What would this be worth?

Thanks in advance for all the help and thanks again to all those who have already posted.

 

[Sandy VDH]

I own at Tradewinds Cruise Club, a catamaran operation. www.tradewindscruiseclub.com. They have big plans to expand, but they never manage to expand as quickly as they would like.

Now this is an operation with 4 - 6 cabins only per yacht. Yes there is an all inclusive fee, some feel it is fair, others timeshare owners feel that any All Inclusive is too much.

Now TWCC has issues with permits, supplies (ice and water being the most expensive for them). Now considering that people want to spend a week only, you need to figure out where you can sail/motor in a weeks time. Is there adequate transportation in that location for people to offboard and then onboard the next group of people.

You likely need reliable airports and a reliable schedule. TWCC in order to accommodate both ends of the transfers stay in port the night of departure and actually sets sail the next morning just in case people misconnect on flights. They also get into port the the evening before the cruise is to end. This is just in case of weather/sea conditions, or people having really early flights for departure.

You also need homework done at each transfer. What dock/pier? Times? Transportation from Airport to Pier etc. This is a lot of work when you change the itinerary each week.

Tradewinds does move from time to time, but they maintain a base and schedule in that place for a few months. There is also lead time required in each port to set up any licenses, suppliers, etc.

Now you might have laundy on board which would cut down on an issue that TWCC does have. They need a place for laundry services at the end of each cruise. Land bases are required for a cental communication point, etc.

I know I would not be happy to fly half way around the world to meet a ship at a port and not be sure how exactly is the best way to get there and also wondering if I will actually find the ship there.


Just a few more things to think about.


Sandy

P.S. Sharing a bathroom would eliminate as a choice for me.

 

[SeaBird]

Sandy,

Thank you for your great comments. The port issue you bring up is probably my biggest concern, because of the very issues you bring up -- timing, access, special licenses, availability of slips etc. The way I was thinking of dealing with this is to have port last 3-4 days per port where air travel in and out is available. The downside would be that there may be excess port time for some people the upside would be that we should have enough overlap to cover access to and from the ship, what do you think?
On the other questions and comments;

The Sea Bird currently has on board in good working order a full laundry facility that on a luxury ship would all be done for you.

She has her own fresh water makers and ice makers on board in fact I have to sell the large ice maker that can be seen in the picture behind the forward crane which makes 20,000lbs per day -- probably to much ice for a cruise

It looks like the Hawaii and or Caribbean hopper ideas may be the best or a combination of both with special deals on the transfer cruise part, any comments?

Thanks Again

 

[PerryM]

Hope you get the "Point"

When we took our Windjammer cruise on the Legacy we arrived Saturday at noon in Miami and took a cab to the Port of Miami and the pier where the Legacy was moored. Folks were arriving throughout the day and the ship set sail at exactly 6 PM – if you didn’t make it too bad you would have to get a flight and rendezvous at another port.

We retuned a week later Friday morning at first light back at Miami – well that was the plan. Hurricanes were flying all around our course and we actually arrived back on Thursday morning and had to change our flight reservations to get out of Miami 12 hours before the hurricane hit Miami – life’s not dull on a tall sailing ship. We lost a day and the Legacy sailed away at 12 knots to run from the hurricane – the next voyage was cancelled and I guess all those folks rebooked on another trip.

Many folks arrived on Friday so they would not miss the voyage which started at 6 PM Saturday night. Since the Legacy always arrived Friday morning at first light the ship had a full 24 hours to be refitted with supplies. They had a “Stowaway” plan that cost $100 dollars and allowed you to board the ship at 4 PM on Friday, settle into your cabin and eat 3 meals. Many folks took them up on their offer. This was free to the timeshare owners who were sailing on the Legacy, a normal commercial vessel, not a timeshare.

So you really only got to sail Saturday night to Friday morning – the 18 hours were needed for bad weather and refitting the ship.


The advantage of a Point System is that you aren’t limited to 7 days – have 10 day cruises, 4 days, 21 days – mix and match. Allow the owners to vote and 20 different itineraries for next year and implement the ones that make each year totally different than last year.

I would, however, have the ports close to international airports and implement contingency plans to cover bad weather and how someone who missed one port can join later.

However, I’d simply start 7 - 10 day cruises around Hawaii for the first year. I remember this year we were in Lahaina Maui on the 4th of July and we just finished a Ruth’s Chris steak and simply walked outside to see the fireworks on a barge in the Lahaina harbor. The cruise ship that is now in the Hawaiian waters inched slowly into the harbor to watch the fireworks. They were as much fun to watch to the crowd as the fireworks!

There are a million things to do in Hawaii and every day is a new adventure – a different port of call. 2 days might be needed in Honolulu.

Alaska the next year, the Caribbean the year after that…. Let the owners vote on the length and location of the ports of call.

 

[SeaBird]

Hello Perry,

Good to see your additional comments, I am only a dull point so I'll just keep on asking

I like the whole transfer port of call idea, this seems to work. Because the Sea Bird is all engine she will have a much better control of timing then a sailor would. So this should work well to.

As long as everyone was ok with the 6:30pm we leave train schedule idea then that works great also.

The owner voting idea I am a little leery about, this could be a political struggle so I might keep to a posted planned itinerary instead.

The point system is still intriguing but it is currently in balance with the floating week thoughts.

Comments?

 

[PerryM]

Points can handle any timeshare need

SeaBird,

Most timeshares are now sold as Points – WorldMark, Disney, FairField, Club IntraWest, and a bunch of hotel chain timeshares, etc. Points offer tremendous flexibility to the owner. To the developer it offers many advantages (many of which drive us owners up the wall):

Sell the same dream over and over again
Most timeshare owners all want to go on vacation at the same time. Name a holiday and we’re off of work and the kids are out of school and off to the timeshare we go.

The developer’s salesreps know this and sell Christmas week over and over again if they can. In a Points based timeshare they can and do. Reality sets in after the owner buys the points and looks at the calendar and suddenly realizes he doesn’t have enough points to spend Christmas on you ship anymore, or in a smaller cabin.

Calendar is fluid and can change
Many point based systems like Club IntraWest publish a new Points Calendar each year. You can do the same thing. Let’s say that last year no owner wanted to cruise week weeks 19 – 22, (May) and weeks 23 – 33 (Summer months) were crazy and week 27 (4th of July) was insane. Same with weeks 51 & 52.

No problem. The total number of Points in a calendar year can’t changer per cabin. Let’s say that 52 weeks averaged $3,000 per week (Rack rate) or $156,000 income to you for the cabin each year. When you convert this to Points at say 50% discount you can sell 78,000 Points per year for the cabin.

You then take your calendar, and for each day of the year assign the number of Points the owner would need to spend to reserve it. E.g. instead of 1,500 Points for week 19 (1st week in May) (78,000/52) no one signed up this year so you decrease week 19 to 1,000 Points and can move 500 Points to week 52 which is now 1,500 + 500 = 2,000 Points.

If an itinerary has a holiday in some island that folks want to really attend, say Halloween, then your Points calendar is adjusted.

However adding up all 365 days’ Points MUST equal 78,000 Points – ALWAYS.

Over saturation of hot holiday weeks and not adjusting the Points Calendar
Although you can have a “Token based holiday lottery” the preferred capitalistic way is to settle all arguments with cold hard cash – or Points in this case.

Club IntraWest is a timeshare chain but their main timeshares are at Whistler, BC Canada. CI salesreps started to demand that not so many points should be added to Christmas week, since every skier wants to ski Whistler on Christmas. The result is total chaos and too many upset folks. The solution is to take points from dead times and move them to high demand times.

Since Christmas week doesn't cost enough Points hundreds/thousands of CI owners have enough points to ski so they all try to make the same reservation the day reservations opens for Christmas week.

The result is that many owners buy more points to add “Throw away days” in front of the week they really want to reserve – too many owners are on the internet when reservations opens for Christmas so just buy “Throw away days” in front of it and be first in line.

The simple solution is to move more points around, but that overselling of a Christmas on Whistler needs to be toned down.

Conclusion:
With Points, you sell an ever-changing vacation dream – you change the ports of call, the length of cruises and the Points an owner needs to spend to get there via the Points Calendar.

 

[SeaBird]

Perry,

Thank you again for your answers and explanations they are very useful and helpful.

I was wondering if anyone else who is reading this thread has opinions on purchase, lease and or points? Please let me know... thanks

Also I have been contacted by the timeshare company that Ed McMann sponsors and was wondering if anyone knows these guys?

They have asked for a sum of money to advertise and acquire time share folks for me and in addition they say they will handle all the legal work and even finance buyers, however they make no promises to actually bring anyone...

Please Let Me know, Sea Bird, thanks in advance.

 

[PerryM]

déjà vu all over again

SeaBird,

Ohhh, up front money for future performance, sounds like a scam timeshare reseller.

I’ll do the same at half the price Heck I might even have better results.

 

[cayman love r]

The pictures on the website make the ship look like a Tramp steamer. I do not see how you could get enough passengers on the ship to make it work. For the price you would have to charge, people would expect the best. Not an old freighter that was originally a Navy ship.

You would need stabilizers in the front, individual bathrooms, a first rate gallery, and some entertainment and public rooms. Where will also those rooms be on a ship with a small superstructure?

You would do better fitting the ship out as a research vessel and hiring it out to universities for semesters at sea. College students will put up with cramped living quarters. Older adults with the money to buy the timeshare want a first class experience.

 

[SeaBird]

Caymen, great to hear from you thank you.

The Sea Bird will be going through dry dock as well as conversion. This is a 177 foot all steel vessel build by our US govt. Which basically means you can't build a stronger or better ship.

The two directions I am looking at is 20 cabins 10 bath rooms adventure work ship kind of like "City Slickers" on the water -- No one here likes that idea

The second direction is to convert her to a luxury ship, this is very easily done just requires money. The infrastructure is the best one can get for this size vessel. The conversion would include 20 staterooms with bathrooms, very lavish dinning and bar area, library, weight and gym, sun decks "Teak", entertainment craft off the aft, private office space plus all the current amenities she has like laundry, fresh water makers, ice makers, 900KW of power which consists of 2x250KW, 1x370KW & 1x70KW.

This would also include a working crew of 1 crew member per 4 guests which should be sufficient, what do you think?

I have just completed her water line hull survey, ultrasound & zincs and she is in incredible shape for any age vessel. Once I sell the two large containers on the front deck she heads for dry dock, then she will look a lot more like a ship, the rust is surface only and will go way in about 20 days.

Any other answers I can provide please ask. Thanks again.

Opps, almost forgot, she already has stabilizers in the front, I will be adding a front bulb though.

 

[SeaBird]

Perry,

Thanks, I'll get the name of the group and post to get your opinions. I might take you up on the sale position

Thanks again.

 

[cclendinen]

Success requires a competitive advantage.

I own a couple of alternative timeshares, a houseboat and motorhome that I purchased resale. The only reason I went this route was that the cost of ownership including maintenance was less than half the rental cost for same type of vacation. I also had the option to exchange these with other timeshares or use the RCI points-for-deposit program. (PDF maintenance-per-point is less than $.01 at point)

If I were looking to purchase a cruise timeshare, it would have to offer the same cost advantage over what was available in the cruise industry today or offer unique travel experience not available in the cruise industry. Cruises are currently one of the most economical vacations available. You can find lots of cruises for $65.00 to $75.00 a day. (Of course these are inside rooms on lower decks) The food alone is worth the price.

Tradewinds Cruise Club is an example of an all-inclusive catamaran timeshare that sails many Caribbean islands offering water sports and locations that are not accessible to the large cruise lines. The current all-inclusive fee is $675.00 per person. Overall this is probably more expensive than the traditional cruises on the large ships but it offers a unique experience.

If your cruise timeshare does not offer either a unique experience or a price advantage I don’t think it will be successful.

 

[SeaBird]

Clendinen,

Thank you, and I agree on all points, the original idea was to be the "City Slickers" on the water approach, however a large percentage of the Time share folks don't like the idea of working on their time share.

So the Luxury Excursion would have classes in exotic cooking, celestial & costal navigation, piloting, scuba... etc. The atmosphere would be luxury with optional classes in many interesting areas. In addition this is a small enough vessel with only a 10' draw that even competes with where a small sailboat can go.

How does this sound?

 

[SeaBird]

I will be out of town for two weeks, please keep this thread going while I'm gone. The input here is great and very helpful.

Seabird

 

[sumauri]

I wouldn't do it for several reasons -- the two below are foremost in my mind:

1. Cabins on large luxury cruiseships can be small unless you can afford to rent a suite. I can imagine how small a cabin would be on a small ship/vessel.

2. We once owned an older steel bottomed houseboat. Maintenance was neverending until we sold it. I agree that there will be special assessments in the future for timeshare owners buying into the ship.

 

[RonaldCol]

Waiting for Resale

I'm kind of interested, but I'll watch and step in in the resale market.