Timeshare Juice Blog

Posts Tagged ‘timeshare’

Timeshare vs. Hotel Room…no comparison.

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

If I have the choice to vacation in a hotel room or a timeshare, it’s not even close. I don’t have to think very long, the timeshare wins hands down. But let me first start off by saying that I am NOT telling you to go out and buy a timeshare. That’s not what this blog or our online community, Timeshare Juice, is about. Timeshare ownership is not for everyone. But it can be a lot of fun. It’s often misunderstood because many people have been abused by devious salespeople with devious sales tactics. What this blog is about is comparing staying in a hotel vs. a timeshare on vacation.

What people don’t realize is that you don’t have to own a timeshare in order to stay in one. There are thousands of timeshares available to rent. Timeshare salespeople make you feel like there is this “shortage” of units and you should have this urgency to buy. You can rent a unit from an owner or from a resort. And you have the freedom to bargain with either one. I have rented my timeshare out several times and it’s always worked out great. You don’t need a management company because the resort handles check-in, security, and any extra charges the renter might ring up on their tab. You simply get payment from the renter and then make the reservation for them at the resort. They check in at the resort, give a credit card for damage deposit, and have a great stay.

Not only does the timeshare offer you more but it’s also less expensive to rent. Here are the 3 biggest reasons why it’s better:
1. Tons of space: Hotel rooms are claustrophobic. It’s one room. There’s barely room to walk by the beds. A whole family in one hotel room is really pushing it. In a timeshare, there are multiple rooms. It has a separate bedroom, a kitchen, and another living room that converts to a bedroom at night (sometimes there’s even a locking door in between that offers complete privacy). You also get a balcony to sit outside, get some fresh air and enjoy a nice glass of wine. That’s not happening in a hotel room. You can eat meals at a kitchen table and/or kitchen island. The bathrooms are much larger and some units include a Jacuzzi tub.
2. Lots of amenities: Just having a kitchen is a huge win. Personally, I like going to the fridge (a real one, not that mini bar thing in your hotel) and grabbing a cold drink and some food when I want. I don’t want to have to call room service and hope it’s open and then hope they remember to bring my food an hour later. I like having it now. And if you are vacationing with kids, every minute counts to avoid the dreaded “meltdown”.

I like not having to rush out in the morning for breakfast before we go out to the theme park or day trip. It’s healthier, less time consuming, less expensive and a more relaxing way to start the day. At night you have separate TVs so there’s no arguing about what to watch and even a DVD player. My unit has a really nice sound system (not that little alarm clock from the hotel room that can’t keep a station unless you hold the antenna and stand on one foot).

And there’s no maid service knocking on your door waking you up to clean the room every day. Timeshares have service once mid-week and once at the end. You don’t have to put that door hanger up for privacy which is ignored or stolen most of the time.

3. Cost – It’s actually less expensive to stay in a timeshare. I know it’s hard to believe but there are thousands of timeshares that you can rent right now for much less than the cost of a hotel room in the same exact area. And if you own, the annual fees are definitely less than the cost of 1 week in a hotel room. A hotel room will cost you at least $150 per night with taxes. That’s over $1,000 for the week. If you’re on an island vacation it’s 2-3x that price. You’ll find almost all timeshares for rent that are below that price.

I know another option is renting a house. But there are a lot of unknown variables with that like who’s liable for damages or theft, location of house in a neighborhood, no brand name and unknown quality. I just think it’s odd to be sleeping in someone else’s bed and using their refrigerator. So to me, it’s not worth the hassle unless you know the owner or know first hand someone that has stayed there and it’s a quality place. And most of the time, the cost to rent a house is much higher anyway. So that’s not a viable option for me.

So there you have it. It’s pretty cut and dry, the timeshare wins. But before I can honestly tell you to go out and buy one, I think the industry has a bunch of things to work out. But I won’t tell you to stay away from timeshares either. If you know how to buy them and how to utilize them each year, you will have so much fun on vacation you’ll be silly!

May a fantastic vacation be in your near future!

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Our “Invite-only Launch”

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

On Oct 20, 2009 we opened the doors to Timeshare Juice under an Invite-only Launch. It’s incredibly exciting and I know you’re going to love the site. But first I wanted to explain what an Invite-only Launch is so as to avoid any confusion.

Some history
We kept “Project TJ” (so we called it) completely under wraps. Very few people new about it. We published 2 simple blogs and hung a splash page out there really as a place holder. We did no PR at all. We really just focused on our mission at hand. During our development phase we were contacted by many timeshare owners with questions about what we were working on. We kept it pretty vague. We received many emails from owners that were just unhappy with the state of the timeshare industry. It mostly stems from continually rising fees, poor service and just discontent with the exchange service companies. So we knew that we were on to something big. We asked people to sign up for our newsletter (Woops, we never did send one of those out – Sorry) so we could keep them in the loop on our launch etc. Over the course of 2 months or so we had over 9,000 owners on the list! We also noticed that a few of those names belong to industry press people. Again, with that level of buzz, we knew we were on to something really great. We knew that we were connecting with something real.

“So how do we launch this?”
That was the question at hand. We knew we wanted to keep the launch manageable and “9,000” is not manageable. So we decided to select a percentage of that list at random to be part of this Beta Test. I wasn’t too keen on the term “Beta Test” because it’s foreign to most people (outside of technology) and it sounds very cold. And that is the complete opposite of Timeshare Juice. It’s a very warm, fun, and friendly site. So we decided to call it what it was: “Invite-only” launch.

We also knew that we wanted to have a diverse group of users as part of it. We wanted family and friends, timeshare owners, technology people, and timeshare industry people (resort developers, press, timeshare owner advocates). So we divided the invites across those 4 groups.

Purpose of this Phase
It comes down to 2 things: User-friendliness & Bugs
1. User-friendliness: We want to hear feedback on the “user-friendliness” of the site. Essentially, are you able to easily navigate the site and accomplish what you want? Are the pictures, colors and fonts appealing? Are you able to Join, List a Property, Make Friends, Rate Resorts, Make/Accept an Offer, etc?
2. Bugs: Although we tested the site, there are probably a few of those “special bugs” left running around; the kind that can only be seen by “brand new users”. So we wanted to identify and fix those before the public launch.
So we want your feedback!

Can we tell others?
Yes, naturally we encourage that. We want more people to use the site, we just didn’t want to be overwhelmed right away. Once you register as a new member, you’ll be issued 2 new invites for friends. We can control the growth of the site and make you happy all at the same time. Oh and you’ll get points added to your profile (juice points) for each new person you invite that becomes a new member. The more juice you have, the better your reputation is on the site. The members with the highest juice will be profiled front and center.

In closing, I want to congratulate and thank you for being part of the Invite-only Launch. It’s a very important part of our progress. And we hope you have a great time and really enjoy the site.

Many happy vacations for you and your family.
-The Timeshare Juice Team

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Travel the world in Luxury AND save money

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

I have a cool strategy to share with you about how we have traveled to some really nice destinations around the world, stayed in luxury digs and did it all on a budget.

First, a few questions about your vacation:
• Do you stay at the best hotel available or the one that is most affordable?
• Do you wish the hotel room was larger? Maybe an extra room and Jacuzzi tub?
• Does eating out get old when you have to do it for EVERY meal? Especially the cost? Do you sometimes just crave a bowl of your favorite cereal for a quick meal rather than going out?

Here’s what we did: We own a timeshare in Hawaii. It’s beautiful. It’s everything you want in a vacation. Although we love it there, we don’t want to go there every single year. So what we did was trade our week at that resort with someone that owns another week at another resort. That’s called an exchange. We found other owners (on the internet or through friends) at resorts that we wanted to vacation at.

“Would you be willing to vacation in Hawaii this year instead of going to your resort again? If so, we can exchange our weeks”. If they say yes, we exchange our week with them for their week. The cost to trade is NOTHING and we get to stay in a beautiful resort in the destination we wanted to travel to.

We always did our research beforehand so we knew that their resort had everything we wanted: beautiful pool, large rooms, Jacuzzi tub, oceanfront view, kitchen etc. In all honesty, they do have hotel rooms like that but they are called THE PRESIDENTIAL SUITE at $2,000 per night or more. That’s slightly out of our budget. Even an average hotel room is $150 per night. That’s over $1,000 for the week with all the taxes. Our way is far less expensive and nicer.

Eating out every meal gets expensive not to mention tedious. So once we check-in to the resort we head out to the local market and buy groceries to stock our in-unit fridge (not the mini ones you get in a hotel; a real fridge). We figure we will eat breakfast in the unit most of the time since we prefer having a healthy breakfast in our kitchen over having to rush around in the morning to the fast food drive-thru. That allowed us to eat better, have more time and save money.

We would choose a couple of the nights to prepare dinner in our kitchen with local fresh food. This was always fun. Somehow cooking in this new kitchen seemed like more fun than our own. We also whipped up a batch or two of frozen margaritas to enjoy while watching the sunset from our balconies overlooking the beach or mountains (when was the last time you did that at a hotel – no way). If you’re in wine country, wine is a perfectly suitable substitute.

And sometimes during the week you or the kids will want a quick snack before or after dinner (keep the savages calm) and it’s nice to just go to the kitchen rather than room service. Later you can sit the kids down to relax after a long day of sight-seeing or amusement park rides and pop in one of their favorite movies in the in-unit DVD player with some microwave (in-unit) popcorn. And then you can spend some time unwinding in the Jacuzzi tub with a bottle of wine. It’s nice to have “space” some times.

One of the things I always appreciated was the knowledge we received from the timeshare owner about the area. It was always spot-on! Where to go; what to do; where to eat; where the discounts were; all great. And that always saved us money and lots of time on vacation. They certainly know the area, they’re the experts. They own there.

I know many people use Exchange Clubs like RCI and Interval and pay hundreds of dollars to do an exchange which add to your vacation costs. We used this strategy for years and traveled to amazing places all over the world. Essentially, Timeshare Juice is just what I described but it’s all automated for you. We made it so soooo easy to determine which resorts are the best; that’s our community rating system. And we made it really simple to find owners and properties that you want to visit and to make offers. We also made it really easy to share information with each other. And we made it fun.

In closing, whether it was the whole family or just the 2 of us, timeshares have allowed us to have luxury vacations all over the world. It cost us less than staying in a hotel room and helped us save money many other ways. It also gave us some much needed space and nice amenities. And with the extra savings you’ll get from not having to pay your exchange company fees, you’ll have even more money for Mickey, surf lessons, or frozen margaritas on the beach.

What’s your favorite timeshare resort?

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Timeshare has been very good to us…for the most part.

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

The concept of timeshare was totally foreign to me when I bought it in 1996. I didn’t know anyone that owned one. No one told me to “look out” for those people peddling tours. We were visiting Hawaii on vacation (for the first time) and Marriott offered to fly us to Kauai for the day and buy us dinner if we took a tour of their resort on Kauai. “No problemo!” We had never been to the island of Kauai so we took them up on the offer.

We did the tour of the resort and were blown away. I hadn’t ever seen a place like that before. It was so gorgeous. The lobby, the palm trees, the pool, the beach…wow! So we bought it.

The next couple of years we returned to the Kauai Beach Club. It was just an awesome vacation for the family. The units are great and the service is the fantastic. The views of the mountains, beach, sunrise/set is just inspiring (it’s exactly the recharge you need from work). Since then, we have been back many times but one year we exchanged our unit for a new resort that was opening in Marbella, Spain; another year we exchanged for Orlando, FL; then Aruba; then Palm Desert. We have certainly had some great vacations and stayed at some really great places. We are very pleased. It’s allowed us some great memories and stories and we felt like we stayed in comfort each time.

The 3 things that I like about timeshare units vs. hotel rooms is:

  1. Having a kitchen in the unit is so convenient when you have a family. Having to eat out every meal on a vacation gets old and time consuming; it takes the joy out of it when you have to do it each meal.  We like having snacks and fresh fruit too (if you are visiting an island, think of all that fresh fruit you can utilize). And the units come equipped with blenders so you can make fruit smoothies as well. And that goes for some great fresh margaritas on the balcony to enjoy the sunset (Those are the moments you relive in your mind when you’re back to work and sitting in your cubicle.)
  2. Condition of unit – the condition of the rooms and equipment is far better than a hotel room. The beds and couches are better. It’s more home-like. The bathroom is far more upscale than a hotel room. Sometimes you can get a Jacuzzi tub in the unit which is fun. Our unit has nice flat panel TVs with DVD player and also has a nice music system so you can crank some tunes as you prepare for the night out (that beats cranking the little clock radio that you get in hotel rooms to 10, right?).
  3. Lastly, I would have to say that size does matter. The units are much bigger which is important if you have 5 people in the family going on a vacation. A little extra space goes a long way. Our unit has a very unique feature called “lock-out”. There is a door that separates the 2 large rooms (think suite) essentially creating a 2 bedroom unit. This gives the kids a chance to maybe watch a movie at night and get some space from the parents. And it allows the parents a little space after a day at the amusement park. It also allows us to bring another couple on vacation and give them some space and privacy.

But I am not advocating that you buy a timeshare. There are challenges that owners face. Believe me, it’s not all “a box of chocolates”.  There’s fees…and fine print…exchange companies…and more fees.  I’ll be writing about the challenges in an upcoming blog. But I wanted to be honest about the upside first.

What are your thoughts on timeshare ownership? Has it been good to you?

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What’s TimeshareJuice all about?

Monday, May 25th, 2009

Let me first explain who we are. We’re a bunch of timeshare owners that put our time and money (yikes), and sweat into building a destination for timeshare owner community and timeshare exchange.
 

What’s the purpose of the site?

To gather all the owners on the Web from all the 5,000 resorts around the world and build an online community to exchange timeshares and help each other maximize our vacation ownership.

We designed it based on what we wanted as timeshare owners. Then we took input from other timeshare owners we knew and those we connected with online. We’ve done a lot of this informally already; we’ve exchanged units with friends and “friends of friends” for vacations around the world; we’ve also talked to other owners to find out what resorts are great and which ones are not. Now its time to do this on a large scale using the Internet.

The first thing we wanted to do was stop paying all that money to RCI and Interval for exchanges and membership fees. We don’t really feel like we need someone to broker these trades; we feel like we can absolutely do this by ourselves, owner to owner. I mean eBay connects people all over the world selling every item known to man and then some. We can certainly exchange vacations within the community.

How would you rate your experience with RCI or Interval International?

The second thing was we wanted a social network about just vacations and timeshare. We thought that if the entire timeshare community (about 7 millions owners worldwide – wow) shared tips and knowledge about timeshares that would be incredible. We figured the power and energy of everyone coming together would be better than anything out there right now for timeshare on the web or not. By giving a voice to each owner and the collective community to rate resorts and activities, we would all know what resorts were the best to vacation at, what activities and day-trips were the best to do, the best sites to visit etc etc.  All the content on the site will be supplied by timeshare owners themselves.

A lot of the reviews out there right now are paid for by resorts. I think that if the reviews and ratings were supplied directly by owners the best resorts with the best service would get more visitors; all the others would have to raise their standards for service. It’s that simple. This holds true for everything about the timeshare industry; from maintenance fees (don’t get me started on that) to exchange fees, cleanliness of units, resort fees etc. We could open up the lines of communication for the entire industry.

What challenges are you having with your resort?

Our team spent a lot of time together writing down what we as timeshare owners would want in a social network. Then we spent a lot of time organizing so it was easy and simple to use. I hope you like what we are creating and I hope you take the time to have your voice heard as well.

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