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- Exchanging Timeshares for Cruises
Exchanging Timeshares for Cruises
Has anyone traded their timeshare through II for a cruise? We are considering an Alaskan cruise and I don't know if I should attempt to go through II to trade our timeshare or book a cruise on our own. I have to purchase the additional gold status membership for II to even give me a quote for the cruise exchange, so I would like some feedback before I spend more money to do that.
Anita D.
anitad10 wrote:Has anyone traded their timeshare through II for a cruise? We are considering an Alaskan cruise and I don't know if I should attempt to go through II to trade our timeshare or book a cruise on our own. I have to purchase the additional gold status membership for II to even give me a quote for the cruise exchange, so I would like some feedback before I spend more money to do that.
Yes, I trade for a cruise through II and it was a really bad deal and they make it as confusing as possible so you can't figure out what value you actually got for your time share. It took me nearly a year and multiply complaints to Marriott Vacation Club to finally get the truth. Basically, I got a value of about $800 for a one week two bedroom villa at KoOlina Ocean Club - I could have rented that unit for $2500. Proceed with caution is all I can say.
Carolyn P.
anitad10 wrote:Has anyone traded their timeshare through II for a cruise? We are considering an Alaskan cruise and I don't know if I should attempt to go through II to trade our timeshare or book a cruise on our own. I have to purchase the additional gold status membership for II to even give me a quote for the cruise exchange, so I would like some feedback before I spend more money to do that.
We exchanged timeshare for a visit to Vistana in Orlando and in Fort Lauderdale in 2000. The timeshare exchange for cruises was not appealing and the cruise liners used by RCI are not as good as other lines. My advice would be to book an Alaskan cruise on Royal Caribbean - it may be slightly more expensive than other lines (certainly a better bet than time-share exchange) but you will never regret the choice. The Royal Caribbean cruise around the Caribbean was amazing for our entire family - really great.
Rob T.
In our experience you can get better cruise deals from travel related sites such as www.travelocity.com , www.expedia.com and the many other travel related sites on the internet. Do a google search to find travel sites on the internet and then compare prices from each. It's fun to do and you can even choose your state room (cabin) when you make up your mind which site you wish to use.
R P.
anitad10 wrote:Thank you for all of your input. I think that you have convinced me to schedule the cruise on my own and either bank my timeshare weeks for that year or try to rent them. Anita
One last piece of advice: use a travel agent to book a cruise; they are more complicated than a hotel vacation. And for all the believers in on-line agents like Exp**ia or Tra*****ity they are just a booking agent. You may as well get the personal service of a LIVE agent; it's FREE! You don't have to do all that work and research. Commissions are included in the cost you pay so you can give it to an online with no personal service OR a real travel agent who will look out for you. Also, there is a misconception today that because there is so much information on line, that is the whole story. NOT true. Agents, especially good ones, have access to MUCH more information than the general public ever will AND much earlier.One of the most important things an agent can do for you is share the benefit of personal experiences and those of their client. They can give good ADVICE and will take the time to get to know you and match you to the right cruise. They will also get you upgrades, discunts and anything else they can so you will be a happy client. Yes, I am a travel agent and I can tell you many stories about people who booked online and had problems OR just not the best experience they could have had. My tip is to agree with the Royal Carib fan but also to offer Princess as an excellent choice for Alaska. Knowing all the cruise lines, I find RC to be an excellent value and much more reasonable than many people think. A good agent will match your demographic to the right cruise line and experience tailored for YOU. No online company can touch that. Hope this helps! MaryD
Mary D.
Maryd, I agree with you that travel agents are another good option for booking crusies, especially if a person is not internet savvy. I thought it was fun to search for cruiseships according to our preferred destination, compare rates and choose our cabin online, but that CAN be time consuming.
R P.
Travel agents are really great, but if you want the very best deal, my advice is to go to the Cruises to Go website and check into their Fast Deals. You can find some stupendous rates there, and mostly on well known cruise lines (Princess - a great cruise line from personal experience, Royal Caribbean, Holland America -another great cruise line, Cunard, Celebrity, Carnival, etc.).
I also think most anyone who has been on a cruise before (and likely some who never have been) can figure out what they want in a cruise without someone else 'matching' them to the best fit for them. All you need is a bit of Internet savvy, and some time. The websites for the cruise lines themselves even let you take virtual 'tours' of the varying ships, including of the different stateroom categories, and give many details about the type of entertainment offered, various amenities on board, tipping, etc.
Check out Cruises to Go - and no, I have absolutely no tie-in with that or any other website! Personally, I just found it very useful, and I wanted to help others by passing on the info.
Kathi L.
kathi, if the url is www.cruisestogo.com a message pops up that says they are no longer in business. If there is another url for this site, please list it here.
kathi32 wrote:Check out Cruises to Go - and no, I have absolutely no tie-in with that or any other website! Personally, I just found it very useful, and I wanted to help others by passing on the info.
R P.
anitad10 wrote:Has anyone traded their timeshare through II for a cruise?
We have been on three cruises and the last one was to Alaska and we booked it through AAA travel right inside our AAA office in San Mateo CA.
Our other two went through travel agency's that not only got us a good price but our first choice on everything from flight and times to cabin and dinner setting!
We just spent one and half months on Redweek with our unit offered for rent at The Ridge Tahoe because we found our daughter has finals Memorial week and couldn't go.
We were going to rent a condo in Williamsburg June 3-10,2007 when we rented our unit so our daughter could go with us but this didn't happen.
My wife and I are going up to the Ridge Tahoe ourselves because we have the unit we wanted and didn't want to lose it. We will return on Sat and fly out to Colorado Springs on that Sunday,lucky we have two weeks vacation at this time!
The person who had the ad ahead of us marked it unavailable and gave it to the resort to rent which they did in two days! I e-mailed to find out how things went and he had no action on Redweek either and wanted to get something done and he did!
My daughter decided she would like to go back to Colo Springs where I lived for 10 years as a kid. We took her when she was three and she wanted to go back this year.
We spent six days going over all the sites and the main three that we have used before, Travelocity, Orbitz and finished up with Expedia and they had the best choices and price of all of them! We were able to book a non-stop flight and our first choice hotel and suv of our choice for great price! Doing all this in short period of time reminded me why we went away from timesharing for ten years and we have a kitchen in our hotel room too!
Its funny but we got away from timesharing for almost ten years and now that we own again we end up booking hotel just like last ten years. We pick the one part of Colorado that has no timeshare resorts!
Since I renewed few months ago with II they sent my package with coupons for Hertz and discounts for air. I decided since not using these last year I would save and go through II with these discounts and what a rip-off!
First they show no non-stop flights from Sacramento Ca to Colo Springs. Then they give you flights that take you all over the country with plane changes and layovers before taking you where you want to go! The fee's were hundreds of dollars higher with II discounts than we paid. We will fly non-stop in 2:18 min to Colorado Springs and not 11-12 hours with layovers.
This is like a mom and pop organization!
The I try and setup the rental car and you get charged the high list price that is on every rental site before the discounts depending on your bookings. Hertz takes your 20% off that price and I would have paid about $480.00 for a small car when I have a full size SUV for about $265.00 for the week.
This ticks me off about II because this junk is worthless to anyone doing their home work! I can beat these prices with my AAA or AARP cards!
I would never trade my unit for a discount to a cruise ship with II or most likely any other timeshare trading system!
Phil L.
Last edited by phill12 on May 10, 2007 04:10 PM
phill12 wrote:anitad10 wrote:Has anyone traded their timeshare through II for a cruise? We are considering an Alaskan cruise and I don't know if I should attempt to go through II to trade our timeshare or book a cruise on our own. I have to purchase the additional gold status membership for II to even give me a quote for the cruise exchange, so I would like some feedback before I spend more money to do that.We have been on three cruises and the last one was to Alaska and we booked it through AAA travel right inside our AAA office in San Mateo CA.
Our other two went through travel agency's that not only got us a good price but our first choice on everything from flight and times to cabin and dinner setting!
We just spent one and half months on Redweek with our unit offered for rent because we found our daughter has finals Memorial week and couldn't go.
We were going to rent a condo in Williamsburg June 3-10,2007 when we rented ours so our daughter could go with us but this didn't happen. My wife and I are going up to the Ridge Tahoe ourselves because we have the unit we wanted and didn't want to lose it. We will return on Sat and fly out to Colo on that Sunday,lucky we have two weeks vacation at this time!
The person next to our add closed his ad and gave it to the resort to rent which they did in two days! I e-mailed to find out how things went and he had no action either and wanted to get something done and he did!
My daughter decided she would like to go back to Colo Springs where I lived for 10 years as a kid. We took her when she was three and she wanted to go back this year.
We spent six days going over all the sites and the main three that we have used before, Traveloctity,Orbitz and finished up with Expedia and they had the best choices and price of all of them! We were able to non-stop flight and our first choice hotel and suv of our choice for great price!
Since I renewed few months ago with II they sent my package with coupons for Hertz and discounts for air. I decided since not using these last year I would save and go through II with these discounts and what a rip-off!
First they show no non-stop flights from Sacramento Ca to Colo Springs. They have one flight that leaves at 11am and goes to Chicago with about six hour lay over then to Colo Springs. Another takes you to Las Vegas with Layover another to Texas. This is like a mom and pop org. The I try and setup the rental car and you get charged the high list price that is on every rental site before the discounts depending on your bookings. Hertz takes your 20% off that price and I would have paid about $480.00 for a small car when I have a full size SUV for about $265.00 for the week.
This ticks me off about II because this junk is worthless to anyone doing their home work! I can beat these prices with my AAA or AARP cards!
I would never trade my unit for a discount to a cruise ship with II.
I am confused by your message. Are you owners at The Ridge and when you were mentioning your friends who rented their unit at The Ridge through the resort in 2 days, are they owners at The Ridge? We own at The Ridge and I have never used the resort to rent our unit and would like some feedback on that. I also agree that the other travel services offered through II ( rental cars, planes, hotels, etc.) are advertised as discount prices, but they certainly are not the best prices or choices that I have found.....so it is really not a benefit of membership.
Anita D.
anitad10 Are you owners at The Ridge and when you were mentioning your friends who rented their unit at The Ridge through the resort in 2 days, are they owners at The Ridge? We own at The Ridge and I have never used the resort to rent our unit and would like some feedback on that. I also agree that the other travel services offered through II ( rental cars, planes, hotels, etc.) are advertised as discount prices, but they certainly are not the best prices or choices that I have found.....so it is really not a benefit of membership.
The other person I mentioned is not a friend but another Redweek Member who owns Naegle building at the Ridge!
Yes I do own the Naegle Building at the Ridge Tahoe!
The other person I was talking about had his unit listed on Redweek with no hits and he marked it unavailble.
After us getting no action I e-mailed him to ask and was told he decided to stop wasting his time and give it to the Ridge to rent and they rented five of his days and he said his family would enjoy other two days there!
We have Memorial Week 5/26--6/2/2007 in high floor non-smoking unit over looking Carson City Valley and this is what we asked for last year so giving it up would be hard to do!
I talk to the Ridge People couple days ago and was told they would take a unit two weeks from use date but no promise of renting the units!
Carrie at the Ridge told us they are renting two bedrooms at $385.00 per night for Memorial week and have no Naegles left and would take our unit right now. The Naegle and Tower are the hardest buildings to get into because there still the best of the Ridge units. You can find the Terrace and Plaza anywhere for rent or sale and most owners bonus time is in one of the two buildings.
They get something like 30-35% of the rental fee plus I think they deduct for cleaning services also. I have no problem with this at all and it is so easy to do! Now the down side is we have the unit we want and when you give it to them to rent out you lose the unit.
The Ridge is very high on taking care of its owners so our unit would go to another owner if they wanted to move up to better unit or location and the Ridge would rent what was left over. Again I have no problem with this but say they only rent four days then you can come up and use the last three days except you have no idea what unit except it would be a Naegle unit.
All the units are nice but we have 7-8th floor and could end up down on first floor and its nice but not what we want after waiting all year!
If the Ridge would let us stay in our unit I would have let them rent it two days ago and I wouldn't need to mess with paperwork or worry about getting scammed!
We most likley would sell same way through the Ridge.
Hope this helps and you can call and talk to Carrie in the rental office if you would like.
We are going through all this because our daughter has finals Memorial week and couldn't go. We will come home on Sat and fly out to Colo Springs on Sunday morning so it is going to be a busy two weeks!
GOOD LUCK! PHIL
Phil L.
Jayjay pointed out the Cruises to go website link doesn't work any more. Sorry - it's now to be found on the Vacations To Go website. I get their cruise newsletter regularly (which is why I didn't know the old website was no longer working), and I pay particular attention the FAST Deals section. There are great fares to be found there if you can travel on short notice. Lookat vacationstogo.com. You'll need to register first, but registration gets you on their email list (I happen to think being on this list is a good thing). Once you register, check out their links - 90 Day Ticker and Find A Bargain. Fast Deals is on one of these. And since you registered, you'll get email updates from them regularly. Good luck finding the best deal on the cruise you want. Kathi
Kathi L.
www.vacationstogo.com
kathi32 wrote:Jayjay pointed out the Cruises to go website link doesn't work any more. Sorry - it's now to be found on the Vacations To Go website. I get their cruise newsletter regularly (which is why I didn't know the old website was no longer working), and I pay particular attention the FAST Deals section. There are great fares to be found there if you can travel on short notice. Lookat vacationstogo.com. You'll need to register first, but registration gets you on their email list (I happen to think being on this list is a good thing). Once you register, check out their links - 90 Day Ticker and Find A Bargain. Fast Deals is on one of these. And since you registered, you'll get email updates from them regularly. Good luck finding the best deal on the cruise you want. Kathi
R P.
We used ICE for the Alaskan cruise; picked what line and tour also. Been watching for a year; got the balcony we wanted. Used two years of points with one of my properties. Thought it was a good deal; better than a discounter where the balcony disappear fast. If not interested with a balcony then go to a discounter for inside room; probably our next Alaskan trip !
Michael M.
phill12 anitad10 Are you owners at The Ridge and when you were mentioning your friends who rented their unit at The Ridge through the resort in 2 days, are they owners at The Ridge? We own at The Ridge and I have never used the resort to rent our unit and would like some feedback on that. I also agree that the other travel services offered through II ( rental cars, planes, hotels, etc.) are advertised as discount prices, but they certainly are not the best prices or choices that I have found.....so it is really not a benefit of membership.
The other person I mentioned is not a friend but another Redweek Member who owns Naegle building at the Ridge!
Yes I do own the Naegle Building at the Ridge Tahoe!
The other person I was talking about had his unit listed on Redweek with no hits and he marked it unavailble.
After us getting no action I e-mailed him to ask and was told he decided to stop wasting his time and give it to the Ridge to rent and they rented five of his days and he said his family would enjoy other two days there!
We have Memorial Week 5/26--6/2/2007 in high floor non-smoking unit over looking Carson City Valley and this is what we asked for last year so giving it up would be hard to do!
I talk to the Ridge People couple days ago and was told they would take a unit two weeks from use date but no promise of renting the units!
Carrie at the Ridge told us they are renting two bedrooms at $385.00 per night for Memorial week and have no Naegles left and would take our unit right now. The Naegle and Tower are the hardest buildings to get into because there still the best of the Ridge units. You can find the Terrace and Plaza anywhere for rent or sale and most owners bonus time is in one of the two buildings.
They get something like 30-35% of the rental fee plus I think they deduct for cleaning services also. I have no problem with this at all and it is so easy to do! Now the down side is we have the unit we want and when you give it to them to rent out you lose the unit.
The Ridge is very high on taking care of its owners so our unit would go to another owner if they wanted to move up to better unit or location and the Ridge would rent what was left over. Again I have no problem with this but say they only rent four days then you can come up and use the last three days except you have no idea what unit except it would be a Naegle unit.
All the units are nice but we have 7-8th floor and could end up down on first floor and its nice but not what we want after waiting all year!
If the Ridge would let us stay in our unit I would have let them rent it two days ago and I wouldn't need to mess with paperwork or worry about getting scammed!
We most likley would sell same way through the Ridge.
Hope this helps and you can call and talk to Carrie in the rental office if you would like.
We are going through all this because our daughter has finals Memorial week and couldn't go. We will come home on Sat and fly out to Colorado Springs on Sunday morning so it is going to be a busy two weeks!
Phil L.
I have been on many Royal Caribbean Cruises and l think they are one of the best companies but when I went on my Alaska Cruise Norwegian Cruise Lines had just launched the "Pearl". It was brand new so I decided to try it and it was fantastic. I would recommend you try it. For me, the best deals are at vacationstogo.com in their 90 day or less section. I bought from them a weeklong cruise for $370 on Princess.
robt28 wrote:anitad10 wrote:Has anyone traded their timeshare through II for a cruise? We are considering an Alaskan cruise and I don't know if I should attempt to go through II to trade our timeshare or book a cruise on our own. I have to purchase the additional gold status membership for II to even give me a quote for the cruise exchange, so I would like some feedback before I spend more money to do that.We exchanged timeshare for a visit to Vistana in Orlando and in Fort Lauderdale in 2000. The timeshare exchange for cruises was not appealing and the cruise liners used by RCI are not as good as other lines. My advice would be to book an Alaskan cruise on Royal Caribbean - it may be slightly more expensive than other lines (certainly a better bet than time-share exchange) but you will never regret the choice. The Royal Caribbean cruise around the Caribbean was amazing for our entire family - really great.
Agnes R.
