DVC Hilton Head vs. buying other HH villas

[Dean]

agreed. gott stay away from a buy based on emotion! We are on about month 6 on our process and feel by this summer, we can logically make a move based on educating ourselves. appreciate the advise. looking at tug it seems on fractional ownership that the Ocean Palms and the Carolina Club rate a bit higher than Harborside III, wondering if it is based on closer to ocean? Hope it is not based on quality only.

Ocean Palms is near the Westin. Not as upscale as DVC and the Marriott's but nice enough to not be an issue. I'm having trouble remembering their specifics but IIRC, they have several fractional programs that are somewhat different. I'm pretty sure they're fixed unit options. I think Brigantine Quarters has some fractionals as well.

Ocean Palms has a couple of membership plans but in general you get 10 weeks a year, 2 weeks at a time on a rotating basis between 5 owners. Retail prices in 2006 were in the neighborhood of $70-85K for a 2 BR and $100K for a 3 BR for those 10 weeks. Fees in 2006 were just over $5K a year for those 10 weeks. I have a little more info from the paperwork if you want to email me directly at deandal@pobox.com

 

[JBx3]

I appreciate that but I will contact the Ocean Palms directly. There are 1 or 2 of these listed with realtors. in HH and the 3bdr. are down to 50k or 60k. It looked like from the Ocean Palms website that they are pretty close to the Westin and the beach. On our next trip to HH we will do a drive by.

 

[lmb]

We love HHI also and have gotten so close to buying an outside villa that we put an offer down and then withdrew it. We still may buy in the future but after running the numbers we decided it was more cost effective for us to drive down from PA, stay in Sea Pines for a week and then stay in the Disney resort for about 5 or 6 nights afterwards. This way we have the best of both worlds and this is much cheaper than buying a villa we'd use infrequently and have to rent out.

 

[Dean]

I appreciate that but I will contact the Ocean Palms directly. There are 1 or 2 of these listed with realtors. in HH and the 3bdr. are down to 50k or 60k. It looked like from the Ocean Palms website that they are pretty close to the Westin and the beach. On our next trip to HH we will do a drive by.

Certainly compared to DVC, they are closer to the beach but they are not close enough see the ocean and it's a pretty good hike if you want to walk. They do run a shuttle. I would think one could get one resale at around $20-30K (guess). Look for one of the ones that doesn't include Jan and Feb, I think they're called, Super Fifth. They are a little more but well worth a comparable difference I think. They have 3 unit types and there was a pretty good difference between the 3, like $15K between the two 2 BR types retail. Research on TUG for more pricing info, I'm sure someone has more knowledge than I do on that subject.

 

[OhioDVC]

My family and I love DVC HHI, but I can no longer justify the cost. We purchased 4 weeks of timeshare outside of DVC at HHI. Cost of purchase and MX fees are significantly lower with the same quality or just slightly less.

We love HHI and will be spending almost half of the summer there.

We purchased at Waterside, Marriott Barony Beach and Bluewater Resort and Marina all through the resale market for pennies on the dollar.

 

[WolfpackFan]

Question for Dean - Have you ever stayed at the Marriott Timeshare at Harbour Towne? I've always thought that would be a neat one to stay at.

 

[Dean]

Question for Dean - Have you ever stayed at the Marriott Timeshare at Harbour Towne? I've always thought that would be a neat one to stay at.

I haven't stayed there but have been on property and looked around. It's one of the earliest, if not the earliest, that Marriott built themselves. Monarch was in the process of building when Marriott took over the various resorts they started with (Harbour Pointe, Saturday Villas, Spicebush, Swallowtail and Monarch). Only HP and Monarch remain with HH as Marriott dumped the rest a number of years ago. Harbour Club has a good location if you like Harbour Town but it's a sleepy and small resort and is at the bottom of Marriott's standards. There are only 4 Marriott's on HH that are in RCI, these including Monarch, Harbour Club, Heritage and Sunset Pointe (but not Harbour Pointe at the same location). Speaking of Heritage, it's also in the same area and gets free golf, 12 rounds I believe. There are a couple of other resorts (not Marriott's) that also have gold includes though obviously someone is paying for it. IMO, Grande Ocean is by far the top resort on the Island but Monarch likely in the best location overall. An interesting discussion is always the resorts that used to be Marriott's but no longer are along with the ones that are, but had close calls over the years with a risk of separating from Marriott. BeachPlace Towers comes to mind along with Aruba Ocean Club.

One thing to be careful about if one buys a HH unit that is inside Sea Pines is they tend to have a different timeshare calendar than everyone else, off by 1 week.

 

[Bethd5]

We own 150 points at Disney to stay Sunday - Friday am. We then bought at Marriott Sunset Pointe (in the same marina as Disney) so we can stay an additional Sat - Sat. Sunset Pointe is very affordable at this time - it's not near as nice as SurfWatch or Grande Ocean (not on the beach, but on the water) but it's in the Marriott family so the villas are very nice and it gets us on HH Island every summer. We rent bikes and enjoy tennis at Sunset Pointe - all views are Marsh views and it's a nice quiet, smaller property.
Just our experience that is more affordable for those of us that love Hilton Head.

 

[JBx3]

We own 150 points at Disney to stay Sunday - Friday am. We then bought at Marriott Sunset Pointe (in the same marina as Disney) so we can stay an additional Sat - Sat. Sunset Pointe is very affordable at this time - it's not near as nice as SurfWatch or Grande Ocean (not on the beach, but on the water) but it's in the Marriott family so the villas are very nice and it gets us on HH Island every summer. We rent bikes and enjoy tennis at Sunset Pointe - all views are Marsh views and it's a nice quiet, smaller property.
Just our experience that is more affordable for those of us that love Hilton Head.

Yes. We are keeping our options open to Marriott harbour point and sunset. Good to.know they all have marsh views. We were not aware of that and the marsh view seems to be what our family is after.