An Interval International Story

[rombar]

Here's a story some may find interesting....about a year ago I put in for a trade to Cancun and got pretty immediately matched up with one of the better Royal Resorts. I was really excited about it, until a few months ago when I started looking for airfares to Cancun. I have a family of 5 and am flying from Newark, NJ - the best I could do was $650 a ticket, and lately the fares have been about $700. Clearly, I would save money paying for a hotel/air package. So I decided not to go to Cancun and surprise my husband with a 40th birthday trip to Vegas instead. After booking the Vegas trip (paying all cash - he really has always wanted to take the kids to the Mandalay Bay hotel) - I decided to look into cancelling the Cancun trade.

Silly me, I didn't realize that when you cancel an Interval trade you can only use the points with another Interval trade within the next year after cancellation. Anyway I had them do a Florida search because the airfare to Florida is pretty inexpensive from where I live. One of the immediately available matches was the Marriott Ocean Pointe Palm Beach. I looked into the resort and it looks like a gorgeous hotel - terrific for kids - airfare $189 - less than $1000 for the entire family. Tripadvisor.com has only terrific reviews of this hotel.

I'll let you all know how it turns out (not going until August though) - better than losing all of those points - and seems like a really inexpensive second vacation which will be relaxing.

Has anyone per chance, ever been here?

 

[Divamomto3]

I have been there!
I went there in April 2002 for 4 nights. It's a Marriott Vacation Club resort and I went for $200 total for the 4 nights to listen to their 90 minute talk about buying the vacation club. The resort is VERY nice. The pool is large and beautiful, the grounds are well kept. The resort is right on the ocean, with easy access to the beach. You could rent cabanas and I believe skidoos or other water toys. (Our kids were too small then and we didn't do it.)

We had a one bedroom villa. The second bedroom was locked off. The room was new and clean and beautifully decorated. We had a corner unit with sweeping views of the ocean. The kitchen was well equipped. There were many kids activities going on daily. There was a place to rent movies for the room. Also, a Pizza Hut on premises. There is also a convenience store that sold some food items. It was small and expensive. That was all the food choices on site that I remember. Perhaps many people grocery shop before they get there. Off site, downtown West Palm beach isn't far away. City Point is there and that is an upscale mall with shops, restaurants and a movie theater. West Palm Beach is an upscale town, but you do drive through a "seedy" area to get to the Marriott Ocean Pointe in Palm Beach Shores.

It was a nice quick, extra vacation. We didn't buy the time share, thankfully. Because the next year 2003---we went to Disney for the first time and fell in love!

Have a great trip!

 

[Dean]

I have commented on the issue of air fare and getting trades early a number of times, mostly with HI in mind. MX in general can be high if you're not traveling from a gateway to a gateway city. We were in Puerta Vallarta last year and the cheapest I saw during the time was $800 per person. I had FF tickets booked exactly at the 330 day window. When we went to cancun in 2000, it was about $400 pp if I recall but I ended up using FF miles then as well.

I've been to OP but only 1 building was open then. I will be there 3 July this year as a Marriott to Marriott exchange in a 2 BR. Make sure you call Marriott and place your requests and then update them to the resort a week or slightly more before your arrival. OP does have BBQ grills, they are natural gas. When are you there, I can take pictures and email to you if it's after us. TUG has pretty extensive and glowing reviews of this resort as well.

As for the cancelation policy, I've posted on that as well. There is another docuement that DVC has about exchanges. It has more rules and more info. I also includes info like number of members and numbers of units (within a range) for the various exchange options. It is usually published in the early summer and is retrospective to the year before. It also gives the number of exchnges from the previous year and percent of members exchanging. There are actually two documents and they are separate. One for II and one for BVTC.

 

[rombar]

Dean -

What type of requests should I make for this resort? Suggestions?

 

[Dean]

Originally posted by rombar
Dean -

What type of requests should I make for this resort? Suggestions?

The current buildings are wedge shaped with Ocean front units across the front and then then each unit back from the ocean is a little farther out. Most of the units also have a portion of a window that faces the ocean. That means that if you aren't too low, you should at least have a glancing view of hte ocean from any unit. I'm not sure the names of hand to know which building is which. They will assign units in this order of preference owner, those who rent for cash from MVCI, Marriott exchangers, then other exchangers.

I'm going to ask for non smoking and as high as possible. If I get that, I don't care if it's an older or newer unit, etc as long as the unit is in decent shape. Assume you won't get a view and anything above that will be gravy.

Didn't see your dates were in August until I had posted above. I can certainly give you info and pictures once we return. Just email me to remind me mid July or so (after 10 July).

 

[OneMoreTry]

Airfares fluctuate dramatically. To Salt Lake and Denver from where I live they can go from $600 to $300 overnight. It's a game of chicken with the airlines. Should you buy and lock in a fare or wait for a lower one?

I never buy if it's too high. They will almost always come down at some point. You have to check frequently, though, because some of the dramatic discounts may only last a day or two.

I don't know if this would apply to Cancun.