Just visited Aulani last week when hubby and I were in Oahu for a conference. It is absolutely stunning and we are definitely planning on going back next year. Now we are thinking of possibly adding on to get the 11 month window of opportunity to book. However, we would be happy enough to use our current points to go there. Do you think the 11 month booking will be necessary or will 7 months still hold some availability? Why or why not? I'm definitely in love with the resort and want to go but my current points would be enough to do that if things do not fill in the 11- 7 month booking window. What are your opinions and based on what?
Thanks,
Lisa
My take: Except for holidays (both US and foreign -- don't forget Golden Week!), Aulani will be "easy enough" at the 7-month window.
Reasons:
From my 11 years of timesharing, I've observed that Hawaii resorts are fairly easy to book or trade into. While this is contrary to the salesperson's pitch, I've had no trouble booking HI resorts when/where I've wanted -- although some bookings are fairly "last minute" (w/in 90-days of travel). I figure that a healthy number of HI-timeshare-buyers have high hopes of travel when they buy ... but that life simply doesn't play out as planned.
Lots of cancellations. Watching the online reservation system of my other points-system timeshare shows a trend of early booking followed by a flurry of cancellations for the HI properties. Again, folks have great hopes of travel ... then later change their minds.
High travel costs. Most owners won't have the option of driving ... and flying the whole family to HI on a regular basis is an expensive commitment.
Long flights. Most of DVC's existing market is east of the Mississippi river. Traveling cross-county is tough on many folks -- even worse when the flying the extra distance to HI.
Personally, I think Aulani will be a bit of a novelty destination to many DVC owners. They'll go once ... but likely not more often than once every 4-5 years. Just my guess ... we'll see how it goes. The big wildcard may be the Asian market. For now, we are currently booked on SSR points and have no plans to purchase Aulani points for the 11-month booking window.
