Big Takeover Announcement?

[PeelBoy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PeelBoy]

Raintree and Diamonds resort lists are always the same. Quite disappointing. I was hoping for something better.

[winger Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close winger]

Raintree and Diamonds resort lists are always the same. Quite disappointing. I was hoping for something better.

What do you mean?

On another note, I remember the Bluegreen deal falling through, but can a buyout deal still happen if the funds are available for DRI in the near future?

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Has DRI introduced an owners' exit strategy?

That would be newsworthy news.

[Jasonb334 Member Find all posts View Profile Close Jasonb334]

Overall it appears that the DRI takeover of Sunterra has actually been a positive for those resorts they run or are affiliated with.

LOL... Positive for the resort but not positive for the resort owners... Quite the opposite it appears.

Hard to justify (IMHO) a raise from $1.2 million in mgmt. & admin fees to $5 million since the acquisition in 1997.... that is a positive for someone!
The increase noted above did nothing for the resort but you are correct, the improvements that were made were paid for by the owners via MF's.

But who really benefits from the upgrades at the end of the day. The vacationer gets a better vacation experience with 2 or 3 times the expense and availability issues. The developer can make more money in sales showing off all these new upgrades to new buyers that will be stuck in a worst TS position than anyone is stuck in today. They will purchase at an inflated price, won't get their desired week and have to rent it out on the internet for 1/2 of their MF's and watch them escalate until they throw up their hands and ruin their credit reports.
It's broken and it either needs fixed or exposed for what it really is!

JLB - yes that would be newsworthy and I think legislation will be the only way to get this done because it does not look like the leaders of the timeshare industry have any such intentions. I am not for big brother stepping in all the time but consumer protection is at its worst with timeshares.

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

Has DRI introduced an owners' exit strategy?

That would be newsworthy news.

Well, they certainly do not let those at Poipu exit!

Even worse, in the DRI European Collection, the rule has been for years that any resale had to be to an existing DRI owner. That limited even owner resales. Apparently they went into high gear to change that when they found out that DRI was going to star on the major consumer program ''Rip off Britain'' on BBC.

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

That would be particularly true for owners at resorts where they play hardball to kick out fixed week owners like they did at Wychnor Park.

LOL... Positive for the resort but not positive for the resort owners... Quite the opposite it appears.

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

Looks to me from reading the DRI forums at DRI that the "big" buyout was Pacific Monarch. Not a bad buyout but I think the salesmen might have stretched it a bit to make it sound as if this was as big as Sunterra. Of course, there could be another aquisition on the horizon we haven't heard yet. I'm still hopeful that the DRI buyout of Bluegreen could take place but, I'm not holding my breath either.

[Barbeque Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Barbeque]

Pacific Monarch might be a good thing for Grand Pacific owners too as we have access to Diamond resorts through exchange and bonus weeks.
Cabo Azul looks real tempting

[SimBaker Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SimBaker]

So, was Pacific Monarch the "big news"? I had a presentation a few weeks ago and was told DRI was looking into purchasing Marriott (resorts, not hotel).......very soon. Of course he also told us the company was going public "very soon."

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

I'm guessing it was.

As to DRI buying out Marriott, that's a laugher IMHO. However, there is a silent partnership.....or at least there was....between DRI and Marriott. Marriott's Grand Chateau in Vegas was originally a DRI planned resort but, S. Cloobeck decided to go another direction instead of timeshare and the branding rights were sold to Marriott under a silent partnership called Hard Carbon (if memory serves me correctly). Part of the agreement had Marriott handling the sales of Polo Towers until Polo Towers was essentially sold out. There was a rumor that Polo Towers would become a Marriott resort because of this arrangement (was never going to happen and never did).

So, there may be some truth to the rumor and DRI may be trying to exercise some option on the Grand Chateau that's burried in the paperwork but, I don't see DRI merging with Marriott and DRI being the primary managing company at this time.

On the other hand, Marriott sales has been hinting the Marriott may be in the market to aquire other timeshares and brand them as Marriott properties. It seems to be the latest trend to buy failing properties vs building new resorts. Perhaps there's a merger in the works but with Marriott taking management from DRI. S. Cloobeck has left the timeshare business for other developement opportunities in the pasts and, there was the rumor he had political aspirations to be the gov. of NV at one time. Maybe he's looking to sell his empire to MVC, which is a publicly traded company, and get out of the business once again.

Either way it would likely benefit us as we own both DRI and Marriott properties. It probably wouldn't be a bad thing to have all of these under one management company and one internal exchange system. MF's for Marriott and DRI are both similar in how expensive they are. DRI quality isn't the same as Marriott but, it's not that far off either. I could see Marriott divesting of some of the DRI properties should this merger take place as there are some that will never be up to MVC quality no matter how much work is done to them. There's also the issue of duplication of destinations that wouldn't make a lot of sense either way. Branson, Orlando, Vegas, Palm Desert, Williamsburg all come to mind immediately as areas that would have a litteral TON of inventory for either should the two systems be merged

[Ryne08 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ryne08]

We were at Greensprings Plantation about three weeks ago and there were a surying team on-site during a site inspection of this property.