Celebrity take over AMER.VACATION RESORTS

Does anyone know anything about Celebrity taking over managment of American Vacation Resorts? Celebrity Resorts called and told us about a member update meeting..they gave us 3 DAYS NOTICE. We live in Northern Va, and the only meeting they had available was in Maryland for a few days. It's a meeting about our options- so far, we recieved a letter stating that they are having financial difficulty. If anyone has any info, it would be helpful before we go into this meeting. Our meeting is on the 21st of January. Please let me know.....

lorih185 wrote:

Does anyone know anything about Celebrity taking over managment of American Vacation Resorts? Celebrity Resorts called and told us about a member update meeting..they gave us 3 DAYS NOTICE. We live in Northern Va, and the only meeting they had available was in Maryland for a few days. It's a meeting about our options- so far, we recieved a letter stating that they are having financial difficulty. If anyone has any info, it would be helpful before we go into this meeting. Our meeting is on the 21st of January. Please let me know.....

I don't claim to know anything at all about this particular transaction, but I can say with some certainty that Celebrity is held in VERY low regard by many familiar with Celebrity in general and by other experienced and knowledgeable people in the timeshare industry who report observations and opinions on the Internet (I have no personal knowledge, experience, or opinion at all myself regarding Celebrity). My point is that you may want to do some subject matter searches on various timeshare sites like TUG, TS4MS (as well as RedWeek) and digest some of this material for yourself. It seems that "financial difficulty" and "Celebrity" are very often closely associated and intertwined concepts.....

Whatever your options might ultimately be, you'd be well advised to think long and hard about putting up ANY additional money for any form of contrived "conversion" program into Celebrity. Being able to just "get out / sell out" of the vacation club membership is not likely to be one of your options, but if it turns out to be an available choice it might well be worth considering. In all likelihood, the "member offer" at your meeting is going to be an "opportunity" to purchase into deeded Celebrity ownership, since the RTU / membership product of the defunct vacation club may be about to become ancient history. I wish you luck; it's difficult to find yourself involuntarily caught in the middle of a sellout / takeover situation.

I know nothing about these companies, but it does raise a question. If you own a deeded property at a timeshare what happens if the management company falls on hard times? I own one TS in Vegas, and that has just happened. It is not a vacation ownership, just a plain timeshare located on some VERY VERY expensive real estate on the strip. The previous company filed for bankrupcy, and it was sold to a new company. They are still operating it as a time share, but expansion plans (which I dont think were ever going to happen anyway) are on hold indefinately. It is still managed by Trading Places, as it always was and we are assured that nothing will be changing. That appears to be true, but what rights do deeded owners have in a situatuion like this? It is located next door to the Wynn and East of the Stardust which has been demolished. A new mega resort is going up there. I can only imagine how much the land is worth where my timeshare is!

nanh9 wrote:

I know nothing about these companies, but it does raise a question. If you own a deeded property at a timeshare what happens if the management company falls on hard times? I own one TS in Vegas, and that has just happened. It is not a vacation ownership, just a plain timeshare located on some VERY VERY expensive real estate on the strip. The previous company filed for bankrupcy, and it was sold to a new company. They are still operating it as a time share, but expansion plans (which I dont think were ever going to happen anyway) are on hold indefinately. It is still managed by Trading Places, as it always was and we are assured that nothing will be changing. That appears to be true, but what rights do deeded owners have in a situatuion like this? It is located next door to the Wynn and East of the Stardust which has been demolished. A new mega resort is going up there. I can only imagine how much the land is worth where my timeshare is!

Good material for an entirely new thread with an entirely new subject heading, but this reply has nothing at all to do with the subject of this particular thread --- Celebrity reportedly taking over American Vacation Resorts.

nanh9 wrote:

I know nothing about these companies, but it does raise a question. If you own a deeded property at a timeshare what happens if the management company falls on hard times? I own one TS in Vegas, and that has just happened. It is not a vacation ownership, just a plain timeshare located on some VERY VERY expensive real estate on the strip. The previous company filed for bankrupcy, and it was sold to a new company. They are still operating it as a time share, but expansion plans (which I dont think were ever going to happen anyway) are on hold indefinately. It is still managed by Trading Places, as it always was and we are assured that nothing will be changing. That appears to be true, but what rights do deeded owners have in a situatuion like this? It is located next door to the Wynn and East of the Stardust which has been demolished. A new mega resort is going up there. I can only imagine how much the land is worth where my timeshare is!

You say it's not a vacation ownership but just a plain timeshare. I'm not sure I understand exactly what you own, but if the timeshare/resort is still there and the management says nothing will change, then I see no problem in the immediate future.

If the timeshare/resort should go belly up in the future, then that will be an entirely different ballgame. Until then I would keep my fingers crossed that nothing will change.

BTW, what is the name of the timeshare resort?

lorih185 wrote:

Does anyone know anything about Celebrity taking over managment of American Vacation Resorts? Celebrity Resorts called and told us about a member update meeting..they gave us 3 DAYS NOTICE. We live in Northern Va, and the only meeting they had available was in Maryland for a few days. It's a meeting about our options- so far, we recieved a letter stating that they are having financial difficulty. If anyone has any info, it would be helpful before we go into this meeting. Our meeting is on the 21st of January. Please let me know.....

I am curious as to what the discussion was about. AVR/Celebrity Resorts just called me also to set up a time for a "meeting" I am so sick of spending additional money into this to be strung along... Let me know what they talked about, please so I can prepare myself. Julie

juliem287 wrote:

lorih185 wrote:

Does anyone know anything about Celebrity taking over managment of American Vacation Resorts? Celebrity Resorts called and told us about a member update meeting..they gave us 3 DAYS NOTICE. We live in Northern Va, and the only meeting they had available was in Maryland for a few days. It's a meeting about our options- so far, we recieved a letter stating that they are having financial difficulty. If anyone has any info, it would be helpful before we go into this meeting. Our meeting is on the 21st of January. Please let me know.....

I am curious as to what the discussion was about. AVR/Celebrity Resorts just called me also to set up a time for a "meeting" I am so sick of spending additional money into this to be strung along... Let me know what they talked about, please so I can prepare myself. Julie

Hi Julie, Had my telephone "meeting" last night with Craig, Celebrity customer relations. He could provide no information on AVR takeover, seemed suprised I asked, "meeting" was another attempt to get me to "upgrade" to RCI points for thousands of dollars, I declined.