With the rise of popularity in vacation rentals, many hotel chains have moved to changing many of their hotel rooms into timeshares. What I wanted to focus on this post is the difference between the two as far as usability and not as much the purchasing/financial aspect of it. While I am not sure about other locations, at Waikoloa Beach Resort you can rent a timeshare room just like a hotel room. The increase in these room types has overall decreased the demand for vacation rentals.
Shared Amenities
Timeshares often times offer hotel like amenities so you will often time find vending machines in the buildings, a restaurant at the pool area, a larger sized resort style pool and more. In Waikoloa Beach Resort, the only vacation rentals that offer something similar to a restaurant at the pool is Halii Kai. All the other ones do not offer one. Many of the new vacation rentals at Waikoloa Beach Resort offer resort style pools, but they are smaller than most of the timeshare amenities.
Kings Land is the largest group of timeshares at Waikoloa Beach Resort and also offers music, hula dancing, and more around the pool area. None of the vacation rentals offer anything of this nature.
Room Size
For the most part, vacation rentals are larger than timeshares. Timeshares overall are set up like hotel rooms in that they offer you all the amenities you may need in the smallest space comfortable. If you want a lot of space to go along with this, often times you will have to move up to a suite. While vacation rentals overall can be similar, most of the vacation rentals at Waikoloa Beach Resort offer more space. With properties like Kolea offering significantly more space with some of the vacation rentals offering over 2000 square feet of living space.
Amenities
Typically within timeshares you are going to get a set amount of amenities within every timeshare so regardless which timeshare you are in you get the same amenities. Typically one of the complaints is that the kitchen amenities are understocked. For example if, if it sleeps 4 you are going to get 4 plates, etc. This does not allow you to have guests eat with you, you have to wash dishes between meals, etc. The positive side to this is that if you stay in the same timeshare community multiple times you know what you will get from room to room.
Vacation rentals on the other hand are individually owned so what you get from vacation rental to vacation rental will vary based on the owners preference. Most vacation rental companies have standards so at least you know there will be a minimum requirement. For the most part the kitchens are very well stocked with a lot more than timeshares and this is one of the big pluses to staying in a vacation rental.
Location
While this may not be true outside of Hawaii, location is a big difference between timeshares and vacation rentals overall. Some timeshares are located within the hotels, which are on prime properties within the Waikoloa Beach Resort. Some timeshares are located on some of the less prime land within the resort. Vacation rentals are the exact same. Kolea is located beachfront and all the others are not. All the others do offer a unique offering weather it be proximity to shopping or proximity to the golf courses.
