TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Another Belair bummer

Tough times for Belair Beach Hotel. They just announced another $450 fee per week to the timeshare owners. (one time fee?) Some hoped the proposed sale that fell through would have saved the day but that was not to be. This totals approximately $2,000/week. Too many other options available in SXM,IMO. Great location, beautiful beach, wonderful, caring local staff, cannot compensate for owner's mismangement. Sad.

Sounds like they are trying to get everyone to just unload their t/s so that they can sell and bulldoze the place and build condos.

I am sure just like everywhere prices to maintain and other expenses have gone up substantially on SXM. And why hotels ,restaurants have had to raise prices. I have Never really liked the location or the beach at Bellaire but they do seem to be trying after spending a ton of money on their AC problems. ITs a uphill battle for sure.

It's all reflective of the budget management. Many TSs including ours didn't impose a special assessment this year because of world economy. Looks like Belair is destined for failure. Hate to see that as that is where we stayed on our first stay in St Maarten. Fond memories.

Freelancing is the way to go. Never understood owning a bed that 51 other couples sleep in every year. It is fun to move around.

? As opposed to renting a bed that 51 other couples sleep in every year?

👏👏👏

TJ--you don't really OWN anything when you own a timeshare..

Belair will use any extra money they can get to do upgrades so they can get it sold for more.
Just like Sunterra to Diamond and then Diamond to Hilton with the Flamingo and Royal Palm.

And those worked out really nicely for us owners without special assessments at Flamingo.

At Flamingo with the AMF's which are roughly 50% higher than La Vista, Royal Islander and other well run places why would you need a special assessment?

Due to knowing we were going to have limited travel for a couple years due to business interest we were fortunate to have been able to sell off most of our SXM timeshares, but I have no regrets about any that we owned and in the end we came out ahead. We did our due diligence going in, and that more than paid off. We still own a Royal Islander LP unit that has no issue paying for itself if we are not there, up for sale.

I wish those at Belair the best, good luck. It once was a standard of happy owners and reasonable fees.

"At Flamingo with the AMF's which are roughly 50% higher than La Vista, Royal Islander and other well run places why would you need a special assessment"
Our MFs have stayed pretty much the same after Irma with no special assessments. Shows how well run it is. Other TS Resorts are slowly catching up to our higher MFs. I did just sell my 2 bed July week about a month ago. Still own 3 with no regrets.

That is what the Atrium did to us.
Wanted a huge assessment plus the regular maintenance fees for at least 3 years.
We turned in our 3 weeks in a 2 bedroom oceanfront view on the 8th floor that we had owned for over 30 years.
We never missed a single year even during COVID. A lot of years going more than once.
This will be the first time in 30 of not going back.
Very disappointing.