What is a Studio in Timeshare Talk?

As I have mentioned in many other posts, I am a points addict where I am continually earning and burning credit card points including hotel points and frequent flyer points.  This "hobby" has allowed my family and I to travel extensively throughout the world for a fraction of the cost.  While traveling for "free" or "quasi free" is nice, it takes a decent amount of time and effort to accumulate and use points.  Additionally, when you use points, most of the time, they only allow you to reserve standard hotel rooms.  

Timeshares have a very bad reputation and I am attempting to revise the perception of timeshares by providing real world examples on how one can own a timeshare and maximize its use to travel for a small fraction of the retail cost.  One way that I am attempting to do this is to compare the accommodations that one can receive with timeshares as opposed to hotels. 

I generally compare a hotel room to a studio unit when making comparisons on cost.  A hotel room and studio, while similar, are actually a bit different.  Many studio units have a sleeper sofa as well as a small kitchenette whereas most hotel rooms do not.

In case you missed this article, this is a good read on the economics of timeshare ownership where I use hotel rooms as a comparison for travel costs. 

In this post, I wanted to show you some pictures of a studio unit that we had during our recent trip to Park City, Utah at the Marriott Summitt Watch.  I will be doing a full review on this property later but as a preview, it is a stellar property!

Here are some photos on our unit: 
 

The Entry

The Sleeper Sofa / Living Area

The Sleeper Sofa / Living Area

Closet

Bathroom

Kitchette

Dishes / Toaster Oven

Conclusion

As you can see, a timeshare studio isn't huge but generally surpasses that of a standard hotel room.  You have a little more space, generally will have a sofa which mainly is a sleep sofa, has a small table and a small kitchenette.  

I wanted to post this so that my readers can get a better understanding of a timeshare studio.  I think that is important so that you can compare the accommodations to a standard hotel room.  As I have stated many times, by owning one 2 bedroom timeshare, I can get 4+ weeks in timeshare studio units.   

In the studio unit above, my family of four stayed for one week.  I also did sleep on the sofa and it was surprisingly very comfortable.  It was a memory foam mattress which was actually very enjoyable.  

While the room was definitely a bit tight for a family of four, we were comfortable in these accommodations.  
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While we may have preferred a one or two bedroom, the studio unit definitely surpassed our expectations and truthfully would prefer 2 one week vacations rather than using double the amount of points for a one week vacation in a 1 bedroom. 

The point of this post is to show you a good example of a typical timeshare studio unit.  I think that they are very comparable to hotel units but definitely exceed the comfort of hotel units by having a sofa, table and small kitchen. 

What do you think of timeshare studios?