We bought at Divi Village before the new golf course. In fact we haven't seen it yet. We're in building F which was built after we purchases it in 1998 for use 1999. I would think a 1 bedroom for $11,500 seems pretty good since we paid $10,000 for a studio back then. Maintence fees of $500 are not out of line for Aruba.

If you are looking to travel to Aruba every year and not trade it with RCI it might be fine to go ahead and buy. BUT, you can buy in Mexico or the USA and have much cheaper maintenece fees and they trade. You have to pay the trade fees/service charge untop of the maintence fees and take the risk that you can get into a resort you want in a place you want to vacation.

We did not look into these factors when we purchased and did not know much about time shares so we may not have bought one in Aruba had we thought about it. We do enjoy it though and knowning that we get the same building every time is nice. It a nice sized unit with full kitchen and fairly new.

The maintence fees were $390 when we bought and are now $465. One year they had a substantial increase, the other years it's was $10 or $15. We booked our 2006 year early so we got the $465 fee but I'm sure it was raised. They are paid once a year before you book your trip. If you haven't booked by May they are due anyway. At least our particular contract is that way. I don't know if it's the same for all Divi Village or just the floating weeks. We bought any week in the highest catagory which covers Dec,Jan, Feb and Mar since that's when we travel. It's cheaper or course, to buy off season weeks. If your $11,500 price is for June, July may not be the best price.

It's not difficult to trade the week. You let Divi know you want to bank it with RCI, pay the Maintenece fee to Divi and then call RCI, they will have it on record that you have a week deposited and then they charge you a fee depending on where you want to travel. I think in the US and Caribbean it's maybe $129. Could be higher now. They will tell you at Divi what the current rate is. We did it once a while back and it went fine. We also have traded within Divi and gone to St. Marteen Twice. They have a pretty nice property there. They charge a smaller trade fee (use to be $49) to change resorts. They own in 6 different caribbean islands.

I don't know about the insurance part of it, what if a disaster stikes. I should know, it would be to my advantage since we own but never really checked into that part so sorry, can't help you there.

Sorry this is lenghty. I hope I ansered some of your questions. You can e-mail me if you have more questions.

Denise