Any guess when the Wilderness Lodge expansion will open?

Any guess when the Wilderness Lodge expansion will open?

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Assuming that the Wilderness Lodge expansion is DVC (and that seems a safe assumption), when do you think it might be completed? Some are saying April 2017. What do you think?

Here are some of the dates we've seen so far:

05/16/2015 - Permits and Plans filed with SFWMD
07/10/2105 - Disney begins to advise guests of impacts starting Oct 26
07/11/2015 - Disney begins to accommodate WL/VWL guest concerns
10/26/2015 - Construction starts

For comparison purposes, below are the timelines for VGF and PVB. I think the timeline will be very similar to PVB.

Villas at the Grand Floridian

03/08/2011 - Permits filed with the South Florida Water Management District for land between GF and wedding pavilion
06/30/2011 - Revised permit filed with SFWMD
07/11/2011 - Construction walls begin to go up
08/02/2010 - Disney files a notice of commencement with the Orange County Comptroller
09/07/2011 - Drawing of proposed VGF building is leaked
12/08/2011 - DVC officially announces VGF
01/30/2013 - Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation approves license for VGF
03/28/2013 - DVD files Master Declaration and Condo Related documents with Orange County Comptroller
04/01/2013 - VGF Master Declaration and related documents recorded at OCC.
05/20/2013 - DVC makes Facebook announcement that VGF sales will commence on May 23, 2013.
05/20/2013 - Members can begin buying points immediately. Non-members can start buying VGF on June 19, 2013. Point charts also released today.
05/23/2013 - VGF booking via MS and online begins.
05/23/2013 - VGF model opens at the DVC Preview Center at SSR.
10/23/2013 - VGF opens

Polynesian Villas & Bungalows

06/28/2013 - Permits and plans filed for bungalows with the South Florida Water Management District
09/17/2013 - DVC officially announces PVB
09/23/2013 - construction fences begin to go up along the beach
12/03/2013 - Permits filed to construct the bungalows and convert longhouses to DVC
06/19/2014 - Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation approves license for PVB
12/11/2014 - Disney releases concept art of bungalows and studios
01/07/2015 - Disney files Master Declaration with Orange County Comptroller
01/08/2015 - Point charts, floorpans and prices leaked on MO
01/12/2015 - PVB sales start (existing members)
02/09/2015 - General sales to the public begin
02/11/2015 - Existing members can begin making reservations
04/01/2015 - PVB officially opens

Scope of the work

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The Wilderness Rehab project actually started earlier with filings on March 25, 2015, with the Orange County Comptroller for placement of a construction trailer on the grounds of the resort. Then, on May 4, 2015, Disney filed a Notice of Commencement for a "Flooring and Light Fixture Rehab" at the Wilderness Lodge, which included a Poly-Party IPD (Integrated Project Delivery) with several contractors involved. The expiration date of the Notice is August 31, 2018 (Click here for more details).

Once Disney broke ground on the PVB project, it took about 18 months before the initial phase opened. The Wilderness Rehab project appears to be a much more ambitious undertaking than the Poly project. PVB involved converting hotel rooms into villas and the over-the-water bungalows; the Wilderness Rehab project includes all of those elements plus the construction of a new stand-alone restaurant as well as other structures adjacent to the VWL quiet pool and beach. Furthermore, we don't know how many Wilderness hotel rooms will be converted to DVC villas. It could be more or less than the 360 hotel rooms DVC took over from the Polynesian Village Resort.

Thus, I think an April 2017 completion date -- which is only 18 months from groundbreaking -- is far too optimistic. I think, at the very earliest, late 2017 might see at least part of the new Wilderness, such as some of the converted hotel rooms, opening for business. But it won't be until Spring 2018 that we'll see the entire finished project.

A better indicator of when a new Wilderness Villas & Cabins condo association will open for sales is by tracking PVB sales. Ideally, DVD probably wants PVB sales to be winding down and almost finished before it unveils its next project. Little is gained by having PVB competing with Wilderness for sales. If PVB sales run until mid-2018, then it makes little sense to roll out a competing DVC project as early as April 2017.

Betting on 2017. Take whatever the time line is - add a year .

think I agree with wdrl - spring of 2018

I'm going to guess second half 2017 it opens.

Right now, I think we're in a lull for things Disney related (see their stock announcement yesterday)

PVB sales likely to slow now that east pool construction has resumed.

However, looking at the next two years, I see a lot going for Disney and the theme parks.
December 2015, Star Wars movie is released. Expect Star Wars Weekends to be extremely popular for the next several years.
First half 2016, PVB construction should at long last be over. (Sales increased for PVB when they stopped working on the east pool and decided to wait until after July 4th holiday. Coincidence????)
November 2016, Disney's Moana (Polynesian Princess animated movie) is released. If it's even half as popular as "Frozen", Aulani and PVB sales should see a nice increase in sales. Notice both fit very well to the Polynesian theme. I doubt that's a coincidence under Iger.
Animal Kingdom nighttime show will open (2016-2017)
Avatarland (2016-2017)
Not sure when Frozen attraction opens in Epcot.
Expansion to TSM.
Expansion to Soarin' (and a rumored new movie for it).

I wouldn't be surprised if it opens early in 2017 for 2 reasons. The Poly should be sold out by then and the project is an easy one to phase in.

Dean said:

I wouldn't be surprised if it opens early in 2017 for 2 reasons. The Poly should be sold out by then and the project is an easy one to phase in.

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That would take a very large uptick in sales for the Poly and from all numbers I've seen it would need to sell much faster than VGF. If it can get numbers up and stay steady on the avg that VGF sold then it will still be over 3 years to sell out which places it into early 2018.

What wouldn't surprise me is, assuming the lodge room conversions are true, that DVC begins selling VWLII in late 2016 or early 2017. But I'd also sincerely hope that this project does not stretch out 2 1/2 to 3 years which IMO is 2 1/2 to 3 years too long of an imposition on my existing VWL ownership.

How long did it take DVD to convert the Jambo House hotel rooms to DVC villas? Less than 12 months? Offhand, I can't remember how quickly those villas were converted, but I think they had a relatively quick conversion time.

Assuming Disney is converting some of the Wilderness Lodge hotel rooms to DVC villas (BTW, has anyone actually confirmed this is happening??), these villas might come online in 12-18 months once the conversion process is begun. But, have there been any signs of Disney shutting down parts of the Wilderness Lodge building so that the conversion process could begin? When we visited WL this past June, the Lodge buildings were having some work being done on their exteriors and roofs. However, I did not notice any signs of hallways or hotel rooms being closed down.

Disney's permit application with the South Florida Water District is still under review and until it is approved Disney won't be able to move forward on the cabins, the quiet pool renovation, the new restaurant building, etc. But Disney doesn't need a permit from SFWMD for any interior work it is doing in the Lodge buildings.

As Dean posted, the Wilderness Rehab project is one that might easily be phased in over time. Aulani had three major phases, and even PVB has had two major phases (Moorea & Pago Pago in April; Tokelau in July). But I still think DVD will factor in PVB sales when it considers when it should roll out a new DVC resort.

We'll be at WDW in December and I've been debating whether to attend the DVC Annual Meeting. Now, I'm leaning toward attending just in the hopes that DVC might discuss the Wilderness project.

wdrl said:

Assuming Disney is converting some of the Wilderness Lodge hotel rooms to DVC villas (BTW, has anyone actually confirmed this is happening??), these villas might come online in 12-18 months once the conversion process is begun. But, have there been any signs of Disney shutting down parts of the Wilderness Lodge building so that the conversion process could begin? When we visited WL this past June, the Lodge buildings were having some work being done on their exteriors and roofs. However, I did not notice any signs of hallways or hotel rooms being closed down.
t.

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The 1st floor rooms that are closest to VWL have been getting worked on for quite some time - I think that may even date back to late spring.

KAT4DISNEY said:

That would take a very large uptick in sales for the Poly and from all numbers I've seen it would need to sell much faster than VGF. If it can get numbers up and stay steady on the avg that VGF sold then it will still be over 3 years to sell out which places it into early 2018.

What wouldn't surprise me is, assuming the lodge room conversions are true, that DVC begins selling VWLII in late 2016 or early 2017. But I'd also sincerely hope that this project does not stretch out 2 1/2 to 3 years which IMO is 2 1/2 to 3 years too long of an imposition on my existing VWL ownership.

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I think we'll likely see an increase in Poly sales as VGF is more of a distant memory sales wise, assuming no major economic issues nationally. There are several important factors though that none of us know. HOW the project is planned to be incorporated into the system (new resort or addition to the current resort), any possible extension of the current resort and the specifics of the next project. It really wouldn't be difficult to get it onboard as early as mid summer in some capacity next year if they truly wanted and with maximum phase it in. Also remember that DVD's definition of "sold out" often is different than ours, once they get close to losing any UY, they'll likely consider it sold out and move on expecting it to finish selling secondarily. And if they need to get the Poly to speed up sales, it'd be easy to do if they so chose to.

I am placing my bet on March of 2017. Some dumb online video released in July of 2016 with Carter ooosterhoweveryouspellit....and sales beginning in August/Sept/Oct of 2016 on a cruise somewhere....

October 1, 2017 in time for Food & Wine. I have no idea, especially since we really do not know whether this expansion includes remodeling WL rooms to DVC rooms.

I do have some questions are the bunkbed rooms at WL smaller than the regular rooms? Are there are there a lot of them? And will DVC keep those rooms as bunkbed rooms?

KAT4DISNEY said:

The 1st floor rooms that are closest to VWL have been getting worked on for quite some time - I think that may even date back to late spring.

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I know when we were there in May they were jackhammering up the floors of those rooms. We asked about it at the front desk and they said it was a plumbing repair. By day 4 we weren't buying that explanation so walked up and talked to the construction guys who said (take it for what it's worth) they were rerouting all the underground plumbing on that side for room conversions.