Polynesian DVC Disappointment

freediverdude · Nov 28, 2015

gdrj said:
I think the Lake view are high enough. If they were going to re-do the points for the parking lot I would recommend increasing garden view (current standard view). I haven't look at the numbers but since there are so many standard views it would have less impact maybe a point or two, and give the ability to lower parking lot view points.

I'm not sure how the numbers would work for that, since there are so many garden view rooms compared to those few parking lot view- I think it's something like only 36? 42? parking lot view compared to 200-300 garden view, something like that. So I thought the ratio of lake view 2nd and 3rd floor, I think 48 of those rooms, would be much closer for increasing/decreasing points.

But while I agree that the lake view studios are already expensive points-wise, I think there is a case to made that these particular units have a view that is not available anywhere else in the DVC system. They have a perfect straight-on view of the castle, with beach, lake, and some bungalow underneath. VGF does not offer a castle view with any unit. BLT has theme park view, but it's somewhat off to the side, and completely bare parking lot/roadway/bus terminals underneath.

These 48 units in Moorea (and the bungalows), are the only DVC units that offer a perfect picturesque castle view like you would see in a magazine right from your balcony, so I think a case could be made that these units could have a high premium.

dizfan · Nov 28, 2015

Sammie said:
Lake view and unobstructed lake view are not the same thing which I think some of you are thinking it should be. But then you could be like some quests/members that think trees obstructing your view should be cut down. If my room faces the lake and I see water even if bungalows are in that water, to me it is a lake/lagoon view.

DVD didn't follow your guidelines at PVB's next door neighbor BLT.
Here's a link to photos of one of the BLT standard view rooms.
http://www.disboards.com/threads/bl...st-1-10-21-2015.2257082/page-78#post-42029149
In fact, I think it has a better lake view than most of those 1st floor PVB lake/lagoon view. There are plenty of other BLT rooms with a "obstructed lake view"

Having two resorts that are neighbors on the lake treated differently is the problem.

Disney chooses not to show this information. Instead, we are forced to rely on dedicated individuals like work2play, wdrl, and others who maintain threads of pictures for room views from various resorts.

Sammie · Nov 28, 2015

dizfan said:
DVD didn't follow your guidelines at PVB's next door neighbor BLT.
Here's a link to photos of one of the BLT standard view rooms.
http://www.disboards.com/threads/bl...st-1-10-21-2015.2257082/page-78#post-42029149
In fact, I think it has a better lake view than most of those 1st floor PVB lake/lagoon view. There are plenty of other BLT rooms with a "obstructed lake view"

Having two resorts that are neighbors on the lake treated differently is the problem.

Disney chooses not to show this information. Instead, we are forced to rely on dedicated individuals like work2play, wdrl, and others who maintain threads of pictures for room views from various resorts.

They are certainly not my guidelines at all. I simply said some think all views should be unobstructed and that is just never going to happen. Within any view category there will be great views and not so great views.

dizfan · Nov 28, 2015

Sammie said:
They are certainly not my guidelines at all. I simply said some think all views should be unobstructed and that is just never going to happen. Within any view category there will be great views and not so great views.

I understand.

BLT often used the partially obstructed becomes a standard view category. On the one side, there is a tree. They decided to make the rooms facing that tree standard view. You can see lake on each side of the tree.

I feel terrible for the front line CMs. They are the ones who are dealing with the decisions likely made by a few people. Most CMs are tremendous. They put up with so much and yet keep smiling and treating customers great. When people show the front desks pictures of a BLT standard view having a better lake view than the majority of the first floor PVB lake views, do they really want their CMs to say the mostly obstructed first floor rooms are a better view of the lake?

IMHO, the CMs dealing with consumers deserve better treatment from Disney.

disneynutz · Nov 28, 2015

dizfan said:
DVD didn't follow your guidelines at PVB's next door neighbor BLT.
Here's a link to photos of one of the BLT standard view rooms.
http://www.disboards.com/threads/bl...st-1-10-21-2015.2257082/page-78#post-42029149
In fact, I think it has a better lake view than most of those 1st floor PVB lake/lagoon view. There are plenty of other BLT rooms with a "obstructed lake view"

Having two resorts that are neighbors on the lake treated differently is the problem.

Disney chooses not to show this information. Instead, we are forced to rely on dedicated individuals like work2play, wdrl, and others who maintain threads of pictures for room views from various resorts.

I think that it's safe to say that Disney believes that less information is better. If you don't share your policies then the public can never say anything when the policies aren't followed.

:earsboy:

Bill

Dean · Nov 29, 2015

dizfan said:
I understand.

BLT often used the partially obstructed becomes a standard view category. On the one side, there is a tree. They decided to make the rooms facing that tree standard view. You can see lake on each side of the tree.

I feel terrible for the front line CMs. They are the ones who are dealing with the decisions likely made by a few people. Most CMs are tremendous. They put up with so much and yet keep smiling and treating customers great. When people show the front desks pictures of a BLT standard view having a better lake view than the majority of the first floor PVB lake views, do they really want their CMs to say the mostly obstructed first floor rooms are a better view of the lake?

IMHO, the CMs dealing with consumers deserve better treatment from Disney.

For timeshares, categories with view type labels are more location than specific views. IIRC, the ocean front Marriott's where I've seen the legal paperwork offer a disclaimer that view from an individual unit cannot be guaranteed due to vegetation and the like. Marriott's view categories are Ocean Front, Ocean Side and Ocean View in that order from highest to lowest (there are others as well). In all cases I know of, OS was more expensive than OV but in some cases they are the same cost when using points.

disneynutz said:
I think that it's safe to say that Disney believes that less information is better. If you don't share your policies then the public can never say anything when the policies aren't followed.

Bill

IMO this is to their detriment. IMO if they were more proactive and up front, their lives and ours would be far better off. For the views, just offer a disclaimer up front in the POS and otherwise including on the reservation pages, problem solved, less complaints, no more rewarding squeaky wheels. Simply a different label, something like preferred view, would have been far better. As smart as they are and as much info as they have on some of these issues, you sometimes just wonder what were they thinking. Sometimes it seems they just hide their heads in the sand and hope that predictable issues/complaints don't occur. I can think of several refurbishment move situations and the valet parking implementation in addition to this area, that could have easily been avoided or minimized by simply doing "damage control" up front and then being consistent in the aftermath. When you take a group that tends to be entitled (and DVC members are definitely that), you can't be indecisive when you make changes or have predictable issues.

disneynutz · Nov 29, 2015

Dean said:
For timeshares, categories with view type labels are more location than specific views. IIRC, the ocean front Marriott's where I've seen the legal paperwork offer a disclaimer that view from an individual unit cannot be guaranteed due to vegetation and the like. Marriott's view categories are Ocean Front, Ocean Side and Ocean View in that order from highest to lowest (there are others as well). In all cases I know of, OS was more expensive than OV but in some cases they are the same cost when using points.

IMO this is to their detriment. IMO if they were more proactive and up front, their lives and ours would be far better off. For the views, just offer a disclaimer up front in the POS and otherwise including on the reservation pages, problem solved, less complaints, no more rewarding squeaky wheels. Simply a different label, something like preferred view, would have been far better. As smart as they are and as much info as they have on some of these issues, you sometimes just wonder what were they thinking. Sometimes it seems they just hide their heads in the sand and hope that predictable issues/complaints don't occur. I can think of several refurbishment move situations and the valet parking implementation in addition to this area, that could have easily been avoided or minimized by simply doing "damage control" up front and then being consistent in the aftermath. When you take a group that tends to be entitled (and DVC members are definitely that), you can't be indecisive when you make changes or have predictable issues.

In the world of PR, not responding and letting things just die seems to work. By responding it continues the issue. On the DIS you can push to make your point but if you do exchanges can go on for pages or you can let it go and the thread dies.

Often it is said that DVC owners are entitled, I agree, we are educated due to our frequent stays at Disney, we see behind the curtain and we feel that we are entitled to what we pay for making Disney toe the line. Most Disney guests don't know what the policies are, don't expect to return soon, don't want to make waves, so they don't say anything which is less work for Disney. Information is power and Disney's policy is to not provide too much information because a guest with information means more work for Disney.

:earsboy:

Bill

ziravan · Nov 29, 2015

freediverdude said:
I'm not sure how the numbers would work for that, since there are so many garden view rooms compared to those few parking lot view- I think it's something like only 36? 42? parking lot view compared to 200-300 garden view, something like that. So I thought the ratio of lake view 2nd and 3rd floor, I think 48 of those rooms, would be much closer for increasing/decreasing points.

But while I agree that the lake view studios are already expensive points-wise, I think there is a case to made that these particular units have a view that is not available anywhere else in the DVC system. They have a perfect straight-on view of the castle, with beach, lake, and some bungalow underneath. VGF does not offer a castle view with any unit. BLT has theme park view, but it's somewhat off to the side, and completely bare parking lot/roadway/bus terminals underneath.

These 48 units in Moorea (and the bungalows), are the only DVC units that offer a perfect picturesque castle view like you would see in a magazine right from your balcony, so I think a case could be made that these units could have a high premium.

The current Maximum Reallocation Amount of points for Lake View (72 rooms) is 26. For Standard (288 rooms), it's 22.

That's the cost in points of renting those rooms every night of the year. So, the total number of standard room points that can be sold at PVB is 22 points x 288 rooms x 365 days.

DVC can reallocate seasons and days of weeks to be cheaper or more expensive, but the total points they have to work with is the master reallocation amount x rooms x a year.

If DVC were to create a garden/pool category and move most current standard rooms to that category plus first floor Moorea, and then leave parking lot views as standard, using the following number of rooms and maximum reallocation numbers, the match to current points is very close to spot on (DVC would have to eat less than 500 points to make this work):

Lake View (48 rooms) at 26 (no change from current)

Garden/Pool (253 rooms) at 23 (1 point higher)

Standard (parking lot) (60 rooms) at 19 (3 points lower).

freediverdude · Nov 29, 2015

I think that explains a lot of situations over the years I have encountered. If Disney needs to make some detrimental, or even not necessarily detrimental change, they often just don't mention it and hope nobody says anything (aside from large refurbs like closing down the main pool or something, where they know they can't get away with that without sending everyone a letter, lol). And probably 99% of people don't, because they don't know any better or are just visiting the one time so it's not worth their effort to say something.

freediverdude · Nov 29, 2015

ziravan said:
The current Maximum Reallocation Amount of points for Lake View (72 rooms) is 26. For Standard (288 rooms), it's 22.

That's the cost in points of renting those rooms every night of the year. So, the total number of standard room points that can be sold at PVB is 22 points x 288 rooms x 365 days.

DVC can reallocate seasons and days of weeks to be cheaper or more expensive, but the total points they have to work with is the master reallocation amount x rooms x a year.

If DVC were to create a garden/pool category and move most current standard rooms to that category plus first floor Moorea, and then leave parking lot views as standard, using the following number of rooms and maximum reallocation numbers, the match to current points is very close to spot on (DVC would have to eat less than 500 points to make this work):

Lake View (48 rooms) at 26 (no change from current)

Garden/Pool (253 rooms) at 23 (1 point higher)

Standard (parking lot) (60 rooms) at 19 (3 points lower).

That sounds like it would work, although I don't think there are 60 parking lot view rooms, and it would decrease those room nights down to as low as 13 points per night during value season, right, which I don't know if Disney wants to let any room at the Poly go for that few points, plus it would become another competitive room type to get. But you may have a point that they might not be allowed to increase the lake view very much.

disneynutz · Nov 29, 2015

DVC is under new management. Any reallocation would be DVD admitting that they made a mistake, not a good thing to do in todays corporate world especially when prior DVC executives were fired for making mistakes.

:earsboy:

Bill

Dean · Nov 29, 2015

disneynutz said:
In the world of PR, not responding and letting things just die seems to work. By responding it continues the issue. On the DIS you can push to make your point but if you do exchanges can go on for pages or you can let it go and the thread dies.

Often it is said that DVC owners are entitled, I agree, we are educated due to our frequent stays at Disney, we see behind the curtain and we feel that we are entitled to what we pay for making Disney toe the line. Most Disney guests don't know what the policies are, don't expect to return soon, don't want to make waves, so they don't say anything which is less work for Disney. Information is power and Disney's policy is to not provide too much information because a guest with information means more work for Disney.

Bill

Certainly bringing an issue into view can make things worse. However, being proactive and dealing with the issues up front and with planning can head off many issues. How often have we seen people compensated when they shouldn't have been or for larger than appropriate? And how many things have we seen in the last few years that should have been handled differently and could have been handled so much better. Plus for the items where we seen enough volume, how often have we seen inconsistent handling of similar situations. I recall one of the AKV refurbishment issues where they notified people late with concierge reservation and had no where to put most of them but SSR. Some just got the points difference refunded and some got that plus free dining plan with other variations. IMO, as a group, DVC members exceed the national average on being entitled. To a degree, I understand it but it even goes beyond the dollar investment component. I think much of it is related to the fact they really didn't truly understand the nature of a timeshare and assumed because it was Disney there would be much more than there is/should be.

ziravan · Nov 29, 2015

Dean said:
Certainly bringing an issue into view can make things worse. However, being proactive and dealing with the issues up front and with planning can head off many issues. How often have we seen people compensated when they shouldn't have been or for larger than appropriate? And how many things have we seen in the last few years that should have been handled differently and could have been handled so much better. Plus for the items where we seen enough volume, how often have we seen inconsistent handling of similar situations. I recall one of the AKV refurbishment issues where they notified people late with concierge reservation and had no where to put most of them but SSR. Some just got the points difference refunded and some got that plus free dining plan with other variations. IMO, as a group, DVC members exceed the national average on being entitled. To a degree, I understand it but it even goes beyond the dollar investment component. I think much of it is related to the fact they really didn't truly understand the nature of a timeshare and assumed because it was Disney there would be much more than there is/should be.

Disney brings quite a bit of that on themselves.

After all, it's not a timeshare, it's a club!

They can't have it both ways. They can push DVC as some pixie dusted club only technically (in the small print) considered a timeshare and then be put off because their members act like DVC is more than a tineshare.

I wonder where members got that idea?!

dizfan · Nov 29, 2015

Dean said:
IMO this is to their detriment. IMO if they were more proactive and up front, their lives and ours would be far better off. For the views, just offer a disclaimer up front in the POS and otherwise including on the reservation pages, problem solved, less complaints, no more rewarding squeaky wheels. Simply a different label, something like preferred view, would have been far better. As smart as they are and as much info as they have on some of these issues, you sometimes just wonder what were they thinking. Sometimes it seems they just hide their heads in the sand and hope that predictable issues/complaints don't occur. I can think of several refurbishment move situations and the valet parking implementation in addition to this area, that could have easily been avoided or minimized by simply doing "damage control" up front and then being consistent in the aftermath. When you take a group that tends to be entitled (and DVC members are definitely that), you can't be indecisive when you make changes or have predictable issues.

I personally think their lack of consistency and thought process is the entire problem. Call it preferred view, problem solved for the Moorea rooms facing the bungalows. Semantics matter and Disney knows this. They realized this with BLT.

When they went through the BLT reclassification a few years ago, they changed the naming of the Magic Kingdom view rooms. I think they are now called theme park because it is far more consistent across properties.

As Scrooge McDuck would say, DVD needs to work smarter not harder.

freediverdude · Nov 29, 2015

disneynutz said:
DVC is under new management. Any reallocation would be DVD admitting that they made a mistake, not a good thing to do in todays corporate world especially when prior DVC executives were fired for making mistakes.

Bill

Well miscalculating the dues for Aulani and costing the company a bunch of money for many years to come is a bit different than reallocating points, but you are correct that it would be difficult in today's corporate environment to admit that something was done wrong and require further changes to correct it. I agree that at least in some companies, I don't know about Disney, it seems to be more about humiliating people in meetings and assigning blame than it is about what is best for everyone and how to fix it.

disneynutz · Nov 29, 2015

freediverdude said:
Well miscalculating the dues for Aulani and costing the company a bunch of money for many years to come is a bit different than reallocating points, but you are correct that it would be difficult in today's corporate environment to admit that something was done wrong and require further changes to correct it. I agree that at least in some companies, I don't know about Disney, it seems to be more about humiliating people in meetings and assigning blame than it is about what is best for everyone and how to fix it.

They could have bought back the Aulani contracts and not pay a bunch of money but for some reason they didn't.

:earsboy:

Bill

Dean · Nov 29, 2015

ziravan said:
Disney brings quite a bit of that on themselves.

After all, it's not a timeshare, it's a club!

They can't have it both ways. They can push DVC as some pixie dusted club only technically (in the small print) considered a timeshare and then be put off because their members act like DVC is more than a tineshare.

I wonder where members got that idea?!

I've never heard anyone say that the sales force or DVD said it wasn't a timeshare though I'm sure it's happened at some point, to do so would be violation of FL law and all states I'm aware of. I've seen a number of members say that though. But even giving that idea it's full lead, IMO, the members as a whole still act entitled beyond what might be reasonable with expectations that were actually established. Regardless, any member knows or should know what they're getting into. If they don't read and understand the legal documentation, that's on them. IMO it's still pretty much buyer beware.

dizfan said:
I personally think their lack of consistency and thought process is the entire problem. Call it preferred view, problem solved for the Moorea rooms facing the bungalows. Semantics matter and Disney knows this. They realized this with BLT.

When they went through the BLT reclassification a few years ago, they changed the naming of the Magic Kingdom view rooms. I think they are now called theme park because it is far more consistent across properties.

As Scrooge McDuck would say, DVD needs to work smarter not harder.

Exactly, much of those issues could easily be prevented to the betterment of DVD, DVCMC and the membership. Esp when you already know you're dealing with a group that tends to be difficult. Sometimes they remind me of the child that keeps lying even when they know the gig is up or the classic answer to "why" is "I don't know". Now some of this is beyond DVC I know, they don't have control over the parks, tickets or even the mixed use resorts. But even then they seem to compound the issue, 2 of the AKV refurbishment situations come immediately to mind where they decided to rely on the resort itself to handle the issue and they did so extremely late and poorly. Or the valet parking where the decision was reasonable but the implementation horrible. Having people checking in with free valet and having a charge at check out without warning is well, "mickey mouse".

Dean · Nov 29, 2015

disneynutz said:
They could have bought back the Aulani contracts and not pay a bunch of money but for some reason they didn't.

Bill

I don't think they were required to keep the dues the same, they could have just raised them over a few years and had them all the same. This is one area I think we could applaud them. The same could be said for VB. They subsidized the early contracts due to the reduced scale of the resort but there was no requirement they do so.

disneynutz · Nov 29, 2015

Dean said:
I don't think they were required to keep the dues the same, they could have just raised them over a few years and had them all the same. This is one area I think we could applaud them. The same could be said for VB. They subsidized the early contracts due to the reduced scale of the resort but there was no requirement they do so.

We don't know if the dues subsidy was part of a plea deal or if they didn't want to buy back the contracts for reasons that we don't know about.

:earsboy:

Bill

Dean · Nov 29, 2015

disneynutz said:
We don't know if the dues subsidy was part of a plea deal or if they didn't want to buy back the contracts for reasons that we don't know about.

Bill

They didn't have to, all they had to do was raise the dues over a few years so everyone was the same or even do a special assessment.

Polynesian DVC Disappointment

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