Predicted DVC booking patterns - Studios/ some 1-bedrooms (Prepared 2015)

[skier_pete]

So if you were in my shoes, would you A) roll the dice and try to book at 10 months, or B) have a guaranteed reservation at 11 months at BCV, even if that means borrowing points that you don't really want to use, and totally screwing up how you intend to bank/borrow your points for the next several years AND putting you at the mercy of the 7-month switch/waitlist to actually get a reservation where you ultimately want to be? I think I already know the answer to my own question... When I write it out like that, the answer feels like option A should be obvious. HOWEVER, I am a really risk-averse person, so maybe option B is the way to go. Ugh.

@EllieBride Well - I don't know you personally, so I don't know how important booking one resort over another is to your plan. However, if I were you, I would go with Option A.

Here's why:
I am assuming you think you will be an owner at VGF sometime around early-December, correct? Your initial post seemed to indicate that you belive you will have points so that you can book the 2-bedroom around the ten-month mark, which would be mid December.

Your alternative is booking at the Beach Club. If you look at the BCV booking patterns on the first page for studios and 1-bedrooms, you see that October is fully open for studios still at the 10-month mark, and still mostly at the 9-month mark (the columbus day holiday weekend is the first to go - don't know if that's part of your trip). There's 1-bedroom available through all of October even at the 9-month mark. This means, that there's a REALLY good chance that 2-bedrooms will also still be available at the 10-month mark.

Knowing this, I would wait until my VGF points become available in mid-December. If the VGF rooms aren't available for when you want in October OR if you don't get your points at the VGF - then go back to your back-up plan of booking the 2-bedroom at the BCV and be happy that you are going to Disney World whatever resort you are at.

 

[TheSpooph]

Just looking today, studios are pretty well booked through June (which is the 9 month mark) but 2-bedrooms are 100% available after the end of March, which is around 6.5 months. So empirically it is easy to say that 2-bedrooms will likely have more availability. I know that's not the assurance you want, but its the best I can do.

Thanks for that tidbit of extra info because I have been wondering the same thing. I wasn't sure if no studio availability automatically meant no 2 bedroom availability.

Thanks for all you research - it's really been helpful!!

 

[skier_pete]

Update: Don't know if everyone has seen the new resort availability tool - at first I thought it would make it almost impossible to do tables like this, but then I realized that once you get into a specfic resort / room category, you can actually scroll through the entire 11-month calendar.

I am almost done with the Grand Californian full-year calendar, will be able to post that within the next month.

I'm debating about when to start working on the Poly. To me, it is still too early, as the amount declared / vs amount purchased will be constantly shifting. SO far the Poly seems remarkably available much of the time at 7 months, but again that could change as more owners buy in. I think I will wait awhile.

 

[HereIGo]

This is very very nice!

 

[skier_pete]

Updated Today 10/21/15 - to include the full 11-month calendar for the VGC. An extremely hard get for a non-owner at ANY time of year.

 

[EllieBride]

I just started to mess around with the new availability tool yesterday in preparation for figuring out how I'm going to proceed in booking for our October 2016 trip (see previous post above). So far, it shows plenty of availability of 2BR at VGF in September of 2016. But on another thread that specifically discussed the new tool, I think I recall reading a post that said what is showing as being available isn't necessarily accurate, specifically for studios at Poly. I might be remembering this wrong, so please don't quote me on this. I'm just starting to figure out how the darn thing website works, but if this is true, then I'm a little concerned. I don't want to roll the dice on booking something that appears to be available and then find out that the website was wrong the entire time.

 

[gmi3804]

Wow - what a staggering amount of research! Thanks for sharing.

Of course, that doesn't help me determine 7-month OKW 2BR availability for October, 2016. But I can assume it's better than Studio availability.

 

[skier_pete]

Wow - what a staggering amount of research! Thanks for sharing.

Of course, that doesn't help me determine 7-month OKW 2BR availability for October, 2016. But I can assume it's better than Studio availability.

@gmi3804
OKW is made up of 274 2-bedroom units, and 230 2-bedroom lock-offs. When the studios are gone, that means the lock-offs are gone, but the regular 2-bedroom units can still be available. Because of this - it is 100% certain that 2-bedroom availability is no worse than studio availability.

It is not as certain - but pretty likely, that 2-bedroom availability is a little worse than 1-bedroom availability. (1-bedrooms are universally accepted to be the "last to go") Based on the tables, at 7-months, the only non-availability of studios was for Columbus Day weekend, while the 1-bedrooms were completely available. At six-months, the studios are gone, but the 1-bedrooms are still mostly available.

Based on that, I would say that you should be able to get a 2-bedroom at 7-months, with the possible exception of Columbus day weekend.

 

[gmi3804]

@gmi3804
OKW is made up of 274 2-bedroom units, and 230 2-bedroom lock-offs. When the studios are gone, that means the lock-offs are gone, but the regular 2-bedroom units can still be available. Because of this - it is 100% certain that 2-bedroom availability is no worse than studio availability.

It is not as certain - but pretty likely, that 2-bedroom availability is a little worse than 1-bedroom availability. (1-bedrooms are universally accepted to be the "last to go") Based on the tables, at 7-months, the only non-availability of studios was for Columbus Day weekend, while the 1-bedrooms were completely available. At six-months, the studios are gone, but the 1-bedrooms are still mostly available.

Based on that, I would say that you should be able to get a 2-bedroom at 7-months, with the possible exception of Columbus day weekend.

Thanks so much for the explanation. We'll be arriving the Saturday after Columbus Day weekend, so we should be good to get a 2BR. Those OKW 2BRs are HUGE. (And there are only three of us!)

 

[supersnoop]

Because of this - it is 100% certain that 2-bedroom availability is no worse than studio availability.

It's not 100% certain, but it's super-extremely likely. In theory, all the 1- and 2- bedrooms could get booked while some studios are still available, leaving studios available but no two bedrooms.. Possible, but exceedingly unlikely, since 1-bedrooms have historically been the last booked.

 

[skier_pete]

It's not 100% certain, but it's super-extremely likely. In theory, all the 1- and 2- bedrooms could get booked while some studios are still available, leaving studios available but no two bedrooms.. Possible, but exceedingly unlikely, since 1-bedrooms have historically been the last booked.

Well - you are right - in theory all the 1-bedrooms could get booked before the studios get booked, but that's exceedingly unlikely. Anyways, I have tables for both the studios and the 1-bedrooms for OKW, and 100% of the time the availability of 1-bedrooms is better than studios - which is why I said 100% certainty.

 

[ustasmom]

Thank you for all of your hard work!!!

 

[ZamboniNerd]

A great visualization of booking patterns. Appreciate the hard work you put into this skier_pete!
Just another verification of our purchasing VGC points when we plan on going to Disneyland every other year.

 

[CaliAdventurer]

You're my hero!

 

[gmi3804]

How can the BLT data be used to reasonably predict 2BR availability?

 

[skier_pete]

How can the BLT data be used to reasonably predict 2BR availability?

The short version: It can't.

The long version: BLT is made up of 133 2-bedroom lock-offs, and 148 dedicated 2-bedrooms. This means at most there are 133 studios, and that's assuming no-one books a full 2-bedroom lock-off. Since studios are the most popular rooms sizes, you can presume (and this is an assumption - but a likely one) that the 2-bedrooms will usually have greater availability than the studios. Also, if there's a studio and a 1-bedroom still available, it means there's also a 2-bedroom available. So - the only conclusion you can make from these tables is that if they are showing good availability of a studio - there is also likely going to be good availability of a 2-bedroom. However, how much longer that availability lasts after the studios are gone cannot be predicted.

 

[gmi3804]

Thanks so much for your insights.

This thread needs to be pinned!

 

[Sarabi's Cubs]

This is very informative and easy to understand. Thank you so much!!!!

Laurie

 

[ppony]

WOW! What an incredible resource you have shared. THANK YOU for all that hard work and sharing it. Think of the thousands of people that you have helped because you sure did!

 

[ckb_nc]

I was able to book a 2 bedroom at VGC in May right at the 7 month window - seriously like striking golf