PTR #5:
Let’s Play Resort Roulette!
Well, let’s lighten things up a bit, shall we, and talk about some trip planning! We now have our tentative
Cast:
*Me (Your Intrepid Trip Reporter)
*DH (Ed)
*DD(12) Tricia
*DS(10) Billy
*DNiece(12) Catie
Catie’s parents, my DSis Eileen and her DH Werner, may possibly come down toward the end of the week, so I will include them for now. The more the merrier!
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Possibly one of the
most fun things to consider when planning a WDW trip is next:
Which Resort to Choose, or in this case,
Which Resort Chooses Us! It sounds funny, but to a
Disney Vacation Club owner, that’s the way it sometimes feels!
Since we are planning a trip using our
DVC points, let’s talk about the DVC for a little bit…
When we first bought into DVC in 2005, the newest resort available for purchase was
Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa. This is a huge resort and, although not particularly appealing to me (other than it’s proximity to Downtown Disney), we purchased our ownership here because it was still under construction and we did not want to wait for the next one to be built. Besides, we planned on hopping around trying all the DVC resorts anyway. Otherwise, you might as well just buy a typical timeshare, right?
What I liked about the DVC concept was its flexibility, the fact that you could use it not only for Disney, not just for a particular resort, and not just for the same window of time year after year. This is how it works:
You purchase a certain number of points and you can use those points how you see fit. It’s kind of like being on a calorie-restricted diet; as long as you use only the limited amount of calories (points) allotted, you can eat whatever you wish.
Certain nights (Friday and Saturday) “eat up” more points than others. Certain resorts cost more points no matter which nights you choose (Beach Club Villas
> Old Key West). Naturally, a two-bedroom villa eats up more points than does a Studio. And certain times of the year cost more points because they are in times of highest demand (Christmas through New Year’s
> First week of September).
So, if you are like us and you don’t own a huge number of points, you need to “spend” your points efficiently and according to how you like to vacation. You can also bank unused points to the following year, or borrow points from the next year.
Example: For the number of annual points that we own, we could:
- Spend
a weekend in a
two-bedroom at the
Beach Club during
Christmas, or
- Spend
seven nights in a
one-bedroom at
Saratoga Springs during any week
in October (with a couple of points left over to bank.), or
- Spend
two-and-a-half weeks in a
Studio at
Old Key West during any week
in January.
Well, you get the idea. I just want to give a little background, not turn this into an advertisement for DVC! (If you want more info, there’s tons of it on the DVC boards.)
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So far, our family has had the pleasure of staying at three of the DVC resorts:
SSR,
OKW, and
VWL. They were all great, but we’d really like to try something new.
That narrows the untried resorts to:
Beach Club Villas
(BCV)
Boardwalk Villas
(BWV)
Contemporary’s Bay Lake Tower
(BLT)
Villas at Animal Kingdom Lodge
(VAKL)
The newest resorts
(BLT and VAKL) will be
hot and in great demand, so I’m
not ultra-confident that we will be able to book there this year. There will be lots of competition, especially for the one-bedroom villa. It is the most-requested DVC accommodation.
The week that we will be at Disney (Jersey Week) is usually the last week of the very popular
Food & Wine Festival (F&W) at Epcot. Because of this, it has always been difficult to get ressies at either
BCV or
BWV, due to their close proximity to World Showcase.
Why, you may ask? Because of
Home Resort booking privileges!
If you wish to book a reservation at your “home” resort, you may do so
eleven months prior to your vacation, no earlier. None of the other DVC owners can book at “your” resort until
seven months prior to their vacation. That makes it fair to the members who do not wish to hop and who like staying at “their” home resort.
If we wanted to stay at our home resort, SSR, we could have called for a reservation starting November 30, 2008. But, we don’t want SSR this year, so we have to wait until seven months out, or March 30, 2009 to book for October 30th at any of the other resorts. But, availability can be limited, so you need to have a few choices in mind when you call.
It feels a little bit like we’re playing Russian Roulette, or in this case,
Resort Roulette!
I mentioned in my last TR that I am not much of a gambler; I prefer a sure thing. SSR is our sure thing, but here I am, gambling once more on a “new” resort experience because…that’s how we roll!
(Sorry, just trying to be "random.")
When planning the Nov. ’07 trip, I got myself all worked up because we (I) had our hearts set on
Villas at Wilderness Lodge. Lots O’ Stress with that particular gamble, but worth it in the end….what an amazing place! But lately, I’ve been thinking….
I can really say that I’ve never met a Disney resort I didn’t like!
They are all fabulous in their own unique ways. And so, I’ve decided
not to stress over it. If we don’t get a “new” resort, I will be fine with it. We’ve got about another 46 years on our DVC contract…I’m sure that we’ll get to them all eventually!
But, because we will be vacationing with
two thirteen year-old girls
this year, there would be a certain, specific advantage if we could book one of the newer resorts. The new one-bedroom villas in both
BLT and
VAKL (Kidani Village) have a
second bathroom!! Oh yeah, that is
big!
So, my choices of resort are (in order of preference):
1. BLT (Takes first place b/c Ed has been lusting after staying at CR for years! Monorail and a 2nd bath.)
2. VAKL (Ahhhh, Savanna View and a 2nd bath!)
3. OKW (Not new to us, but villas have a more spacious layout.)
4. BCV (Stormalong Bay!)
5. BWV (Never been there.)
6. SSR (Been there, done that. Walk to Downtown Disney, though.)
Now,
all I have to do is wait until the end of March!
Kathy
)
