Advice on First Time Reservations

[islandtimect]

Soon we'll be making our first reservation as new DVC owners at AKL! I think we want to book a 1BR with Savannah view for Nov '08. Are there benefits to reserving through MS vs booking online? Seems like the DVC website has some good tools for calculating points on different dates. Any other things we should think about would be helpful, or stuff to ask? I guess Kidani Village won't be open by then.

 

[LisaS]

Given this is your very first reservation you should consider calling MS and booking it directly. When you call MS you are booking in real time. When you "book" online you are really sending an email message to MS. They will get back to you in a few days. I wouldn't use this option to book something that is in high demand (Boardwalk View room at BWV for example) but it would be fine when what you want is almost guaranteed to be available.

There has been no official update on the opening date for Kidani Village but they have removed information from the DVC website that had listed "early 2009" as the opening date for the first phase. There have been rumors that construction is ahead of schedule.

 

[dianeschlicht]

When you book online, you ARE booking through MS. The only difference is that you are taking a risk of not getting exactly what you want, since you have no real time knowledge of whether or not what you want is available. Booking online, is merely an email that is passed on to MS. It is much quicker and easier to book directly with a phone call at this point. DVC has been promising "real time" online booking for years, but we don't have that yet.

AS for point charts....Those are available both on your member website and in your current vacation planner. You can also access them at the top of the webpage here up near the upper right hand corner of the page.

 

[dianeschlicht]

LOL, looks like Lisa and I were typing at the same time! Sorry it looks redundant!