Almost ZERO Studio availability into January for ALL WDW DVC?

[Sandisw]

Remember, general comments about booking trends is fine. Sharing specific rooms available is not.

 

[longboard55]

I guess people have not read the wall street news, no one is going to Disney anymore, its a ghost town

 

[crisi]

I guess people have not read the wall street news, no one is going to Disney anymore, its a ghost town

Remember that DVC points are "use em or lose em" and DVC members tend to be "ride or die" Disney fans - so even if everyone else were indeed abandoning WDW, DVC rooms would likely get booked. And even if the parks lost popularity among members, members would likely still use those rooms - rent them out undercutting Disney's hotel rates, use them to sit by the pool, or go to Universal. Few members are going to leave points on the table. So your might be able to walk onto Toy Story Mania (ha!) and still find 4 month studio availability tight while DVC members all sat around in pool chairs drinking pool drinks.

(Obviously this is taking it to extremes - but its possible for the parks to see decreases in attendance while DVC rooms remain booked)

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

I can’t tell if the “ghost town” comment was intended to be sarcastic or not, but I don’t think anybody who’s been there lately would agree. Crowds may be off peak, and spending may be pulling back, but it’s not easy to get dining reservations and the waits are not below historical averages as far as I can tell.

 

[Grumpy by Birth]

I guess people have not read the wall street news, no one is going to Disney anymore, its a ghost town

 

[CarolynFH]

its possible for the parks to see decreases in attendance while DVC rooms remain booked)

Another example of this used to be the first two weeks of December!

 

[pixieprincess925]

DVC can forcsr breakage and take it sooner than 60 days.

It also has nothing to do with UY…just check in date. The breakage period is simply a rolling 60 days from the current date.

Right now, the breakage period is Sept 12th to November 11th…if I did the math correct…which means any room still not booked can be booked for cash….sometimes though, DVC can recall them back for members if they are not yet booked.

I'm confused about breakage here

I was looking for a CCV studio (with walk in shower) around June for a November check in. It was not available on points, but was on cash. So I booked cash. Could I have requested a recall to book on points? What do I ask for?

 

[skier_pete]

The OP is a little confusing. The first two weeks of January are often booked up at 7 months advance, and certainly looking now I would expect availability to be very low 4 months in advance. This is nothing new, it has been going on for years as a lot of school holidays extend into early January, then you have the marathon and then you have MLK weekend, which is also very popular.

Once you get past MLK weekend, there is a bit of a dead period where there is usually a lot of availability between the last two weeks of January and the first two weeks of February. However, 4 months in advance I would expect even this to be pretty booked in studios. Then you get into school breaks, and popularity increases, but even so there are usually some availability at 7 months.

To the other part of the question. No, Disney is NOT overselling DVC. They legally cannot do that. But what happens is as more and more DVC resorts are sold off, the most popular ones are bound to become harder to get at 7 months. For instance, all those people buying at Riviera may love their resort, but when they realize they can stay at Boardwalk or BLT for less points, they are going to want to try that. And regardless of where people own, they all want to try Beach Club at some point. That resort has been extremely hard to get a studio at for years now, but only has gotten harder across all months. However, I don't believe Disney is playing any games here. It's natural demand.

 

[Sandisw]

I'm confused about breakage here

I was looking for a CCV studio (with walk in shower) around June for a November check in. It was not available on points, but was on cash. So I booked cash. Could I have requested a recall to book on points? What do I ask for?

Rooms from cash are a different set of inventory, one which is rooms taken via the breakage period.

We can not ask them to recall them because we have no idea if what is there is there because someone traded out, booked with DVDs own points, or breakage.

When you get closer to check in, sometimes, DVC seems to have access to rooms we don’t see online.

It is not something that happens very often. We just know that there have been times when trying to book something within that last week, DVC has shown something that wasn’t available.

Most often, though, if you are seeing something like a popular room via cash, farther out than 60 days, it is more likely due to a trade or DVC using their own points.

 

[kristenrice]

Another issue that hasn't been mentioned is that with the ever-increasing per point cost to buy in, more and more people are only buying enough points to stay in studios. The resort could be "sold out", but if they sold all of the points that are allocated for the point-hogging rooms like bungalows, cabins and GV's to people who only intend to stay in studios, there will be increased competition for those studios.

Here's an example:

Let's say a "resort" has 10 units
(2) 2BR units, each costing 40pts/night....or 280 points for a week
(3) 1BR units, each costing 30pts/night....or 210 points for a week
(5) studio units, each costing 15pts/night...or 105 points for a week

Just looking at 1 week, the resort has 1715 points to sell, which is the number of points that it takes to book every room for every night.

Now, let's say that the developer sells (14) contracts for 105 points and (1) contract for 210 points. That leaves 35 unsold points which amounts to the 2% required to be retained by the developer.

To keep the illustration simple, assume that stays must be booked in 1 week blocks...see the problem? You have 14 owners that have 105 points and only 5 rooms available for them to book. Almost 2/3 of the owners will not be able to book a room because they do not even own enough points to choose a 1BR or 2BR. Nobody can book the 2BR's because nobody bought a large enough contract. Those sit open for the developer to sell for cash.

This is definitely an oversimplified illustration, but you can see where the competition for the smaller rooms will continue to get tighter as long as new members are added.

(...and for the record, I own a "minimalist" amount of points....100 at AKV and 50 at HHI )

 

[crisi]

I'm confused about breakage here

I was looking for a CCV studio (with walk in shower) around June for a November check in. It was not available on points, but was on cash. So I booked cash. Could I have requested a recall to book on points? What do I ask for?

Sandi has a good explanation, but the answer is "generally, no" Almost none of the DVC CRO rooms are "breakage" rooms - almost all of them are either owned by DVC themselves or have been traded out so a member can cruise or do something else with their points. This is one of the hardest things for new members, that there will often be DVC rooms available via CRO when nothing is available on points, and there isn't any way for us to get those rooms.

With systems improvements over the years, its possible that we see the breakage rooms where we used to not. I haven't seen anyone post about getting a mysterious reclaimed room that we all think was breakage in a really long time. Twenty years ago it was hard to have real time updates across two systems - and good evidence that CRO and DVC systems didn't talk to each other - so rooms would likely have been "moved" to CRO and then "moved back" if they needed to be booked. Now that sort of systems integration isn't that big a deal.

 

[longboard55]

The ghost town comment was sarcasm, we were at Disneyland yesterday and it was totally packed.

 

[Minniesgal]

I just traded out of my home resort at the 7 month window a week or so ago for a studio. Got my first choice and could have booked several other resorts. Availability seems fairly normal to me

 

[Mai Ku Tiki]

Another issue that hasn't been mentioned is that with the ever-increasing per point cost to buy in, more and more people are only buying enough points to stay in studios. The resort could be "sold out", but if they sold all of the points that are allocated for the point-hogging rooms like bungalows, cabins and GV's to people who only intend to stay in studios, there will be increased competition for those studios.

Here's an example:

Let's say a "resort" has 10 units
(2) 2BR units, each costing 40pts/night....or 280 points for a week
(3) 1BR units, each costing 30pts/night....or 210 points for a week
(5) studio units, each costing 15pts/night...or 105 points for a week

Just looking at 1 week, the resort has 1715 points to sell, which is the number of points that it takes to book every room for every night.

Now, let's say that the developer sells (14) contracts for 105 points and (1) contract for 210 points. That leaves 35 unsold points which amounts to the 2% required to be retained by the developer.

To keep the illustration simple, assume that stays must be booked in 1 week blocks...see the problem? You have 14 owners that have 105 points and only 5 rooms available for them to book. Almost 2/3 of the owners will not be able to book a room because they do not even own enough points to choose a 1BR or 2BR. Nobody can book the 2BR's because nobody bought a large enough contract. Those sit open for the developer to sell for cash.

This is definitely an oversimplified illustration, but you can see where the competition for the smaller rooms will continue to get tighter as long as new members are added.

(...and for the record, I own a "minimalist" amount of points....100 at AKV and 50 at HHI )

Hi! OP here. Thank you! This perfectly addresses my original (confusing ) concerns about some of the potential how/why future availability of Studios.

 

[Noodlez]

Another issue that hasn't been mentioned is that with the ever-increasing per point cost to buy in, more and more people are only buying enough points to stay in studios.

I find it odd to hear this hasn't been mentioned, in fact it's something I hear mentioned all the time! If you're buying SAP then buy enough for 1 bedrooms, and never expect to get the cheapest rooms. I've only been a member a few years but this has always been the advice.

I appreciate this may be sold as 'the line' for direct buyers from timeshare reps/guides, but there isn't much issue for direct buyers, or home resort owners, getting studios at 11 months (unless it's the rare values at AKL). Is there any resort that is actually sold out for all studios at 11 months regularly? If not, then buying enough for studios isn't a problem.

If you're buying without intention to stay in your home resort then you're probably buying resale, so have probably done your research. The only people that have issue with people only wanting studios are people that only want studios themselves!

 

[DaveNan]

The OP is a little confusing. The first two weeks of January are often booked up at 7 months advance, and certainly looking now I would expect availability to be very low 4 months in advance. This is nothing new, it has been going on for years as a lot of school holidays extend into early January, then you have the marathon and then you have MLK weekend, which is also very popular.

Once you get past MLK weekend, there is a bit of a dead period where there is usually a lot of availability between the last two weeks of January and the first two weeks of February. However, 4 months in advance I would expect even this to be pretty booked in studios. Then you get into school breaks, and popularity increases, but even so there are usually some availability at 7 months.

To the other part of the question. No, Disney is NOT overselling DVC. They legally cannot do that. But what happens is as more and more DVC resorts are sold off, the most popular ones are bound to become harder to get at 7 months. For instance, all those people buying at Riviera may love their resort, but when they realize they can stay at Boardwalk or BLT for less points, they are going to want to try that. And regardless of where people own, they all want to try Beach Club at some point. That resort has been extremely hard to get a studio at for years now, but only has gotten harder across all months. However, I don't believe Disney is playing any games here. It's natural demand.

Welcome back!!!!

 

[skier_pete]

I find it odd to hear this hasn't been mentioned, in fact it's something I hear mentioned all the time! If you're buying SAP then buy enough for 1 bedrooms, and never expect to get the cheapest rooms. I've only been a member a few years but this has always been the advice.

I appreciate this may be sold as 'the line' for direct buyers from timeshare reps/guides, but there isn't much issue for direct buyers, or home resort owners, getting studios at 11 months (unless it's the rare values at AKL). Is there any resort that is actually sold out for all studios at 11 months regularly? If not, then buying enough for studios isn't a problem.

If you're buying without intention to stay in your home resort then you're probably buying resale, so have probably done your research. The only people that have issue with people only wanting studios are people that only want studios themselves!

the only resort I see with ALL studios sold out right at 11 months is often Copper Creek in Oct-Dec timeframe. This is the "Bungalow Problem" in excess. Too many points in bungalows creating too many owners that want studios. However, lots of other resorts (Boardwalk, BLT, even Riviera) are very hard to get a more desirable (cheaper) standard room category, even when booking right at 11 months. The DVC system does not guarantee you a room at your home resort nor even a room category. That is why it is so important to understand how it all works.

 

[karen4546]

I booked 5 nights in a GV studio @ BWV by stalking This was within the last couple of weeks. So, it is possible.

 

[BaybeeYoda]

I booked 5 nights in a GV studio @ BWV by stalking This was within the last couple of weeks. So, it is possible.

Do you think if I stalked I might be able to get a studio anywhere during jersey week???

 

[Dznypal]

Gee this is sort of hard to see since I booked our home resort of the poly at 11 months out for a week stay the very end of Jan. At 7 months I looked and there was basically nothing left Thst I could change too. Even SSR and poly were booked solid. We’re in a studio