tiggtail said:
I don't really understand how this works. We are planning a trip in February over Presidents Day and the following week. I tried to book OKW, but was too early. So, the advisor suggested we book SS since that is our home resort (and because she said that is a really busy week) and later on after the 7 month window is open, start making day by day ressies. What I don't get is that if I started a change over to OKW beginning the first day of our trip 7 months prior and couldn't get a ressie for one or more days of that week due full bookings, then how would I be successful? Do I have to cancel SS first or can I hang on to it during that week I am trying to get OKW booked? If I have a few days in between that I can't get booked at OKW, do I hope for cancellations? Thanks for any input if you can understand this! 
Since you own SSR, the earliest you can book a stay at one of the other
DVC resorts is 7 months prior to your desired check out date. It is a good idea to book SSR now for President's week to be sure you have a reservation somewhere for that time - it is one of the more popular times to visit.
You do not have to cancel the SSR reservation before you try to book OKW - if you have enough points to do so. Many members do not have enough points to hold a back up reservation while they are trying to make another reservation. Before you decide to tie up points holding a back up reservation, you have to consider banking deadlines, your other vacation plans and the consequences of borrowing points - if you will end up doing that.
If you book day by day at the 7 month window and find some of the days are not available, you can waitlist for those days on an individual basis. That method gives you the best chance of the waitlist working out for you. If all of the days do not come through (and you didn't have enough points to hold the SSR reservation), you will end up moving back and forth between OKW and SSR.
If you don't want to take the chance of having to move (and you don't have enough points to hang on to the SSR reservation while you try to get OKW), you can call just once to try to make your OKW reservation - 7 months prior to your final desired check out date. For example, if you want to check in on 2/18/2007 and out on 2/23/07, you would call MS on Jul 23, 2006 to make the OKW reservation. If there wasn't availabiity, you would waitlist for the whole time to become available at once. If it does, great - you cancel the SSR reservation and book OKW. If it doesn't, well that's OK too - you just spend the vacation at your home resort of SSR.
FWIW, I think you can get into OKW for that week at 7 months unless you are trying to get a Grand Villa - that might be too much of a challenge.
My advice is to call day by day at the 7 month window. (I'll assume you do not have enough points to hold the SSR reservation until after you have booked the entire OKW reservation). If the OKW day is available, cancel the corresponding day at SSR and book the OKW unit. If any day isn't available when you call (call each day in the morning as close to 9 am Eastern as you can), ask to waitlist for that day (I'd suggest using the auto confirm process). OKW is a fairly large resort and your chances are very good that if a waitlist is even necessary, it will work out for you.
Good luck!
