Are the Days of Walking a DVC Reservation Numbered?

[AstroBlasters]

It keeps getting better the deeper we go.

I have no idea what that even means.

Disney is not going to do a thing and all of this is just an exercise in futility.

I am just here to stand up to the angry mob and give voice to a large group of people who walk for their own personal family vacations.

 

[Cfabar1]

I am ambivalent to walking. I haven't done it because I haven't found a need to in our use case.

However, if our use case were different, I would absolutely use it given it is not a violation of the rules as far as I am aware.

I would support changing the rules to have a maximum number of times you can modify a reservation. I am not in favor of charging fees - DVC is expensive enough. I also think that given the super far in advance booking windows, several modifications should be allowed as plans do change for a great host of reasons...

 

[Chili327]

doesn't everyone have an equal opportunity to begin a walk?

If you have enough points for a week or more, yes.

Look, I get that it can be frustrating if someone purchased a small contract in hopes of banking borrowing to get a studio at a hard get resort at a hard to get time.

Truth, Disney can’t help if someone bought less points.

I am ambivalent to walking. I haven't done it because I haven't found a need to in our use case.

However, if our use case were different, I would absolutely use it given it is not a violation of the rules as far as I am aware.

I would support changing the rules to have a maximum number of times you can modify a reservation. I am not in favor of charging fees - DVC is expensive enough. I also think that given the super far in advance booking windows, several modifications should be allowed as plans do change for a great host of reasons...

Bottom line is regular members can’t be inconvenienced by any changes they could make so that is the issue in trying to make changes.

 

[Sandisw]

I have no idea what that even means.

Disney is not going to do a thing and all of this is just an exercise in futility.

I am just here to stand up to the angry mob and give voice to a large group of people who walk for their own personal family vacations.

I’ll add…if DVC decides that fixing walking creates a system that will be seen as worse for the program and turn people off buying, then it will not change.

If they can find a way to fix it that is seen as an acceptable change that won’t impact sales, then it will change.

 

[Sandisw]

If you have enough points for a week or more, yes.


Truth, Disney can’t help if someone bought less points.


Bottom line is regular members can’t be inconvenienced by any changes they could make so that is the issue in trying to make changes.

Anyone can walk as long as they have enough points for two nights.., you just have to change more frequently.

But, whether people agree or not, DVC doesnt want angry owners who criticize the product as no longer a good one.

You can’t sell DVC for $200 plus a point if you have a whole lot of bad reviews out there.

So, even if they want to change and have an idea of how it will change, they are likely to wait to do it until they have found a good way to spin it.

 

[tx911]

It’s NOT on the down low. There are YouTube videos that literally show people exactly what to do.

I agree the information is out there (although I didn't learn about it until after my first reservations). I'm arguing that it should be told to prospective buyers by their guides at the time of purchase. But I'd prefer changes be made to limit or eliminate it.

 

[lowlight]

I have no idea what that even means.

Disney is not going to do a thing and all of this is just an exercise in futility.

I am just here to stand up to the angry mob and give voice to a large group of people who walk for their own personal family vacations.

Yes, I do remember you stating you were concerned about your 5 annual personal family vacations comprising 1500 points a year and 17k a year in dues that are shoehorned into narrowly timed windows of opportunity and how your family would be personally affected if you had to follow the rules, which aren't even rules, but more like gray frosting on cupcakes. It was about the time that you said you worked harder to walk your reservations than most people and therefore deserved them more, and capitalism is capitalism, and anyhow it mostly affected those down below who fought over studios because that's all the points they could afford to buy, and maybe you should be exempt from it up on Mahogany Row. I can't find anything to disagree with for once- Disney is likely not going to do a thing until forced to. Any exercise is good exercise though!

 

[AstroBlasters]

Yes, I do remember you stating you were concerned about your 5 annual personal family vacations comprising 1500 points a year and 17k a year in dues that are shoehorned into narrowly timed windows of opportunity and how your family would be personally affected if you had to follow the rules, which aren't even rules, but more like gray frosting on cupcakes. It was about the time that you said you worked harder to walk your reservations than most people and therefore deserved them more, and capitalism is capitalism, and anyhow it mostly affected those down below who fought over studios because that's all the points they could afford to buy, and maybe you should be exempt from it up on Mahogany Row. I can't find anything to disagree with for once- Disney is likely not going to do a thing until forced to. Any exercise is good exercise though!

Not exactly, but close enough.

 

[AstroBlasters]

I agree the information is out there (although I didn't learn about it until after my first reservations). I'm arguing that it should be told to prospective buyers by their guides at the time of purchase. But I'd prefer changes be made to limit or eliminate it.

The guides want to tell them enough to sign on the dotted line and not break any laws….. and not a thing more.

If you make this thing any more complicated it will just cause people to buy less points (resale or direct) and lower everyone’s residual value.

 

[Leight19]

Personally, I don't view booking a 3 week block as "walking" or something that would need to be regulated. I view walking as cancelling check-in day to move a reservation to a later check-in day.

Yeah I understand and am not calling it walking im just saying I don’t see a solution that I would support to block walking with the exception of change I proposed that would have consequence of making it difficult to book those extended stays. To me the benefit of blocking walking outweighs the negative of it being more difficult to book a stay past 7 days at 11Months (or whatever +7 could change too).

If I can book 3 weeks at time or 30 days or whatever then I would just book those days and modify later when I need to. This would just punish people with less points if I could book that way and still walk. If you try to then block someone from modifying an extend stay later as walkers would intend to do that would also be problematic. I often book a 2 or 3 week stay at 11 months then at 7 months modify to single week based on what I can get as part of a 2 week split stay with one week at home resort and other at another with sap.

 

[Genie+]

I don’t know why I feel a strong urge to start walking a CCV studio for a week in December. I don’t even have a planned trip in December 2025, but if I can beat everyone and get it I might do a victory trip.

I was gonna try the same thing but already 4 months too late!

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

If I can book 3 weeks at time or 30 days or whatever then I would just book those days and modify later when I need to. This would just punish people with less points if I could book that way and still walk. If you try to then block someone from modifying an extend stay later as walkers would intend to do that would also be problematic. I often book a 2 or 3 week stay at 11 months then at 7 months modify to single week based on what I can get as part of a 2 week split stay with one week at home resort and other at another with sap.

I have like 10+ posts queued up that I want to respond to but the single most urgent point I wanted to make was just made subtly by Leight19: almost all of the changes proposed would give an even bigger advantage to DVC tycoons with 1000+ points. They can afford to book an entire month at a time, so they can hold more than what they want/need to get first shot at the most in demand periods.

If large point tycoons are individual owners using them for their own family vacations I accept that thems the breaks (more points should give you slightly more advantages), but I would be furious if it means that one of the big commercial renters (or members who always rent their points at highest profit rooms but don’t self-identify as commercial renters) can always book for 30 days where days 11-30 are extremely valuable/profitable rooms and then they drop nights 1-10 at the 10m window, or alternately if everybody can only modify 2x, people with 1000+ points will be able to walk much further out.

 

[VGCgroupie]

I have like 10+ posts queued up that I want to respond to but the single most urgent point I wanted to make was just made subtly by Leight19: almost all of the changes proposed would give an even bigger advantage to DVC tycoons with 1000+ points. They can afford to book an entire month at a time, so they can hold more than what they want/need to get first shot at the most in demand periods.

If large point tycoons are individual owners using them for their own family vacations I accept that thems the breaks (more points should give you slightly more advantages), but I would be furious if it means that one of the big commercial renters (or members who always rent their points at highest profit rooms but don’t self-identify as commercial renters) can always book for 30 days where days 11-30 are extremely valuable/profitable rooms and then they drop nights 1-10 at the 10m window, or alternately if everybody can only modify 2x, people with 1000+ points will be able to walk much further out.

What she said

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

I am hopeful that Disney is not going to go after the DVC member with, say, 1000 points and rents out 500 of them to pay for their dues. As I recall, Disney was actively encouraging this thing at one point.

Was Disney actually ever encouraging that? It would shock me if true. I don’t have a huge problem with non-speculative renting but if an “I just rent points for income to pay for my points” member is always targeting the highest profit rooms (especially at 11mo+), I think they fall in the category of problematic commercial activity.

It seems as though DVC can address this behind the scenes with “members” walking long distances or month after month. Short walks cannot possibly be the issue here. The commercial renters that are exiting the system are possibly the real problem here with the system. If a solution requires 8 paragraphs to describe and/ or $$ spent that is just too complicated and unnecessary.

I will admit to being a (frequently abandoned by accident) walker— I tried to walk both of my WDW home resorts for like 8 weeks back in fall 2023 for last month’s Thanksgiving trip and then got distracted and forgot to move forward at the 11mo+2 week mark. Tried to start walking a couple days later, had no problem picking up the same room at BCV (where there are less issues with value v premium rooms) but was forced from standard view to preferred view category at VGF. If Disney made even the most cursory effort to track my reservation history (data both Disney and I have) they’d see I advanced reservations at 2 resorts about 15x… it would be very easy to identify people who consistently walk more than a week. They could formally ban it, track it, issue a warning when they spot the behavior, and then cancel out the res if the walking continues.

There's that "unfair" again.

Planning is what i do for a living. Research is what i do for a living. Is it unfair for non-planners because they haven't done their research or given their goal (whatever it is) the amount of time and dedication needed to accomplish it? Is that unfair?

Is it unfair that some people are capable of watching the world clock as it strikes 7am to make a reservation? Because I am not sure the majority of people think that one must be that precise when making a simple reservation. Disney forces that type of precise planning.

Almost everything about a Disney trip has become a cutthroat competitive process that rewards planners at the expense of people who don’t due diligence. I don’t understand how people who find this to be a moral/ethical abomination can be happy at Disney at all.

I’m just going to say it, I walk reservations for personal use and have zero concerns about it. It only means that I was dedicated enough to start the process of getting my room sooner and put in the work to keep it.

Living on the West Coast, there is no way I want to wake up in the middle of the frickin night to book a hard to get time of year. We already have to go through that BS with ADR’s, etc.

I probably don’t even have to walk because of the room types I am getting, but to me it means that booking a vacation doesn’t make me literally lose sleep over it.

I’ve got limited travel windows because of work, kid’s school, kid’s activities, etc. and I’m going to do everything I can within the system to optimize our travel within those windows.

I think there are hundreds of people who feel this way and/or simply can’t be at the computer at 7:59AM ET every day…and we’re often competing for a very slim remainder of rooms after commercial renters pick off the most desirable dates with more sophisticated software (that is, the holiday periods when many of us can travel with our kids, and the periods where point misers try to max out their contracts), and I assume it’s the software scripts that are making it hard for poor AKV/BWV owners to start a walk in the first place.

Super smart! That’s my one big regret when we bought direct. It was available and came right in on the point number we were looking to buy anyway. My guide already drew up our papers and I weighed how much do I even need it vs giving him extra work. Not my brightest moment lol.

I also wish we’d bought a FW at VGF during the fire sale. An extra 10-20 points for peace of mind is a no-brainer.

I would like to show you one of my favorite places called the “Gray Area”…. It’s a place where many things are possible and exists in the land between getting everything you could ever want and the attorneys who don’t want you to have anything…..

#NotAllAttorneys
Seriously though, if Disney wants to dramatically cut back on walking, all they need to do is spell it out officially as a rule and state that anybody caught walking will have the reservation cancelled— I would prefer to keep walking for peace of mind, but I wouldn’t disregard a black and white rule, and I wouldn’t be mad about it as long as they curbed for profit renting first.

IF you have enough points to do it.

See my point above how almost all the proposed fixes hurt small point holders even more. Walking is (ironically) more equal opportunity as long as you have enough points to book 2+ nights and the commitment to do it every day or two.

Have you looked to see how many hard to get dates are held by just one commercial renter? HUNDREDS of hard to get rooms/dates at just one resort. It may take a bit for people to realize walking isn't as necessary as it once was but in time for sure it would become less needed and less people will bother doing it.

Agreed.

Send all of the arrows my way. The issue is commercial spec renters and bots, not regular members trying to plan their family’s vacations or members booking rooms for people who make requests about specific dates.

I would love to see DVC make clear that primary use is for owners for their own (and friends and family use)…especially for the most in demand rooms and seasons.

That is definitely the thing I think they should take care of first, then see if any other changes are really needed yet.

There is a definitely a different level of motivation for walking between "making sure I have the room I want on our vacation this year" and "this reservation could bring me in a ton more $$$"

This, all day long. And also speculatively renting at school breaks because “this is such a busy time of year it’s sure to be rentable.”

Us West Coasters know that it's very hard to get reservations pretty much all the time. And West Coast reservations happen to be some of the most lucrative for commercial renters.

So sad, so true.

Well you aren't in the same boat as a booking bot thats for sure.

Preach! I think many who walk feel reasonably comfortable that they are competing with for profit renters and that if we didn’t, it wouldn’t be a 80 year old grandma booking it for her extended family.

I probably don’t need to walk a 2 bedroom OV Villa at 15m. But, the second I book the room my stress levels drop and every few days or so I get to remind myself that I get to go back to Hawaii.

I am doing a 2 week walk to get just past Thanksgiving next year and it makes me so happy to think about staying at BCV for a few days of festival of the holidays.

Try not to think about the fresh, new Aulani owner who tried to book at 11 months 8am and came up empty because the villas were already booked by walkers

I don’t think that’s an issue with 2BD OV.

(I accidentally hit post too soon, sorry if you are one of the 5 people who got a ghost quote notification on first post)

 

[emchen]

Personally, I don't view booking a 3 week block as "walking" or something that would need to be regulated. I view walking as cancelling check-in day to move a reservation to a later check-in day.

I would agree, that is the only thing we should be talking about, moving off from one date never intended to use to another, not just adding on to a trip.

i think this is what is important for us “anti-commercial walkers”, and this rule would directly address that without completely killing the flexibility of start date modifications:

2. **Introduce a Fixed Reservation Start Date Window**:
- **Solution**: Establish a rule where reservations must be for a specific start date within a fixed window (e.g., within 7 days of booking) without allowing modifications to shift the start date. This would mean that once a reservation is made, the start date cannot be moved backward, only forward, and only within a specified period.
- **Rationale**: By fixing the start date, members would be less inclined to book rooms they don't plan to use just to secure availability, thereby making the system fairer for all members who genuinely want to book at specific times.

And it would prevent starting a walk more than 7-days from the actual intended start date.

 

[AstroBlasters]

How would we feel about the following changes (not a serious post):

1) Changing the time of day that reservations are available to be random so that people who live outside of the east coast of the United States are not disadvantaged.

2) Stalking is banned! You can only search for DVC availability one time per week per username log-in. This way people who don’t frequently check the site are not disadvantaged and everyone has to use waitlist.

3) Every log-in requires a 2FA with a token and rotating six digit code that changes every 30 seconds and CAPTCHA to limit bots.

4) Room requests are not allowed! Not everyone knows about them, so it’s not fair.

5) All of the above can be bypassed as part of MBB+ for $499 a year.

 

[dvcsince93]

I have no idea what that even means.

Disney is not going to do a thing and all of this is just an exercise in futility.

I am just here to stand up to the angry mob and give voice to a large group of people who walk for their own personal family vacation

Thank you, as the self-appointed representative of those people that have to walk as the only way to get their personal family vacation, I am touched by how you stand up for your downtrodden large group of people in the face of a angry (?) mob (??) promoting fairness (gasp).

You have shown us that for your large group of people, not only is their personal family vacation important, but how they go about making those reservations is also of great importance.

To be clear, the philosophy of your group is that you not only need to be able to make reservations for your personal family vacation, but to be able to make them as conveniently as possible even if you block lesser people from reserving rooms (that you don't even want) for their personal family vacation. That is definitely a crowd that needs its voice heard.

I can now sleep better knowing the critical need for walking and I am sure DVD will recognize the righteousness of your cause and the importance of your large group of people to DVC. I mean how can DVC survive if your large group of people are expected to make reservations for their personal family vacations without walking.

Quick question, if they eliminate the +7, for example, which would kill walking, then I assume this large group of people will have to sell their contracts since they will never be able to have a personal family vacation again?

 

[AstroBlasters]

Thank you, as the self-appointed representative of those people that have to walk as the only way to get their personal family vacation, I am touched by how you stand up for your downtrodden large group of people in the face of a angry (?) mob (??) promoting fairness (gasp).

You have shown us that for your large group of people, not only is their personal family vacation important, but how they go about making those reservations is also of great importance.

To be clear, the philosophy of your group is that you not only need to be able to make reservations for your personal family vacation, but to be able to make them as conveniently as possible even if you block lesser people from reserving rooms (that you don't even want) for their personal family vacation. That is definitely a crowd that needs its voice heard.

I can now sleep better knowing the critical need for walking and I am sure DVD will recognize the righteousness of your cause and the importance of your large group of people to DVC. I mean how can DVC survive if your large group of people are expected to make reservations for their personal family vacations without walking.

Quick question, if they eliminate the +7, for example, which would kill walking, then I assume this large group of people will have to sell their contracts since they will never be able to have a personal family vacation again?

Are you referencing a made up rule that doesn’t exist or an actual rule?

This thread has been all over the place.

Also, just a voice… not a representative. I speak alongside them, not for them.

 

[emchen]

i agree that commercial renting and speculative walking is the problem here. DVC is for family vacations, not for speculation.

I also agree that DVC should prioritize this principle and make it harder to do speculative walking. I think this can be achieved thru common sense rules (or enforcement of existing rules) that won’t harm non-speculative walkers.

 

[tx911]

Are you referencing a made up rule that doesn’t exist or an actual rule?

This thread has been all over the place.

Also, just a voice… not a representative. I speak alongside them, not for them.

Indeed, it has been all over the place! These walking threads are entertaining if nothing else.

I always come back to the basics of what walking is: Booking a room you have no intention of using to give an advantage over other owners who don't know about walking. I think that's wrong, so I will choose not to do it. In the end, that's all it is, a personal choice.