Are the Poly Connecting Studios working out?

[ziravan]

Figured I'd report back here - we received our request for connecting LV studios. It was originally 1 standard view and 1 lakeview but I changed the standard to a LV approx 3 weeks out or so.

There is absolutely no way that they won't find some way to honor connecting rooms while Poly is still for sale. Even one social media account of children being separated from parents because that request wasn't honored would be a marketing nightmare.

My concern is what happens after Poly sells out. After all, a request isn't a guarantee and that fact is printed on your deed.

 

[Deb & Bill]

There is absolutely no way that they won't find some way to honor connecting rooms while Poly is still for sale. Even one social media account of children being separated from parents because that request wasn't honored would be a marketing nightmare.

My concern is what happens after Poly sells out. After all, a request isn't a guarantee and that fact is printed on your deed.

Children won't ever be separated from parents. Mom will be separated from Dad. AND, there have already been reports of parties with a single adults and multiple children (under 18) being given separated hotel rooms (not DVC villas).

 

[ziravan]

Children won't ever be separated from parents. Mom will be separated from Dad. AND, there have already been reports of parties with a single adults and multiple children (under 18) being given separated hotel rooms (not DVC villas).

That's on the CRO side.

Honestly, I think DVC made a mistake here. I really do expect a large reallocation at Poly that will address all four points/booking issues:

1. Make Connecting Rooms a booking category.

2. Make Pool/Garden View a distinct category from Standard (Parking Lot) View.

3. Make 1st floor Moorea a Garden/pool view instead of Lake View.

4. Reallocate Bungalows down a few points and compensate across the six new studio categories (connecting lake, garden/pool, standard, stand alone lake, garden/pool, standard).

If they hide the studio increases necessary to decrease bungalows in the busy seasons or by making garden/pool more expensive than standard, then I think they might do something now to improve sales.

Otherwise, they do something a few years down the road.

 

[BWV Dreamin]

FWIW (and it may not be much, LOL), I have not read of even one instance that someone requested connecting studios at the DVC Poly and did not receive their request. Since we tend to hear about the "not so great" far more than the "it was wonderful", I think it is quite promisiing that we haven't had any reports of the connecting request not granted.

Good luck!

We are another poster that was granted our request for connecting studios. We had great room locations. I think the staff tries hard to grant those requests.

 

[dizfan]

That's on the CRO side.

Honestly, I think DVC made a mistake here. I really do expect a large reallocation at Poly that will address all four points/booking issues:

1. Make Connecting Rooms a booking category.

2. Make Pool/Garden View a distinct category from Standard (Parking Lot) View.

3. Make 1st floor Moorea a Garden/pool view instead of Lake View.

4. Reallocate Bungalows down a few points and compensate across the six new studio categories (connecting lake, garden/pool, standard, stand alone lake, garden/pool, standard).

If they hide the studio increases necessary to decrease bungalows in the busy seasons or by making garden/pool more expensive than standard, then I think they might do something now to improve sales.

Otherwise, they do something a few years down the road.

It would be interesting to hear from someone understands the law and legal documents. Doesn't the fixed week limit restrict what they can do in the future? I'm could swear the PVB documentation states they can only sell 30% of any room category for fixed weeks. (Pretty sure this also applies to VGF and Aulani as well).

If the percentage is correct, they can sell 21 fixed week lake view studios for any given week.
For the 24 first floor lake view rooms to be moved to a new category, they could not exceed 14 fixed week lake view rooms without violating the 30% stated in the documentation.

Either Disney would have to do something very soon, or their hands may be tied until any future expansion might occur creating more lake view rooms. (I suppose, Disney could opt to classify some of the Tokelau rooms as lake view, but that may result in even more frustration with the view designations).

 

[disneynutz]

I'm sure that the resort will try to honor the request but mistakes do happen.

Since DVC doesn't give us the ability to see the requests online, we always make the request and check again to verify that the request is actually on the reservation. Usually it is but on a few occasions it wasn't.

Bill

 

[ziravan]

It would be interesting to hear from someone understands the law and legal documents. Doesn't the fixed week limit restrict what they can do in the future? I'm could swear the PVB documentation states they can only sell 30% of any room category for fixed weeks. (Pretty sure this also applies to VGF and Aulani as well)

They can sell 21 fixed week lake view studios for any given week. For the 24 first floor lake view rooms to be moved to a new category, they could not exceed 14 fixed week lake view rooms without violating the 30% stated in the documentation.

Either Disney would have to do something very soon, or their hands may be tied until any future expansion might occur creating more lake view rooms. (I suppose, Disney could opt to classify some of the Tokelau rooms as lake view, but that may result in even more frustration with the view designations).

35% of total or 25 of the current 72 lake view suites, 16 if they reduce total to 48.

I think it would only be a problem if they were actually oversold on fixed weeks for the new totals, more than 16 in a given week instead of 25. They are nowhere near that. I think the most sold week/type is a dec standard view and even then, that's something like just a few sold.

If they sell more than 16 lake view fixed weeks for same week, that woukd become more murky.

Given VGF's fixed week sell rate (4.5%) and the PVB current sell rate for fixed weeks (<2%), I doubt this will ever be a problem.

 

[wdrl]

It would be interesting to hear from someone understands the law and legal documents. Doesn't the fixed week limit restrict what they can do in the future? I'm could swear the PVB documentation states they can only sell 30% of any room category for fixed weeks. (Pretty sure this also applies to VGF and Aulani as well).

If the percentage is correct, they can sell 21 fixed week lake view studios for any given week.
For the 24 first floor lake view rooms to be moved to a new category, they could not exceed 14 fixed week lake view rooms without violating the 30% stated in the documentation.

Either Disney would have to do something very soon, or their hands may be tied until any future expansion might occur creating more lake view rooms. (I suppose, Disney could opt to classify some of the Tokelau rooms as lake view, but that may result in even more frustration with the view designations).

If Disney were to redefine some of the view categories at PVB, it would have to adjust the number of GW deeds it could sell for each week. But, based on what has sold so far and the rate of current sales, it has lots of room to make these adjustments.

The PVB Master Declarations states that Disney may sell Guaranteed Weeks for up to 35% of each accommodation type for each week. This means that for each of the three different accommodation types, the following maximum numbers of Guaranteed Week deeds could be sold for each week:

20 Bungalows = 7 GW deeds each week
72 Lake View Studios = 25 GW deeds each week
288 Standard View Studios = 100 GW deeds each week

If Disney were to downgrade the first floor Lake View Studios to Standard View, it would still have 48 studios remaining in the Lake View category. With a 35% cap on GW sales, Disney could still sell 16 GW deeds each week for the Lake View category. Disney is no where near that limit for each week, at least so far.

Through October 31, 2015, PVB has only sold 79 GW deeds and none of the accommodation types are anywhere near the 35% maximum limit for any week. For the Lake View Studio accommodation type, the two most popular weeks, Week #52 and Week #51, have sold only 10 and 5 GW deeds, respectively, of a possible 25 for each week. For the Standard View Studio accommodation type, Week #49 is the most popular week, but only 8 GW deeds have been sold for that week.

When PVB sales started in January 2015, there was a bit of a spurt in sales of GW deeds. But only three GW deeds have been sold over the last three months, so it appears that sales in that product have slowly significantly.

I think Disney has plenty of time to make view changes at PVB. However, I doubt it will make any such changes.

 

[ziravan]

If Disney were to redefine some of the view categories at PVB, it would have to adjust the number of GW deeds it could sell for each week. But, based on what has sold so far and the rate of current sales, it has lots of room to make these adjustments.

The PVB Master Declarations states that Disney may sell Guaranteed Weeks for up to 35% of each accommodation type for each week. This means that for each of the three different accommodation types, the following maximum numbers of Guaranteed Week deeds could be sold for each week:

20 Bungalows = 7 GW deeds each week
72 Lake View Studios = 25 GW deeds each week
288 Standard View Studios = 100 GW deeds each week

If Disney were to downgrade the first floor Lake View Studios to Standard View, it would still have 48 studios remaining in the Lake View category. With a 35% cap on GW sales, Disney could still sell 16 GW deeds each week for the Lake View category. Disney is no where near that limit for each week, at least so far.

Through October 31, 2015, PVB has only sold 79 GW deeds and none of the accommodation types are anywhere near the 35% maximum limit for any week. For the Lake View Studio accommodation type, the two most popular weeks, Week #52 and Week #51, have sold only 10 and 5 GW deeds, respectively, of a possible 25 for each week. For the Standard View Studio accommodation type, Week #49 is the most popular week, but only 8 GW deeds have been sold for that week.

When PVB sales started in January 2015, there was a bit of a spurt in sales of GW deeds. But only three GW deeds have been sold over the last three months, so it appears that sales in that product have slowly significantly.

I think Disney has plenty of time to make view changes at PVB. However, I doubt it will make any such changes.

From what I hear on the various boards, the far larger complaint than getting a ground floor lake view is getting a parking lot standard view.

I've seen several posters say that management acknowledged to them that the parking lot view is a very common complaint.

That, if anything, would be the driver for making a change. That said, if you're going to make the huge change of creating a separate booking category (pool/garden vs standard), might as well go large and fix the other problems, too.

 

[clarkgriswold]

Pictures anyone?

 

[dizfan]

I've seen several posters say that management acknowledged to them that the parking lot view is a very common complaint.

From what I understand prior to DVC, resort staff used to fill those parking lot view rooms last because they had years of experience knowing they were less desirable. I recall Tikiman wrote something to the effect of buying enough points to make sure he would not be stuck with those parking lot views.

 

[southerngirl528]

The only categorical change I can see DVC possibly making is to add a category for that parking lot view. I absolutely agree that these should be priced points wise more like a "standard" or "value" room at other resorts. Personally I do not really ever see that the 1st floor of Moorea will ever be declared anything other than what they are now: Lake View. And I've been in those rooms more than once seeing the models and though I'm sure the view is a little better on 2nd & 3rd floor, one can still see the lake and definitely can see most of the fireworks from that level.

 

[Dean]

It would be interesting to hear from someone understands the law and legal documents. Doesn't the fixed week limit restrict what they can do in the future? I'm could swear the PVB documentation states they can only sell 30% of any room category for fixed weeks. (Pretty sure this also applies to VGF and Aulani as well).

If the percentage is correct, they can sell 21 fixed week lake view studios for any given week.
For the 24 first floor lake view rooms to be moved to a new category, they could not exceed 14 fixed week lake view rooms without violating the 30% stated in the documentation.

Either Disney would have to do something very soon, or their hands may be tied until any future expansion might occur creating more lake view rooms. (I suppose, Disney could opt to classify some of the Tokelau rooms as lake view, but that may result in even more frustration with the view designations).

I do expect a relocation at some point to reduce the bungalows. My understanding is it isn't an issue for fixed weeks because either they get their week or their points. There is plenty of cushion such that they couldn't create an oversold situation even if they tried but as long as they don't sell more points than the resort will support for a year anyway, they are OK. I think it's possible but unlikely they will make it a booking category since they essentially all connect and they would have to segregate each category AND view. I do expect they'll be great about honoring the request but eventually it will happen that someone doesn't get it.

 

[ziravan]

I do expect a relocation at some point to reduce the bungalows. My understanding is it isn't an issue for fixed weeks because either they get their week or their points. There is plenty of cushion such that they couldn't create an oversold situation even if they tried but as long as they don't sell more points than the resort will support for a year anyway, they are OK. I think it's possible but unlikely they will make it a booking category since they essentially all connect and they would have to segregate each category AND view. I do expect they'll be great about honoring the request but eventually it will happen that someone doesn't get it.

If they add a garden/pool category and charge an intermediate number of points between lake and standard view, then they could sneak in a bungalow decrease in the same move.

If say there are 200 garden pool view rooms and they raise each by 2 points, that would be a 20 point decrease in bungalows.

And that woukd leave 88 "standard" rooms at current price.

I'm not saying that's the breakout, I don't know. That was just easy to do the math.

 

[DenLo]

The problem with adding room categories is that connecting studios will be more difficult for the room assigner to make.

And I am not sure that giving extra points only to the garden/pool rooms would fill more rooms. Couldn't the room occupancy end up worse--the bungalows are still partially filled as the points are still higher than a GV and pool/garden drops dramatically because there is no way people will pay more than the cost of a similar room at VGF.

Let's face it, DVD is just trying to sell too many points at PVB.

 

[dizfan]

And I am not sure that giving extra points only to the garden/pool rooms would fill more rooms. Couldn't the room occupancy end up worse--the bungalows are still partially filled as the points are still higher than a GV and pool/garden drops dramatically because there is no way people will pay more than the cost of a similar room at VGF.

Let's face it, DVD is just trying to sell too many points at PVB.

I agree. Feels like DVD didn't really think this out very well.

Any increase in studio points, makes it higher than VGF studios. On the boards, there have already been plenty of posts of people comparing 1BRs elsewhere to a PVB studio. Higher points for PVB studios makes those 1BRs even more attractive. We bought a small add-on at PVB for the studios. If studio points are increased, it becomes even less of an incentive for us to continue owning there. Better to buy lower priced points elsewhere instead of paying PVB's high dues.

Sadly, the more I look at PVB, I regret adding on there. We love the resort, but DVD made some bad long-term decisions for owning there.

 

[southerngirl528]

I do expect they'll be great about honoring the request but eventually it will happen that someone doesn't get it.

I agree with Dean that it should be a very rare event that someone that has 2 Poly Villas Studios booked and has requested "connecting", would not get it. All studios but perhaps a couple or so do connect. It should not pose much issue to make the connecting rooms happen. I have not yet heard of anyone that has requested connecting studios (obviously they have to both be the same category studio!) that has not had them. I think worrying over this is unmerited.

If I ever book more than one studio at the Poly and want connecting I will make certain that MS has added that request. (And I ALWAYS, ALWAYS have them "recap" what they have booked for me before I get off the phone") And then I would call the Poly about a week to 10 days beforehand to ensure the request is in place. While it is not always easy to get through to a WDW resort FD through the Disney operator, it is entirely possible. I've done it many, many times when there is a special issue or need. I would not call them otherwise.

 

[Dean]

If they add a garden/pool category and charge an intermediate number of points between lake and standard view, then they could sneak in a bungalow decrease in the same move.

If say there are 200 garden pool view rooms and they raise each by 2 points, that would be a 20 point decrease in bungalows.

And that woukd leave 88 "standard" rooms at current price.

I'm not saying that's the breakout, I don't know. That was just easy to do the math.

I'm not sure I'm following the complete idea but here goes. Certainly anything that's an increase could be used to offset a decrease. If it comes from declared inventory, it must be adjusted accordingly. If it comes from announced but undeclared inventory that change would essentially represent the same adjustment. If it comes from an as yet unannounced addition, it's still an adjustment of sorts in that that'd essentially sell less points. Breaking up currently announced inventory and creating a third category that robs from standard and is higher points is still a reallocation. Every scenario I can think of is either a reallocation or less points for DVC to sell from future additions, something I don't see them doing. Increasing every single studio by a point every day accounts for 18 points per day per 2 BR and that's around the scale I'm thinking overall.