Beach Club or Boardwalk?

[IndianaDVCMember]

We own at Boardwalk and enjoy both resorts. We think it is a good option to own at Boardwalk if you intend to stay in a Boardwalk View, Standard View or a Grand Villa. We have been able to get BCV ressies at the 7 month mark every time we tried. The coveted Standard View and Boardwalk View ressies get gobbled up right away, and the Grand Villa inventory is extremely limited (I think they only have 9).

 

[bobbiwoz]

DVC was selling VB, BWV and BCV when we bought. We bought into BWV because of what we see as the advantage of staying at BWV standard view. Now we have gotten a 2 bedroom BWV standard view at only 5 months out, ( we did an add on and didn't have enough points for a 2 bedroom standard when we first made the ressies 11 months out, we had booked 2 standard view studios) (for August '05) so it's not an absolute given that you must own there to get it. Likewise, there have been non BCV owners who have gotten a dedicated 2 bedroom with the 2 queens.

We have gotten studios at BCV, that's all we ever tried for there. If the time comes when we can't get even a few nights at BCV when we want to stay there, in May during F&G, then we will buy enough to insure a studio stay.

So for now, we are very happy with our BWV points and our stays in both resorts.

Bobbi

 

[lisareniff]

Now we have gotten a 2 bedroom BWV standard view at only 5 months out, ....[snip] .... (for August '05) so it's not an absolute given that you must own there to get it. Likewise, there have been non BCV owners who have gotten a dedicated 2 bedroom with the 2 queens.

Yes, I'm sure you can but maybe if those are options you want you shouldn't plan on 7 months working and buy at that resort instead. I edited by comment to be '*may need the home resort' for those options instead of usually.

Currently I'm trying to switch 3 nights (all at once) from BCV to BWV for Tues-Thurs night of Pres. Week. I called the morning of the last night, 7 months out, and there was only availability for one day. I chose to waitlist for it all at once since we had BCV and I was only doing it to try out BWV. I thought from the comments that BWV would come through pretty easily. It's a month later and no call. So not always a piece of cake. Time of year may come into play.

 

[DisneyWacker]

Thanks for everyone's great responses! I didn't realize that BCV was closer to Epcot than BWV. BWR is right out the gate, I assume that BWV is further away? Where is BCV in relation to BWR?

I'm convinced to purchase one of them, but my DS isn't quite there yet. Does anyone have any info that would help put her "over the top"? She thinks that it is a big expense and that we can spend much less just going with an on-site hotel, or even renting someone else's points for a DVC resort year-to-year.

 

[CPTJAK]

Thanks for everyone's great responses! I didn't realize that BCV was closer to Epcot than BWV. BWR is right out the gate, I assume that BWV is further away? Where is BCV in relation to BWR?

I'm convinced to purchase one of them, but my DS isn't quite there yet. Does anyone have any info that would help put her "over the top"? She thinks that it is a big expense and that we can spend much less just going with an on-site hotel, or even renting someone else's points for a DVC resort year-to-year.

If you can rent at $10 every year it is pretty close between renting and buying. My own experience is a few years ago I looked into DVC because we went every year anyway and really like the resorts. The asking price for BCV resale was $74 per point. Well a few months ago I bought at $90 per point. Of course prices may actually go down over the next 10 years but who knows. So all I can say is I wish I would have bought sooner.

Obvivously if you stay off site you can go cheaper than DVC but the point is to be on site at a deluxe resort for the price of a moderate.

 

[LisaS]

Thanks for everyone's great responses! I didn't realize that BCV was closer to Epcot than BWV. BWR is right out the gate, I assume that BWV is further away? Where is BCV in relation to BWR?

Here are some maps that might help (thanks to DIS member WillCAD). This one http://willcad.org/maps/resorts/resort_ybc.jpg shows the YC and BC resorts. BCV is the Y-shaped building behind the rightmost end of BC. You can see a walkway labeled "Walkway to Epcot" that runs in front of the BC and runs off the right hand edge of the map.

This map shows the BW resort. The left side is the BWV, the right side is the BWI and the conference center: http://willcad.org/maps/resorts/resort_bw.jpg

Now this map ties it all together: http://willcad.org/maps/misc/wdw_epcot_resorts.jpg It shows both YC/BC (though not the BCV but you can sort out where that is based on the first map) and the BWI and BWV all on one map, along with the walkway to Epcot. Looking at the BW resort, everything to the left of the boat dock (the white painted building) is the BWI, everything to the right of it is the BWV (the red, yellow, green, etc. building).

So you can see that BCV is closer to Epcot, but then again this map is a bit misleading because it makes it look like BWI/BWV are about a mile further away and that is not the case. There is a post somewhere where Caskbill used a GPS and listed the exact distance between all these points. I'll see if I can find it and post it here. But just as a point of reference, in May we took my 86-year-old mom to BWV and she preferred walking back from Epcot to BWV at the end of the evening to taking the boat. She is in great shape for her age, but we did a lot of walking in Epcot those days and she still felt the walk back to BWV was no problem!

 

[LisaS]

Here is Caskbill's post about the distance from BWV to the Epcot entrance: http://disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40634 He started measuring at ground level at the bottom of the steps from the Boardwalk's lobby and measured up to the ticket booth area. It was 0.36 miles. I thought he also had a measurement from BCV to the same point but I cannot find it. He did measure the distance to various points around the lake: http://disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=130187 These posts were made back when the DIS allowed you to use HTML formatting in posts so just ignore all the HTML tags (<b>, </b>, <font>, etc.)

 

[lisareniff]

Here's another map with distances. BCV isn't on this one but you can see where it was added behind (or infront) BC. It's 0.8 miles around cresent lake.

 

[crisi]

Thanks for everyone's great responses! I didn't realize that BCV was closer to Epcot than BWV. BWR is right out the gate, I assume that BWV is further away? Where is BCV in relation to BWR?

Unless you are mobility impared, I don't think the difference in the distance to walk should weight heavily in your decision. Most of us walk so much at Disney that the extra quarter mile (or whatever it is) isn't a huge deal. However, other people do feel differently.

 

[las3888]

We were in the same boat a number of years ago and bought at BWV just because we wanted to buy and BWV seems alot more readily available as a resale than BCV. We thought about adding on at BCV recently when we enjoyed a recent stay there this spring, but again, found resales very sparse and expensive. In the end, I am very happy with our resales at BWV. The standard view allows us to go and use minimal points, but we can also splurge on a GREAT and I mean GREAT view on the boardwalk. Our DS is very young and we are able to watch fireworks while he snoozes away in the room. It's well worth it for us. However, we stayed at BCV recently, as I mentioned, and loved it there. For us, our DS likes to swim, but he only knows what we tell him. We just didn't make it to SAB, so he has no idea it even exists. It was actually darn far from our room at the villas to get there so we enjoyed the villas pool alot while we were there. Nothing wrong with that.

I did find BCV alot closer to EPCOT versus BWV, but in the end not that big of a deal.

I also really enjoyed the parking situation alot better at BCV than I do BWV.

We bought because we found we were going to Disney 1-2x a year and spending alot of money on deluxe resorts. Even though we were using codes back then (very minimal codes these days), we still see the savings versus the hotel costs we would incur.

If you are ready to buy, start watching the resales and be prepared to jump on whatever comes up...we did and aren't disappointed. You sound like us - we just love the boardwalk location and there are pro's and con's to BWV and BCV. Whatever you buy at you will most likely be happy with. We are still able to stay at all the DVC resorts while being owners at BWV, including the 7 month rule. That may change down the road, but for now we're pretty happy.

 

[Cinderpals]

I own at both resorts...

I have a 5yr old girl & 13 yr old boy. We have stayed at both resorts during peak times, and during summer vacations.

I prefer the BWV for Boardwalk activities that my 5 yr old always enjoys, the Community Hall near the DVC pool (great for down time) both kids love going there, the Boardwalk Views during the Holidays, stnd point values, variety of restaurants, Luna Pool (easy to watch both kids)... I recently completed a 3 week stay at the BWV with my daughter. We had a view of the courtyard w/views of 1/2 of the Boardwalk. I had booked over a week of stnd rooms, but I was upgraded since there aren't as many stnd rooms available. No extra point charge & better location & view! (I didn't ask for this)

I love the BCV for kid's club, Marketplace Deli, SAB pool (side closest to Yacht & Beach) my daughter stays in that pool area--easy to watch her there, Beaches n Cream take out window, close to Epcot, close to self parking, friendlier staff overall (BWV nice too), feels like home...

I was planning on selling one of my two BWV contracts to buy more points at the BCV, but I'm going to stay put. I love staying at both!

 

[DisneyWacker]

How does it work if you buy points at 2 different locations? Can you use the total sum of points at either location using the 11 month ressie rule?

 

[Dean]

How does it work if you buy points at 2 different locations? Can you use the total sum of points at either location using the 11 month ressie rule?

No, you can only use the points from that resort at 11 months out but use all at 7 months out.

 

[rinkwide]

No, you can only use the points from that resort at 11 months out but use all at 7 months out.

What about if you transfer the points from one account into the other?

 

[Dean]

What about if you transfer the points from one account into the other?

If the contracts are linked under one master, you can't transfer them. If they are totally separate, you could potentially do this and be at the whim of how DVC tracks the points.

 

[mmmcq]

We bought at both resorts with the intention of doing a 10-12 day stay at one resort every two years. So for one or both resorts we banked points for one year and then borrowed points so we used points across three use years. But we had the other resort available for a shorter stay.

We weren't able to go this past April.....and I had to convert a reservation to banked and current use year points....so I had to rent more than I would have liked. And then when I decided to throw a trip together at the last minute for Thanksgiving..I ran out of points.

It's all about planning wisely. My WDW planning skills were a bit rusty!

 

[Bill K]

I'll keep it simple. BWV

 

[sschochet]

Have owned at the Beach Club since pre opening. Love it, like the boardwalk too but what we like is that we have small children and it is nice and quiet at night for the kids to be able to sleep. The boarwalk is right there for us to use but we don't have to worry about all of the noise that it causes keeping the little ones up. Can't really go wrong either way these two are by far the best DVC resort options.

 

[Jacky]

I bought at BWV for the ability to get the BW view and/or the SV. That being said I hate that there are no dedicated 2Bedrooms aqt BWV. That doesn't work so well for us.

I wanted to add on at BC, but discovered that I could get 200 points at OKW for what 150 points would cost at BC. So I have a contract awaiting ROFR for OKW.

I did call at the end of August and was able to get 4 of the 5 nights I want at BC in a dedicated 2 bedroom for Dec 12-17th. So that was pretty good. I am wait listed for my missing night and have a ressie at OKW.

I actually really enjoyed my stay at OKW. Very good parking and very large nice units.

Jacky

 

[jbhaupt]

Hi,

We own both BWV and BCV. Our BCV is only a small contract, so we play the bank and borrow and transfer game when we stay there.
I personally prefer the BWV, but the kids love the BCV for the SAB. I suggest staying at both places before you make the purchase, and pick your favorite place.

Bonnie