BLT Views

[RLRDA]

I stayed at BLT room 7304, it is a stadard view. We looked at the lake and MK. It was standard because it was on 3rd floor.

We were originally given a 3rd floor room (732X - can't remember) It was along the front of the building (we ended up moving to a room on the 11th floor). It was considered an MK view - so it seems to be where the room is located around the "C" of the building. Some are saying their LV rooms had MK views. You must have hit the jackpot of rooms to get 2 views for standard points. Nobody seems to be sure what the rhyme or reason is to assigning what room is which view category. I agree with a PP who said if you can see the MK from your room it should be an MK view (same with views of the lake).

 

[headgorilla]

I have a 2 bdr with MK view in Feb. I did request a room on a higher floor. That being said, I have made requests every year and they have never been met yet. I am expecting a room on the lower floor and if that happens, I intend to complain. I have never complained in the past, but I never have spent so many of my points in one trip before either. I do however hope that I will be pleasantly surprised by getting my request.

 

[dizfan]

We were originally given a 3rd floor room (732X - can't remember) It was along the front of the building (we ended up moving to a room on the 11th floor). It was considered an MK view - so it seems to be where the room is located around the "C" of the building. Some are saying their LV rooms had MK views. You must have hit the jackpot of rooms to get 2 views for standard points. Nobody seems to be sure what the rhyme or reason is to assigning what room is which view category. I agree with a PP who said if you can see the MK from your room it should be an MK view (same with views of the lake).

From what I've heard, here's how the breakdown seems to be...

• Standard is everything on 1st and 2nd floor + a few rooms on 3rd - 5th floor that have a tree straight out (7304, 7404, 7504). 7304, 7404, 7504 have a tree striaght out, but can look to one side for a lake view and the other side for a MK view.
• Lake view - everything 3rd floor and up (excluding GVs) that are on the outer part of the C on the North and South sides, and inner part of the C. North side of the C can see MK by looking to the left from their balcony.
• MK view is everything 3rd floor and up on the front part of the building
• GVs are on the top 2 floors.

Hard to charge anything more than standard points when you look out your window and have a tree blocking the view. That's why 7304 is standard view.

Call me naive, but Disney's a good company and I trust they will listen to all the complaints and do something about the lower floor MK views.

 

[Sandisw]

From what I've heard, here's how the breakdown seems to be...

• Standard is everything on 1st and 2nd floor + a few rooms on 3rd - 5th floor that have a tree straight out (7304, 7404, 7504). 7304, 7404, 7504 have a tree striaght out, but can look to one side for a lake view and the other side for a MK view.
• Lake view - everything 3rd floor and up (excluding GVs) that are on the outer part of the C on the North and South sides, and inner part of the C. North side of the C can see MK by looking to the left from their balcony.
• MK view is everything 3rd floor and up on the front part of the building
• GVs are on the top 2 floors.

Hard to charge anything more than standard points when you look out your window and have a tree blocking the view. That's why 7304 is standard view.

Call me naive, but Disney's a good company and I trust they will listen to all the complaints and do something about the lower floor MK views.

I also think that Disney will make adjustments as they get feedback from guests about the views, especially the MK views on the lower floors. It really is a judgement call as to what people are expecting when they book a "view" and maybe Disney figured it would make its best guess and then adjust as needed.

My questions is how does changing the classification of views affect the points chart. I know for me, SV will be fine. I will request being in an even #'d room and take my chances from there.

 

[CarolMN]

....(snip)......My questions is how does changing the classification of views affect the points chart. I know for me, SV will be fine. I will request being in an even #'d room and take my chances from there.

Since BLT is not yet sold out, Disney can decide to decrease the number of rooms considered MK view and sell less points to account for the difference. That's pretty much what happened at the BWV when members complained about the rooms over looking the entrance, and thus, standard view was born. No complaints, now. The SV rooms are considered a bargain by most. I think the same result would occur if they did the adjustments for BLT.

If enough members complain, I hope they do make the necessary adjustments relatively soon. The opportunity will not be there once the resort is sold out - or at least it will be much more difficult. If they do not adjust, I feel for the front desk CMs who will be left to deal with the complaints.

 

[buzz5985]

Does anyone have any night shots of the MK view at different floors?? Personally I didn't see that much of diference in the day shots between the low and high floor, until the zoom on the camera was used. There was no zoomed in picture on the bottom floor.

I would imagine you want the MK view to view Wishes at night?? I don't find the view that attractive in the daylight from the low or high floor, but I think the night view will be absolutely beautiful, especially when the castle is decked out for the holidays.

I have a SV booked for November just for 1 night to check it out.

Janis

 

[lark]

I also think that Disney will make adjustments as they get feedback from guests about the views, especially the MK views on the lower floors. It really is a judgement call as to what people are expecting when they book a "view" and maybe Disney figured it would make its best guess and then adjust as needed.

You know, it's interesting to remember back when the poly and the GF introduced MK views. For a while, the contemporary didn't even have MK views, but so many people requested an MK view, that they created an MK category and priced it higher than lake view. That worked so well and was so successful that the poly and GF followed suit soon thereafter. If you happened to follow that conversion (and I did, not sure why other than I was interested in the whole view issue, among other places on tikiman's excellent poly site) you may remember that disney was very conservative about what they branded MK view. At the contemporary, MK view is pretty much a no brainer. But not so at the GF and the poly. You can have rooms literally next to each other that are quite different in view. So, they basically entered every single room and the criteria was whether you could see the castle without tree or building obstruction from the window. The result is that there are several rooms at the poly and the GF that are classified in a lower category (lagoon) but still have a pretty good MK view, albeit with some minor issue. In fact, there are sometimes discussions on the resort boards about how to try to pay for lagoon view and get a decent shot at an MK view by requesting a certain building.

Anyway, that's a long winded way of saying that maybe with BLT, disney simply applied the same criteria for MK view. Since they had been conservative with the other resorts and likely have not gotten much in the way of complaints, perhaps they figured the same criteria -- good castle view without obstruction -- would fit. What they didn't take into account was that neither the poly nor the GF has a parking lot or monorail track in between the MK rooms and the park, and also the buildings are not highrises so they are all basically equal.

Some of the disney resort view classifications are absolutely shameful. Some of the "water" views at the epcot resorts are absurd. (I can also say from personal experience that some of the so-called "theme park" views at the grand californian are equally absurd.) So, I suppose there is some reason to be skeptical that they will not make adjustments at BLT, particularly because there are so very few MK rooms available. But, on the other hand (and the point of this very long winded post), they seem to have been, in contrast to the water view issue, very conservative when it comes to MK views, which may make for optimism that they will deal with this issue.

 

[Sandisw]

Since BLT is not yet sold out, Disney can decide to decrease the number of rooms considered MK view and sell less points to account for the difference. That's pretty much what happened at the BWV when members complained about the rooms over looking the entrance, and thus, standard view was born. No complaints, now. The SV rooms are considered a bargain by most. I think the same result would occur if they did the adjustments for BLT.

If enough members complain, I hope they do make the necessary adjustments relatively soon. The opportunity will not be there once the resort is sold out - or at least it will be much more difficult. If they do not adjust, I feel for the front desk CMs who will be left to deal with the complaints.

Thanks Carol! I would hope that Disney is listening and thinks about it as we go forward.

I think it comes down to what people are looking for in terms of MK View. For me, I would want MK view for the fireworks, nothing else. Since I got that with a LV room, there is no reason for me to ever go with MK view and pay the extra points.

Right now, with the resort not sold out, many who have been put on lower floors have gotten the request to move, but at some point, that won't be possible.

 

[wdrl]

Since BLT is not yet sold out, Disney can decide to decrease the number of rooms considered MK view and sell less points to account for the difference. That's pretty much what happened at the BWV when members complained about the rooms over looking the entrance, and thus, standard view was born. No complaints, now. The SV rooms are considered a bargain by most. I think the same result would occur if they did the adjustments for BLT.

I'm curious how DVD could sell fewer points for a resort and how that may distort the ownership interest of those that have already bought. For some time now I've tried to determine the number of points DVD has available to sell at BLT. Based on the declarations already made and the deeds recorded, each 2-bedroom villa appears to be worth 19,640 points, and each grand villa appears to be worth 34,975 points, resulting in a projected number of over 5.8 million points. I assume that all villas declared in the future will be assigned the same point value because (1) all yet-to-be-declared 2-bedroom villas and all yet-to-be-declared grand villas have the same square footage as the declared villas; and (2) the Declaration of Condominium implies that the point system is based on square footage. Thus, I don't understand how DVD could say that it will sell 19,640 points for one villa, but a lesser number of points for another villa of equal size. I also don't think that DVD could limit points for sale by just holding off and not declaring some phases of BLT. If DVD doesn't declare some phases, then DVC's share of the villas is limited accordingly. Thus, the points already sold will be competing for fewer villas.

When DVD introduced the Standard view category to BWV, did it make upward adjustments to the points for the Preferred/Boardwalk category? I wonder how DVD could take about 25% of the BWV villas (or whatever percentage that comprises the Standard category) and assign them a lower point total without having a corresponding increase in the cost of the remaining villas.

 

[DenLo]

I would have to agree! I'm not liking the parking lot view/MK view.
Don't get me wrong....BLT looks like a great resort and unbeatable location to MK and we hope to try it in the future. It's just too bad you have to sacrifice a great view with a parking lot full of cars.

Wow, this MK/parking lot view issue is starting to remind of the "glass is half-full or half-empty" scenario.

Sure I agree that a MK view would be better if the resort was closer to MK but then it would be on the lake and you have the bus drop off area to look at instead of a empty parking lot. Neither would be pretty but there is more activity at the bus lot.

 

[ibela]

We got a 1br MK view in Nov on a Sat and Sun night so it's really expensive point wise. I'd wait list for a LV but I have a Dec UY so would lose the extra points anyway at this point. I have already put in my request for a high floor but will not hesitate to complain if I get anything below 76XX and for sure I would write a letter to complain as well. Keeping my fingers crossed . . .

 

[mac_tlc]

For some time now I've tried to determine the number of points DVD has available to sell at BLT. Based on the declarations already made and the deeds recorded, each 2-bedroom villa appears to be worth 19,640 points, and each grand villa appears to be worth 34,975 points, resulting in a projected number of over 5.8 million points.

If you apply the 2010 point chart to the three different views at BLT, I calculate that a SV would require 15,401 points, a LV 16,961 points and a MK view 20,494 points.
If there were the same number of each, the average would be 17,617 per 2 bedroom.

I assume that all villas declared in the future will be assigned the same point value because (1) all yet-to-be-declared 2-bedroom villas and all yet-to-be-declared grand villas have the same square footage as the declared villas; and (2) the Declaration of Condominium implies that the point system is based on square footage. Thus, I don't understand how DVD could say that it will sell 19,640 points for one villa, but a lesser number of points for another villa of equal size.

Since I would assume that Disney can sell all of the points required to reserve each unit for every night of the year ( maybe with a few % holdback), wouldn't the same square footage possibly yield a different number of points sold, in this case based on the view assigned?
Would seem to me that they could potentially change an MK-view to a SV-view, but they would have to make a corrsponding change to a LV-view and make it a MK-view ( or SV to LV) to end up at the same number of total points.

mac_tlc

 

[wdrl]

If you apply the 2010 point chart to the three different views at BLT, I calculate that a SV would require 15,401 points, a LV 16,961 points and a MK view 20,494 points.
If there were the same number of each, the average would be 17,617 per 2 bedroom.

I also applied the 2010 point chart to compute the point capacity for BLT. I tried different variations, from booking every 2-bedroom villa as a 2-bedroom, to booking the lockoff villas as studios and 1-bedroom villas. I computed all 365 use days, and then multiplied by .98077 to account for each villa having only 51 use weeks in a year. I used work2play's original estimates of room-by-view counts (27 SV, 182 LV, 58 MK, plus 8 GV-LV and 6 GV-MK). I ended up with point totals ranging from 5,631,259 points to 6,193,176.


Since I would assume that Disney can sell all of the points required to reserve each unit for every night of the year ( maybe with a few % holdback), wouldn't the same square footage possibly yield a different number of points sold, in this case based on the view assigned?
Would seem to me that they could potentially change an MK-view to a SV-view, but they would have to make a corrsponding change to a LV-view and make it a MK-view ( or SV to LV) to end up at the same number of total points.

Yes, I agree. Much like DVD is able to adjust a point chart to raise weekday rates but must make equivalent deductions in weekend rates, I believe the total number of points is constant. How those points are allocated to the different views can be manipulated by DVD.

In my opinion, the bottom line is that if DVD reclassifies an MK villa to Standard View, then it will have to "recapture" those points by either upgrading the view category of other villas or by tweaking the point chart itself.

mac_tlc

-wdrl