DVC Lesson Learned

[DVC_Dreamer]

We're going on our fourth year as a member but we learned first hand why folks say to buy where you want to stay. We've been thinking and planning our 25th wedding anniversary trip. My first idea was to get two deluxe studio's for a week so we could have our three kids and they could bring a friend for a total of eight of us. We love having a large group go and enjoy our vacations. Our anniversary is in May and kids will be out of college by then. With May being 9 months out, I figured "no problem". What I learned is that the value rooms are what go first. We looked at availability via DVCMembers.com at BLT (Our home resort) and noticed that we could not book the full 7 days for even one deluxe studio several different weeks we tried.
Lake view is available but that goes beyond our 250 points.
After realizing my oldest son's best time to go would be the first week of June, we realized we could book a 2 bedroom because our use year is June and we could borrow 2015 points. Even the value 2 bedroom was booked but now we have a lake view, 2 bedroom booked for first week of June.
Bad news at first but now we're excited for the two bedroom, BLT with all our family for our 25th Anniversary!

 

[LSchrow]

imho, 2 studios for 8 adults would have been waaay too crowded & uncomfortable anyway now you'll have privacy, a king bed & jacuzzi for the two of you, plus the full kitchen & living room for lots of family time.
sounds perfect to me

congrats on your anniversary, and have a wonderful time!

 

[DVC_Dreamer]

imho, 2 studios for 8 adults would have been waaay too crowded & uncomfortable anyway now you'll have privacy, a king bed & jacuzzi for the two of you, plus the full kitchen & living room for lots of family time.
sounds perfect to me

congrats on your anniversary, and have a wonderful time!

I agree. I'm now excited our original thought was wrong and not available.
This will be our third two bedroom at BLT.
Lesson learned for future trips is that if you want to save points with a standard view, book @ 11 months.
Thanks

 

[twinsouvenirs]

Conversely, I was recently enthused to discover that the 1 Brs are the last to go... which are our choice of accomodations

 

[mdsd8700]

Lesson learned for future trips is that if you want to save points with a standard view, book @ 11 months.
Thanks

I just booked our 2nd standard two bedroom stay for BLT for August, 2014 (at exactly 11 months). Love those standard points and the 3rd bathroom I checked again this morning just to see and the standard two bedroom are no longer available for our dates. They really do go fast so being able to know 11 months out is a real plus.

 

[castleri]

Booking at 11 months for an important trip is always best. I was able to put together reservations for 8 night trips at both OKW and BLT at less than 4 months out for Aug 21-29 this year by using the waitlist. It was nerve wracking at times but the last night finally came through a week before we left. I did have a back up plan and ended up with some points in holding while doing it but we did get the end result. I wouldn't want to try it for an important event however. You will be really glad to have that 2 BR with all those people - especially the 3rd bathroom. Have a great trip.

 

[DVC_Dreamer]

Conversely, I was recently enthused to discover that the 1 Brs are the last to go... which are our choice of accomodations

We booked a one bedroom standard view for our last trip and had no problem. Your point is a good one. We faced MK on one of the lower floors. Conversely, one of our trips was a 2 bedroom Lake View that was on the MK side facing the lake. You can see MK from the balcony and looking left but trees do block the lake view a bit. From experiencing both lake and standard, I can understand why people favor saving points and booking standard at BLT.
Thanks for your comment!

 

[DVC_Dreamer]

I just booked our 2nd standard two bedroom stay for BLT for August, 2014 (at exactly 11 months). Love those standard points and the 3rd bathroom I checked again this morning just to see and the standard two bedroom are no longer available for our dates. They really do go fast so being able to know 11 months out is a real plus.

It's a good lesson to know that if you want a standard room, book at 11 months. At least this looks true for studio and 2 bedroom. As you say, people know they use fewer points but still get walking to MK, close viewing of fireworks from top of world, a monorail runs through your neighboring resort and your in the middle of the MK action. Yippeee!!!!

 

[DVC_Dreamer]

Booking at 11 months for an important trip is always best. I was able to put together reservations for 8 night trips at both OKW and BLT at less than 4 months out for Aug 21-29 this year by using the waitlist. It was nerve wracking at times but the last night finally came through a week before we left. I did have a back up plan and ended up with some points in holding while doing it but we did get the end result. I wouldn't want to try it for an important event however. You will be really glad to have that 2 BR with all those people - especially the 3rd bathroom. Have a great trip.

I thought about doing the wait list. I'm thinking surely this far out we could nab two of those nights that were not available. Another lesson is to keep thinking and trying different scenarios and plans. In this case, our first ideas were wrong. I'm glad our first ideas didn't work. As you say, the two bedroom is extra NICE. We've stayed in a two bedroom twice before. Extra pull out and bathroom, king bed, two queens in second bedroom and lots of space for more privacy. All good reasons to splurge for our Anniversary trip with our family! Thanks