Okay, this is fun.
EP/HS
2) Skyliner vs Monorail/Boats: Love it or Hate it?
Love the Skyliner. I also really enjoy the WL<->MK boats, but find the Crescent Lake boats more frustrating with all the stops. The monorail is a better idea than it is in practice for me.
3) RIV styling: “European flair” or “Bland box with some iron rails?”
Two answers: Inside the walls and looking out, it has a definite flair (though I am not sure I would call it European.) Outside the walls and looking in, much less so. But if I am staying there, guess where I spend most of my time? Even hanging around the pool, I"m not staring at the building per se.
4) Poly: Do you like “tiki” or is it “tacky”?
Both. I like tiki
because it is tacky. But I confess I like e.g. authentic Hawaii more.
5) PolyT: “Aulani’s 3rd tower?” or “Ugly building with bland beige rooms?”
I haven't seen the rooms in person, but they look great in photos. I happen to like the exterior more than e.g. Riviera. I wasn't able to put it in words until you laid it out this way, but that's in part because it is less
tiki and more
Aulani.
6) Resale restrictions: Do you care about residual value? Will it impact future booking availability? Have you convinced yourself they don’t matter?
I do not care enough about residual value to change my buying decision. I mean, it's nice if there is value if and when it comes to sell, but I don't want that to be the tail that wags the dog. I was most concerned about buying what I wanted, and that was: in the EP/HS area-ish, but with an expiration later than 2042. Those constraints narrow down the choices very very quickly.
I suspect the availability concerns will not materialize the way some folks think, but (a) I am an 11-month booker, and (b) I also bought a Resort View Studio FW as a hedge, just in case. In the meantime, I've added to my portfolio to the point where I am now a 1BR person, and I definitely do not think those will be a Hunger Games booking category.
Do they matter? I think it depends on what "matters" means. It is obvious that the points are worth less if you are selling them than they'd be worth if they were unrestricted. So far, the penalty is lower than I would have expected. December 2025 resale values at RIV averaged between $118-$121 (
source one,
source two). Absent restrictions, I suspect they would come in somewhere between CCV and PVB, whch are $139-$141 and $162-$165. Split the difference and say a hypothetical unrestricted RIV would be worth $151-153. So, a hypotetical loss of about $32/pp, or about 20%.
But, that loss is hypothetical. There is no resort with RIV's specific characteristics that is unrestricted, and so it's not really a loss. I could have bought a resort I wanted less, and that resort probably would have been worth more when I sold it. But I was not buying a resort to sell, I was buying a resort to use, and Riviera was the one I wanted most. So, I'd've been giving up some (non-monetary) value in exchange for better (monetary) resale values. That was not appealing.
And for those of us who really like RIV, resale restrictions are fantastic! That's because it makes it cheaper to buy points there. My
DVC portfolio is just about 50/50 developer/resale RIV. My expected travel pattern is: One big trip a year, alternating between RIV and "somewhere else." RIV's resale restrictions saved me a nice chunk of change putting that portfolio together.
I make this point often when people talk about how terrible other timeshares are because they have negligible residual value. That's only a bad thing if you buy from the developer, which I did not. If you "buy" on the secondary market, they can be an incredible value.
7) Neighborhood: Grand Flo, Contemporary, Wilderness Lodge OR Caribbean Beach, Pop Century, Art of Animation, Beach/Yacht Club, Boardwalk?
The best way to answer this is to talk about how I have chosen where I live. Most recently, I was choosing between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. I had lived in Ann Arbor for most of my close to 30 years here. But, just before buying, I was renting in Ypsi for a couple of years during the separation and while the divorce was in process. I fell in love with it, and when the time came to buy, I didn't even look in Ann Arbor. A redditor puts it this way:
Ann Arbor is a gentrified college town with a former life as a hippie town that’s been virtually erased due to the cost of living. Ypsilanti is the blue collar punk rock working class neighbor who’s dealing with inflated rent due to Ann Arbor’s lack of housing for students at UofM.
For me, this is not a hard decision. At all. However, I also recognize that I am very unusual. Most of my colleagues at work are barely aware that Ypsilanti exists, because Ann Arbor is its own bubble. But I get to live in a house built in 1932, with a brick exterior, hardwood floors, plaster walls, tons of character. I am less than a mile from "downtown" such as it is, but that includes a library, a decent BBQ place, a couple of cafes, a quality bakery, and a couple of higher end places cheek-by-jowl next to a great burger counter and a Guatemalan diner. Walk another 10 minutes to another cluster of resturants, near the hosue where Rosie the Riveter lived. Really.
I suspect that, if you put all this together---particularly this last bit---I am very much not representative of the average DVC buyer. That's great news, because it further reduces the competition for points I might want to buy and use for a few decades.
