DVC Question -- home resort?

[hillview]

How much does it matter what your home resort is? We will typically go in January or February (I think although appreciate that will change over time).

TIA

 

[chalee94]

here is a thread for more info about choosing a home resort.

(edited) home resort determines 3 things: 1) what your annual dues rate per point is, 2) where you can book at 11 months out and 3) when your contract expires (2042/2054/2057/2060).

IMO if you always want to stay at a specific resort AND you can book 10-11 months in advance, you should buy there.

if you want to stay onsite at wdw and don't care where AND you can book 10-11 months in advance, i'd buy a resale contract at a cheaper onsite resort like SSR. book SSR at 10-11 months out and try to change at 7 months - you will often be successful at changing and if you can't switch, you are still onsite at wdw.

if you can't book more than 6-7 months out, just buy the cheapest pts possible and hope for the best. under 7 months, points are points. (if you can't book more than 3-4 months out, DVC is probably not for you...)

i wouldn't consider a VB contract to be a very good deal as the annual dues are higher and the risks of an offsite resort validate the lower resale prices.

 

[DisDad07]

Chalee94 said it best. Buy where you want to stay. You will be able to resort hop from time to time for now. Who knows if that will stop some day, its out of our hands. So if you like 1 resort location better than another, or you like the theme better, then buy at that resort. You can also buy resale, at any of the resorts and save some money and buy enough points to go at different times of the year. Good luck

 

[Sandisw]

How important is it to your trip to stay at certain places? If you are flexible and don't care, then buy at a resort that you are comfortable with if that is where you end up.

If you will never see yourself booking during the home resort time, then again, buy at the resort you are comfortable with.

We bought at BLT, and paid more, because we knew that we wanted to stay there each and every trip and did not want to chance waiting until 7 months to get it. We are in the process of adding on at BWV because again, we see wanting to be able to stay here as part of our yearly trip or for F & W down the road and want the home resort advantage.

We could have gotten a better deal in terms of price when we bought BLT, but we are happy that we bought where we want to be. We got a great deal for BWV so made out there.

At the end of the day, you are buying the right to stay at your home resort only and if Disney was to ever change things (highly unlikely but technically possible), you want to own a place that you will find acceptable for your trips.

Good luck!

 

[wildernessDad]

How much does it matter what your home resort is? We will typically go in January or February (I think although appreciate that will change over time).

TIA

How much does it matter to you? If you don't care where you stay, then I would answer not much. If you want to stay at a certain resort and are buying in hoping to get it at the 7-month point, then you may be disappointed at times. If you can't get it at the 7-month point, would you care?

 

[ctparrothead763]

We have points at SSR. When we go, we always book at more than 7 months to ensure a reservation. At 7 months you can try to switch.

We've done the switch multiple times and have always gotten positive results.

We have found out though that each day of the switch has to be booked no more than 7 months out. So if you are going for a week, for example, you can switch the first night only at exactly 7 months. You then have to wait for succeeding days to switch the rest. Confusing? Yes. But the DVC reps. encouraged us to do exactly that; call each day to extend the switch.

 

[CarolMN]

......(snip)..............We have found out though that each day of the switch has to be booked no more than 7 months out. So if you are going for a week, for example, you can switch the first night only at exactly 7 months. You then have to wait for succeeding days to switch the rest. Confusing? Yes. But the DVC reps. encouraged us to do exactly that; call each day to extend the switch.

This is no longer true. You may book up to 7 nights at the 7 month window.

For example, let's say you booked 11/6/2011 - 11/13/2011 at your home resort.

When the 7 month window opened for those dates (on April 6, 2011), you could have switched the entire reservation to another resort with that one call on 4/6/11 - assuming there was availability.

 

[disneynutz]

How much does it matter what your home resort is? We will typically go in January or February (I think although appreciate that will change over time).

TIA

Only you know how important staying at your favorite resort is to you and your family. Most people don't take the time to find that out before they buy. The problem is, once you buy, you are stuck with your decision until you sell.

Bill

 

[hillview]

OK thanks everyone! Would you humor me with another question. Why do people buy from multiple DVC sites (eg BLT and SSR)?

 

[disneynutz]

OK thanks everyone! Would you humor me with another question. Why do people buy from multiple DVC sites (eg BLT and SSR)?

Because they like more than one resort and they want to be able to guarantee the ability to book at those resorts starting at 11 months.

We own 5 different home resorts for just that reason. Our thought is that we are spending thousands of dollars at Disney every year and we want to spend it at out favorite resorts and not take a chance on availability.

Bill

 

[hillview]

here is a thread for more info about choosing a home resort.

Thanks this was very helpful!

 

[hillview]

Because they like more than one resort and they want to be able to guarantee the ability to book at those resorts starting at 11 months.

We own 5 different home resorts for just that reason. Our thought is that we are spending thousands of dollars at Disney every year and we want to spend it at out favorite resorts and not take a chance on availability.

Bill

Ok so another stupid question (and thanks for humoring me). If I need 366 points for a 2 br BLT place and I buy 266 at BLT as my "home" and 100 at SSR can I book BLT 11 months out and use the whole 366 points? (Does that make sense)?

 

[CarolMN]

Ok so another stupid question (and thanks for humoring me). If I need 366 points for a 2 br BLT place and I buy 266 at BLT as my "home" and 100 at SSR can I book BLT 11 months out and use the whole 366 points? (Does that make sense)?

The question makes sense, but the answer is no. Only BLT points can be used to make reservations at BLT until the 7 month window opens. Only SSR points can be used to make SSR reservations until the 7 month window opens. And so on.

You can't combine points until the 7 month window.

Some people make use of banking and borrowing to get more points to use during the home resort priority period.

 

[Dean]

How much does it matter what your home resort is? We will typically go in January or February (I think although appreciate that will change over time).

TIA

I don't think the "buy where you want to stay" is best for most people for 2 reasons. First, most will try multiple things over time and second, the price difference has gotten great enough to take a few chances. I'd say buy the cheapest option you'd be happy staying at for most trips is a far better approach. That covers those that want say BLT every trip or AKV concierge routinely but allows for those that want to try different things and saves some money. At a price difference of around $80 a point, one can make limited compromises.

 

[gray52]

I don't think the "buy where you want to stay" is best for most people for 2 reasons. First, most will try multiple things over time and second, the price difference has gotten great enough to take a few chances. I'd say buy the cheapest option you'd be happy staying at for most trips is a far better approach. That covers those that want say BLT every trip or AKV concierge routinely but allows for those that want to try different things and saves some money. At a price difference of around $80 a point, one can make limited compromises.

COMPLETELY buy into this theory. We really like OKW... but we really like (almost) all of the DVC resorts... so we bought the most reasonable priced at a place we wouldn't mind staying at each and every trip if they ever decide to not let us use other resorts (which would eliminate half of their sales pitch, however). We pull our kids out of school and visit WDW in January... we've never had a problem booking any resort at the 7-month window (but i am on the phone at 9am of the first day to get BLT). We typically do a split stay with OKW and another resort. I will say that we've fallen in love with OKW and are extremely happy with our decision to buy there.

 

[JWG]

I will take the counterpoint. We really love BWV and BLT. BLT is overpriced point wise at the MK view and even slightly at the LV. We like to travel during peak DVC travel times (early December, October and over President's week). Therefore, we need our home resort booking windows. Even calling form BWV at the 11 month mark for October we had to wait list for a standard view studio. The wait list came through, but that was a first possible day booking issue.

As for BLT, we prefer standard view for now as we can watch fireworks from the lounge. We don't want to use the extra points on other views. Need the booking window for that. We currently are on a wait list for a 1 br at BLT in October for two nights as we had some extra points come up that have to be used because our BWV wait list came through. We've been wait listed for both a LV and a SV for quite some time with no luck.

So, if you're happy to stay at OKW or SSR, maybe even AKV savannah view, then buy best value makes sense. If you have some peak periods or resorts you know you want then don't set yourself up for disappointment when you can't get it.

Our last few visits have been at OKW because we made some last minute decisions to go and that's what we could get. We were ok with it and like OKW, but we prefer our home resorts and like knowing we can get them if we really want.

 

[Dean]

I will take the counterpoint. We really love BWV and BLT. BLT is overpriced point wise at the MK view and even slightly at the LV. We like to travel during peak DVC travel times (early December, October and over President's week). Therefore, we need our home resort booking windows. Even calling form BWV at the 11 month mark for October we had to wait list for a standard view studio. The wait list came through, but that was a first possible day booking issue.

As for BLT, we prefer standard view for now as we can watch fireworks from the lounge. We don't want to use the extra points on other views. Need the booking window for that. We currently are on a wait list for a 1 br at BLT in October for two nights as we had some extra points come up that have to be used because our BWV wait list came through. We've been wait listed for both a LV and a SV for quite some time with no luck.

So, if you're happy to stay at OKW or SSR, maybe even AKV savannah view, then buy best value makes sense. If you have some peak periods or resorts you know you want then don't set yourself up for disappointment when you can't get it.

Our last few visits have been at OKW because we made some last minute decisions to go and that's what we could get. We were ok with it and like OKW, but we prefer our home resorts and like knowing we can get them if we really want.

That's the beauty of the "buy where you don't mind staying" approach, it covers all contingencies that one could make a conscious decision about and have control over. The only thing it doesn't control are the actual prices, future resort options and changes in one's preferences. For some, multiple home resorts is the better option and for some, different UY is also a better option. The question really comes down to how much you're willing to pay for X. For those that go to Orlando and WDW routinely, the first decision is whether on property is worth the extra $$$ and for DVC, whether it's worth paying for X. Above I mentioned AKV concierge but even if one owns there and plan 11 month out to the day, it's very possible you still wouldn't get it.

 

[dmccarty]

Only you can decide how important the home resort is for you.

We bought into AKV before it was built and sight unseen. We never went to a DVC presentation at all. Our last trip to WDW was in the late 90's. The kids were getting to an age where we wanted to take them to WDW. We remembered that there was some sort of "time share" at WDW so we started researching.

We crunched the numbers and saw that DVC would save us a boat load of money over the next few years so we decided to buy. The kids are very animal focused so it was easy to buy at AKV.

Our first visit with kids was at CBR because we bought in August and went in October. AKL was already fully booked so we ended up at CBR. The next trip we stayed at AKL which very much impressed us. AKV was even better when we finally stayed there last trip.

We talk about staying at other resorts, either BLT or an EPCOT resort but we end up back at AKV/AKL.

We have visited other resorts and they are very nice but watching the critters at AKV/AKL is a big deal for us so we keep returning.

For us, having AKV/AKL has a home resort is a big deal.

Later,
Dan