Dvc vs Wyndham bonnet creek

[davidl81]

Thanks for the input. I think we will just rent points and stay at SSR or maybe find a confirmed reservation on one of the boards that works for us and do that. We have AP's so parking is really not an issue, but call me crazy but I like the bus system. I don't have to worry about driving and if DW want to leave a park early with one of the kids we can do that pretty easily. I think I may try out the drive and see how it goes. I can maybe stop in Destin or somewhere else to break up the drive if we fell like it. I have plenty of Marriott and Hilton points so finding some place to stay along the way should not be a big issue.

 

[Kim Gillihan]

we rented a 4 bedroom presidential suite last June for a group of 10.. it was a my treat trip for my and my cousins family and you could not beat the price, around 2200 for the whole week. It was spacious and nice.. we didnt spend much time in pool etc, too busy doing Disney and Universal jam packed parks daily since no idea when the would be able to go back etc. It was her kids first trip ever! We loved it, BUT I am now buying dvc and looking forward to going back and being on property and being emersed in disney and having busses etc. We had a car so drove to the parks, it wasn't horrible but I loved having the disney transportation and disney emersion when I stayed at POP years ago. It all depends whats more important to you.. for the money.. hard to beat if that is most important....

 

[ziravan]

we rented a 4 bedroom presidential suite last June for a group of 10.. it was a my treat trip for my and my cousins family and you could not beat the price, around 2200 for the whole week. It was spacious and nice.. we didnt spend much time in pool etc, too busy doing Disney and Universal jam packed parks daily since no idea when the would be able to go back etc. It was her kids first trip ever! We loved it, BUT I am now buying dvc and looking forward to going back and being on property and being emersed in disney and having busses etc. We had a car so drove to the parks, it wasn't horrible but I loved having the disney transportation and disney emersion when I stayed at POP years ago. It all depends whats more important to you.. for the money.. hard to beat if that is most important....

We bought our Wyndham contracts for cheap cheap on eBay. Wyndham starts their pricing at something like $175/1000 points and I think we paid something like $3/1000.

Since we bought, though, Wyndham started taking back contracts through their Ovation program to resell as Access points so their are fewer contracts being dumped at a loss by companies paid to ditch timeshares.

Much fewer listings these days at higher prices as a result.

And the megarenters using VIP status to cancel/rebook presidential suites for 25% of point value were recently frozen out by Wyndham. Those cheap Presidential Suites won't be so cheap going forward.

Still many times it's cheaper to rent than pay MFs. With DVC, you can get more than twice the MFs to rent reservations. With Wyndham, many times you can't even break even.

At our buy in price, though, even if we could rent cheaper than MFs, we like the benefit of controlling our reservations and booking:

You can book Bonnet Creek even last minute if you stalk the booking engine. But you can't do that unless you own.

 

[suebeelin]

Personally, we loved our WBC experience, and parking was actually very very easy. We parked at epcot, and DH went to AK via bus, while I went to MK via monorail, then we met up at Epcot for the remainder of the evening. Once we decided to call it a night, we easily walked to our car from the Epcot entrance/exit!!

It was pretty easy to drive around, except that there is some roadwork which took us a mile or two out of our way before we had to Uturn it. Overall, it is worth the money. My kids now prefer or like WBC as much as they like Bay Lake and Boardwalk, and are begging to go back! Their pool choices (all 6) was a complete hit. Much better than Bay Lake or Boardwalk pools!

Looks like WBC is one of our possible go to resorts going forward, and we shall be renting some of our DVC points on a yearly basis (we won't need all 400 points if we decide to do WBC for a week every year!).

I reallly liked the room and the resort!

 

[Dean]

Personally, we loved our WBC experience, and parking was actually very very easy. We parked at epcot, and DH went to AK via bus, while I went to MK via monorail, then we met up at Epcot for the remainder of the evening. Once we decided to call it a night, we easily walked to our car from the Epcot entrance/exit!!

It was pretty easy to drive around, except that there is some roadwork which took us a mile or two out of our way before we had to Uturn it. Overall, it is worth the money. My kids now prefer or like WBC as much as they like Bay Lake and Boardwalk, and are begging to go back! Their pool choices (all 6) was a complete hit. Much better than Bay Lake or Boardwalk pools!

Looks like WBC is one of our possible go to resorts going forward, and we shall be renting some of our DVC points on a yearly basis (we won't need all 400 points if we decide to do WBC for a week every year!).

I reallly liked the room and the resort!

DVC has 3 things going for it. These are first and foremost location followed by theming and flexibility. But they are not necessarily more flexible than certain other timeshares, it partly depends on what one needs. And while some like they don't "nickel and dime" us, in reality they charge for all those items and then some being roughly 30% higher than other comparable timeshares in the area for similar villa types. Side by side I think there are a number of other timeshares in the area that are as nice overall and nicer in some ways compared to DVC. I wouldn't put WBC quite in that group mostly because the non presidential units are lessor materials than DVC currently.

 

[keishashadow]

We bought our Wyndham contracts for cheap cheap on eBay. Wyndham starts their pricing at something like $175/1000 points and I think we paid something like $3/1000.

Since we bought, though, Wyndham started taking back contracts through their Ovation program to resell as Access points so their are fewer contracts being dumped at a loss by companies paid to ditch timeshares.

Much fewer listings these days at higher prices as a result.

And the megarenters using VIP status to cancel/rebook presidential suites for 25% of point value were recently frozen out by Wyndham. Those cheap Presidential Suites won't be so cheap going forward.

Still many times it's cheaper to rent than pay MFs. With DVC, you can get more than twice the MFs to rent reservations. With Wyndham, many times you can't even break even.

At our buy in price, though, even if we could rent cheaper than MFs, we like the benefit of controlling our reservations and booking:

You can book Bonnet Creek even last minute if you stalk the booking engine. But you can't do that unless you own.

We have enjoyed our stays @ WBC more than some DVC visits. Really love the pools there. Nearly always rent a car anyway & have APHs to cover WDW parking fees. Can live without the EMH for the random trip. Like the location, easy to skirt around traffic

After our last rental in January looked into purchasing but, as you state, the MF were a deal-breaker so we added on resale via DVC. Didn't know Wyndham changed things around

I did notice rental prices seem to have taken a bit of a bump when checking on VRBO & thru the broker we've had good luck with in the past as to price-matching quotes.

 

[littlestar]

Wyndham Bonnet Creek is very "dense feeling" with the high rise buildings. For that reason alone, I prefer DVC, Marriott Vacation Club, or Sheraton Vacation clubs. Also, I have experienced friendlier staff with DVC, Marriott and Sheraton. Our grown children experienced rude Bonnet Creek staff back in January 2017 and feel that DVC employees are better trained for customer service.

We own Wyndham resale points, DVC, and Marriott Vacation Club.

 

[Dean]

Wyndham Bonnet Creek is very "dense feeling" with the high rise buildings. For that reason alone, I prefer DVC, Marriott Vacation Club, or Sheraton Vacation clubs. Also, I have experienced friendlier staff with DVC, Marriott and Sheraton. Our grown children experienced rude Bonnet Creek staff back in January 2017 and feel that DVC employees are better trained for customer service.

We own Wyndham resale points, DVC, and Marriott Vacation Club.

One has to be able to separate sales from operations with other timeshares, esp Wyndam and Bluegreen, a little less Hilton/Marriott and I don't have a lot of experience with Sheraton (2 stays). I can say unequivocally that ALL of the other SYSTEMS I've dealt with routinely (Marriott, BG, Wyndham) do a FAR better job with on the fly maintenance issues than does DVC and with management involvement with problems. I do believe that Disney CM are easier to push around if complaining but less able to get things done when needed in a timely manner. If Disney put those effort and dollars into doing things better up front, they'd be the top timeshare of the family group (excluding Ritz, Four Seasons type) without exception. Basically everywhere they fall down are in what should be easily fixable areas, it just takes a little effort and leadership. Other than better preventative maintenance, it's not $$$ related. Certainly you can have a good or bad experience anywhere. I always find it funny when people say they like or don't like a given DVC resort compared to another due to staff friendliness or lack of. Next time that given CM might be at the opposite resort.

 

[littlestar]

I have had a total of four stays at Bonnet Creek and in three out of four stays we had something not working and called to report it and no one ever showed up. Even after second and third calls. In comparison, we stayed at Marriott Grande Vista last week and reported a cracked coffee pot and Marriott had someone bring up a new one within 15 minutes. I may be jinxed when it comes to Wyndham Bonnet Creek (LOL). I admit it is a really beautiful property, though. We have had maintenance issues at DVC, but always someone showed up to fix it.

 

[Dean]

I have had a total of four stays at Bonnet Creek and in three out of four stays we had something not working and called to report it and no one ever showed up. Even after second and third calls. In comparison, we stayed at Marriott Grande Vista last week and reported a cracked coffee pot and Marriott had someone bring up a new one within 15 minutes. I may be jinxed when it comes to Wyndham Bonnet Creek (LOL). I admit it is a really beautiful property, though. We have had maintenance issues at DVC, but always someone showed up to fix it.

While I've been on property several times including viewing villas, I haven't stayed at that location. I have formulated my thoughts I mentioned above on a multitude of stays with all of those companies over time and different resorts. Just the process of getting a replacement coffee pot or missing items is a disaster at many of the DVC locations because they have regular rounds and tend to wait for those items to be done on those rounds. At many of the resorts this occurs about every hour and heaven help you if you just miss the next run. Or if housekeeping misses you but you're between shifts, esp since at many of the resorts where there is little or no emergency crew to handle such matters and the "change of shift" often occurs before check in time with an hour divide, esp at SSR. I'd say the usual at all of those companies I mentioned where I have sufficient experience to say is they handle things quickly and if there is compensation appropriate, they offer it on their own. They also usually call back and see if all was taken care off as well within a fairly short period of time. I'd say in general I can get a replacement item, use it and get a call back to be sure it was OK (sometimes 2 different calls) all well before I'd even get the item with DVC. I've had the GM in my unit sitting with workers so we could go get dinner and I've had them deliver wine/fruit baskets for things they really didn't need to and I told them so. That's not to say it happens every time but we're probably in 10-15 villas most years, we'll have been in at last 24 I can count off the top of my head in the last 2 yrs.

A few examples, at a Marriott last summer where the AC went out in the lockoff side of one of our 10 villas, they delivered a portable AC with a bracket for the sliding door, it felt good in there, I kind of wished I'd have been in there, I'm sure I'd have slept like a baby. They also worked into the evening the next day when they did get the part and I know for a fact they had to pay the 3 people working on it overtime to do so and they earned it. We had a stove top go out at one of the Marriott's in HH a few years ago. In reality it didn't affect us much but it took them a few hours to get the part. They kept calling and checking/apologizing and delivered a wine basket which was unnecessary. In Charleston they had to come in to do some TV replacements which was more complicated than it sounds and was going to take about 3 hours. The actual GM of the resort came down and sat with them so we could go to dinner.

 

[mdinme]

We've stayed at WBC, Marriot Horizons and Sheraton Timehares. We own DVC and to us nothing else can compare. When we're on disney property it feels like vacation, when we're elsewhere, it feels like we're at a hotel. It's hard to have this conversation and consider a savannah view at Kidani...Who else can give you that view off your balcony?

The kids did love the Pirate pool at Horizons though, of course that was 2009 when they were tots.

 

[Dean]

We've stayed at WBC, Marriot Horizons and Sheraton Timehares. We own DVC and to us nothing else can compare. When we're on disney property it feels like vacation, when we're elsewhere, it feels like we're at a hotel. It's hard to have this conversation and consider a savannah view at Kidani...Who else can give you that view off your balcony?

The kids did love the Pirate pool at Horizons though, of course that was 2009 when they were tots.

Harbour Lakes (formerly a horizon resort) has the best small kid pools I've seen. Bluegreen's Fountains/Oasis Lakes is very good too. Marriott's Horizon's properties are a step down from their usual timeshares, they were purposefully built as a cheaper option to allow them to sell to those with lower incomes, small kids, younger families and the like. They originally planned 4 properties to start but only built 2, Orlando and Branson. The other 2 were Gatlinburg I think where Westgate ended up and I'm not sure where the 4th was planned and it seems no one else does either. For Orlando Marriott Lakeshore Reserve is the top timeshare with Grande Vista being a fairly close second. LR is smaller and more adult oriented. For Orlando, I would not put Sheraton (Vistana Villages likely best) or Wyndham properties in a top group. My top group outside DVC would include the 3 top Marriott's (adding Cypress Harbour), Hilton's, Bluegreen's Fountains/Oasis Lakes. A second group fairly close would include WBC, Wyndham Reunions, Vistana Villages, certain parts of Summer Bay, possibly Vistana (535), other Marriott's and the best parts of Orange Lake (Holiday Inn).

 

[thelionqueen]

We've stayed at WBC several times and really live it! Rooms are much bigger and resort itself is beautiful and peaceful. Can't beat mini golf either. We paid around $100 a night for a 2BR which is a huge benefit. The only negative thing I have to say is that it's just not Disney. I missed the gift shop and food court, poolside games, etc.