jade1 said:
What the heck happens with the $750 per night that I'm paying Disney to stay at the BCV? It doesn't go into maintaining in the resort?
Coming from one of those renters that you all seem to dislike, maybe part of the problem is that those who own are treating the place like their own home and not treating it as a guest! In the beginning it seems like it was so popular that unless you owned you couldn't stay there and the place got run down according to our friends who are DVC members, so I guess it that was done by owners not renters. Maybe if everyone just respected the place and treated it as if they were guests, there wouldn't be as much wear and tear!
I'm sure DVC borrowed money to build the resorts, and they have "mortgage" to pay...that's where part of the money you are paying goes. Owners at BCV pay about $4.50 per point they own to "maintenance of the resort". If you are renting from an owner, $4.50 of every point you rent goes to the owner to help cover those dues, the other part goes to the owner to cover the cost of their initial investment, interest, and their time in managing the rental.
If you are renting at 75 points per night....then, you are paying about $340 per night for maintenance and services....including transportation, cleaning, staffing, and maintaining that gorgeous pool complex. So yes, renters do pay. I, for one and not buying the "renters damage our resort" theory. We're all people. What I do buy into is this. If I get a hole in a sweater, and immediately repair that hole, it does not get any bigger. However, if I don't fix the hole, continue to wear the sweater and wash it...it get bigger and bigger until people are beginning to see parts of me that they wish they never had to see!!
And, at some point, the sweater become irreparable. I have to throw the whole thing out and start over...at a much greater expense to me.
The same thing is true of hotel rooms. If a carpet is scheduled for "maintenance" cleaning, but that cleaning requires that the room be cleaned first, but the previous occupants didn't leave until straight up 11:00, and the mousekeeper didn't finish the room until 1:00, then the carpets might possibly be wet well until the late evening. DVC then has a choice....clean the carpets and risk a backlash of "What do you mean my room isn't ready? And, "I had to wait until 6:00 to get into my room, only to discover that I can't walk in there with my shoes off? I want another room!!" And, then the dance of the "room shuffle" begins. This is no easy task to keep rooms assignments "doable" when a resort is filled to capacity, and everyone arrives and departs on different days. I cannot imagine what a headache that must be.
So, the only choice is, "We'll just wait to clean those carpets". Then, the oils and dirt on the carpets not only make for a bad guest experience, they contribute to the "wearing out" of the carpets. Then, they have to be replaced sooner than originally scheduled, which causes dues to go up for owners.
Realistically, if just ONE 1bdrm, ONE studio, and ONE two bdrm unit went unoccupied each night, these problems would virtually disappear. I think this type of "vacancy" is what DVC expected when they designed the system (let's face it...many owners waste points every year), and I would bet that many of the other DVC resorts do have vacancies on any given night. But, this is just not the case at BCV.
This is why owners get so upset at non-owners talking about the poor condition of BCV, and often quip, "Fine...don't stay there!" The RESORT needs a vacation from the constant 100% occupancy. No wonder there is a morale problem by the staff there...they are overwhelmed. When I was a flight attendant, my husband could always tell how full my flights had been that day by my attitude in the evening. Working 6 flights filled to capacity would always set me off....it was exhausting!! I'm sure the same is true of the staff at BCV. After a while, you get tired of running at "full-speed" every day....at some point, you are just going to start walking.
Beca
