Hard to make reservations this year

[bicker]

I could see that interpretation too... it'll be interesting to see what seashoreCM actually was asking!

 

[DisFlan]

ITA. I can remember when it was customary to book an on site WDW resort 2 years in advance - never mind getting a discount. If you didn't have something nailed down at least a year in advance, forget about staying on site, LOL!

Yup, I remember those days! We used to book Disney World first, THEN we'd schedule vacation time and flights. We felt lucky to get what we could. I'm glad that aspect of WDW has changed. We aren't strangers to far-ahead planning, and we now have a much bigger choice and more availability (even if it doesn't seem so at times).

DisFlan

 

[Cinderelli]

As to the question of have we had trouble making ressies recently, I've been pleasantly surprised. In April I made plans for SSR over July 4th, SSR in October, and Boardwalk for December. I honestly thought I wouldn't be able to get any of these (especially over July 4th, at only 2.5 months out), but was pleasantly surprised. From my experience, ressies have not been hard to get recently.

Good Luck,

Lissa

 

[patsal]

I was able to book for February in January, but didn't expect to be able to. I have found no difficulty getting what I want, when and where I want it with a little planning (11 and 7 month windows). I am "old school" with reservations though and even pre DVC booked nearly a year in advance. I think that tourism is just picking back up and although it may be an inconvienience it is a good thing--full parks and resorts hopefully means that we will see more CM's--less overworked, as well as the much needed refurbs, and freshening of attractions and possibly more new attractions. As far as short term reservations are concerned, I guess I never considered DVC for that. I'm certain my guide asked me if I was a "planner" prior to my purchase and whe I answered yes she said great, you will rarely have a problem getting what you want where you want it. So far she's been correct.

 

[d-r]

I don't have a dog in this race at all, or an opinion about it for that matter, but it occred to me after reading -

Or multiply 2051 by 52 - the number of weeks in a year. That makes 106,652 "room weeks" available. While there are people who can - and do - stay for weeks at Disney, plenty of people only own enough points to take their yearly or every other year vacation for a week.

I don't think it is 100% that straight forward. I'm sure that there are many people who think of their DVC stays in terms of "a week" but I'm sure that there are others who don't. They have different kinds of schedules and maybe stay 3 days at one time a year and 5 at another time, things like that. And there are people who only come every-other year, etc. There are people who don't mind flying or live in a close distance, or who have non-typical work schedules (for some, it is hard to get a single week off, but they may take off a few days several times a year) that come several times a year. This is what is good about DVC, the flexibility of not being locked in to a single "week." So I'm sure people use all sorts of combinations with their points.

Also, the weekend point costs make it a little less straight forward. I'm sure there are people who skip the weekends because of the point costs. I'm very sure that the resorts probably aren't full on holiday weekends because of the very high point costs.

Throw in people who can't take kids out of school, and throw in some areas being on year-round school with breaks in October, etc. And people with academic-calender jobs, etc. It gest complicated.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that not every day of the year is equal, or every week of the year. Well, not every day of the week is equal for that matter. I think it may be oversimplifying it a little to take the total number of days / total number of points.

That is why some days cost more points than others. DVC is trying to anticipate times that will be in higher demand, and make those days cost more. The flip side is that owners react and travel more during the low-point times, so demand actually flips to some degree.

Again, I don't have a strong point of view, but I'd agree DVC is probably not best if you can only and always make last minute plans.

 

[crisi]

Well yes. What I was trying to say was that 85,000 members isn't too many when you have 106,000 "room weeks." For a lot of people its easier to conceptualize room weeks than to deal with the level of detail you are talking about. You could also say there are 742,000 room nights available, or about nine nights per person per year.

Obviously many of us here on the DIS stay a lot more than nine nights, but some of us (me for instance) stay 3.5 nights per year (seven nights every other year).

 

[RayJay]

Again, I don't have a strong point of view, but I'd agree DVC is probably not best if you can only and always make last minute plans.

Just got Middle of July for 1 week at SSR in a 1 bedroom.

BWV and VWL were also available, that's just a month away.

While I don't do last minute, we got one, the only reason I'm going
without planning is we didn't get our points in time.

Also got week after Thanksgiving in a 1 bedroom at BWV preferred, and
that is under the 7 month window.

RayJay

 

[bicker]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that not every day of the year is equal, or every week of the year.

Yet, every day of the year there are the same number of rooms available, and the timeshare is designed so that the difference in points (from day to day, week to week, season to season, etc.) will cover the differences in demand.

 

[disneymom2one]

Due to some unusual stuff going on we've had to book without much notice at all. And we've been okay each time. We booked OKW for several days in early June with about two weeks notice. We just added a day to our VB stay in August with no problem. We only book studios and we're usually flexible about places to stay but we rarely have problems with last minute stays (spring break was an exception but we expected that).

 

[msdis]

I wonder what, if any, effect the 100 point "bonus" promotion is having on room demand this year.

This was my exact thoughts.

 

[bicker]

Those points come from somewhere, specially unsold inventory. So the impact of that would be a reduction in the available of cash reservations (probably in the new property).

 

[Doctor P]

The 100 points was on the base contract property, not SSR (unless that was your original base contract property). There are actually a number of different ways that this could have been done, but the bottom line is that there would be more competition for points reservations, I believe. I would also believe that if they simply took it out of inventory that would otherwise go to cash reservations, that might have some interesting effects.

 

[bicker]

It would be a violation of the Master Deed (at least the BWV Master Deed) to use member inventory for promotional purposes.

 

[CharlesTD]

We found it easy to make reservations we actually called down 6 weeks prior to arrival and got a room.