Has DVC given up on RIV?

[flipflopmom]

. Me being claustrophobic and afraid of height (after watching them get stuck) I am not interested in them myself.

This is the issue for my family. My 15 year old, who thinks the faster, scarier the better for rides, absolutely had a panic attack on the skyliner. She was the most terrified I’ve ever seen her in her life. Its definitely off our list now, for our family.

 

[KimMcGowan]

The pandemic messed things up and people are still afraid to travel.

when I was there the first week of March it sure didn’t seem like people were afraid to travel. The crowds were outrageous! One night at closing the line to get on the Skyliner back to the Riviera was all the way back to the main Beach Club entrance.

 

[Memorymakerfor4]

You have to spend more than half of your time at Magic Kingdom for the monorail to be a huge net time saver. Those resorts are the closest to MK, but they're the farthest from everything else, especially when you consider that Epcot requires a transfer.

If you have a car and drive to the other three parks it's not a bad deal. Not having to park at the TTC is great.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Not having to park at the TTC is great.

Agreed, that's my standard advice to anyone regardless of where they stay. Rent a car but never drive to Magic Kingdom.

 

[Slakk]

You have to spend more than half of your time at Magic Kingdom for the monorail to be a huge net time saver. Those resorts are the closest to MK, but they're the farthest from everything else, especially when you consider that Epcot requires a transfer.

I do not think when someone FIRST buys into DVC they think about that. When I bought I hated BWV and their long hallways and the stupid clown pool. Guess what I adore it now. I love the Boardwalk and the proximity to Epcot and HS but 16 years ago I bought SSR instead because I thought I hated BWV.

I think once you have been a member your needs change. The only monomrail resort I like is VGF because I love the theming and because now our trips are less theme park focused. I used to love AKV for the animals but my son is grown and so it is not really important. I like being at resports that have an abundance of activity and food choices (SSR . BCV / BWV and VGF).

The issue is that VGF is the crown jewel of WDW and when you compare it with RIV it IMHO is no competition. But if you were not around SSR owners were treated like fifteenth class citizens "back in the day" and you would think it was like staying at one of the nasty snake oil salesman timeshares. It has a niche audience (I still adore it!) Thats the beauty of DVC there is something for everyone.

I see enough posts of people who love RIV that I am happy for them - I think DVC did a great job of making a resort outside of the main corridor relevant - I am just giving my opinion. I will say this if the do something with BWV / BCV and / or YC I will be buying more points. The 2042 date and price FOR ME do not make sense at the price point but I love that area and would buy more points in a heartbeat.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I do not think when someone FIRST buys into DVC they think about that. When I bought I hated BWV and their long hallways and the stupid clown pool. Guess what I adore it now. I love the Boardwalk and the proximity to Epcot and HS but 16 years ago I bought SSR instead because I thought I hated BWV.

I think once you have been a member your needs change. The only monomrail resort I like is VGF because I love the theming and because now our trips are less theme park focused. I used to love AKV for the animals but my son is grown and so it is not really important. I like being at resports that have an abundance of activity and food choices (SSR . BCV / BWV and VGF).

The issue is that VGF is the crown jewel of WDW and when you compare it with RIV it IMHO is no competition. But if you were not around SSR owners were treated like fifteenth class citizens "back in the day" and you would think it was like staying at one of the nasty snake oil salesman timeshares. It has a niche audience (I still adore it!) Thats the beauty of DVC there is something for everyone.

I see enough posts of people who love RIV that I am happy for them - I think DVC did a great job of making a resort outside of the main corridor relevant - I am just giving my opinion. I will say this if the do something with BWV / BCV and / or YC I will be buying more points. The 2042 date and price FOR ME do not make sense at the price point but I love that area and would buy more points in a heartbeat.

I think we actually agree on the core point, which is "buy at a resort that you love." I just think people tend to psych themselves up about the transportation aspect and talk themselves into buying a resort that is "more convenient," even if it's not a resort they particularly love otherwise. For me, the priority is heavy theming, so AKV/BRV/CCV/PVB/AUL. Since AKV is readily available at 7 months, I'm happy to own mainly SSR points to primarily be used at AKV.

I don't actually like RIV or VGF, they're both too fuddy-duddy for me. The point I was getting at was simply "if someone loves RIV and wants to own there, I don't think the monorail alone is a compelling enough reason to switch to VGF instead."

 

[sethschroeder]

RIV to me is in the same boat as AKV and SSR, big and not on the monorail. All three have their positives but the monorail or boat to MK is a huge plus for the other resorts

As far as big? What are you talking about its actually the smallest resort at Disney in both rooms and footprint of the resort. Its like 20% the room capacity of AKV or SSR.

Also you really should break it down by how many times you travel to the parks.

What you likely will find is that on average people end up at MK 35%, EPCOT/HS 45%, AK 20%. This means over a long week 10 day trip you will hit MK 3-4 times, Epcot/HS 4-5 times, AK 2 times. (your trips might different when comparing the proximity of one park to another.

In the end the skyliner to Epcot/HS or the Boat (for BWV/BCV) will likely net you more positive results. This also depends what you do for nighttime, as an example we typically will go to Epcot most evenings for dinner and 1/2 rides.


Separately even with small kids these days you really need to hit Epcot/HS more often because of their offerings. With MK having the new deluxe evenings there I find myself being able to eliminate a full day to be able to go elsewhere.

Also everyone else is held up getting to MK unless its changed where as with HS you get a big jump on those coming via bus. Since reopening we have gotten busses that arrived before any of the boats/walkers could arrive to line up at the ticket takers at MK. That would be impossible at HS based on them not holding anyone up.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

As far as big? What are you talking about its actually the smallest resort at Disney in both rooms and footprint of the resort. Its like 20% the room capacity of AKV or SSR.

Also you really should break it down by how many times you travel to the parks.

What you likely will find is that on average people end up at MK 35%, EPCOT/HS 45%, AK 20%. This means over a long week 10 day trip you will hit MK 3-4 times, Epcot/HS 4-5 times, AK 2 times. (your trips might different when comparing the proximity of one park to another.

In the end the skyliner to Epcot/HS or the Boat (for BWV/BCV) will likely net you more positive results. This also depends what you do for nighttime, as an example we typically will go to Epcot most evenings for dinner and 1/2 rides.

Separately even with small kids these days you really need to hit Epcot/HS more often because of their offerings. With MK having the new deluxe evenings there I find myself being able to eliminate a full day to be able to go elsewhere.

Also everyone else is held up getting to MK unless its changed where as with HS you get a big jump on those coming via bus. Since reopening we have gotten busses that arrived before any of the boats/walkers could arrive to line up at the ticket takers. That would be impossible at HS based on them not holding anyone up.

Yes, assuming good weather, Riviera should be the most convenient resort assuming what I would consider "normal" park patterns (for me, 2 MK, 1.5 Epcot, 1.5 HS, 1.5 AK, 0.5 DS on an 8 night trip). Yacht/Beach/Boardwalk are next in line, but have the advantage of no weather-related shutdowns. Monorail resorts are middle-of-the-road, unless you're in a Poly room close to the TTC or you have a car to drive yourself to Epcot in partcular.

 

[sethschroeder]

assuming good weather

Here is the thing the skyliner is highly likely built to run through all weather. Its just about Disney actually doing it. My hope is the recent updates in January lead to a more predictable standard operation which will allow Disney to expand its service in to more inclement weather.

Additionally Disney recently partnered with a new weather service offering as well which is more pin-point accurate supposedly to help them in decisions regarding closures and such which potentially expands the service of the Skyliner as well.

Finally if Disney is going to be expanding Skyliner service (like some think and Doppelmayr leaked when the current system was being installed) they will need to expand the usage further than they do right now. You can't have a fleet of busses that are never used except during bad weather.

People want to always pushback on this but this same manufacture designs systems to run through monsoon season so you have to think they planned for Florida weather.

Only time will tell like many things if this ends up being true.

 

[kilik64]

Show of hands, who wants to be on the skyliner during a thunderstorm?

 

[KTownRaider]

As far as big? What are you talking about its actually the smallest resort at Disney in both rooms and footprint of the resort. Its like 20% the room capacity of AKV or SSR.

Just curious on this point regarding 20% of AKV or SSR capacity. RIV is the 4th largest WDW DVC resort in number of points:

SSR-14M
OKW- 7.6M
AKL- 7.4M
RIV- 6.7M

What am I missing?

 

[Akck]

Show of hands, who wants to be on the skyliner during a thunderstorm?

As long as it’s properly insulated, I wouldn’t mind. But my experience with a thunderstorm includes getting shocked when I was just about to open a truck door and lightning struck a power pole 50 yards away.

 

[kilik64]

Just curious on this point regarding 20% of AKV or SSR capacity. RIV is the 4th largest WDW DVC resort in number of points:

SSR-14M
OKW- 7.6M
AKL- 7.4M
RIV- 6.7M

What am I missing?

Higher points chart.

More points doesnt mean bigger.

 

[eticketplease]

Separately even with small kids these days you really need to hit Epcot/HS more often because of their offerings. With MK having the new deluxe evenings there I find myself being able to eliminate a full day to be able to go elsewhere.

This was my plan when we went in March and they ended up extending the park hours. This pushed extended evening hours out of reach for our family between 10 pm to 1 am

 

[tiana1989]

I’m a Skyliner super fan, and I do think it’s one of the best WDW additions in recent years. But even I’ll acknowledge it’s not just the weather. Funnily enough I have more Skyliner horror stories than bus horror stories. It seems to work great in the morning, but at park close, that line can be a beast and takes forever to get through! Obviously the same is true for the other forms of park transportation, but that’s just another point in favor of the walking distant resorts. I’ve also been stuck on a gondola for almost 20 minutes in the middle of a bright, sunny day with no apparent reason for the breakdown (on the way to RIV). After they got it moving again to get everyone off, they shut it down for a while so we had to take a bus back to EPCOT. We waited over 30 minutes before giving up and just getting a Lyft (so obviously the bus wasn’t a good option either lol). So as much as I LOVE the Skyliner, I think of it more as a perk but not something I would base a DVC purchase on. Of course others may feel differently, but for me, even being a big fan of the Skyliner isn’t really a selling point for me. It’s not that I wouldn’t buy RIV because of Skyliner issues, just that I wouldn’t add it to my personal pro column.

 

[DVCsloth]

In what way?

From almost everything that I read, everyone loves the Skyliner and it is a big draw for buying at RIV. I see lots of opinions that it is the best mode of transportation at WDW. Obviously, that's anecdotal, but I don't see any evidence that the Skyline is a bust.

For us, we almost always rent a car, so it didn't matter, but I disagree that the Skyliner doesn't "have the pull they thought it would".

I agree, we've stayed at Riviera several times now and really like it. It is a very nice Resort IMO, but the main attraction to me is the Skyliner. We live in South Florida, so we drive, my vehicle doesn't move unless I do a grocery run. We also own VGF and CCV. We chose CCV because we love the Wilderness lodge even though its mostly a bus ride to the parks. We also use the boat to MK or Contemporary. Skyliner is awesome IMO except for a few negatives like weather and peak times I feel it is a huge plus for the resorts on the loop.

 

[KTownRaider]

Higher points chart.

More points doesnt mean bigger.

Of course- but even an inflated point chart doesn't account for the 20% assertion if you want to look simply at resort rooms cited by the poster:

RIV Max Units: 489
SSR Max Units: 1320 (RIV is 37% of SSR's size)
AKL Max Units: 708 (RIV is 69% of AKL's size)

RIV has the 4th most points and 5th most rooms at WDW. Just was curious what lens the poster was making this '20%' statement. No biggie. I've learned a ton from these boards, and that statement stuck out to me. Thought I might be missing something that was obvious...

 

[sethschroeder]

Of course- but even an inflated point chart doesn't account for the 20% assertion if you want to look simply at resort rooms cited by the poster:

RIV Max Units: 489
SSR Max Units: 1320 (RIV is 37% of SSR's size)
AKL Max Units: 708 (RIV is 69% of AKL's size)

RIV has the 4th most points and 5th most rooms at WDW. Just was curious what lens the poster was making this '20%' statement. No biggie. I've learned a ton from these boards, and that statement stuck out to me. Thought I might be missing something that was obvious...

1. It was a rough estimate as Riviera is much smaller than either resort
2. Riviera has 300 not 489 rooms
3. SSR has 888 rooms (so yes 33% not 20%)
4. AKL+AKV are one massive resort and has 458 Villas in addition to 972 cash rooms for a total of 1430 rooms (20% like I guessed)
5. In the end if you walk on the grounds there is no way you consider RIV "large" in comparison to the grounds for either AKV or SSR which are sprawling. SSR is right about one mile from the DS side to the Treehouse side and if you walked indoors from the farther part of Kidani to Jambo you are looking at roughly 0.75 of a mile. Flip side Riviera is housed in a building that measures just 0.20 of a mile walking end to end inside the building from the farthest reaches.

So I was more so just calling out that Riviera is considered the smallest resort on property. Where as AKV and SSR are considered to be 2 of the largest both in room capacity and the physical size of the resorts. In no way would I consider Riviera large which is part of the draw for some of us we like the smaller resort feel.

 

[KTownRaider]

It was a rough estimate as Riviera is much smaller than either resort

Cool- Thanks for the additional context... I didn't account for AKL's cash side- fair enough.

For clarification so we're talking apples to apples, I was taking max possible units (dedicated plus lockoff) from the charts below to help get the math equal 20% (figured using SSR's 1320 (see below) as the denominator would help drive RIV to a smaller %).

But going by purely units, SSR does have 888 and RIV has 341 (taken from chart below) so about 38%. Again- not a big deal- just that 20% in your initial post struck me as I didn't think RIV was nearly that small room-count wise. Point taken that it is much smaller than AKL/SSR...

 

[Sandisw]

Just curious on this point regarding 20% of AKV or SSR capacity. RIV is the 4th largest WDW DVC resort in number of points:

SSR-14M
OKW- 7.6M
AKL- 7.4M
RIV- 6.7M

What am I missing?

It takes more points to stay at RIV so you do need to take that into consideration.

OKW has almost twice as many rooms as RIV, but has almost 1 million less points.