Help me think this through....many at one or few at many

[Brian Noble]

This will probably color my answer, but: I am not a split stay fan. It's one thing to have a day tacked on one end--particularly for an arrival night that is on the later side--but I like being able to stay put.

Anyway, I'd echo the advice of "have enough for a healthy stay at your first resort in your preferred unit type before diversifying."

 

[Cfabar1]

This will probably color my answer, but: I am not a split stay fan. It's one thing to have a day tacked on one end--particularly for an arrival night that is on the later side--but I like being able to stay put.

Agreed… and, while in my graduate student days, and earlier in my life I would frequently go through that kind of “optimization” for the late night plane arrival for example, I’m past that now… the extra few dollars isn’t worth it to me anymore…

 

[Chili327]

Yeahhh we did a 2-3-2 once and it was.. fine I guess because we were all adults and lived out of our luggage but I'd hate to do that with kids. I think going forward we're going to do 3-4 or 4-3

Do you always do 7 nights per trip?

My most common is Sat - Sun (8 nights), but I’m thinking I might rather get more mid-week (Tues, Wed, Thurs) park days, so maybe going Sun through the following Fri, getting more mid-week parks days and less weekend days, but that changes from 8 nights to like 12. lol

 

[intamin]

Do you always do 7 nights per trip?

My most common is Sat - Sun (8 nights), but I’m thinking I might rather get more mid-week (Tues, Wed, Thurs) park days, so maybe going Sun through the following Fri, getting more mid-week parks days and less weekend days, but that changes from 8 nights to like 12. lol

We like doing Saturday to Saturday which is why unfortunately I don't see us using the FW that often. Leaving Saturday means we don't have to rush to the airport after work and also spares us from the cost of a weekend night for one night and leaving the following Saturday also spares us another weekend night and gives us a day to recover being going back to work so yes our normal is Saturday to Saturday for 7 nights

 

[Genie+]

I wanted to chime in on this, because I now have a little more experience and wonder what my next “point move” should be.


AKV - 39 (good for 2 nights a year)
BWV - 100 (good for the majority of our trip)
BLT - 161 (use as SAP* to upgrade or add days)
-
VGC - 75 (untouchable)




Trying to plan like this sounds like a dream, unfortunately I just seem to have commitment issues. lol

I really like starting my trip on the savanna for a couple nights (may be part of the problem, you’ll see later), then LOVE the boardwalk for the bulk of the trip, but from there is where it gets messy &/or confusing. We just did this exact trip ending with a couple nights at BLT, but I’m not sold on staying at BLT each time, so my thought is to use it for random other resorts to finish off the trip, BUT I’m torn between just staying at Boardwalk longer vs the trying other places for only a couple nights… after really utilizing the kitchen for the first time I get the hassle of switching to another resort, as I sit here looking at space mountain from a theme park view at BLT it’s nice, but my bags are all packed there isn’t much in the fridge or cupboards, etc.

The best laid plans lol. Things were fine until we decided >2 people in a studio no longer works. Threw the whole plan off. Before that BW was getting good mileage with only 50pts and 150pts VGF was plenty. After doing 2 trips with twin studios and our next in a 1BR, I’m less sure of where we go from here*.

I don’t prefer split stays but find it’s not bad if at least 3 nights each resort or at least one large block of nights in one place, and bonus points when a MK/EP resort split so the park access offsets the inconvenience.

I also prefer not to both bank/borrow on the same reservation since that leaves less flexibility to salvage a change in plans.

I guess I’m just wondering if I should do less splits stays and focus on certain resorts for longer, like bank and borrow my AKV and try staying longer, (we usually do about 8 nights total per trip) so start doing AKV for 4, BWV for 4, and during years when bank or borrow AKV points are unavailable, switch it up to new resorts based on whatever is available using BLT points?

Hmm, this is tricky.

Do you like mixing 2 or 3 nights AKV into most trips?

Would you like some trips where you do not move at all? Or do you ever feel 8 nights is too long at one resort?

Is there any pattern to how you book studios and 1BRs? Are you ever intentionally mixing them on the same trip?

TL;DR
I need and want to try more/other resorts, but getting stuck on my favs and afraid of owning too many resorts (small contracts) for not enough vacation time


Also, I didn’t mention above, but how do you determine what your “dues budget” should be?

As far as dues budget I aim to keep it easy to swing on a monthly basis. Right now double would still be comfortable. Triple is where we’d feel pain noticing that monthly bill. My limit is staying under that.

I may start another thread for this, but it kind of plays into the “how do you do it” question. Do you do some trips that are studio heavy and eat out more, then other trips that are more resort days utilizing the kitchen more or a little of both on each trip?

*It’s this next trip that I hope will help us decide the path forward. My guess is the VGF 1BR will change DH into wanting more of that in our future. Honestly that’s going to change our whole outlook.

For one, we’ll definitely keep running short on points. 1BRs would also mean our home resort might be less vital than when we were planning mostly studios. From there the decision would be lock in with adding more DVC points, or pivot to using bounceback offers for some of our 1BR trips so we don’t keep running out DVC points. I’m more confused than ever!!!

 

[Genie+]

Not sure how we got back here, but I find myself thinking I should have bought 50 more VGF points when I bought… and I should have not taken magical beginnings… Oh well! You live you learn….

^ So much this! I really want to kick myself We’d have 0 regrets if we made either or both of those choices.

We just didn’t know if we’d truly need/want more points. The biggest thing I’ve been guarded about with DVC is not having it over-prioritize beyond what we’d naturally choose otherwise. Not easy to measure, especially without knowing the future

For now I’m on a holding path until our trip in 78 days. We’ll be throwing 1BRs, club level, and bounceback offers into the mix. So now I’m contemplating mixing DVC with bouncebacks (can book up to 2 per adult from each WDW resvtn)…depending how those experiences play out.

Less commitment, more flexibility, not far off cost-wise when compared to point cost on 1BRs if we’re doing more of them now… and I have a feeling DH will want more Club Level which BB is by far best option there. What seemed two very different paths but maybe they ‘taste great together’?

We just can’t beat DVC for studios and 2 BRs. We love the perks. But DH struggles with booking 11 months out, or even 8 months out for that matter. He also loves booking shorter spontaneous trips (which actually means late Oct or Feb lol).

Maybe hybrid is the answer for us. Solves needing more points and opens a few more options. But first I need to see if my suspicion is correct about 1BR and CL, then see how easy/hard it is to manage using DVC and BB together.

 

[Genie+]

Do you always do 7 nights per trip?

My most common is Sat - Sun (8 nights), but I’m thinking I might rather get more mid-week (Tues, Wed, Thurs) park days, so maybe going Sun through the following Fri, getting more mid-week parks days and less weekend days, but that changes from 8 nights to like 12. lol

In this case try Tues - Fri. In a perfect world this is what I shoot for.

Crowd-wise Wed and Thursday almost always are the best park days in any given week, with Tuesday probably next in line after. Plus you’ll get 2 of the Wed EEH which is usually MK, and 1 on Monday which usually EP and 1 is likely enough.