Home Resort Premium: How much does it cost and is it worth it?

[PlutoNotThePlanet]

A common maxim here is “buy where you want to stay” which is important advice for someone who must have a specific resort and unit type in peak seasons. The home resort booking advantage allows owners to book at the 11-month mark and snag in-demand reservations. Others are content to have “Sleep Around Points” (SAP), contracts with low upfront costs and cheap dues that they never use at their home resort, but instead book other resorts at the 7-month mark. But how big exactly is the gap between the SAP contract and one at the preferred Home Resort, both in terms of upfront cost but also dues over the life of the contract?

In this post I attempt to calculate the Home Resort Premium, the price paid above SAP, on a per-point and a per-reservation (a week in each unit size) basis.

• The Home Resort Premium by Point is the cumulative cost per point paid in upfront costs and membership dues over the time horizon considered (5, 10, or 17 years) vs buying the most economical SAP contract.
• The Home Resort Premium (Weekly) is the additional cost someone would pay for a 1-week stay in their home resort using their home resort points vs. the same stay booked with the most economical SAP contract. This is reported as the per-week cost but is in fact spread over the time horizon considered (5, 10, or 17 years)

I was inspired by and heavily built upon @ehh 's Most Economical Resort - Beyond Year 1, so I will refer to that thread often. That analysis was in turn inspired by @CastAStone 's post on considering the discount rates and time value of money when valuing contracts.

Home Resort Premium Tables
Here is a link to a Google Sheet containing many tables computing the Home Resort Premium for different time horizons, unit sizes, and two unit “views”.

Google Sheet - DVC Home Resort Premium

There are four sheets:

• Premium by Point: This shows the Home Resort Premium by Point for each resort, compared to a SAP contract. Aulani Subsidized is the most economical contract and used throughout the entire sheet as our SAP choice. However, Saratoga Springs is very close and could be easily substituted without much changing.
• Years 1-5, Years 1-10, Years 1-17 show the same analysis over different time scales. This matches @ehh ’s thread and incorporates dues growth projections. I would recommend picking one time horizon (Years 1-10) and just looking at that.
  • On each sheet are 10 tables, 5 on the left and 5 on the right. The 5 on the left consider the cheapest view category for each unit size type (each in a separate table. The 5 on the right consider the average view (weighted by room inventory) for each unit size type. If you want to use your 11-month booking window to get the cheapest possible room, then look on the left. If you don’t care or prefer a more expensive view type, the right tables may be more your style.

Here is an example of one table (Years 1-5, Cheapest view, Studio):

• In each table, you can see the points required to book an average week at a resort, and the cost of a single week in dollars using both your home resort points or SAP points. This cost includes the amortized upfront cost as well as the dues projection (averaged over time horizon).
• The Home Resort Premium is simply the difference between the two cost columns to the left of it. This is the cost of the Home Resort booking advantage per week stay. The table should be sorted by this column from lowest premium to highest. Some resorts don’t have a premium as they have resale booking restrictions.
• The color coded availability column shows how hard it is to book that unit size at the 7-month mark on average throughout the year. Red (0) is very hard or impossible to book, and green (7) is easy, all dates are available.

If you are looking to purchase a DVC resale contract, this should give you some hard numbers on how difficult it may be to book the unit size you want at that resort at 7 months, and also the costs you are paying with a contract there versus something like Aulani Subsidized or Saratoga Springs. As there is a lot of averaging involved here, if you have specific requirements (Bay Lake Tower Theme Park View Two Bedroom on NYE), you may want to recreate these numbers using those parameters for a more precise view.

General Observations:

• AUL-S and SSR are the obvious SAP candidates with VGF and CCV following. VGF is somewhat suspect as it has very low projected dues growth.
• I don’t think it ever makes sense to buy VB or HHI. Yes, the Beach Cottages can get a little harder to book, but the premium for VB over AUL-S is $3k-$5k per week!
• AKV, CCV, BLT, and VGF are all contracts with a fairly low premium where the cheapest studios and 2 bedrooms are hard to book. It may be worth paying that, but 1 Bedrooms and Grand Villas may be able to be booked at 7 months with SAP.
• The availability for the Average View rooms are much easier than the cheaper views. If you were going to book a more expensive view type anyways, I think it makes more sense to buy SAP.
• BWV, BCV, and VGC are generally harder to book and command a higher Home Resort Premium. This doesn’t seem to be as true for 1 Bedrooms though, meaning maybe SAP for those?
• I probably wouldn’t buy OKW unless you really wanted to get their Grand Villas.
• PVB doesn’t currently seem like a good deal as availability looks pretty good, but we will have to see how things shake out after the Tower has been in play for a while.
• Other than the previously mentioned VB Beach Cottages, all of the other large/special room types look fairly easy to book, so there’s no reason to pay a quite large premium over SAP.

I’d love to hear if these availability metrics matches your experiences, and if this way of thinking about the Home Resort Premium makes sense!

Notes:
The questions I wanted to answer are:

1. How much does it cost, on a per-point basis, to buy at my preferred resort instead of the most economical contract?
2. How hard is it to book that home resort at the 7-month mark? If it is hard, then a home resort contract might be needed to get a reservation I the unit size I want.
3. How much extra am I paying (Home Resort Premium) for this booking advantage, and is that worth it to me?

Point Costs
The point costs are taken from @ehh ’s thread, and incorporate the current resale (or direct) pricing for each contract, a discount rate of 5%, and projected dues. The time horizons I include (5, 10, or 17 years) match those presented there, with the 17 year span ending in 2041, prior to several resorts’ deed expiration date. Note that the point costs are the cumulative cost for the points, not an annual cost. For more info, please read this thread.

Cost for a Week Stay
To book a the 11 month mark, we have to consider the home resort point charts. As these are different, it makes sense to fold them in to the calculation and standardize around an average 1-week stay, as in @ehh ’s thread. I use the same points per week for each resort as calculated there, which are averaged across the seasons. The points costs are then multiplied by the home resort point cost or the SAP contract point cost. The Home Resort Premium is the difference of the two.

Availability Data
I used DVC Field Guide's Availability Tables to get the average availability at the 7 month mark for each unit type (both size and view). In each of the main unit size categories (Studio, 1 Bedroom, 2 Bedroom, Grand Villa, Cababungahouse) I calculate Availability for Cheapest view and Average view room.

• Cheapest is the lowest room of that size on the point chart, for example Standard View at Bay Lake Tower.
• Average is the weighted average of all view types using the room inventory for each resort.

Availability is expressed as a number between 0 and 7, where 7 is easy to book and all days are available, and lower numbers indicate some tightness in the schedule.

Limitations:

• I wanted some sort of simple metric of Booking Advantage / Premium to get a unit cost for the booking advantage. But I was unable to find a satisfactory metric or way to explain that.
• All of the limitations in @ehh ’s thread apply here as well. Dues could rise at different rates than projections, or the discount rate may not be the best choice.
• This basically compares someone who only uses their points at their home resort, versus someone who has the most economical SAP contract. Most people may be somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.
• Availability averages over seasons obscure some peak seasons with low availability. It might be good to present a version of this just within a peak travel window to showcase where home resort booking can shine.
• Availability data on PVB with Tower and VDH is limited.
• Resorts with resale restrictions do not have a (Weekly) Home Resort Premium computed as they can’t be booked with resale SAP contracts. I could have compared them to a direct SAP contract or compared direct to resale, but those are different metrics and I didn’t want to mix that in.
• Transient taxes are not included for stays at VDH and AUL and maybe should be in the future.
• Presenting 3 time horizons and 2 view calculations for each unit size type is a bit much, and I would like to simplify this a bit.

Apologies in advance for maybe being overly wordy and complex and for any mistakes I may have made!

 

[PlutoNotThePlanet]

[Reserving a second post for further images/charts if needed]

 

[Sandisw]

Wow! That is great data for someone who is looking to buy and isn’t sure if they have a preference or not!

It is very important to us so we do own where we want to be…but we do have 300 SSR points bought for SAP to either replace nights still available at our preferred resorts, or to upgrade room size!

I am sure this will help people,

 

[PlutoNotThePlanet]

Wow! That is great data for someone who is looking to buy and isn’t sure if they have a preference or not!

Yes and I think if you have multiple preferences for a home resort advantage, it can help rank them. I was very interested in BLT or PVB but this exercise is making me reconsider VGF and CCV for the MK area based on long terms premium.

 

[zavandor]

I think it would be useful to add a line for AKV standard, BWV garden and BLT Lake. The value/standards at those resorts are very competitive at 11 months and there's no guarantee, even at 11 months, to be able to get one.

 

[RoseGold]

A lot of bad assumptions here at least for my buy, which is why I have mostly SAP.

Contract Length. I don't plan on going for 17 years, I am never going as a solo adult. I have a relatively short window when I have small kids. So, the long run analysis matters a lot less to me, and it's a whole lot less predictable, which is obvious even from when I did the math 10 years ago. The further out, the worse the predictions look.

The wild changes in cash bookings and dues over 10 years made my old math useless. It happened to work in my favor because Disney cash bookings went up so much, but it could have swung dues instead.

Booking availability. I book mostly 1BRs, which are the most point-heavy and thus the easiest bookings in the system. Rooms are not equal in this system, and I don't need home resort to book what I want. That makes it worthless to me. If you want club level AK or the cheapest rooms, then yes, maybe that's worth a premium. Even then, I can make 1BR math work with SAP over those rooms, which I couldn't do 10 years ago. And even then, you can miss out on these rooms, so you paid more for nothing.

Swolphin. Swolphin is always missing from these calculations, which I find a deadly oversight. Right now, June Dolphin is $250/night. Zero risk, zero real estate mess. There is nothing in the DVC system that matches this flexibility and cost. I book 1BRs, but if I booked studios, I would have a difficult time arguing almost any DVC studio over this booking.

 

[PlutoNotThePlanet]

I think it would be useful to add a line for AKV standard, BWV garden and BLT Lake. The value/standards at those resorts are very competitive at 11 months and there's no guarantee, even at 11 months, to be able to get one.

I don't have the numbers available for every room type just yet, but these are factored into the "Average" view analysis. I can work on adding the numbers for all room types and maybe keep them in a separate sheet, as it may get unwieldy.

On your note about difficulty at 11 months -- I have only presented the availability data at the 7-month mark, sort of assuming that if you pay the Home Resort Premium you will be able to get the room you want at the 11 month mark. This is obviously not always true. Do you think there is some better metric to measure the Home Resort booking advantage for these competitive rooms at 11 months, like (11 Month Availability - 7 Month Availability)?

Contract Length. I don't plan on going for 17 years, I am never going as a solo adult. I have a relatively short window when I have small kids. So, the long run analysis matters a lot less to me, and it's a whole lot less predictable, which is obvious even from when I did the math 10 years ago. The further out, the worse the predictions look.

Can you expand a bit more on this? Do the Years 1-5 or Years 1-10 analysis work for your use case?

The wild changes in cash bookings and dues over 10 years made my old math useless. It happened to work in my favor because Disney cash bookings went up so much, but it could have swung dues instead.

Swolphin. Swolphin is always missing from these calculations, which I find a deadly oversight. Right now, June Dolphin is $250/night. Zero risk, zero real estate mess. There is nothing in the DVC system that matches this flexibility and cost. I book 1BRs, but if I booked studios, I would have a difficult time arguing almost any DVC studio over this booking.

I agree that prospective buyers should probably consider cash bookings at all properties they are willing to stay at. As you say, this is fundamentally different than a real estate transaction, so I don't want to put them in the same table. If there is good data on nightly rates across the year, you could compute the average rate and compare directly to the "$/Wk/Yr" columns in the tables to compare to DVC. But let's say it's $250/nt = $1750/wk. This is cheaper than several DVC options in the Years 1-5 table, although not something like AKV, SSR, or OKW.

Booking availability. I book mostly 1BRs, which are the most point-heavy and thus the easiest bookings in the system. Rooms are not equal in this system, and I don't need home resort to book what I want. That makes it worthless to me. If you want club level AK or the cheapest rooms, then yes, maybe that's worth a premium. Even then, I can make 1BR math work with SAP over those rooms, which I couldn't do 10 years ago. And even then, you can miss out on these rooms, so you paid more for nothing.

Definitely, and I think the 1 BR tables look very favorable for SAP contracts.

 

[Bo1203]

Swolphin. Swolphin is always missing from these calculations, which I find a deadly oversight. Right now, June Dolphin is $250/night. Zero risk, zero real estate mess. There is nothing in the DVC system that matches this flexibility and cost. I book 1BRs, but if I booked studios, I would have a difficult time arguing almost any DVC studio over this booking.

Agreed, this is the first place I check for a cash booking. Don’t forget to account for parking and resort fees. Swolphin prices vary wildly throughout the year.

Swolphin was my main comp when we ran the numbers. We found it often in the mid $300s after resort fee. Fomo of experiencing the other resorts, multiple quotes of $600+ per night for double beds, and the fact cash prices have risen faster than dues ultimately sealed our decision to buy.

 

[tom1944]

Agreed, this is the first place I check for a cash booking. Don’t forget to account for parking and resort fees. Swolphin prices vary wildly throughout the year.

Swolphin was my main comp when we ran the numbers. We found it often in the mid $300s after resort fee. Fomo of experiencing the other resorts, multiple quotes of $600+ per night for double beds, and the fact cash prices have risen faster than dues ultimately sealed our decision to buy.

I purchased a DVC resale contract, but I expect over time I will use Swolphin occasionally instead of buying a second contract.

Most likely Swolphin, a cruise and a stay at Universal will tie in to using our points in some type of rotation.

 

[RoseGold]

Can you expand a bit more on this? Do the Years 1-5 or Years 1-10 analysis work for your use case?

When I did the math 10 years ago, my comps were my actual stays. Pop at $175 and AoA suite at $250-$300.

It happens that DVC dues have stayed pretty flat (except VB!) and the cash rooms have gone through the roof. That's not because of my brilliance, that's luck. If that AoA suite were still $300, DVC would have been a terrible buy.

The math is good in the short run, and should hold a few years. But in the long run, you are compounding the most important number, which is a straight up guess: the rate of increase of dues. Honestly, dues could go through the roof, just like the cash rooms did, or some random resort could go through the roof for no clear reason. Changing the dues assumption can easily flip the math that far out, against cash rooms and against other DVC choices.

 

[MerlinandtheMouse]

When I did the math 10 years ago, my comps were my actual stays. Pop at $175 and AoA suite at $250-$300.

It happens that DVC dues have stayed pretty flat (except VB!) and the cash rooms have gone through the roof. That's not because of my brilliance, that's luck. If that AoA suite were still $300, DVC would have been a terrible buy.

The math is good in the short run, and should hold a few years. But in the long run, you are compounding the most important number, which is a straight up guess: the rate of increase of dues. Honestly, dues could go through the roof, just like the cash rooms did, or some random resort could go through the roof for no clear reason. Changing the dues assumption can easily flip the math that far out, against cash rooms and against other DVC choices.

Idk I wouldn’t say it’s just luck. TWDC has nearly full control of their pricing and it’s clearly in their best interest to keep that balance tipped towards DVC. It wouldn’t do them any good to make cash prices and DVC dues come close so I think DVC will always maintain a decent advantage over their hotel side rooms. Doesn’t mean prices won’t rise to ridiculous numbers all around, but both sides will do so pretty steadily. If dues sky rocket, surely the cost of maintaining cash side rooms will, as well.

 

[Mirabell Rose]

A great analysis. Thank you for pulling all of this together. I have been looking at adding this week and have been asking SAP or home resort. Last night I went to pull up early May to show my husband what was available at the 7 month mark, and I was shocked there was so many options not available. Do you think this is typical?

 

[havoc315]

A common maxim here is “buy where you want to stay” which is important advice for someone who must have a specific resort and unit type in peak seasons. The home resort booking advantage allows owners to book at the 11-month mark and snag in-demand reservations. Others are content to have “Sleep Around Points” (SAP), contracts with low upfront costs and cheap dues that they never use at their home resort, but instead book other resorts at the 7-month mark. But how big exactly is the gap between the SAP contract and one at the preferred Home Resort, both in terms of upfront cost but also dues over the life of the contract?

In this post I attempt to calculate the Home Resort Premium, the price paid above SAP, on a per-point and a per-reservation (a week in each unit size) basis.

• The Home Resort Premium by Point is the cumulative cost per point paid in upfront costs and membership dues over the time horizon considered (5, 10, or 17 years) vs buying the most economical SAP contract.
• The Home Resort Premium (Weekly) is the additional cost someone would pay for a 1-week stay in their home resort using their home resort points vs. the same stay booked with the most economical SAP contract. This is reported as the per-week cost but is in fact spread over the time horizon considered (5, 10, or 17 years)

I was inspired by and heavily built upon @ehh 's Most Economical Resort - Beyond Year 1, so I will refer to that thread often. That analysis was in turn inspired by @CastAStone 's post on considering the discount rates and time value of money when valuing contracts.

Home Resort Premium Tables
Here is a link to a Google Sheet containing many tables computing the Home Resort Premium for different time horizons, unit sizes, and two unit “views”.

Google Sheet - DVC Home Resort Premium

There are four sheets:

• Premium by Point: This shows the Home Resort Premium by Point for each resort, compared to a SAP contract. Aulani Subsidized is the most economical contract and used throughout the entire sheet as our SAP choice. However, Saratoga Springs is very close and could be easily substituted without much changing.
• Years 1-5, Years 1-10, Years 1-17 show the same analysis over different time scales. This matches @ehh ’s thread and incorporates dues growth projections. I would recommend picking one time horizon (Years 1-10) and just looking at that.
  • On each sheet are 10 tables, 5 on the left and 5 on the right. The 5 on the left consider the cheapest view category for each unit size type (each in a separate table. The 5 on the right consider the average view (weighted by room inventory) for each unit size type. If you want to use your 11-month booking window to get the cheapest possible room, then look on the left. If you don’t care or prefer a more expensive view type, the right tables may be more your style.

Here is an example of one table (Years 1-5, Cheapest view, Studio):
View attachment 919554

• In each table, you can see the points required to book an average week at a resort, and the cost of a single week in dollars using both your home resort points or SAP points. This cost includes the amortized upfront cost as well as the dues projection (averaged over time horizon).
• The Home Resort Premium is simply the difference between the two cost columns to the left of it. This is the cost of the Home Resort booking advantage per week stay. The table should be sorted by this column from lowest premium to highest. Some resorts don’t have a premium as they have resale booking restrictions.
• The color coded availability column shows how hard it is to book that unit size at the 7-month mark on average throughout the year. Red (0) is very hard or impossible to book, and green (7) is easy, all dates are available.

If you are looking to purchase a DVC resale contract, this should give you some hard numbers on how difficult it may be to book the unit size you want at that resort at 7 months, and also the costs you are paying with a contract there versus something like Aulani Subsidized or Saratoga Springs. As there is a lot of averaging involved here, if you have specific requirements (Bay Lake Tower Theme Park View Two Bedroom on NYE), you may want to recreate these numbers using those parameters for a more precise view.

General Observations:

• AUL-S and SSR are the obvious SAP candidates with VGF and CCV following. VGF is somewhat suspect as it has very low projected dues growth.
• I don’t think it ever makes sense to buy VB or HHI. Yes, the Beach Cottages can get a little harder to book, but the premium for VB over AUL-S is $3k-$5k per week!
• AKV, CCV, BLT, and VGF are all contracts with a fairly low premium where the cheapest studios and 2 bedrooms are hard to book. It may be worth paying that, but 1 Bedrooms and Grand Villas may be able to be booked at 7 months with SAP.
• The availability for the Average View rooms are much easier than the cheaper views. If you were going to book a more expensive view type anyways, I think it makes more sense to buy SAP.
• BWV, BCV, and VGC are generally harder to book and command a higher Home Resort Premium. This doesn’t seem to be as true for 1 Bedrooms though, meaning maybe SAP for those?
• I probably wouldn’t buy OKW unless you really wanted to get their Grand Villas.
• PVB doesn’t currently seem like a good deal as availability looks pretty good, but we will have to see how things shake out after the Tower has been in play for a while.
• Other than the previously mentioned VB Beach Cottages, all of the other large/special room types look fairly easy to book, so there’s no reason to pay a quite large premium over SAP.

I’d love to hear if these availability metrics matches your experiences, and if this way of thinking about the Home Resort Premium makes sense!

Notes:
The questions I wanted to answer are:

1. How much does it cost, on a per-point basis, to buy at my preferred resort instead of the most economical contract?
2. How hard is it to book that home resort at the 7-month mark? If it is hard, then a home resort contract might be needed to get a reservation I the unit size I want.
3. How much extra am I paying (Home Resort Premium) for this booking advantage, and is that worth it to me?

Point Costs
The point costs are taken from @ehh ’s thread, and incorporate the current resale (or direct) pricing for each contract, a discount rate of 5%, and projected dues. The time horizons I include (5, 10, or 17 years) match those presented there, with the 17 year span ending in 2041, prior to several resorts’ deed expiration date. Note that the point costs are the cumulative cost for the points, not an annual cost. For more info, please read this thread.

Cost for a Week Stay
To book a the 11 month mark, we have to consider the home resort point charts. As these are different, it makes sense to fold them in to the calculation and standardize around an average 1-week stay, as in @ehh ’s thread. I use the same points per week for each resort as calculated there, which are averaged across the seasons. The points costs are then multiplied by the home resort point cost or the SAP contract point cost. The Home Resort Premium is the difference of the two.

Availability Data
I used DVC Field Guide's Availability Tables to get the average availability at the 7 month mark for each unit type (both size and view). In each of the main unit size categories (Studio, 1 Bedroom, 2 Bedroom, Grand Villa, Cababungahouse) I calculate Availability for Cheapest view and Average view room.

• Cheapest is the lowest room of that size on the point chart, for example Standard View at Bay Lake Tower.
• Average is the weighted average of all view types using the room inventory for each resort.

Availability is expressed as a number between 0 and 7, where 7 is easy to book and all days are available, and lower numbers indicate some tightness in the schedule.

Limitations:

• I wanted some sort of simple metric of Booking Advantage / Premium to get a unit cost for the booking advantage. But I was unable to find a satisfactory metric or way to explain that.
• All of the limitations in @ehh ’s thread apply here as well. Dues could rise at different rates than projections, or the discount rate may not be the best choice.
• This basically compares someone who only uses their points at their home resort, versus someone who has the most economical SAP contract. Most people may be somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.
• Availability averages over seasons obscure some peak seasons with low availability. It might be good to present a version of this just within a peak travel window to showcase where home resort booking can shine.
• Availability data on PVB with Tower and VDH is limited.
• Resorts with resale restrictions do not have a (Weekly) Home Resort Premium computed as they can’t be booked with resale SAP contracts. I could have compared them to a direct SAP contract or compared direct to resale, but those are different metrics and I didn’t want to mix that in.
• Transient taxes are not included for stays at VDH and AUL and maybe should be in the future.
• Presenting 3 time horizons and 2 view calculations for each unit size type is a bit much, and I would like to simplify this a bit.

Apologies in advance for maybe being overly wordy and complex and for any mistakes I may have made!

Wow, hard work and impressive... but of less and less relevance as we move forward. You already have 3 resorts grayed out for resale restrictions, and this will only increase further.

So SAP with re-sale contracts will gradually become less and less of a thing. Come 2042, resale SAP will only likely be valid at about half the resorts or less.

A valuable question is SAP by direct, but there you should expect to see lesser differences in pricing. But for example, is it better to buy direct at POLY to sleep around at high dues cabins... etc.

 

[Sprinkles&Sprints]

Agreed, this is the first place I check for a cash booking. Don’t forget to account for parking and resort fees. Swolphin prices vary wildly throughout the year.

Swolphin was my main comp when we ran the numbers. We found it often in the mid $300s after resort fee. Fomo of experiencing the other resorts, multiple quotes of $600+ per night for double beds, and the fact cash prices have risen faster than dues ultimately sealed our decision to buy.

Swanphin was my benchmark as well - when we used to travel during the summer the DVC math never worked - not even close. Once we added a December trip, the spread wasn’t nearly as wide. Add in Marriott’s dynamic pricing and it no longer was a sure thing.

But ultimately what sealed the deal for us was my DD asking to stay at some of the WDW properties. Given how often we go and my absolute refusal to pay rack rates, I caved

I’m also worried that the additional conference space @ the Dolphin will mean there are fewer times of the year when they aren’t overrun with conference goers…and higher prices. Or at least that’s what I tell myself!

 

[Cfabar1]

Swolphin. Swolphin is always missing from these calculations, which I find a deadly oversight. Right now, June Dolphin is $250/night. Zero risk, zero real estate mess. There is nothing in the DVC system that matches this flexibility and cost. I book 1BRs, but if I booked studios, I would have a difficult time arguing almost any DVC studio over this booking.

This cannot be overstated... especially for those who are doing studios and are not bringing a car especially! Add into it the many ways you can lower your Swolphin costs even more so with Marriott, Amex FHR, etc. We would have never bought DVC to stay studios....

Specific to this discussion is the issue as well with the BWV studios... The standard view rooms cannot even be had easily... and there is such a large supply of rooms in the Crescent Lake area... I'm convinced this is one of the reasons why BWV rooms are cheaper than say Contemporary or Grand Floridian.

 

[teamsamant]

Initial post is awesome. Great information. Supports the concept that if you want certain rooms you will need to buy DVC at that resort, really supports the BCV studio theory.

The Dolphin is a dump, not even remotely comparable to anything in DVC. It's become a run down Marriot property filled with random companies having conferences there. Those cheapest rooms there are double beds facing a wall externally. No balcony, little Disney, small bed, conference guests.....come on there's no comparison. The only Marriot property worth staying at is Swan Reserve (and those aren't $250 or close to it).

 

[BeachClub2014]

Initial post is awesome. Great information. Supports the concept that if you want certain rooms you will need to buy DVC at that resort, really supports the BCV studio theory.

The Dolphin is a dump, not even remotely comparable to anything in DVC. It's become a run down Marriot property filled with random companies having conferences there. Those cheapest rooms there are double beds facing a wall externally. No balcony, little Disney, small bed, conference guests.....come on there's no comparison. The only Marriot property worth staying at is Swan Reserve (and those aren't $250 or close to it).

100%

I hope you're wearing flame-retardant jammies because this flies in the face of the well-established DISBoard "fact" that Swolphin is clearly a better use of dollars than any of us rubes who purchased points at BWV or BCV. I've read here often that you can get excellent rates at Swolphin and that the location, amenities, and rooms are on par, if not superior, to the surrounding DVC resorts.

 

[teamsamant]

Rooms = Nowhere near the 1brs or studios i book at BCV. Nowhere close.

Food - Not on par.

Crowds - overcrowded in the food areas.

Resort Amenities- Not close. Pool better, holiday decorations, lobby , TV in lobby for kids, on site charecter breakfast, there's more but that's enough.

Transportation- All i have to say is TTC. That's it. Clear win.

Clientele- I'm not looking forward to navigating my family through a bunch of suits and khaki with name tags when I'm trying to grab lunch on vacation.

Price is a push, with inflation probably worse.

Assuming the room is 300/night, DVC BCV around 14k for 115 points. Plus the dues = 30k for the life on the contract. 17 weeks in a studio. Dolphin comes out to 35k with no inflation.

So yeah I'm not staying at a dump for 17 consecutive years for the same price.

 

[atthebeachclub]

100%

I hope you're wearing flame-retardant jammies because this flies in the face of the well-established DISBoard "fact" that Swolphin is clearly a better use of dollars than any of us rubes who purchased points at BWV or BCV. I've read here often that you can get excellent rates at Swolphin and that the location, amenities, and rooms are on par, if not superior, to the surrounding DVC resorts.

This thread prompted me to price out a Swan or Dolphin alternative for my summer trip with just one kid and I. Even if I valued my points at the very highest dollar amounts ($23/pt) to account for the time value of money on my purchased contracts (they aren’t really valued this high overall), at this point in time I still save money with DVC, and I have a better cancellation policy.

 

[Sprinkles&Sprints]

Rooms = Nowhere near the 1brs or studios i book at BCV. Nowhere close.

Food - Not on par.

Crowds - overcrowded in the food areas.

Resort Amenities- Not close. Pool better, holiday decorations, lobby , TV in lobby for kids, on site charecter breakfast, there's more but that's enough.

Transportation- All i have to say is TTC. That's it. Clear win.

Clientele- I'm not looking forward to navigating my family through a bunch of suits and khaki with name tags when I'm trying to grab lunch on vacation.

Price is a push, with inflation probably worse.

Assuming the room is 300/night, DVC BCV around 14k for 115 points. Plus the dues = 30k for the life on the contract. 17 weeks in a studio. Dolphin comes out to 35k with no inflation.

So yeah I'm not staying at a dump for 17 consecutive years for the same price.

I loathe the Dolphin - it was always my last ‘resort’ - so I don’t disagree with most of what you said above.

But last August I saw rates of $215 p/n inclusive of tax/resort fee for the Reserve (I personally paid $250 including tax/resort fee in June + voucher for $30 p/d for breakfast given status)…so it is absolutely possible. Whether or not all that is worth it is obviously a personal decision but our room was gorgeous and hands down the best WDW view I’ve ever had (and at this point I’ve stayed at all properties except Coronado, OKW and SSR).

Also - and this may not be worth much for some - but in the rare instances I’ve had a problem with my room at the Swan/Dolphin/Reserve, the GMs and team have rectified it almost immediately. We’ve been onsite during power outages, hurricanes, etc - and I’ve always felt that they strived to punch above their weight class. I wish I could say the same for Disney…but it has consistently been inconsistent.