How far in advance do you have to make DVC ressies?

[DonnaDavid]

Hi,

Buying into DVC is not in my immediate future, but I was wondering how hard it is to get ressies. I usually don't know my schedule until about 6 months in advance, and we usually visit WDW during school vacations. Will I have availability problems?

Thanks for any info,
Donna

 

[Pa@okw95]

You may make reservations on the day you arrive up to 11 months out. While I would not recommend walking into a DVC resort and saying do you have any rooms available, it is possible, no rule against it. On the other end of the spectrum you can not go beyond 11 months out to make them.

 

[CarolMN]

Originally posted by DonnaDavid
Hi,

Buying into DVC is not in my immediate future, but I was wondering how hard it is to get ressies. I usually don't know my schedule until about 6 months in advance, and we usually visit WDW during school vacations. Will I have availability problems?

Thanks for any info,
Donna

If you cannot make a reservation until about 6 months ahead of time, you will probably encounter problems if you plan to vacation during the two weeks surrounding Easter or the Christmas/New Year Holiday weeks. President's week as well as the other "holiday" weeks may also be a problem, but are not usually quite so difficult to book as the other times.

The summer months are fairly easy to book in that time frame, especially if you are flexible with your dates and choice of resort.

DVC does have a waitlist process. Many members use it successfully. However, if you need to make airline and car rental reservations quite a bit ahead of time to get a good rate, using the waitlist adds a lot of stress to yor planning.

IMHO, DVC works best for those who can plan 10 - 11 months ahead of time. OTOH, there are those who say they are successful at getting last minute reservations. I think they ae lucky - and one shouldn't count on getting lucky on a regular basis.

Best wishes -

 

[BillPA]

You can 'take your best guess' at the 11 month point. Then as you know exectly when you can go, adjust your reservation with MS. You can make changes, just keep in mind the banking and cancelation rules if you end up using less points than you originally reserved.

 

[Doug Wolfe]

Your only problem will be as to which resort you choose during busy times.

If you go when it is real busy, you may have a harder time getting into BCV, VWL or BWV, since they are the smaller DVC resorts. Most times of the year, Christmas-New Years week a big exception, you should be able to get into OKW and eventually SSR when it is complete. They are considerably larger resorts and will have more rooms.

 

[leanne2255]

We typically do not know when we'll be able to get time off for a trip. I just booked for an early June trip, and while I did not get my first resort of choice, I was able to secure a reservation at another resort. Last year I booked in July for a Nov trip during the F&W festival, and again, no problems with getting a reservation. As other posters have stated, holiday times would be a different matter.

 

[kramer_clan]

I called at exactly 11 months out and called every other day to secure the dates that I wanted for this June. I needed to take the standard view 2 bedroom villa at Boardwalk because of points. We wanted to stretch our three years worth of points out as far as we could. We have 17 nights booked and I started the reservation on Sunday to only go through two weekends. There is not that many standard view rooms at the Boardwalk, so I wanted to book at my first available window.

My sister and brother in law rented points for the first week we are there. They were not able to get a standard view studio, they had to rent more points for a preferred view. They rented this in early February for June 20-25th stay.

Vicki

 

[doc hog]

In my family the dates for our trip are the most important. So we call 11 months out and called every other day to secure the dates that we need.