How many of you always stay at home resort?

[bobbiwoz]

At 7 months, I moved my VWL trip to the Poly because I may not get the chance again, and I have a VWL trip scheduled for December.

I do not own at Aulani but did book 6 nights there in September. I am very happy with the resorts we own at, and usually book in the home resort advantage time.

In your case, in most cases it will be easier to book AKV at 7 months than to book BLT. Exceptions are value and concierge at AKV.

I promised my sister a 2 bedroom Savannah view at AKV for part of Jersey week, I booked that right at 11 months, I was not taking any chances.

 

[djohn06]

If you own an Epcot resort or monorail resort, I think your going to spend the majority of your stays at your home resort. I don't see many Epcot resort owners looking to stay at OKW, SSR or VWL.

AKV owners love AKV, but will split their stays at time. It is the best resort on property. Its location may not work for many, however.

 

[bumbershoot]

Is this common practice or harder than it seems.

Depends on when your trip is and where you want to stay.


We own at Bay Lake. We've stayed there exactly ZERO times. I've only ever made one reservation there, and it's one coming up in February. I made it because I want to stay there. I wouldn't make a reservation at a place I don't want to stay at; "switching" just means cancelling one and hoping the other one is still available, after all. I made this reservation because for this trip, if I take it, I want to stay there.

But we actually love some of the other resorts, which is why we've reserved there in the past. OKW is AMAZING, SSR is terrific. BWV is really awesome as well; the pool slide is fabulous enough that I don't even notice the clown (which I'm quite phobic about normally).

Using points at 7 months for OKW and SSR is often simple. If I owned at SSR and wanted to stay at popular times at BWV it would be harder! But going the way I go, I don't generally have issues.

 

[Missyrose]

We've bought at the three resorts we love staying at year after year (BWV, BLT and VGF). We usually stay at BWV each year and then alternate BLT and VGF for our second trip each year.

We've also stayed at AKV and BCV (with our next BCV stay coming up in less than a month!). We're hoping to try Poly in February and VWL is on our someday to-do list.

 

[JimC]

We rarely stay at OKW anymore, using that contract to stay at BLT, VGF, VWL and VB. With our other contracts (AKV, BCV and VGC), we almost always stay at the home resort.

 

[Gryhndmom]

Bought at BLT and have only stayed there mainly because we wanted to be on the monorail for wine and food festival and I had to have a villa with a bathtub. Have always booked 11mo out for our usual October timeframe since wine and food festival is becoming more popular.

 

[3 Hobbits 2 Disney]

We own SSR, and for the first 10 years we have stayed at SSR 10 times, AKV Savannah 1 time, BWV Standard 1 time, and we have an upcoming trip to OKW. With the exception of OKW both non-SSR trips were booked inside 7 month window. We plan to go back to SSR for the next-next trip to WDW. The on-line booking tool has made checking out resorts easier as a PP said. We bought where we want to stay, so we're quite happy to be home.

 

[ToddyLu]

Unfortunately ( DH would say fortunately) our one night at BLT, Halloween Night 2013...sealed my fate forever...we did not care for the resort at all and both breathed a huge sigh of relief pulling up to our home AKV the following day....DH said that would be our "one night away"....he is now a purist and my hope of visiting all the resorts with him is a mere dream...even now when I joke that I have gotten a studio elsewhere...I get the look...it isn't even fun to joke about it.

But I do love him and he does love WDW as much as me....who can complain...

My answer is now 99.99% Home Resort.

 

[DisneyfromDeland]

I own at BWV, AKV, and SSR. In my 2014 UY alone, I have stayed or will be staying at AKV, SSR, HHI, BWV, Poly, OKW, Vero, and BLT. Next year, I already have a stay booked at VWL at seven months. Trading at seven months is not impossible, it just depends on season. Last minute stays are not impossible either. Yesterday, I booked a room at BLT for tomorrow night. When we left HHI in June, we added a night at BWV while driving home on I-95. We live close and can take advantage of sudden openings. Our membership is the best thing we ever bought. We love AKV and BWV and I always book them first at 11 months and then grade if I want or can at 7 months, but I'm not sad if I have to stay there.

 

[Humphrey_Bear]

For us, we bought into VWL because it is our absolute fav resort and plan on spending the vast majority of our trips there. Having said that, being part of DVC enables us to maybe try other resorts that previously we had no interest in (or were priced out of - like the Poly).
In the past we could not see spending all that money, paying the cash rate for a week at a resort we may not like. But now since we would be staying on points, doesn't seem like as big of a deal. If we don't care for the resort, we're not out a big cash outlay.

 

[LSchrow]

Love my home resort. By the way, you'll notice that this is currently a lot of BWV owners that follow this pattern. Which is why BWV standard view is so hard to get at seven months.

as well as BW view
we've stayed at almost every DVC resort since buying our 1st contract in 1999. nowadays, we might stay at a new-to-us resort for a single night, but spend the vast majority of our vacation time at the BWVs (we've BCV, SSR, & 2 BWV contracts).
a few years ago, DVC called to inform us that our booked BWV BW view studio would be unavailable, and they were moving us to a studio at the BCV.
we've stayed often enough that we know what makes a true vacation for us - and told them we would reschedule instead (thankfully, they
"found" a BW view studio before we rebooked our airfare).

 

[DougEMG]

We own at BWV, SSR and OKW. Most of the time we stay at BWV. Sometimes though at the 7 month mark we'll switch part of the trip to something else like BLT, VGF or POLY.

Right now for out Apr/May 2016 trip I've got 4 weeks booked at BWV, but once I get airfares booked I'll probably be adding on some time at other resorts to fill between the flight dates and our current bookings.

 

[JohnnyB2]

We had stayed @ the YC & BC for many years with the YC in the majority of time. When we decided to purchase DVC, the Boardwalk view category was for us. Yes we have so far, always stay at our Home Resort.

 

[rlovew]

Our home resorts are BLT and VGF. We only use our VGF points at home and I plan to rent them for home resort priority before using them at other resorts on the off chance we can't make it for a year. We often used our BLT points at cheaper places when we first bought because my husband had classes in Orlando and it allowed us to stay for longer periods of time for his classes but now we generally book even BLT at the 11 month window for most of our trips and maybe 1 time per year book a night or 2 someplace else at the last minute.

 

[chalee94]

So most of you are staying at your home resort. Is this because you love your home resort or because it is hard to trade at 7 months out?

i've had mixed success in trading out from OKW.

when BLT and VGF first opened, i was able to grab a stay at those locations (but i haven't tried since). i like to stay at AKV (3 times total) but generally, i've been willing to settle for grabbing 1 to 3 nights for a partial stay (or something to tack on to a weekly offsite stay), so if you are looking for 5-7 nights, that would be tougher.

but i like OKW and am happy to stay there. (i just dork out a bit about having giraffes outside my balcony, if it works out.)

DVC is pretty easy and fun to own if you own where you are happy to stay (and book early - at 10-11 months out). the 7 month window works sometimes and not at others, so that can be one area where new owners get frustrated.

 

[Missyrose]

We had stayed @ the YC & BC for many years with the YC in the majority of time. When we decided to purchase DVC, the Boardwalk view category was for us. Yes we have so far, always stay at our Home Resort.

We started out as standard view, stretch-every-last-point owners at BWV, now we're total Boardwalk view snobs and pretty much only book that.

 

[suebeelin]

We started out as standard view, stretch-every-last-point owners at BWV, now we're total Boardwalk view snobs and pretty much only book that.

Are the bw views that great? I just can't bear to spend that many points when the standard view is the same size...

 

[Missyrose]

Are the bw views that great? I just can't bear to spend that many points when the standard view is the same size...

I love how peaceful (and gorgeous) the lake is during the day, especially with BC/YC in the distance. And at night, there's an energy on the Boardwalk that is so much fun to feel a part of.

 

[crazywig]

We started out as standard view, stretch-every-last-point owners at BWV, now we're total Boardwalk view snobs and pretty much only book that.

Same here. I enjoy my nightly fireworks.

 

[suebeelin]

Same here. I enjoy my nightly fireworks.

Thx... Maybe when the kids can last past 8/9pm, we will make the switch. But right now I have little ones that wake up between 5:30-6:30am, and they are usually asleep by 8:30-9:30pm. Last time we were we WDW, the elder did not make if past 9pm for the Xmas party. They were in the hotel by 9:30pm....