Is it worth it? 1Br vs Studio for 2 adults

[TagsMissy]

I know this may vary by person so really there's nothing scientific about it... We're off to WDW for 10 nights in Sept... 2 adults only so I booked studios for the stay. We're at BLT for 5 nights... I originally had a standard room but I changed it to a lake view at my husband's request. We were very lucky to get a boardwalk view studio at BWV for the last 5 days after being on a waitlist for only a couple of days....

Now I am contemplating wait listing for a 1BR, 4 of the 5 nights are (or were) available the last time I checked so there's no guarantee we'll get the waitlist....

We don't cook in the room other than toast/bagels/coffee so it's not as if I need the kitchen, I'm just contemplating that soaker tub and king bed but are those things worth the extra points and knowing I'll need to borrow a few to boot?

I guess part of me is shying away from borrowing points due to 'what if scenarios' --- what if we need a 1br next year because we've decided to take my niece to wdw.. what if we want to do another 10day vacation to Aulani --we'll need the points... you know those common traps, then another part of me says... we're going to be in our mid/late 80s when this contract ends we may as well start borrowing points now as by then will we really want to be going to WDW?

So do I things as they are or borrow points to get the larger room for the last half of your WDW stay? I am certain someone may ask so here you go-- our Use Year is Feb so I have up to the end of Sept to bank whatever points we may have remaining if we don't upgrade to the 1BR, if we do need to borrow it'll be approx 10 points. I can't remember off the top of my head how many points we have remaining exactly for 2013.

Anyways just mindless verbose rambling to ask a simple question--- so what would you do?

 

[drusba]

We like size and no longer stay in studios. The difference between studio and 1BR is like night and day. So in usual case I would recommend it. However, I don't believe you should do it for two if it requires borrowing points

 

[appleorchard]

DH and I stay only in 1 BRs. I get up earlier and stay up later than he does and also do a lot of my work at home on the computer, so being able to work a bit at Disney is worth the extra room. It's also just more like a vacation. DD and DGD and I stay in a studio-- it's tight, but we all get up and go to bed at the same time and I get no work down that week lol.

DH and I are spending one night in a boardwalk view at BWV in May at the end of a trip with family--I didn't want to use more points-- didn't have them anyway!- and appeased him with the Boardwalk view--he likes it more than I do.

 

[disneynutz]

We stay in 1 bedrooms, we just like the space.

Why not split your stay, a studio for some of the time and the 1 bedroom for the rest. That will also give you the opportunity to get the DDP for just part of your stay.

Bill

 

[tinkfan]

My question would be how much time do you spend in the room. If you are the type that go non-stop and only use the room for sleep and breakfast, then stick with the studio. If you use your room throughout the day for breaks than go with the 1 bdrm for at least the 2nd half. That way you are going from less to more space( harder to do opposite) Also the 1 bdrm has the washer and dryer , which is nice to have mid stay to do laundry.

Depending on how many extra points you need, remember you can alway purchase the one time use points instead of borrowing.

 

[crazybones27]

The only reason my husband and I stay in a studio during our yearly getaway without the kids is because we're barely in the room for a short stay. If we went at a different time of year where we weren't doing a Disney convention I'd be choosing a 1bdrm. For me it's not actually the space, but the washer/dryer in the room. I like the space, but the washer/dryer sells the whole thing for me. I can pack very little and do laundry without having to go to the laundry room.

For your stay of 10 days I'd definitely split it doing a studio for the first part and a 1bdrm for the last part. This way you only really need to pack for 5 days and not have to worry about watching your things in the laundry room. I love having lighter bags on my trips .

 

[TagsMissy]

We stay in 1 bedrooms, we just like the space.

Why not split your stay, a studio for some of the time and the 1 bedroom for the rest. That will also give you the opportunity to get the DDP for just part of your stay.

Bill

We're already doing a split day 5 days blt and 5 days bwv... I don't really want to split the 5 days at bwv into 2 unless it was necessity like our last visit where we had to add a night 2 months or so before arriving... we wait listed for a boardwalk view room but alas we had 1 night pool then 4 nights boardwalk view.


And Mods, sorry this should probably be in Mousecelanous or Resorts... sorry if I put this in the wrong section

 

[TagsMissy]

My question would be how much time do you spend in the room. If you are the type that go non-stop and only use the room for sleep and breakfast, then stick with the studio. If you use your room throughout the day for breaks than go with the 1 bdrm for at least the 2nd half. That way you are going from less to more space( harder to do opposite) Also the 1 bdrm has the washer and dryer , which is nice to have mid stay to do laundry.

Depending on how many extra points you need, remember you can alway purchase the one time use points instead of borrowing.

It would only be approx 10 extra points needed to get the 1 bedroom so I think I'd rather, if did it just borrow. As for how much we are in the room. We do find we spend more time in the rooms now than our first trips... the more we go, the more we relax. We don't necessarily come back mid day but we have lazy mornings and often come back to our villas earlier than usual. We really enjoyed just sitting on the balcony and looking down on everything during our last trip.

At BLT we'll spend our evenings in the lounge chatting with the CMs and other guests there so that's our extra space and we're more likely to be more on the go the first half of the trip....

And people you aren't helping me by talking me out of the upgrade to a larger room LOL I suppose if we used more points for a lake view at hubby's request, we can WL a one bedroom for BWV. We are planning to do a cruise next year so I think if we do WDW it'll only be for 4-5 days as an add on. I think I may bite the bullet and do the waitlist and surprise my husband.

 

[KPetty725]

DH and I stay only in 1 BRs. I get up earlier and stay up later than he does and also do a lot of my work at home on the computer, so being able to work a bit at Disney is worth the extra room. It's also just more like a vacation. DD and DGD and I stay in a studio-- it's tight, but we all get up and go to bed at the same time and I get no work down that week lol.

DH and I are spending one night in a boardwalk view at BWV in May at the end of a trip with family--I didn't want to use more points-- didn't have them anyway!- and appeased him with the Boardwalk view--he likes it more than I do.

This is similar to our situation. We get 1 BRs because I get up early and DH stays up late. We definitely like the king bed and we use the tub almost every night. I also like having the washer and dryer because I can pack in a carry-on and save the bag-check fee!! Also, we like to relax in the room sometimes and we've occasionally invited friends/family over so having the living area and kitchen means it doesn't feel like people are hanging out in our bedroom.

 

[Minniesgal]

Personally I would always go for a 1 bedroom but we will cook in the room and spend time there. also i always do laundry so having facilities in the room is important

 

[taaren]

I'd go for the one bedroom. Any stays longer than 2-3 nights, I want my laundry in the room ... but we also use the kitchen pretty extensively.

If you don't use the kitchen and you're okay with being in a smaller space for that many nights, keep the studio. Especially a Boardwalk View studio! What luck!

 

[wiigirl]

We like size and no longer stay in studios. The difference between studio and 1BR is like night and day. So in usual case I would recommend it. However, I don't believe you should do it for two if it requires borrowing points

Same here...

 

[Deb & Bill]

We have a studio for one night only to be able to walk back from DHS after the TOT 10 miler. The rest of our trip is a one bedroom, nine or ten nights (can't remember right now). I like the washer and dryer in the room. We much prefer a king sized bed so we can each sleep better without having to open up the sleeper sofa (which we will probably do for our one night in the studio). We won't even unpack, just pack a smaller bag for that one night. And we'll have two television sets so if we want to watch different programs, we can do that.

It's not a vacation if I don't get a good nights sleep.

 

[Dean]

I know this may vary by person so really there's nothing scientific about it... We're off to WDW for 10 nights in Sept... 2 adults only so I booked studios for the stay. We're at BLT for 5 nights... I originally had a standard room but I changed it to a lake view at my husband's request. We were very lucky to get a boardwalk view studio at BWV for the last 5 days after being on a waitlist for only a couple of days....

Now I am contemplating wait listing for a 1BR, 4 of the 5 nights are (or were) available the last time I checked so there's no guarantee we'll get the waitlist....

We don't cook in the room other than toast/bagels/coffee so it's not as if I need the kitchen, I'm just contemplating that soaker tub and king bed but are those things worth the extra points and knowing I'll need to borrow a few to boot?

I guess part of me is shying away from borrowing points due to 'what if scenarios' --- what if we need a 1br next year because we've decided to take my niece to wdw.. what if we want to do another 10day vacation to Aulani --we'll need the points... you know those common traps, then another part of me says... we're going to be in our mid/late 80s when this contract ends we may as well start borrowing points now as by then will we really want to be going to WDW?

So do I things as they are or borrow points to get the larger room for the last half of your WDW stay? I am certain someone may ask so here you go-- our Use Year is Feb so I have up to the end of Sept to bank whatever points we may have remaining if we don't upgrade to the 1BR, if we do need to borrow it'll be approx 10 points. I can't remember off the top of my head how many points we have remaining exactly for 2013.

Anyways just mindless verbose rambling to ask a simple question--- so what would you do?

Obviously it's a personal decision. In general I think it depends on factors like how much time you'll spend in the room, desirability of the whirlpool tub and the like. I'm often up very early and the wife will sleep in if possible so having the separate space is great. However, it's essentially twice as much so there is a cost to the added luxury.

 

[Geomom]

And people you aren't helping me by talking me out of the upgrade to a larger room LOL I suppose if we used more points for a lake view at hubby's request, we can WL a one bedroom for BWV. We are planning to do a cruise next year so I think if we do WDW it'll only be for 4-5 days as an add on. I think I may bite the bullet and do the waitlist and surprise my husband.

Lol. Do you want to be talked out of it? We're a family of 4 and we normally do studios. We're used to a normal hotel room, and we're in the room so little that we're fine with it. Getting a studio means we can go to Disney more often, squeezing more trips out of our points. That being said...when we take family/friends we get a 2 bedroom and we 'really' enjoy the 1 bedroom side while they have the studio side. It's nice to have privacy at night on vacation, fun to have a full kitchen for a change, and very convenient to have laundry right in your room.

It's a very individual choice. If we had unlimited points, yeah, we'd probably splurge on the 1 bedroom for the extra space...but if it was just the 2 of us, we'd probably still do studios. (Oh, and we are constantly borrowing points...partly due to the fact that our resale had very few current use year points left so we started off borrowing.)

 

[csharpwv]

When we first became members, we always thought we would be staying in studios. The point cost just makes so much more sense.

Then... we bought more points, and thought we would always stay in studios... with the occasional splurge for a 1BR.

Then......... we bought MORE points... and thought we would always stay in 1BR units.

Then.............. you can see where this is going...... we bought more points.... and have stayed in a Grand Villa two times in the last year! HAHA

We have a Studio reserved at VWL for our July trip. We thought we would just do a studio on this trip because we would be spending a lot of time at the pool, at the water parks, in the parks, and late nights at the parks to avoid the afternoon heat....

Now, we're wishing we would have gone with a 1BR for the size, laundry, and full kitchen for lunches in the room.

But, anyway.... we'll make it work! If we could switch to a length of stay 1BR right now we would - but there aren't any left at VWL for our stay.

There are benefits to both.... point savings... additional amenities... but I guess if we were to switch, we would want to switch to a resort that has two bathrooms in the 1BR units..... so we couldn't stay at VWL.... they only have 1 bart in the 1BR units.

So.... as you can see.... it is a very personal decision based on your vacation wants and needs.

Regardless, you'll have a great time - so no need to worry too much!

 

[Candy Orlando]

We always stay in a one bedroom. I want to feel like I'm in my vacation home. We like DVC instead of purchasing a vacation home because they take care of everything. To me a one bedroom DVC villa is the best of both worlds.

 

[DougEMG]

I'm always going back and forth over the same thing, do a studio or a 1 bedroom. Since a 1 bedroom is twice the points, I always try to look at it as what I would prefer to do with those extra points:

- stay twice as long in the studio (twice as long sounds good)
- upgrade to the 1 bedroom (really like king bed and tub)
- rent out the points and spend the money on something else like dining, etc (free food, yum yum)

And then, even after I've made my list I still waffle back and forth.

 

[DebbieB]

I originally bought DVC to get a 1 bedroom when I traveled with my mom. I loved being able to stretch out. She went to bed early so I stayed out in the living room until I was ready to go to bed. I love the huge bathroom with the walk-in shower. She called it "our apartment". She has since passed away, I usually still get a 1 bedroom with 1 or 2 friends. If I do a solo trip, I'll get a studio.

 

[castleri]

I like to do a 1 BR with just 2 of us if possible. My trip next week will however be in a studio as 3 of the 4 days will be solo and I just couldn't see using the points. Will save them for hopefully a family trip next year.