Working on a January 2025 update for Most Economical Resort with the 2025 dues and the latest resale price data.
But first I wanted to do a retrospective on my forecast of 2025 dues I made back in July of 2024.
Predicted vs. Actual 2025 Dues
I'll start with a table, sorted by how wrong the forecasts were:
As a reminder, my method for predicting longterm dues growth is as follows:
- Determine 10yr Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) for every year possible (resort must have at least 11yr of dues data)
- Take the last five 10yr-CAGRs
- Longterm dues growth in my predictions is the median of the last five 10yr-CAGRs
If a resort is not old enough to use the last five 10yr-CAGR, I use the median of the last five 5yr-CAGRs. If a resort is still not old enough, I use the median of the last five 10yr-CAGRs for its region (WDW and DL are currently only regions with 'too new' resorts). The resorts that use the regional growth rate have their growth rate shown in italics.
Why do I do it this way? Year-to-year dues growth is noisy, really noisy. So I focus on the longterm growth patterns while letting it move past early-years patterns. Using a median of a handful of CAGRs is done to 'stabilize' it further and reduce the odds that one bad dues year causes a double-impact (e.g., the impact of the YoY growth plus potentially replacing a small increase 11 years ago) for what might be a one-year blip.
I think there's a few distinct groupings of resorts here:
Saratoga, Bay Lake, Aulani, Hilton Head, and Copper Creek - Pretty much got it
All were within 6 cents/pt. Considering the method I use to predict longterm dues has a focus on the
longterm, getting it close for one year isn't all that interesting to me, but I'll take wins where I can get them.
Copper Creek is an interesting one here. It's too young to get real predictions from my method so it used the generic 4.38% growth rate for WDW and it ended up being pretty close despite all the noise about it being so out of line with prior dues growth. Next year will be interesting as it'll age up to being eligible for the 'median of last five 5yr-CAGR' method. The highest 5yr CAGR for CCV is 2.66%, which is too low to expect longterm IMO (and the 2nd highest is 1.75%, and is the leading candidate of being the median...sigh).
BoardWalk, Old Key West, Grand Floridian, Animal Kingdom, Boulder Ridge, and Beach Club - Underpredicted, sometimes an uncomfortable amount
Underpredictions for all of these, and all in the 0.7-2.1% range, which is not a great prediction.
Grand Flo is maybe the one that I'm happiest about here, as I thought its prior growth rate was unsustainably low and put my finger on the scale to bump it from 3.52% to 3.58% in my 2024 predictions. Factoring in the 2025 dues it is now 3.58% without a finger on the scale.
As for the others, one thing that strikes me is that 4 of the 5 are the 2042 WDW resorts (OKW, BWV, BRV, and BCV) and had an average increase of 5.63% (vs. WDW's broader 4.32%*). Not sure if there's something about these resorts that I need to consider for the future, or if they all just collectively had rough years.
I'm assuming AKV went up because of the impending hard goods refurb.
* the broader WDW includes the decreases at PVB and CFW. Excluding those two the average 2025 increase at WDW was 5.12%.
Riviera, Vero Beach, Disneyland Hotel, and Grand Californian - Overpredicted and not accurate
Margin of error for these is 2-2.7%. Just bad. And if it's repeated for a few years then that's bad news for the longterm predictions. At least these resorts are barely being bought for SAP.
Riviera is still using the generic WDW growth rate of 4.38% and came well under at 2.33%. Might still be 'active sales' slow growth?
Vero Beach needed this, though. Their 5yr CAGR was 7.15% (and the three prior 5yr-CAGR were 8.05%, 8.55%, and 7.90%), so a year with just 3.17% growth is probably an unexpected relief for owners.
Disneyland Hotel is too new to have its own forecast, so it used Grand Cali's growth rate of 5.63%. Speaking of Grand Cali, its 2.84% increase YoY was the lowest in its entire history (seriously). Maybe there's some relief now that the hard goods refurb is funded and kicked off.
Polynesian and Cabins at Fort Wilderness - LOL I can't predict that
Polynesian dues went way down due to the introduction of Island Tower and the efficiencies of a tower impacting the balance of a resort. Also maybe some 'active sales' low growth stuff we've seen at other WDW resorts...
CFW is also part of the 'active sales' group and one of its biggest criticisms has been its absurdly abnormal dues, 13% higher than anywhere else at WDW and 34% higher than the average at WDW (which includes CFW!). I wouldn't be surprised if there's been an effort to improve the efficiency of running the cabins and that's reflected in the 2025 dues. It helps DVC sales but also helps Disney's rental margins of running all the unsold cabins.
Other Thoughts
I think my median-of-CAGRs approach held up okay. It's not really designed for going under the microscope for a single year's increase, but I didn't see anything in the 2025 dues that made me think my approach needed a rethink. Again, I use longterm growth history for the sake of future longterm growth predictions. That longterm future hasn't come yet.
That said, the newest resorts might need some manual tweaking of growth rate in the next few years. CCV will probably need me to bump its growth rate artificially to set proper expectations, and Poly/CFW's big decreases this year will wreak havoc on my method many years from now.
Upsetting, it’s literally my favorite room on property (that I’ve stayed in anyway)
