Newbie availablity question

[rojen]

Hi, sorry if this is answered elsewhere. If I buy points at OKW, what is the likelihood I can ever book at BLT seven months out? If I wanted a MK view during value season, is this out of the question? I figure I'd have trouble booking a non-home resort for spring break and Christmas, but random fall weeks, are they hard to reserve? Thanks

 

[disneynutz]

If resorts were easy to book at 7 months, Disney wouldn't have a home resort 11 month rule.

Bill

 

[Deb & Bill]

Hi, sorry if this is answered elsewhere. If I buy points at OKW, what is the likelihood I can ever book at BLT seven months out? If I wanted a MK view during value season, is this out of the question? I figure I'd have trouble booking a non-home resort for spring break and Christmas, but random fall weeks, are they hard to reserve? Thanks

Random fall weeks are always booked. I just booked BLT one bedroom lake view for nine nights in mid-October and if I had waited to a day or two past seven months, I wouldn't have gotten my nine nights. And I had to wait seven days to book the last two nights because I used a different contract to book those days and I was worried.

You'll never (or let me say probably never) get theme park view at 7 months out. Unless you are booking only a night or two. But a full week isn't probably going to happen.

If you buy at OKW, make sure you like OKW because you might wind up staying there. It really is a great resort; we've stayed there about ten times and love it. Book your home resort at 11 months out and see what you can get at 7 months out.

 

[Missyrose]

Hi, sorry if this is answered elsewhere. If I buy points at OKW, what is the likelihood I can ever book at BLT seven months out? If I wanted a MK view during value season, is this out of the question? I figure I'd have trouble booking a non-home resort for spring break and Christmas, but random fall weeks, are they hard to reserve? Thanks

I bolded the part I wanted to emphasize. Many, many DVCers like to conserve points so the seasons that cost the least points tend to be pretty busy times for DVC.

Bottom line, buy a home resort that you'll be happy staying at regardless of what you may or may not get at the seven-month mark.

Good luck with your decision.

 

[gray52]

I've booked a studio, Lake View (that also had a great view of MK from the balcony) at BLT twice at the 7-month window for January. At 9:00am of the 7-month window i got all seven nights on our 2010 trip there... for our January 2012 trip i called at about 5-months out and all 7 nights, LV, were still available (but we decided to do a split stay to check out BWV). In both cases, MK and Standard views were both booked.

 

[Shellandscott]

Just to give you an idea as of right now the week of 1-6 to 1-12 the studio is only available on Sun, Mon & Tue. Not the rest of the week. The 1 bedroom is Sun, Mon, Tue and Sat. Theme park view is very hard to get for an entire week at 7 months but not impossible. Keep in mind that it is very possible that someone who has the whole week booked at the 11 month mark could really want to switch to BWV or BCV to be near Epcot or may want a concierge Level at AKL and may do that at 7 months and free it up. So you may be able to grab part of the week and waitlist for the rest.

 

[chalee94]

the general rules are:

1) buy where you want to stay if you have a strong preference for one certain resort and you can book 10-11 months in advance

2) buy where you don't mind staying if you are just happy to be onsite and you can book 10-11 months in advance

3) buy the cheapest resort (upfront and dues) if you can't book more than 7 months in advance

here is one take from someone with a ton of experience in booking DVC stays on what is likely to be available at what point:

http://www.dvcrequest.com/how_soon_should_i_reserve.htm