Old Key West Helps Direct Sales Rise Slightly in April 2024

[Cybertruck]

I used our SAPs to book a Cabin at Christmas. Our first stay. Excited to see all the sites decorated for Christmas.

 

[BrianLo]

What a difference 24 hours can make! Last night I booked a whole week in November and there was TONS of availability starting in July! I don’t know what happened exactly (more cabin inventory declared? Canceled reservations?), but I got everything I wanted in the 7 month window. Two days ago there were zero nights available! Seems clear you all were right - the right approach is wait and see, and there is zero urgency to own points at CFW when reservations can suddenly appear so dramatically.

It's actually currently theoretically near impossible for existing owners to book up the entirety of any week. There's 60 units and 1 unit worth of owners. They'd have to all coordinate to book the same week together (but not a week that's above the median like Christmas, they don't even have enough points collectively to do so). Based on the 6 favourite weeks, it seems owners are all over the map.

All units should make their way to sleep around points. Now the competition at 7 months is an entirety different matter. 50-60 rooms isn't a ton of inventory for the SAP masses. Walkers will be after the Halloween and Christmas weeks for sure.

Now all of this could change in 2032 when DVC has sold out five-seven whole cabins (lmao). Maybe then collectively the owners will work together to book up Halloween.

 

[CastAStone]

I just counted up May sales and I’m getting 3,940 points

At 3,940 points per month the cabins will be about 85% sold out when the resort expires.

At this rate of decay (each month about 40% worse than the previous), the cabins will be selling less than 100 points per month by January.

 

[BrianLo]

At 3,940 points per month the cabins will be about 85% sold out when the resort expires.

At this rate of decay (each month about 40% worse than the previous), the cabins will be selling less than 100 points per month by January.

Heck - at least the resale prices might be great! A resale CFW listing is going to be the rarest thing going for the next decade.

 

[Mexacajun]

And just 32 contracts.

476 274 OKW contracts (476 included resale). I’m not counting all that.

How many direct okw points?

 

[CastAStone]

How many direct okw points?

Like I said, I’m not counting up the points on nearly 300 contracts. The good people at DVCNews.com will do it sometime in the next week or two.

 

[BrianLo]

Like I said, I’m not counting up the points on nearly 300 contracts. The good people at DVCNews.com will do it sometime in the next week or two.

It's much more what I expected, the sales volume last month on OKW wasn't as impressive as I figured it would be.

Did Riviera sell many contracts (if it's easy for you to check), I don't know how you guys check.

 

[CastAStone]

It's much more what I expected, the sales volume last month on OKW wasn't as impressive as I figured it would be.

Did Riviera sell many contracts (if it's easy for you to check), I don't know how you guys check.

I’m getting 371, slightly down from April. I will caution that the exact search I am doing is subject to some potential sources of error (such as a person reselling whose name is Disney); I’ve pasted the exact search parameters below. DVC News actually seems to look at all of the documents and therefore filters out the nonsense.

 

[Cybertruck]

All units should make their way to sleep around points. Now the competition at 7 months is an entirety different matter. 50-60 rooms isn't a ton of inventory for the SAP masses. Walkers will be after the Halloween and Christmas weeks for sure.

I booked right at 8am for Christmas week. No walking involved, just a bit of pixie dust

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

I just counted up May sales and I’m getting 3,940 points

Good! $225 per point for a resort that has maintenance fees starting at $12.15 per point!?!?! They absolutely deserve to get wrecked. Something needs to reign in their greed and hopefully the way they priced this will have it fail and cause them to think twice about trying to keep pedaling to the metal with these prices.

 

[ehh]

At 3,940 points per month the cabins will be about 85% sold out when the resort expires.

At this rate of decay (each month about 40% worse than the previous), the cabins will be selling less than 100 points per month by January.

Whenever Poly2 goes on sale, it's gonna outsell all of CFW (to date) faster than one full show of Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue.

CFW sales are comically, and shamefully, low.

I have a counterintuitive theory that, I think, partially explains why it's failing: the points chart is too low. Maybe it deserves another thread...

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

the points chart is too low

The dues would be cheaper, but it’d still be a **** sandwich. A restricted resort with an insane buy-in that you might not ever be able to get rid of, and the buy-in cost would be even higher if the points chart was worse. Disney just got too greedy with this.

 

[ehh]

The dues would be cheaper, but it’d still be a **** sandwich. A restricted resort with an insane buy-in that you might not ever be able to get rid of, and the buy-in cost would be even higher if the points chart was worse. Disney just got too greedy with this.

Sounds like this is worth a separate thread

 

[CastAStone]

Sounds like this is worth a separate thread

I’m looking forward to respectfully disagreeing with you in it once you’re got it posted

 

[Brian Noble]

I have a counterintuitive theory that, I think, partially explains why it's failing: the points chart is too low. Maybe it deserves another thread...

This would be an interesting discussion.

One way to view ownership: What does it cost to stay there if you own there? To figure that out, multiply the number of points required for the room by dues.

For example, my "usual" trip is a full week during Season 6 (my spring break). For that week:

• A Cabins owner pays $2,091.52.
• SSR: $903.54 for a standard studio.
• SSR: $1,888.48 for a standard 1BR
• OKW: $1,115.31 for a studio.
• OKW: $2,240.49 for a 1BR

Measured this way, the Cabins are "fine, I guess." Definitely not great, but not terrible. And, if you really like the Cabin vibe, it's not an insane purchase---particularly because the buy-in price is attractive relative to the buy-in price of other "week-long stays" in season. You would only ever want to use Cabin points for Cabin stays, but again if you really like the Cabin vibe, then there's an argument.

If the Cabins follow RIV's dues progression, then it might go from "fine I guess" to "that's kinda good, actually." This is because RIV started out with high dues but had very low YoY increases for a good long while. I suspect this was in part an over-reaction to what happened with Aulani, but it's possible the same forces are at play with the initial Dues amount at the Cabins as well.

Over five years of increases, RIV dues have gone up a total of 6.5%. In that same period, OKW dues went up a total of 36.5%. If OKW stays on its path for the next five years, but CFW follows RIV's path, then five years from now the Dues are $13.47 at OKW but $12.95 at CFW, and all of a sudden a direct Cabins ownership does not look foolish.

So, that brings us to whether or not anyone really likes the Cabin vibe. And, there will be some folks who do. They are close to completely unique. Only the Treehouses provide a similar vacation experience, and even that isn't quite the same. I'm not sure there are enough such people to justify 360 of them, but if the Dues progress the same way Riviera did, then things start looking better for the Cabins.

Now, this is a pretty big if. Who knows whether the Dues are starting out high or not? I don't, because I was not in the room when they set them. But it is not impossible. I would not make a purchase based on this if, but I will be interested to see if it plays out.

 

[Mexacajun]

Like I said, I’m not counting up the points on nearly 300 contracts. The good people at DVCNews.com will do it sometime in the next week or two.

If they averaged 100 points then it would be 30k points. That is impressive for the oldest dvc resort.

 

[ehh]

I’m looking forward to respectfully disagreeing with you in it once you’re got it posted

https://www.disboards.com/threads/p...blem-points-chart-is-too-low-opinion.3947642/

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

If they averaged 100 points then it would be 30k points. That is impressive for the oldest dvc resort.

Oh, can we place our bets? I want to say more than double that since I doubt many people were buying less than 150 for blue card and probably a decent number of people wanted to get to the huge price break at 250-300. I’ll guess 220 for 66k points (I think I did that math right).

 

[DonkeyHoTay]

Oh, can we place our bets? I want to say more than double that since I doubt many people were buying less than 150 for blue card and probably a decent number of people wanted to get to the huge price break at 250-300. I’ll guess 220 for 66k points (I think I did that math right).

Well… there are some outliers that bought even more than that to get the highest price breaks…

 

[Cybertruck]

This would be an interesting discussion.

One way to view ownership: What does it cost to stay there if you own there? To figure that out, multiply the number of points required for the room by dues.

For example, my "usual" trip is a full week during Season 6 (my spring break). For that week:

• A Cabins owner pays $2,091.52.
• SSR: $903.54 for a standard studio.
• SSR: $1,888.48 for a standard 1BR
• OKW: $1,115.31 for a studio.
• OKW: $2,240.49 for a 1BR

Measured this way, the Cabins are "fine, I guess." Definitely not great, but not terrible. And, if you really like the Cabin vibe, it's not an insane purchase---particularly because the buy-in price is attractive relative to the buy-in price of other "week-long stays" in season. You would only ever want to use Cabin points for Cabin stays, but again if you really like the Cabin vibe, then there's an argument.

If the Cabins follow RIV's dues progression, then it might go from "fine I guess" to "that's kinda good, actually." This is because RIV started out with high dues but had very low YoY increases for a good long while. I suspect this was in part an over-reaction to what happened with Aulani, but it's possible the same forces are at play with the initial Dues amount at the Cabins as well.

Over five years of increases, RIV dues have gone up a total of 6.5%. In that same period, OKW dues went up a total of 36.5%. If OKW stays on its path for the next five years, but CFW follows RIV's path, then five years from now the Dues are $13.47 at OKW but $12.95 at CFW, and all of a sudden a direct Cabins ownership does not look foolish.

So, that brings us to whether or not anyone really likes the Cabin vibe. And, there will be some folks who do. They are close to completely unique. Only the Treehouses provide a similar vacation experience, and even that isn't quite the same. I'm not sure there are enough such people to justify 360 of them, but if the Dues progress the same way Riviera did, then things start looking better for the Cabins.

Now, this is a pretty big if. Who knows whether the Dues are starting out high or not? I don't, because I was not in the room when they set them. But it is not impossible. I would not make a purchase based on this if, but I will be interested to see if it plays out.

Agree. FWC is not an ideal layout for us. Our motivation is to drive around in our golf cart and see all the campsites decorated for Christmas. Christmas week is a resort only stay for us. Neither the aesthetics or ownership costs appeal to us. With the popularity of tiny homes DVD missed an opportunity to create a unique experience. I suspect this is a one time stay.