Opinions?

[crisi]

I think looking at credits this year are a good way to see where MFs are heading.

AKV will continue to see increases while RIV will remain fairly flat another 2-3 years.

I would expect AKV to pass RIV in 2 years time and never be cheaper again.

Historically, DVC keeps dues low while a resort is in active sales. It keeps buyers interested. If RIV dues are large now, they are likely to get bigger once the resort moves out of active sales.

 

[crisi]

Brought this up before.

In the 2035 range and for sure in 2042 the resale market will change. You are having 3 park adjecent resorts leaving the group. In addition only MK will have resorts for resale members to move to.

Personally I think we will see a drastic reduction in the ability to move between resorts at that point.

I know it's all personal view but seems like various people agree it's harder to get what you want today than 10 years ago and thats with more park adjecent rooms having been added.

Basically all the new members at RIV or possibly REF or elsewhere will be able to fight for the same rooms as o14 resale but in addition if a RIV owner gets a BLT reservation that doesn't open up a space for that resale SSR owner to move to.

Lots of time until then but I wouldn't count on resorts like SSR or AKV to hold their value as well as newer resorts that might be closer and attached to parks.

I think most people should plan on a ten year time horizon for making this decision - because its hard to see twenty years out or more. Especially if your kids are young - will you be ditching DVC in favor of time spent with traveling basketball? Will you have kids who burn out on Disney (my son did) by twelve? And other things happen, you could divorce, lose your job, get ill..... my crystal ball stops being very good more than a few years out. (Its not THAT good at tomorrow).

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Disney is asking more per point for AKV now than when it originally went on sale but there are fewer years left on the contract. Pay more, get less
AKV can be purchased resale significantly cheaper than direct but people are actively choosing to pay more than they have to for the same thing.

DVC isn’t that different than buying a car. Both have maintenance fees
Average contract price is similar to a car purchase, many comments on the board make it seem like people are spending 200k on these contracts but most contracts are in roughly the same price range as many cars, and just like cars they are all headed to $0 eventually.

Yeah but I can sell my home, my RV and many other things for more than I paid too. Sorry but used car it isn't.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

It's lower for a reason. It has lower point charts, is cheaper, has a long contract, people rave about the resort itself....

Yet it's still not that expensive and Disney even has to discount it down towards the SSR and OKW area.


Also Riveria is one of the most centrally located resorts so it's still not like AKV with a longer bus and 2 bus stops at the resort. Besides that's a "worst case" which I will take having had multiple hour waits for busses back in 2019 when staying at AKV.

Ok, so you are biased because of a bad experience. That's fair. Although I'd also ask why you waited multiple hours but that's another story I'm sure. All resorts are used to be scheduled to have the same 20 minute intervals so it's also not that AKV has less and just that you ran into an issue at a particular time. For points AKV was just built at a different time of point charts and it's very large but there is nothing "wrong" with it as you are implying. It just means it has higher value in use compared to other resorts. The remainder is preference and taste.

 

[eandt]

It's lower for a reason. It has lower point charts, is cheaper, has a long contract, people rave about the resort itself....

Yet it's still not that expensive and Disney even has to discount it down towards the SSR and OKW area.

In addition rooms are easy to get in a couple years so likely lower dues at RIV vs AKV means it will be cheaper annually for the RIV owner plus having access to standard view and tower studio rooms if you want to lock in an ecpot resort.



Sit down and quick service both get high marks, it's a consolidate footprint for a hotel so you are not walking miles, it has walking/running paths, and with a smaller room count the pool shouldn't be as full as some other resorts.

Then we will need to see how fireworks views look as well when they return.



Disney isnt required to shut it down though they are just cautious currently. As the Skyliner is supposedly the future of WDW transportation I expect at some point for them to start running in storms.

Also Riveria is one of the most centrally located resorts so it's still not like AKV with a longer bus and 2 bus stops at the resort. Besides that's a "worst case" which I will take having had multiple hour waits for busses back in 2019 when staying at AKV.

Multiple hour wait for a bus? Really? Did you find out what the issue was with that as it's inexcusable? We have taken a lot of bus rides over the years at WDW including numerous from AKL and never experienced anything even close to an hour wait even at park close. For us the worst bus experience was at SSR.

 

[crisi]

Heck, we don't have the patience for a multiple hour wait when there is a cab stand right there. 25 minutes and if the bus isn't turning the corner, the family piles into a cab. Our time and park tickets are worth way more than a $15 cab ride.

 

[Brian Noble]

I think most people should plan on a ten year time horizon for making this decision - because its hard to see twenty years out or more. Especially if your kids are young - will you be ditching DVC in favor of time spent with traveling basketball? Will you have kids who burn out on Disney (my son did) by twelve? And other things happen, you could divorce, lose your job, get ill..... my crystal ball stops being very good more than a few years out. (Its not THAT good at tomorrow).

Even ten years might be optimistic. As I look back over the last 20 years, we had an unexpected something-or-other happen every 4-7 years or so that threw a wrench into whatever our medium-term travel plans were.

 

[crisi]

Even ten years might be optimistic. As I look back over the last 20 years, we had an unexpected something-or-other happen every 4-7 years or so that threw a wrench into whatever our medium-term travel plans were.

Oh boy. Like the time we postponed the big family trip because my sister was going to be 8 months pregnant....so we moved it back a year to cancel that one because she was undergoing chemo? Or the trip where we ended up with four people in a grand villa because my brother in law died and no one wanted to vacation three months later.

There was the time we underwent a financial retrenching when my husband was given a layoff notice (he ended up with another job in the organization), the years where both of us freelanced (out of pocket health care insurance is expensive). The year I became unable to work in a full time career and had to quit my job due to illness.

 

[Deb & Bill]

About ready to purchase direct but keep going back and forth so looking for outside opinions. Husband doesn't want resale so it's not an option.
125 or 150? Paying cash for either.
AK or Riviera? Haven't been to either but home resort not super important we go in off times about every other year.

We're a family of 4, with 1 teenager and 1 preteen.

First of all, what do you consider "off times"? There really aren't many "off times" with DVC. Sept through mid-Jan is one of the hardest time to book at seven months out. Early Dec is extremely hard to book at seven months out. Early May, Summer (but not July 4th), early February might be the slower times for DVC. Holidays, Run Disney events, Fall Frenzy, Spring Break are the busy times. Always buy the resort that you don't mind staying at if you can't change your reservation at seven months out. Covid time was seriously off the regular schedule and I was able to book four night stays two months out for almost any time. I was changing reservations all over the place. Plus with no penalty for using fewer points less than 31 days out made it easy. Now? Not going to happen. Home resort may be a lot more important than you think.

 

[dvc lover 1970]

Tough call...two great resorts. I would pick whichever is cheaper.

 

[MomOTwins]

Your points just go to show how different the resorts are for different people. It’s one of the reasons why I think it is sometimes hard to give advice on which to buy because in this case, they are so different,

I don’t like AKV at all and to me, not worth it to stay or buy there, no matter the savings, But, I do love RIV. However, given higher dues and point charts, i wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who doesn’t like it.

But, if value is it or wanting to be able to trade out so stays can be at both, then RIV will be harder and cost more points at 7 months to get than the reverse.

Personally, I think RIV is worth as many points as it is along with VGF.

EDITED TO ADD: I'm not the OP, got this confused with my thread weighing a similar choice, oops.

OP here, I do find this post valuable, and don't think anything wrong with our mods expressing opinions! AKV is also not really our favorite resort. The fact we had to take a bus everywhere was a big downside, and AK is our least favorite park so we felt pretty far from everything. Also, while the savannah view was nice as novelty, we just didn't spend enough time sitting around on the balcony to really enjoy it, and aren't wild about the decor. Then again, maybe my taste is a bit strange--I hated Beach Club (including and perhaps especially Stormalong Bay) for example and everyone else seems to think it's the best thing since sliced bread. To each his own!

I'm embarrassed to admit we've stayed at pretty much every Deluxe resort (we really should have bought DVC years ago, just kept dragging our feet). Of them, Grand Floridian, Wilderness Lodge, Poly and Riviera are our favorites. We narrowed it down to the Poly and Riviera because VGF was out of budget, almost went with BRV but the studios are small and 1 bedrooms don't sleep 5 unless you bring an air mattress, and the points we'd need for a 2 bedroom were just a bit much with the annual dues. That's what got us down to Poly.

Ok, so you are biased because of a bad experience. That's fair. Although I'd also ask why you waited multiple hours but that's another story I'm sure. All resorts are used to be scheduled to have the same 20 minute intervals so it's also not that AKV has less and just that you ran into an issue at a particular time. For points AKV was just built at a different time of point charts and it's very large but there is nothing "wrong" with it as you are implying. It just means it has higher value in use compared to other resorts. The remainder is preference and taste.

Multiple hour wait for a bus? Really? Did you find out what the issue was with that as it's inexcusable? We have taken a lot of bus rides over the years at WDW including numerous from AKL and never experienced anything even close to an hour wait even at park close. For us the worst bus experience was at SSR.

Okay, then you are just crazy lucky. We've waiting over an hour many times! Sometimes the really long wait is after park close when they are no longer running regular buses (we often do dinners at or after park close so take the bus back after everyone else is gone). On our last trip after waiting over an our with no bus at the AK bus for our resort (WL), we ended up going up to the fort wildnerness bus and begging him to let us hitch a ride, which he did bless his heart. More commonly this is an issue we've noticed at resorts with shared buses with other resorts--the bus may fill up at one resort and skip the next resort. We've suspected this is what happens when we see a bus in the wait time board and then 10 mins before it is due to arrive, that bus disappears and the time shifts back 40 mins. We've also been on buses that were supposed to stop at other stops but had to skip them because our bus was full. Also, they say buses come every 20 mins, but that is just not true. On our last split-stay, at both resorts, buses were coming every 45 mins to an hour at non-peak times, which is often when we use the bus because we like to do midday resort breaks.

Anyhow, bus rant over, just backing up it is not a one-off and we definitely have had enough nightmare experiences with long waits for Disney bus transportation to the point where we could never stay at a resort again that didn't give us a non-bus option to at least one park.

 

[dvc lover 1970]

Why not do two 75 point contracts at each resort? You still get the blue card if you do that

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Okay, then you are just crazy lucky. We've waiting over an hour many times! Sometimes the really long wait is after park close when they are no longer running regular buses (we often do dinners at or after park close so take the bus back after everyone else is gone). On our last trip after waiting over an our with no bus at the AK bus for our resort (WL), we ended up going up to the fort wildnerness bus and begging him to let us hitch a ride, which he did bless his heart. More commonly this is an issue we've noticed at resorts with shared buses with other resorts--the bus may fill up at one resort and skip the next resort. We've suspected this is what happens when we see a bus in the wait time board and then 10 mins before it is due to arrive, that bus disappears and the time shifts back 40 mins. We've also been on buses that were supposed to stop at other stops but had to skip them because our bus was full. Also, they say buses come every 20 mins, but that is just not true. On our last split-stay, at both resorts, buses were coming every 45 mins to an hour at non-peak times, which is often when we use the bus because we like to do midday resort breaks.

Anyhow, bus rant over, just backing up it is not a one-off and we definitely have had enough nightmare experiences with long waits for Disney bus transportation to the point where we could never stay at a resort again that didn't give us a non-bus option to at least one park.

Yours shows it wasn't and isn't AKV only. We've had some long waits after park closing but that isn't unique to AKV which was the implication in the post. DS buses are often pretty bad most places so we rarely go. Multiple hours means 2 hours or more by most understanding and we've never experienced that. If at a park we'd do the same as you and find a bus to somewhere else. Or these days Uber or such.

 

[sethschroeder]

There are currently no direct discounts on AKV or OKW. Just SSR out of those three.

There is marketing discounts and built in discounts to the post price.

The built in discount to make AKV current $191 and the 3rd cheapest base resort including being less expensive than RIV/AUL the currently selling resorts.

Maybe my mind works differently but that just automatically shows a reduction in perceived value by both Disney and the larger DVC community and perspective buyers.

 

[sethschroeder]

Historically, DVC keeps dues low while a resort is in active sales. It keeps buyers interested. If RIV dues are large now, they are likely to get bigger once the resort moves out of active sales.

Sorry don't buy that as the dues are normally over estimated with smaller increases because there is extra wiggle room in the budget. At RIV possibly even more so since I think they had wage increases built in and they have the Skyliner guestimate of costs.

It's been a few months but I don't ever remember "catchup" once the resort is sold out where it out increases the norm. If I am incorrect let me know which resort and I will take a look.

RIV will fall below AKV and then stay there likely being upper middle - middle of the pack range for dues.

 

[sethschroeder]

I think most people should plan on a ten year time horizon for making this decision - because its hard to see twenty years out or more.

Honestly though if I was planning on 10 years I wouldnt buy DVC to start with because you are simply breaking even coming only slightly ahead during that time period.

 

[sethschroeder]

Ok, so you are biased because of a bad experience. That's fair.

Sure if you call various other people reporting issues and a depressed value both direct, resale, and cash bookings.

For points AKV was just built at a different time of point charts and it's very large but there is nothing "wrong" with it as you are implying.

Sorry it has cheaper points (product of time) AND cheaper resale and direct price.

Cheaper point charts make it a better deal but then people also skip buying it still even with lower point charts, value rooms, and the only club rooms in DVC.



Also I like AKV in general and stand alone really great resort but many are not buying DVC to sit at the resort. So yes getting to the parks is a primary consideration for some.

Also the primary thing my parents who don't know anything about Disney resorts knew that AKV had the savanna and had bad transportation (they proactively brought it up and I told them not to worry about it because the resort itself is great).

 

[crisi]

Sorry don't buy that as the dues are normally over estimated with smaller increases because there is extra wiggle room in the budget. At RIV possibly even more so since I think they had wage increases built in and they have the Skyliner guestimate of costs.

It's been a few months but I don't ever remember "catchup" once the resort is sold out where it out increases the norm. If I am incorrect let me know which resort and I will take a look.

RIV will fall below AKV and then stay there likely being upper middle - middle of the pack range for dues.

I've done the statistical analysis on this several times over twenty years. You can buy it or not buy it, but it is generally true.

 

[crisi]

Honestly though if I was planning on 10 years I wouldnt buy DVC to start with because you are simply breaking even coming only slightly ahead during that time period.

EXACTLY! It needs to add value beyond just saving money, because you might just "break even" - or not even that - before life throws the curve ball.

 

[Brian Noble]

Honestly though if I was planning on 10 years I wouldnt buy DVC to start with because you are simply breaking even coming only slightly ahead during that time period.

This is probably better advice than most people think, though it implies a less enthusiastic recommendation for buying DVC than one typically sees here on the DIS.