Our everchanging July 2009 DVC vacation!

[Tiger926]

This year, we have made a trillion changes to our regularly scheduled 2 week DVC summer vacation. We have added and taken away days, which then allowed us to switch things up: we had AKV Concierge and gave it up and we had BCV and gave it up. We had a combination of studios and 1 bed, as well as different dining plans and TIW card, so that's why we cancelled Concierge. We went on the waitlist the other day for BCV, but there seems to be some weird anomaly with Wed. July 22 and everything is booked up at several resorts.

This morning we called again to see what we could do, and have now decided upon this for a total of 12 nights/13 days!

1 bed @ BWV (preferred)
1 bed @ AKV Jambo (value)
1 bed @ AKV Jambo (concierge)

We couldn't believe that the concierge stay that we gave up months ago, was suddenly there to book again, so we borrowed points from next year, and it is done! This will allow us to save some money on food (we have done concierge at both Contemporary and Yacht Club) and we have linked our ressies together so hopefully we can get our rooms close to each other. We were excited to try Kidani, but we will try for that next year, as we love Jambo House - so much easier with our babes!

So, anyone else make lots of changes to their vacation(s) this year? We are grateful that none of our changes were due to financial issues, as I'm sure many families are having to do, but they were due to changing schedules, changing needs of kids and meal accommodations (with a 1 bed we can cook some food in our villa if we so desire, but not so with a studio).

My DH said this year's vacation is a perfect example of overplanning, and he may be right on that - LOL!

Happy vacationing to all, Tiger

 

[bobbiwoz]

I'm so happy that you got plans you're looking forward to. I don't understand why you have reservations linked? They are all at different resorts.

Bobbi

 

[Tiger926]

I'm so happy that you got plans you're looking forward to. I don't understand why you have reservations linked? They are all at different resorts.

Bobbi

Thanks! We are only staying at 2 resorts: BWV and AKV. At AKV, we are staying in a 1 bed value and the next stay is in 1 bed concierge, so those two are linked as we have a total of 7 nights at AKV.

Tiger

 

[edk35]

This year, we have made a trillion changes to our regularly scheduled 2 week DVC summer vacation. We have added and taken away days, which then allowed us to switch things up: we had AKV Concierge and gave it up and we had BCV and gave it up. We had a combination of studios and 1 bed, as well as different dining plans and TIW card, so that's why we cancelled Concierge. We went on the waitlist the other day for BCV, but there seems to be some weird anomaly with Wed. July 22 and everything is booked up at several resorts.

This morning we called again to see what we could do, and have now decided upon this for a total of 12 nights/13 days!

1 bed @ BWV (preferred)
1 bed @ AKV Jambo (value)
1 bed @ AKV Jambo (concierge)












We couldn't believe that the concierge stay that we gave up months ago, was suddenly there to book again, so we borrowed points from next year, and it is done! This will allow us to save some money on food (we have done concierge at both Contemporary and Yacht Club) and we have linked our ressies together so hopefully we can get our rooms close to each other. We were excited to try Kidani, but we will try for that next year, as we love Jambo House - so much easier with our babes!

So, anyone else make lots of changes to their vacation(s) this year? We are grateful that none of our changes were due to financial issues, as I'm sure many families are having to do, but they were due to changing schedules, changing needs of kids and meal accommodations (with a 1 bed we can cook some food in our villa if we so desire, but not so with a studio).

My DH said this year's vacation is a perfect example of overplanning, and he may be right on that - LOL!

Happy vacationing to all, Tiger

YOU HAVE ME BEAT.

YES YES YES someone else is calling MS making the sirens and alarms go off!!!!! I swear when I call them sirens/alarms sound.


LOL I won't even go into the changes I have made over my 2 years of owning. However................YOU HAVE OFFICIALLY BEAT ME.

 

[bobbiwoz]

Thanks! We are only staying at 2 resorts: BWV and AKV. At AKV, we are staying in a 1 bed value and the next stay is in 1 bed concierge, so those two are linked as we have a total of 7 nights at AKV.

Tiger

OK...but I thought if a reservation is linked, you don't have to check out/in. That's what my understanding was.

I would love to do a 12 night DVC vacation. So far 8 nights has been our longest.

Bobbi

 

[Tiger926]

OK...but I thought if a reservation is linked, you don't have to check out/in. That's what my understanding was.

I would love to do a 12 night DVC vacation. So far 8 nights has been our longest.

Bobbi

You don't, but since 1 room is Value view, and the other is Concierge, we will have to check out. No worries, as it's at the same hotel.

Thanks, Tiger

 

[Tiger926]

YOU HAVE ME BEAT.

YES YES YES someone else is calling MS making the sirens and alarms go off!!!!! I swear when I call them sirens/alarms sound.


LOL I won't even go into the changes I have made over my 2 years of owning. However................YOU HAVE OFFICIALLY BEAT ME.

Only for this year though, as normally when we book, that's it. But for this year, we've had to make many changes. We don't call MS hardly at all, but this year, we have called a wee bit more than normal - after almost 5 years of ownership, we have really been on good terms with MS this year - LOL!

Tiger

 

[Hibernians]

We're sort of in the same boat; we keep expanding our vacation; first it was 5 nights then 7 nights and now its 8 nights. We tinkered with flying vs. driving (from Massachusetts). So, we have bought airlines tickets for flying down and have reserved a car rental to drive back.
We are also debating between the Disney Dining Plan or Tables in Wonderland.
Our next dilemma is dining reservations; which we will make next week when we hit the 90 day window.
I must admit though, I love having these Disney Details to worry about

 

[edk35]

Only for this year though, as normally when we book, that's it. But for this year, we've had to make many changes. We don't call MS hardly at all, but this year, we have called a wee bit more than normal - after almost 5 years of ownership, we have really been on good terms with MS this year - LOL!

Tiger

If you were go into my acct. on dvc site and look at my recent transactions..... It is scary. I swear MS folks are so nice too because they never say anything with all the changes/switches to this and that. I have teased with them that when I call and they plug in all my information that something warns them. I would LOVE to just make a reservation and leave it. I tend to start 2nd guessing where we are staying, how long, do you we want cash ressies for the highter weekend points. Blah blah blah. It is crazy.

 

[SunnieRN]

I can't begin to tell you all the changes we have had to make for our May, now April trip.

We started with an early May trip for two weeks with extended family at AKV (Kidani opening day) and SSR using our developer points.
Then my son in law said that his R&R wwould be in May at the end of the month. Our extended family couldn't go then, so we switched to May 13-16 at AKV and then SSR from May 16-June 1. We had everything arranged including all of our
ddxdp reservations. Then last friday my son in law called! His R&R will now be April 6-21!! Over Easter with only a little over two weeks notice.
Well on April 6 my daughter and two grandsons are flying out and Travis will be there from Iraq on the 6th or 7th. I will meet them on the 14th and we all leave the 21st.
I know member services freaks out a bit when we call.
Also we had a trip booked in December for AKV and BLT. That has already been changed to February...
I don't think we will be able to plan a trip without changes until my son in law is out of the army. Have I told you how much I love the US Army?

 

[Tiger926]

Well...we were at it again on the weekend with another change - LOL! We called MS to make sure they had hubby's birthday, to add our request for upper floor, and to add Dining Plan, and MS mentioned that Boardwalk standard view was available for the part of our trip that we we had a 1 bed value at AKV, so we switched to that as it means we are at Epcot for 9 nights now! We had a waitlist for that time, so I'm sure we made someone very happy with giving up a 1 bed Value (we had wanted a studio)! MS actually was encouraging us for it as it meant that we could free up some points for next year, and be at the same resort for longer with the kids.

She looked at our history and started to laugh, but said that if people didn't make changes, etc., she would be out of a job, so she appreciated the work!

Hope we all have fabulous vacations, Tiger

 

[mom3sonstt]

OK...but I thought if a reservation is linked, you don't have to check out/in. That's what my understanding was.

That's what we thought too - and in most respects it's true. The exception to the rule that we found last year was if you put cash (or travelers checks) down as your form of payment for charging back to the room. We had our trip planned last year then looked at flights. It was significantly cheaper to fly down the day before so we added another night and they said they would link the reservations so once we checked in we would be good for the whole trip. Well, we checked in, put $1500 in Travelers Checks down to use for charging back to the room (we have gotten rid of all of our credit cards and don't want to use our debit card for this). We went to Downtown Disney the first night, no problems, went to Magic Kingdom the next morning, no problems - then we went to eat a late lunch and our cards didn't work We got on the phone with the various people at OKW - one of them told us we had checked out which was news to us since we had just gotten there the night before After talking to several people we found out that since it was considered 2 reservations - even though they were linked - they wouldn't automatically transfer the balance over. I don't know if they thought we should cash out after the first night and pay down again or what - but we talked to enough people that they finally did transfer the balance over. It took us a good 45 minutes to an hour to get it done and it definitely didn't improve the moods of my hungry bunch - but it did teach me this year when I had to make some changes to my reservation to see if there was any way they could make it all one reservation instead of 2 linked ones just to avoid that headache again.