Part of the CFW sales problem? Points chart is too low (opinion)

[ehh]

I'll start out by saying I'm not anti-CFW. On the contrary, I'm very CFW-curious. We even have an upcoming stay booked...but as things are now, we will never buy.

Our favorite DVC rooms are CCV Cabins, they're very well appointed, a good size (we don't even need the 2nd bed/bath), a nice rustic chic theme, and well isolated. They're generally secluded in the resort, with no wall-sharing neighbors, and have little private space to read or commune outside with no one but you and your family. The nice-ness is great, but the points chart for it sucks at around 114pts/night average.

Enter the CFW cabins. They're smaller and way less well appointed, but they have some of that same isolation advantage. But one thing that is really enticing is that they come in at 21.4pts/night. Can get over 5 CFW Cabin nights for fewer points than 1 CCV Cabin night. They're even slightly lower pts/night than a Poly Studio, where Standard View is 21.7pts/night and Lake View is 25.8pts/night.

That sounds great, so what's the problem? Why won't the @ehh family ever buy CFW? Why am I blaming the points chart for being too low? And why won't, I suspect, a lot of other prospective buyers ever take the plunge?

For us, it's the dues. $12.15/pt is comparatively too high compared to the rest of the market and there's no indication they will go down. The 'I bought 100pts everywhere' average at WDW is $8.80, and that's inclusive of CFW. They're $8.49 without CFW in the mix.

CFW's $12.15 dues are 43% higher per point than the average WDW resort. They're 23% higher than the 2nd highest at WDW: OKW.

Okay, but if you breakout the costs per night with these dues, it's not too bad, so the DVC math still works, right? Well, yes and no.

An average week at CFW needs 150 points, which is currently going for $191/pt with a Welcome Home stay for an existing owner. With closing costs and such, let's say it's $29k upfront. $29k for 51yrs of 150 points is $3.80/pt.

So an average week works out to 150 * (3.80 + 12.15), or around $2,400/wk in 'used cost' for a 2024 stay. Not all that bad for a week in an isolated little cabin!

[The WDW site is having some problems right now and thinks it's Nov 7, 2017, so I can't check the cash rates for comparison...but I don't think it matters much]

The problem comes from using those points anywhere else. Staying at any other resort becomes much more expensive, relatively speaking, than if we owned at any other WDW resort. And that's a huge aspect of owning DVC for us and why restricted resale points need to be deeply considered prior to purchase. For similar reasons, we will never buy at Vero Beach or Hilton Head, and those upfront costs are the lowest of all resorts.

And if you wanna go to VDH with your CFW points? Ridiculous dues plus sizeable ToT. Lose-lose.

And then applying that same logic in reverse, staying at CFW could be less expensive with points from other resorts. And if you examine it, CFW, in theory, should be among the easiest-to-book-at-7m resort, even when (if) it's sold out. There's one category of room, so if any room is available, the 'room you want' is always going to be it. There will be times of the year where you can't book at 7m, sure, but on balance CFW should be among the easiest to book.

Over time, the bulk of what we'll pay into DVC is dues, so starting at such a high point is deeply unappealing to know it's just going to get worse.

Okay, so the CFW dues suck big time...why am I saying the problem is the points chart? Well, the costs that go into dues are pretty fixed based on the cost of running the resort and maintaing/servicing 360 cabins (or however many are/will/won't be declared). Dues take all of thoses costs and then divide it by the number of points. With 2024 figures, at ~7,800 points per cabin per year, it works out to an estimated $95k/yr to run a single cabin.

Let's say the points chart was higher, more inline with a Saratoga 1BR at 29.7pt/night for Standard location. You could probably convince me that a Saratoga 1BR is a better choice for the same points, but I'd still be CFW-curious. Working with an average of 29.7pts/night for the same $95k in dues-per-cabin-per-year, works out to $8.73/pt in dues for 2024.

Suddenly these points are usable elsewhere! I no longer feel trapped at my hypothetical home resort.

But what about the additional points burden and what that does to upfront purchase and the value of a stay per week?

First a brief recap of the current problem...

At its current 21.4pts/night:

• Dues are $12.15 for 2024
  • This makes it comparitively more expensive to use CFW points to stay anywhere else, penalizing purchasing
  • And also makes it less comparatively expensive to use non-CFW points at CFW, incentivizing not purchasing if you think you can book at 7m
• A 1 week 'average' stay is 150pts
  • 150pts needs an upfront purchase of $29,000ish after closing costs with current prices
  • A 'used cost' (sum of dues and amortized upfront costs times points used) for a 2024 stay works out to $2,400 for that week

At 29.7pt/night:

• Dues are $8.73/pt for 2024
• A 1 week 'average' stay is 208pts
  • 208pts needs an upfront purchase of $40,600ish after closing costs, which is significantly more
  • A 'used cost' (sum of dues and amortized upfront costs times points used) for a 2024 stay works out to $2,610 for that week

Let's say they just match the Poly Lake View Studio points, at 25.8pts/night:

• Dues are $10.07/pt for 2024
  • Inline with OKW's $9.87, but still high
• A 1 week 'average' stay is 181pts
  • 181pts needs an upfront purchase of $35,500ish after closing costs, a little more palatable
  • A 'used cost' (sum of dues and amortized upfront costs times points used) for a 2024 stay works out to $2,520 for that week

Am I seriously arguing that higher upfront costs and slightly degraded total value makes CFW more appealing? I sure am!

The current points/dues structure has strongly misaligned incentives to actually own at CFW. Non-owners stay at CFW for less and CFW owners stay elsewhere at a worse value.

 

[ehh]

For clarity, I think CFW does have other problems, too. I don't think it's entirely the fault of the points-chart-via-dues that CFW sales are terrible.

But the above collection of thoughts is the biggest reason why purchasing CFW was a total non-starter for us, and I suspect it will resonate with others.

Instead of owning, I will book at 7m and save significant money compared to owning.

 

[VGCgroupie]

I never even looked at the dues if I buy anything restricted it would be Riviera. 12.55 yikes

 

[tidefan]

One problem though is that in square footage, these are closer to a longhouse studio than a SSR 1-bedroom. Plus, it’s at a Moderate resort.

I am one that would really be interested in CFW if it were more like pre-2019 DVC, and yes, the lower point charts absolutely would make me want to buy there. The dues are obviously the major factor, but I think that there are 2 other major sticking points with people.

1. Restrictions. This would be a hard resell if you had to get rid of it as it would only be able to be used at CFW.

2. Ambiguity about the Trust. In other threads, it’s been stated that with the Trust POS, Disney basically has carte blanche to reallocate points as new units are added without an ownership interest being tied to a unit. This gives me a lot of pause as to what they may try in the future.

 

[CastAStone]

So an average week works out to 150 * (3.80 + 12.15), or around $2,400/wk in 'used cost' for a 2024 stay. Not all that bad for a week in an isolated little cabin!

Mousesavers has the cash rates and herein lies the first problem

https://www.mousesavers.com/2024-fort-wilderness-cabins-rates-season-dates/

Eyeballing the chart, I’ll say the average rack rate for the year is roughly $600 inclusive of tax. You can usually get a room for 25% off, so let’s call it $450. Times 7, were at $3,150. So even with you applying no discount rate to the buy-in when amortizing it across years, we’re only saving an additional 24% vs the typical-discounted rate.

If I apply a 3.5% discount rate, my first year points cost me 5.69, and with dues I’m paying $17.84/pt, $2,675 for the stay, and a savings of just 15% vs a typical discounted rate.

Regardless of any games we play with trading MFs for Buy-In, that’s a really hard deal to take, knowing that my flexibility goes way down, I lose daily housekeeping, and I'm forced to go or rent every year to make the math work at all.

To me that’s the fundamental math problem here - it’s not that the MFs are too high, it’s that all in, the value is just not good compared to cash rates.

Then why not set the point chart higher? A point’s value has been pretty fixed since BRV. With the exception of Poly, each new resort is priced in points relative to the cash rates Disney expects to charge for the same rooms.Thats why CCV was so much cheaper in points than the 2 resorts immediately before it or the 2 immediately after - WL can’t command anywhere near the cash rates of Poly, GF, DLH, Riviera. And neither can CFW - heck, it’s been listed as a moderate resort for years, and it charges roughly the same rates as Art of Animation. Going rouge with CFW would be bad for the system as a whole and make renting out rooms there impossible (which it may be anyway).

Anyway I do see your point and you’re not wrong that if they’d started with a more aggressive point chart they would have better hidden the costs, and made it easier to use the points at other resorts, but I think it would have been fundamentally dishonest, and wouldn’t have actually fixed the real problem.

 

[Tatebeck]

We've mentioned it in another thread before that the point charts could have fixed some of the issues.

For example they could have increased the point chart by around 25% or so and either lowered the starting price or had better incentives to the point that it would cost around 25% less per point than it does currently for a contract to get enough points for a weeklong stay. (Not set on 25% exactly per se, it's just an easy percentage to use)

• The total buy in from the buyer would be the same for a week's worth of points, but they would get 25% more points
• They could reduce the maintenance fees by 25%, but the total maintenance cost for a week's points would remain the same
• This would make it less desirable to book at 7 months with other points due to the higher charts, and give cabin owners more reason to use their points to try out other resorts, giving them them more of a kind of SAP+-ish consideration.

At least that's what I would have done. Full price points, resale restrictions, high fees, and few amenities/conveniences are just a kiss of death combo for a resort. This would help two of those things at least. But if it is not as getting much of a discount over cash rates compared to other resort rates as stated above, then it still won't be that popular to buy in there

 

[DVC Doctor]

I drove by the FWC this past weekend and at these prices it is a HARD pass for me, but I might stay at one just to try it out as they look like tiny houses that are pretty modern. I can honestly say that the older cabins are looking downright tired and reminded me of a mobile home park (but not in a good way).

 

[BrianLo]

Anyway I do see your point and you’re not wrong that if they’d started with a more aggressive point chart they would have better hidden the costs, and made it easier to use the points at other resorts, but I think it would have been fundamentally dishonest, and wouldn’t have actually fixed the real problem.

I think Disney made the worst choice for themselves and potential owners. But an awesome choice for existing membership. The Cabins really could have been a lot of dead weight on the membership as a whole had they gotten crazy with points expectations. Fortunately I think they'll largely get booked up prior to the laggards like SSR in the 7 month window. For the foreseeable future the developer will be covering the bill.

I eagerly await their next move. Do they accept reality and start selling a moderate resort at moderate direct-entry pricing? Or do they saddle Reflections with probably 200 too many cabins and sink that product as well.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

I have been expecting Disney to release a crazy point chart at PVB after seeing how anemic CFW sales have been…like you said, the more points per unit, the lower the dues.

The DVC membership (and potential membership) has spoken and we don’t like punitive dues or extremely high per point upfront pricing, but we are willing to buy into resorts with high point charts and tell each other we need to own there to have a chance at standard view rooms! With Poly2, DVC can probably push at least some categories of rooms (TPV and maybe even preferred view) into the stratosphere and then advertise the point chart to stay for a week in standard duos, studios, 1 and 2 bedrooms and look, low dues! <<insert jazz hands here>>

 

[Sandisw]

I think a few things, I do think the cabins will become part of a larger resort, and my guess is Reflections gets built….or it will be coupled with another project down the road.

So, I think the charts reflect what they believe they should be and if they roll them in to something else, given the trust, things can be reallocated differently..

I also believe that the pricing and lack of incentives is because DVD isn’t concerned of selling fast, and it may have to do with the construction of the cabins…I have to wonder if we see better pricing once more are slated to be completed.

I don’t think the dues would keep me from buying if it was a top location because I do believe that they will come in line closer as we move forward.

 

[CastAStone]

Do they accept reality and start selling a moderate resort at moderate direct-entry pricing?

I don’t know how this doesn’t become the ultimate solution. It’s terrible for the integrity of the system but they REALLY screwed this one up.

And to everyone’s future responses, I don’t think that knowing they can just rent the rooms for cash solves their problem. They have to take out huge bonds (or pay out of pocket) construct these. If they can sell all 360 cabins in the next two years that’s all paid off in 2 years with huge profits. If that takes 30 years, it’s probably 10 or 12 years until they pay off the construction. Not to mention their escrow costs.

It’s still way better for them to sell it all up front.

 

[CastAStone]

I have been expecting Disney to release a crazy point chart at PVB after seeing how anemic CFW sales have been…like you said, the more points per unit, the lower the dues.

The DVC membership (and potential membership) has spoken and we don’t like punitive dues or extremely high per point upfront pricing, but we are willing to buy into resorts with high point charts and tell each other we need to own there to have a chance at standard view rooms! With Poly2, DVC can probably push at least some categories of rooms (TPV and maybe even preferred view) into the stratosphere and then advertise the point chart to stay for a week in standard duos, studios, 1 and 2 bedrooms and look, low dues! <<insert jazz hands here>>

Presumably the dues won’t change from Poly 1? Can you imagine the uproar from existing owners if they were to jump like $1 per point? Holy smokes.

 

[stevehudd]

I think a few things, I do think the cabins will become part of a larger resort, and my guess is Reflections gets built….or it will be coupled with another project down the road.

So, I think the charts reflect what they believe they should be and if they roll them in to something else, given the trust, things can be reallocated differently..

I also believe that the pricing and lack of incentives is because DVD isn’t concerned of selling fast, and it may have to do with the construction of the cabins…

I don’t think the dues would keep me from buying if it was a top location because I do believe that they will come in line closer as we move forward.

Its pretty clear, with the current cabins disaster, that Disney cannot dictate to DVC buyers how they want them to act. Disney will hopefully reorient towards creating more desirable products coupled with benign rules to own those products.

 

[Sandisw]

Its pretty clear, with the current cabins disaster, that Disney cannot dictate to DVC buyers how they want them to act. Disney will hopefully reorient towards creating more desirable products coupled with benign rules to own those products.

As I said, I think they have purposely not made pricing attractive to stem sales.

I bet we see them shift in the next year and sales will get better…or, if they do announce that Reflections is being done, and those become part of that, it won’t matter as they will be coupled and sold then.

That’s why I think there is more to this we don’t know, Had we not had the pandemic, I think Reflecitons would have been ready to sell already and would have aligned with these needing to be replaced.

Maybe that delay forced this part to have to be done first? No question sales are bad…but they knew that after month one and still price the way they do….only they know the reason.

 

[ehh]

Mousesavers has the cash rates and herein lies the first problem

https://www.mousesavers.com/2024-fort-wilderness-cabins-rates-season-dates/

Eyeballing the chart, I’ll say the average rack rate for the year is roughly $600 inclusive of tax. You can usually get a room for 25% off, so let’s call it $450. Times 7, were at $3,150. So even with you applying no discount rate to the buy-in when amortizing it across years, we’re only saving an additional 24% vs the typical-discounted rate.

If I apply a 3.5% discount rate, my first year points cost me 5.69, and with dues I’m paying $17.84/pt, $2,675 for the stay, and a savings of just 15% vs a typical discounted rate.

Regardless of any games we play with trading MFs for Buy-In, that’s a really hard deal to take, knowing that my flexibility goes way down, I lose daily housekeeping, and I'm forced to go or rent every year to make the math work at all.

To me that’s the fundamental math problem here - it’s not that the MFs are too high, it’s that all in, the value is just not good compared to cash rates.

Then why not set the point chart higher? A point’s value has been pretty fixed since BRV. With the exception of Poly, each new resort is priced in points relative to the cash rates Disney expects to charge for the same rooms.Thats why CCV was so much cheaper in points than the 2 resorts immediately before it or the 2 immediately after - WL can’t command anywhere near the cash rates of Poly, GF, DLH, Riviera. And neither can CFW - heck, it’s been listed as a moderate resort for years, and it charges roughly the same rates as Art of Animation. Going rouge with CFW would be bad for the system as a whole and make renting out rooms there impossible (which it may be anyway).

Anyway I do see your point and you’re not wrong that if they’d started with a more aggressive point chart they would have better hidden the costs, and made it easier to use the points at other resorts, but I think it would have been fundamentally dishonest, and wouldn’t have actually fixed the real problem.

The overall 'DVC Math' is definitely weak for CFW, completely agree.

[as an aside, this is the breakdown I wanted to do last night, thanks Disney IT]
In terms of points chart, Season 4 is the median season with 148pt weeks, which is conveniently close to the 'average week'. I wanted to look at cash rates in 2025, and didn't think Mousesavers had theirs up yet (but they do! shoulda checked).

For Feb 2-9, cash rate is $4,173 and used cost is just under $2,400, a savings of ~43%
For Feb 9-16, cash rate is $4,947 and used cost is just under $2,400, a savings of ~52%.

All before any discounts, of course.

This is a much weaker discount than most comparably sized rooms (i.e., Studios), but it's not that far out of line for discounts on a '1BR' cash rate.

RIviera discounts for the same weeks:
1BR SV, Feb 2-9, 276pts, cash rate is $7,872 and used cost is ~$3,600, savings of~ 55%
1BR PV, Feb 2-9, 356pts, cash rate is $9,015 and used cost is ~$4,600, savings of ~49%.
1BR SV, Feb 9-16, 276pts, cash rate is $8,822 and used cost is ~$3,600, savings of ~60%.
1BR PV, Feb 9-16, 356pts, cash rate is $10,490 and used cost is ~$4,600, savings of ~56%

Anyway, not disagreeing with your points, but I also don't think it's the whole story. For my personal 'why won't I own at CFW', it's not even the biggest factor (we bought at VDH to stay at 1BRs, which has a fairly weak discount as well).


Overall, I think CFW's weakness is a three-legged stool of problems:

1. Ownership is disincentivized by the points-chart-via-dues
2. The DVC value proposition is weaker, overall
3. It is a non-traditional DVC resort with significantly different, often worse, amenity offerings

But I'm actually not sure how big of a problem #3 is, though. An impediment to sales, yes definitely, but I'm less sure about it being a longterm problem. Not every resort needs to appeal to every DVC owner. If what CFW offers is right for you and your family, then it's not an issue at all. CFW being a small percentage of all DVC points (roughly 4%, I think?) actually fits into the whole DVC equation well if it appeals to at least 4% of the ownership.

 

[zavandor]

The problem with the cabins is that they require a lot of maintenance. So if an owner wants to own enough points for a week, they'll have to pay 1/52 of the maintenance costs of the cabins. No way around that.
They might increase the number of points needed to book that week, making the cost per point less, but the total MF will be the same and the purchase price will be higher.
Sure, with lower MF per point, exchanging points for other resorts would be more convenient, but why on earth one would buy CFW points as SAP? OKW or SSR are so much more convenient for that. It's not really a solution.

CFW problem is that it's a high maintenance resort and as such it'll always be a niche resort. I guess Disney will be happy to ever sell just 20-30% of the total points, that would pay for the replacement of all the cabins they'll rent for cash. I don't think they're too upset if it doesn't sell well, they're losing nothing.

 

[BrianLo]

I think declarations are reasonably correlated to Disneys intent to sell over the next 12-18 months. They make mistakes and over declare. But it’s the second declaration that occurred after the sales rate revealed itself to be abysmal that suggests to me the strategy isn’t evident yet.

They think sales are going to increase or they’d rather have non-owner members book cabins and rent out Saratoga rooms?

With the focus on Poly, I don’t think we’re going to know until the Fall. Unless D23 brings in a reflections announcement. Which is about as early as I think their strategy could be tipped.

But if the answer is reflections, which I think it probably is, there’s just way too many cabins. They needed like 100 only as a fun niche offering. Then had intended to keep the rest for cash rates.

 

[kilik64]

Its a feature, not a bug. They had to replace these anyways right? Why not let some folks help pay for them by selling them as DVC. I think that is how they came to be DVC.

Im also 100% confident that we will see Reflections A Disney Lakeside Lodge & Cabins announced at some point. They'll roll it all up in the trust, spread the dues around, and the dues for CFW wont be so high at that point.

Mean time they rent em for cash and go about their day.

 

[intamin]

I don't feel like they've done anything to really try and sell these cabins other than put a graphic of the cabins on the front page of the member login.

The only good thing you can say about the resort is that the point chart is low; however, as you said that point chart is available to anyone at 7 months and isn't something that is exclusive to being an owner there. The only other good thing comes from the guests themselves who decorate the cabins and their carts during the holidays but that has nothing to do with DVC.

Everything else that I can think of is a con. High direct price. Awkward room layout. The highest dues on WDW property. Internal bus loop/overall lack of transportation options. Minimal amenities, dining, pool etc. Resale restrictions.

You would think they would've at least guaranteed like given a discount on carts to owners or guaranteed cart rentals to people staying there on points. I don't see how this place ever sells out without adding Reflections or adding River Country 2.0 as a perk of staying here. But then again, maybe Disney execs don't care about it selling out much like Aulani so who knows.

 

[ehh]

The problem with the cabins is that they require a lot of maintenance. So if an owner wants to own enough points for a week, they'll have to pay 1/52 of the maintenance costs of the cabins. No way around that.
They might increase the number of points needed to book that week, making the cost per point less, but the total MF will be the same and the purchase price will be higher.
Sure, with lower MF per point, exchanging points for other resorts would be more convenient, but why on earth one would buy CFW points as SAP? OKW or SSR are so much more convenient for that. It's not really a solution.

CFW problem is that it's a high maintenance resort and as such it'll always be a niche resort. I guess Disney will be happy to ever sell just 20-30% of the total points, that would pay for the replacement of all the cabins they'll rent for cash. I don't think they're too upset if it doesn't sell well, they're losing nothing.

To expand on this, there are clearly identifiable elements that should be more expensive: housekeeping (dogs and distance between rooms), transportation (sprawling resort), HVAC energy (no shared walls), insurance, and maybe some plumbing/roadwork/electrical maintenance.

But comparing other resorts, CFW is definitely higher per sqft but I don't think CFW cabin maintenance costs (per cabin, per year) are that much of an outlier despite the known cost inflators. I probably need to take a follow-up look at this based on net square footage, but I'll start with it by room below.

A CFW cabin is ~7800 points for the year. At $12.15 in dues for 2024, that's ~$95k to maintain one cabin for a year. That sure sounds like a lot (maybe even more than the unit purchase cost...), but here's 2024 single-room maintenance figures of other resorts:

• Saratoga Std Studio - $43k
• Old Key West Studio - $48k
• Bay Lake Tower SV Studio - $50k
• Grand Flo SV Studio - $58k
• Riviera SV Studio - $61k
• Poly SV Studio - $65k
• Grand Flo LV Studio - $69.5k
• Riviera PV Studio - $77k
• Poly PV Studio - $78k
• Grand Flo TPV Studio - $86k
• Saratoga Std 1BR - $88.5k
• CFW '1BR' Cabin - $95k
• Bay Lake Tower SV 1BR - $95k
• Aulani Ocean View Studio - $97.5k
• VDH Garden Studio - $98.5k
• Old Key West 1BR - $102k
• Beach Club 1BR - $111.5k
• Riviera SV 1BR - $131k

And all the above resorts, except CFW, have bigger/grander rooms whose maintenance costs I'm guessing scale below linearly with square footage (which would, theoretically, under-represent the cost of maintenance for the smaller rooms at those resorts, albeit likely slightly).

CFW's per-room yearly maintenance costs are basically inline with the lower end of 1BRs, which is how they're positioning it otherwise. But its point chart is well below that. If they had matched the points chart of the lower end of 1BRs, even adopting the lowest end OKW/BWV-SV points chart, it would have put an average week at around 200pts/wk and dues at a palatable ~$9.20/pt (less than OKW and right around AKV's $9.08/pt).

If anything, I think this reinforces my opinion that they got the points chart wrong.