Personal Experiences at 7 Month Window

[bobbiwoz]

The only times I've cared enough to book exactly 7 months out, is for the BCV for the Flower and Garden show at Epcot, and both times I've gotten it.

Now, yesterday, I tried to "exchange" my 2 BWV standard view studios for a standard view 2 bedroom studio at BWV and that wasn't available. So, I booked the preferred view, and I think I'll waitlist for the standard view, but since this is less than 7 months out, it doesn't count for the poll. We just acquired an add on, so we didn't have the points for the 2 bedroom when I made the ressies 11 months out.

Bobbi

 

[Mickmse2002]

I have only had to waitlist twice, once was for a 1 bedroom at BCV which did come through and once was trying to get a standard view at BWV instead of a preferred view for one night of a four night stay. That one did not come through. It must be noted that in both of these cases rooms were available at OKW. I do think this poll does tend to dispel the myth of "Buy where you want to stay" or the sky will fall mantra.

 

[ricapito]

I have only had to waitlist twice, once was for a 1 bedroom at BCV which did come through and once was trying to get a standard view at BWV instead of a preferred view for one night of a four night stay. That one did not come through. It must be noted that in both of these cases rooms were available at OKW. I do think this poll does tend to dispel the myth of "Buy where you want to stay" or the sky will fall mantra.

I agree, and as I beat a dead horse I'll say it again: It is good advice for some, but maybe not for as many folks as you'd think....

 

[sjdisneywedding]

I guess people will see whatever they want to see from the numbers. I see 21% of people not getting their choices at all, and another 15% going through the trouble of waitlisting and waiting and praying.

and I suspect this number will not get any lower but in fact higher as membership increases.

 

[tjkraz]

I guess people will see whatever they want to see from the numbers. I see 21% of people not getting their choices at all, and another 15% going through the trouble of waitlisting and waiting and praying.

And I would question how many people were answering correctly based upon the "right at 7 months" aspect of the poll.

Some room types / sizes? Probably.
Some times of year? Perhaps.

But there is no way that resort owners are booking their resort TO CAPACITY prior to the 7-month window on any consistent basis. Not gonna happen. Never gonna happen.

If 21% of folks were not getting alternate resorts when calling right as the 7 month window opens, we'd be hearing about it a lot more on these boards. As it stands today, there's just a lot of speculation about what COULD happen someday, and not much in the way of posts that really support the position.

 

[JimC]

I voted no problems, but I never did it during premier season.

 

[jade1]

"I guess people will see whatever they want to see from the numbers. I see 21% of people not getting their choices at all, and another 15% going through the trouble of waitlisting and waiting and praying.

and I suspect this number will not get any lower but in fact higher as membership increases."

Agreed. 20% is 16,000 members (35% is 28,000) that may now be trying to buy where they really want to stay. If even 10% of these say "thats it, I want to add on to BCV or VWL etc that could contribute to resale price increases.

 

[robinb]

ok, so is it hard to get BCV at 7 months for the first week of October? A 2BR?

It could have some problems because that's the start of the Food and Wine Festival. I'd call at exactly 7 months from your first day and then call back day-by-day to make sure you get it.

 

[sjdisneywedding]

And I would question how many people were answering correctly based upon the "right at 7 months" aspect of the poll.

Some room types / sizes? Probably.
Some times of year? Perhaps.

But there is no way that resort owners are booking their resort TO CAPACITY prior to the 7-month window on any consistent basis. Not gonna happen. Never gonna happen.

If 21% of folks were not getting alternate resorts when calling right as the 7 month window opens, we'd be hearing about it a lot more on these boards. As it stands today, there's just a lot of speculation about what COULD happen someday, and not much in the way of posts that really support the position.

like i said, people will read into the numbers what they want. If you arent going to go by the numbers produced by the poll, why even have it in the first place?
also it doesnt really matter actually if its booked to capacity, if I am looking for studio rooms and the resort has every other room open but no studios it does me zero good.

all you can do is go by the numbers and over 20% didnt get the room they wanted. thats alot in my eyes and like i said the probability is its only getting worse not better

Also in the other similar poll, only 50% get their first choice of resorts within 7 months without any type of wait or problem. to me thats not a good number for trying to dispell the theory of "buy where you want to stay". which was the basis for both of these polls.

 

[ricapito]

all you can do is go by the numbers and over 20% didnt get the room they wanted. thats alot in my eyes and like i said its only getting worse not better

You don't have a lick of evidence this is the case now do you? Do you have a crystal ball? How about the possibility a lot of people who used to try and get BCV/BWV/VWL are now trying to stay at SSR? If anything I'd surmise the type of person who'd buy VB/HH might just instead prefer SSR! I don't have a lick of evidence on this, but you make it sound like it's an impossibility because BCV/BWV/VWL are so "superior" and guess what....a lot of folks don't think that same way...

BR

 

[sjdisneywedding]

You don't have a lick of evidence this is the case now do you? Do you have a crystal ball? How about the possibility a lot of people who used to try and get BCV/BWV/VWL are now trying to stay at SSR? If anything I'd surmise the type of person who'd buy VB/HH might just instead prefer SSR! I don't have a lick of evidence on this, but you make it sound like it's an impossibility because BCV/BWV/VWL are so "superior" and guess what....a lot of folks don't think that same way...

BR

umm ok are you not reading what I write or just changing my quotes?


never said anything about it being an impossibility, just stating what I believe to be a potentail situation.


I posted this: thats alot in my eyes and like i said the probability is its only getting worse not better!!!!!

probability!!!!!! never said it will eventually be impossible, dont put words in my quote, I said it will get harder does that mean 25% will ave trouble who knows but it probably will get a bit worse. O

Of course some people will rather stay at SSR now than the other resorts, but do you realize how many members SSR will have? Pure mathematics would lead one to believe more from SSR will be staying (trying to stay) at the other resorts than vice versa.

I know alot of folks dont think bcv and bwv are superior. I AM ONE OF THEM I own at SSR but that doesnt just magically change the facts. facts are facts. There will be more new members from SSR reserving into resorts like bcv, bwv, vwl than the other way around. It doesnt take a crystal ball to assume that, hey if its wrong great no harm, but if its right then you can be the one explaining to your friends that although they cant travel to their first choice resort every year, they still saved a bit of money.

 

[ricapito]

it was an unintentional edit of your post when I cut it down to size...

 

[bobbiwoz]

I've stayed at all of the on-site DVC resorts and I would be perfectly happy to stay at any of them. I would be flabbergasted if I only could get into SSR when I called at 7 months out. However if I COULD get into SSR at 1 month out I would be delighted.

Bobbi

 

[sjdisneywedding]

it was an unintentional edit of your post when I cut it down to size...

i know, thats fine. made for a better story if you changed it though

 

[ricapito]

i know, thats fine. made for a better story if you changed it though

All's fair in love and war on the DISboards

 

[robinb]

If anything I'd surmise the type of person who'd buy VB/HH might just instead prefer SSR! I don't have a lick of evidence on this, but you make it sound like it's an impossibility because BCV/BWV/VWL are so "superior" and guess what....a lot of folks don't think that same way...

FWIW, I don't think BCV/BWV/VWL are superior to the other resorts. I think each and every resort has good points and bad points. I have personally stayed at all (in the 7 month window ) but HH and SSR. I am looking forward to when I can add those two to my list.

I own at BWV to be close to Epcot and I own at OKW because I bought it first. I keep OKW because the Grand Villas are dirt cheap. I just finished booking my first choice: a GV at OKW for the first week of January. We're moving from BWV (Standard View, of course) on New Year's Day to the luxury of a 2500+ square foot Grand Villa with DVC friends. They will be transferring in half the points I needed to use into my BWV contract and it will end up costing my family 178 points for a week in a GV. It just doesn't get any better than that . That, my friend, was done at the 11 month mark .

 

[tjkraz]

all you can do is go by the numbers and over 20% didnt get the room they wanted. thats alot in my eyes and like i said the probability is its only getting worse not better.

As I said, I don't believe many folks read the poll closely enough to note that ricapito was only looking for responses from folks who had tried to book RIGHT AT seven months.

If 20% of attempts to book right at seven months were completely unsuccessful, and another 15% always had to rely on the waitlist, there would be many examples of posts from irate members who felt they were deceived by DVC, etc. Instead, all we have is a lot of guesswork and empty predictions about what could happen. The only empirical evidence available are the many, many replies in this thread alone stating that they have "never" had a problem.

I created a thread for folks to report their 7-month booking failures. Let's see how many replies I get:

<a href="http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=737808">7-Month Booking Failures</a>

 

[WithFaith50]

In booking at the 7th month window, I could not book 2 standard view studio's at BWV for 12/13/04-12/20/04, I was put on a waitlist for standard views AND Boardwalk views, but neither came through. However, I had no problem booking for preferred views (BWV) for this particular reservation.

WithFaith50

BTW...BWV is one of my home resorts, but for this reservation, I was using SSR points.

 

[sjdisneywedding]

As I said, I don't believe many folks read the poll closely enough to note that ricapito was only looking for responses from folks who had tried to book RIGHT AT seven months.

If 20% of attempts to book right at seven months were completely unsuccessful, and another 15% always had to rely on the waitlist, there would be many examples of posts from irate members who felt they were deceived by DVC, etc. Instead, all we have is a lot of guesswork and empty predictions about what could happen. The only empirical evidence available are the many, many replies in this thread alone stating that they have "never" had a problem.

I created a thread for folks to report their 7-month booking failures. Let's see how many replies I get:

<a href="http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=737808">7-Month Booking Failures</a>

maybe they didnt all read it closely enough, but why would everone be irrate? Maybe they are flexible and change their plans and then get something at a later date. I know when our plans didnt work out we just moved on to another month and didnt say a word.

What exactly is your eyes would not be an "empty" prediction? A prediction is just that, its not an exact science. You have thousands of new SSR members coming in, do you honestly feel this will have zero effect on booking at other resorts? Of course its guesswork right now, thats what all this mumbo jumbo talk back and forth is-guesswork. Doesnt mean it can not be based on some facts-you just dont ignore the fact SSR is a large resort with a large amount of new owners

doesnt matter anyway because this poll is serioulsy flawed in both directions since it only allows users to vote once and is very limited in its choices. The second choice is occasionally I dont get what I want but always get it through waitlist. well what about those that sometimes get waitlist sometimes dont. they dont fall into that or the choices were waitlist never came through.

Each member may have had instances of 2, 3, and 4. maybe they have had 100 times where their choice never came through, or maybe someone has never had a problem at 7 monts with 1000 reservations

poll is flawed, so no point in arguing its findings

 

[tjkraz]

You have thousands of new SSR members coming in, do you honestly feel this will have zero effect on booking at other resorts?

I never said that it would have "zero effect on booking at other resorts." What I am saying is that it will have VERY LIMITED impact, if any, for those who plan to book right at 7 months.

Only a resort's owners have access to that resort until the 7-month window arrives. Whether there are 80,000 members or 800,000, the number of people who can book BCV at 7 months + 1 day will ALWAYS be the same.

The impact of increasing DVC membership will be felt moreso as we get closer to the check-in date. Will availability at 6 months now be the same as it was at 6 months in 2002? Of course not!!! But we're not talking about 6 month bookings, we're talking about 7 month bookings.

If I want to stay at BCV, I'll mark my calendar to call at exactly 7 months and don't anticipate any problems. If I can't get the room, that tells me that a lot of people are trying to plan their trips more than 7 months out, which will inevitably lead to a high percentage of cancellations. Other people may simply be booking a room at their Home resort with the intention of switching to another a 7 months. This again will lead to many cancellations. Either way, I'll absolutely go on the waitlist and have little concern that I will get the room before my trip begins.