Questions about availabilty

[Aurora0427]

Hello! We are seriously considering buying DVC. We will probably do VGF (acronym correct?!) unless we wait for the Poly to be completed. My questions are:

1. I know you can book your home resort 11 months out. Have you had difficulties booking studios at the 11 month mark at your home resort?

2. How difficult is it to secure studious at the 7 month mark for resorts other than your home resort? Especially in the summer. We have flexibility to travel in the off season, but kids will be starting kindergarten in 2 years, so then we become less flexible.

I'm considering buying enough points for a 1 bedroom at VGF just to be safe, it's just so darn expensive. I'm just concerned that we won't always be booking 11 months in advance and will be limited in options.

Thanks

 

[chalee94]

1. I know you can book your home resort 11 months out. Have you had difficulties booking studios at the 11 month mark at your home resort?

the only issues for problems with booking studios that i have heard of:

1) AKV-club level
2) AKV-value studios
3) BLT-standard view

VGF is too new to have a pattern yet.

2. How difficult is it to secure studious at the 7 month mark for resorts other than your home resort? Especially in the summer. We have flexibility to travel in the off season, but kids will be starting kindergarten in 2 years, so then we become less flexible.

it varies.

i would generally recommend buying where you are happy staying and booking early and then trying to change at 7 months out if you wanted to try something else.

but the summer is generally lower demand season for DVC owners, so i think you'd have more options in general.

during food and wine and early december is much busier than summer for DVC...but patterns do change over the years.

I'm considering buying enough points for a 1 bedroom at VGF just to be safe, it's just so darn expensive. I'm just concerned that we won't always be booking 11 months in advance and will be limited in options.

yeah, if you are not booking within your home resort window, it won't matter where you own. hard to give you really solid advice on VGF at this point IMO.

 

[Sandisw]

Given the expense of VGF, you do want to be sure that you can book within that home window if you are going to spend the extra money to own there..

We travel in the summer as I am a teacher and being able to get things at different resorts at 7 months is pretty good.

There are some views or room types that aren't necessarily available but the resorts are--ie: BLT SV might be gone, but not LV rooms.

We have had good luck...I even got 2 nights in a VGF studio, through booking one night online and wait listing, around 4 months out, so things are possible.

SSR, OKW, and AKV tend to be the ones that will be available for summer bookings the longest...BCV tends to be the one that books up the fastest (in my experience) due to its size and SAB.

As already mentioned, VGF is just too new to know what the trends will be...

Good luck!

 

[sndral]

The thing I can't quite wrap my head around w/ VGF is how those fixed weeks they sold will impact availability since it's smaller to begin w/ and some weeks are effectively removed from inventory before 11 months by the fixed week contracts.

 

[Aurora0427]

The thing I can't quite wrap my head around w/ VGF is how those fixed weeks they sold will impact availability since it's smaller to begin w/ and some weeks are effectively removed from inventory before 11 months by the fixed week contracts.

This is interesting... I didn't know they sold fixed weeks. I wonder if it's possible to find out which weeks sold. Obviously we are newbies when it comes to DVC! Thanks for all the responses- we love the GF and will typically stay there 99% of the time! I think we just have to adjust how we vacation at Disney- we typically book about 2-4 months in advance, although for our upcoming December trip we did book 10.5 months in advance.

 

[disneynutz]

This is interesting... I didn't know they sold fixed weeks. I wonder if it's possible to find out which weeks sold. Obviously we are newbies when it comes to DVC! Thanks for all the responses- we love the GF and will typically stay there 99% of the time! I think we just have to adjust how we vacation at Disney- we typically book about 2-4 months in advance, although for our upcoming December trip we did book 10.5 months in advance.

If you know what resort is your favorite, I would buy there just to be safe. You will read posts where people don't have any difficulty booking at 7 months or under but are you willing to take that chance? Disney has added thousands of new buyers to the mix in the last few years and they add more every day. The competition at 7 months can only increase.

In addition Disney is working hard to increase attendance year round with new events and extending dates on existing events and parities.

Bill

 

[Deb & Bill]

This is interesting... I didn't know they sold fixed weeks. I wonder if it's possible to find out which weeks sold. Obviously we are newbies when it comes to DVC! Thanks for all the responses- we love the GF and will typically stay there 99% of the time! I think we just have to adjust how we vacation at Disney- we typically book about 2-4 months in advance, although for our upcoming December trip we did book 10.5 months in advance.

You'll need to book exactly at 11 months out if you want to book VGF or almost anywhere for early Dec and the holidays. By 10.5 months, you might be too late for some locations.

 

[supersnoop]

The thing I can't quite wrap my head around w/ VGF is how those fixed weeks they sold will impact availability since it's smaller to begin w/ and some weeks are effectively removed from inventory before 11 months by the fixed week contracts.

I believe the were only allowed to sell 10-30% of the units as fixed weeks, so it won't "remove" those weeks from inventory, it will just reduce inventory available.

 

[disneynutz]

I believe the were only allowed to sell 10-30% of the units as fixed weeks, so it won't "remove" those weeks from inventory, it will just reduce inventory available.

As a fixed week owner, we don't have to keep the fixed week. We can use the points to book other dates at VGF with the 11 month priority or other resorts at 7 months.

Bill

 

[sndral]

I believe the were only allowed to sell 10-30% of the units as fixed weeks, so it won't "remove" those weeks from inventory, it will just reduce inventory available.

No more than 35% allowed to be fixed week, but @ least as of a year ago it was closer to 10% fixed week actually sold.
http://dvcnews.com/index.php/resort...xed-week-sales-for-the-grand-floridian-villas

I used the words 'effectively removed from inventory' in the sense that if I try to book @ 11 months for say 10 days in early December and 35% of the villas are allocated to fixed week owners for part of those 10 days, then there is less chance that I will be able to get the unit I want, even @ 11 months. Initially I would expect VGF to be very hard to get @ 7 months as everyone wants to use their 'old' points to try the new resort. Going forward perhaps demand will fall once the Poly opens and BLT's lower point requirements sway people wanting easy access to MK to book there rather than the high point cost VGF.

 

[luckyman_apd]

You'll need to book exactly at 11 months out if you want to book VGF or almost anywhere for early Dec and the holidays. By 10.5 months, you might be too late for some locations.

Dec 1-14 is in the lowest points use season and a very popular time to visit so it can be hard to book even your own resort. As a BLT owner I was luck to get the standard view for the dates I wanted... Being online EXACTLY at 8am 11 months out. By 7 months... I'm pretty sure most rooms were fully booked and every resort. There were 1 bedrooms to be found but those are the last to go. But it was a completely booked up time of year. So if this your planned time of travel I highly suggest buying where you want to stay at this time... Because you. I got not even get a room elsewhere at 7 months.

 

[drusba]

Hello! We are seriously considering buying DVC. We will probably do VGF (acronym correct?!) unless we wait for the Poly to be completed. My questions are:

1. I know you can book your home resort 11 months out. Have you had difficulties booking studios at the 11 month mark at your home resort?

2. How difficult is it to secure studious at the 7 month mark for resorts other than your home resort? Especially in the summer. We have flexibility to travel in the off season, but kids will be starting kindergarten in 2 years, so then we become less flexible.

I'm considering buying enough points for a 1 bedroom at VGF just to be safe, it's just so darn expensive. I'm just concerned that we won't always be booking 11 months in advance and will be limited in options.

Thanks

See my post #3 in the following thread: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=51506136#post51506136

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

This is interesting... I didn't know they sold fixed weeks. I wonder if it's possible to find out which weeks sold. Obviously we are newbies when it comes to DVC! Thanks for all the responses- we love the GF and will typically stay there 99% of the time! I think we just have to adjust how we vacation at Disney- we typically book about 2-4 months in advance, although for our upcoming December trip we did book 10.5 months in advance.

Unless you absolutely are going to change when you book then there's little reason to buy at the most expensive resort. SSR resale would be just as good but booking late will tend to mean fewer choices and potentially more disappointment if you are not accepting of that.

 

[Aurora0427]

You'll need to book exactly at 11 months out if you want to book VGF or almost anywhere for early Dec and the holidays. By 10.5 months, you might be too late for some locations.

No, we've already booked our December trip. We aren't DVC members yet. We were at Disney in February and booked a return trip at GF before we checked out. I meant that for this trip, we actually booked at 10.5 months out, which is far in advance for us!

 

[Aurora0427]

Unless you absolutely are going to change when you book then there's little reason to buy at the most expensive resort. SSR resale would be just as good but booking late will tend to mean fewer choices and potentially more disappointment if you are not accepting of that.

We would buy at the GF because we love the GF, and want that to be our home resort. We also would stop booking late if we did become DVC members, and book at 11 months out. currently we are not DVC members, and book and stay at the hotels, so late booking isn't a problem. We want to buy at a monorail hotel, and may wait until the Poly becomes available.

I was just curious about 7 month availability, in case we ever wanted to stay at a resort other than our home resort!

 

[Dasha Hermosilla]

With DVC you just change your mindset - you become long range Disney vacation planners. We used to book only 3 months out, but now I am diligent about my 11 month booking window. I also will sometimes book something as a "maybe" trip and then cancel if I change my mind (keeping in mind banking deadlines of course).

 

[DizBub]

I was just curious about 7 month availability, in case we ever wanted to stay at a resort other than our home resort!

We own at BLT and BCV and have stayed at all the WDW DVCs except VWL and VGF but I believe that's because we haven't tried. We have had good luck at 7 months at BCV (before buying there) BWV and AKV. As stated before OKW and SSR are easier to get into because they are so big.

I honestly think you will have good luck being able to stay most anywhere with good planning. Some room categories may be elusive like AKV value and BLT and BWV standard but you could get lucky.

 

[Deb & Bill]

No, we've already booked our December trip. We aren't DVC members yet. We were at Disney in February and booked a return trip at GF before we checked out. I meant that for this trip, we actually booked at 10.5 months out, which is far in advance for us!

What I was saying is that if you want the same trip as a member, 10.5 months out might not get you the trip you want.