Staying at "other" DVC properties

[rinkwide]

One thing to consider is that your contract at SSR is good for extra years. Unless I hated SSR and would never stay there, or was only joining DVC to stay in a 1 bedroom Christmas week at VWL, or had no flexibility with my vacation time - I would not get worked up about the home resort.

Any contract is a long contract. DVC is going to keep adding resorts. The resort where you are most want to stay ten years from now may not even exist yet - and demand for some of the older resorts may go down at the seven month mark.

You sound just like my guide.

 

[crisi]

Any contract is a long contract. DVC is going to keep adding resorts. The resort where you are most want to stay ten years from now may not even exist yet - and demand for some of the older resorts may go down at the seven month mark.

Or the demand could go up. There will only be one SAB (a pool I personally am not fond of), Disney will not build another pool like that, its too expensive to run. There will not be additional resorts walking distance to Epcot and MGM, there just isn't enough room. So if those things are important to you, the chances of additional rooms decreasing demand for those things is pretty slim.

There is no guarentee there will be many future DVC resorts, either. There may be ten more or no more. At some point, the market WILL saturate (and we all hope Disney stops building before then for the sake of our own investment). And the economy is a wild card as well - gas prices go to $6 or $8 and getting to WDW will become much more expensive - and some people won't go.

 

[spiceycat]

I don't know. If the Polyn got a DVC resort - I think BCV would go down in popularity...

the Polyn through the TTC monrail has easy access to Epcot.

but I agreed that SALB will always have an appeal for certain folks that no other resort pool can touch...

 

[starbox]

I think that there is space and incentive (with EE and the new Nemo show) to expand around Animal Kingdom as well and would not be surprised at all to see a safari-themed DVC property in the next 5 years.

I think a lot of the popularity of resorts will be managed by Disney working the points the way they manage crowds and demand everywhere in the parks - evaluate trends and raise the points during high demand seasons or for high demand units and lower them for more open places/units. I'd love to try BCV one day, but if I am choosing between 3 nights there and 4 at OKW or BWV - I'd go for the extra nights. I have a feeling that the percentage of DVC members who will only want to stay at one resort for every single vacation they take for the length of their contact is relatively small and will continue to be small because most people who are Disney-a-holics like the variety of experiences that WDW provides - from parks, to shows, to restaurants, to resorts.

 

[bpmorley]

I don't know. If the Polyn got a DVC resort - I think BCV would go down in popularity...

the Polyn through the TTC monrail has easy access to Epcot.

but I agreed that SALB will always have an appeal for certain folks that no other resort pool can touch...

I don't think BCV will ever go down in popularity. There was talk about an SAB like pool to be built at SSR. I think that would boost popularity to SSR but no way would it take from BCV. Same goes for a Poly DVC.

 

[crisi]

I don't know. If the Polyn got a DVC resort - I think BCV would go down in popularity...

the Polyn through the TTC monrail has easy access to Epcot.

but I agreed that SALB will always have an appeal for certain folks that no other resort pool can touch...

Even if you add a resort like the Poly, you'd have to add a big resort to take away the "second choice" demand for a place like BCVs. The math is just so skewed towards the small resorts having a much different supply demand curve that you really need to throw something that will really change demand at it. A big Poly resort and a big AKL resort might do it. But two 200 room resorts won't change much. And I really doubt either resort will ever get built. There isn't room for a DVC wing in either place without converting rooms that are currently selling better than at other resorts - unless the rumor about footings for DVC in the AKL parking lot is true - in which case, if it ain't the Savannah, it will lose a lot of interest. If DVC is a deal for us, then resort rooms that sell is a deal for Disney.

 

[LTDaveCass]

How easy is it to use points purchased at SSR to stay at VWL or BCV?

The more flexible you are (dates, resorts, room types), the less important home resort becomes. If you're willing to take a chance at another resort, but don't mind staying at SSR that year if it doesn't work out, it's not a problem.

If you know you want to stay at VWL or BCV every year, though, that's where you should buy.

We really like SSR, which made it easy for us to decide to buy there. The other incentive was the extra years our contract will have over buying at another resort.

For the trips when we want to experiment with another resort, we'll follow the standard advice. We'll book our dates at SSR at the 11 month point, then try to switch resorts or wait list at the 7 month point. If we wind up at SSR, no big deal -- we'll try the other resort on another trip. After all, we've got 50 years of vacations to fit it all into.

There may come a day when DVC will not allow you to stay at different DVC resort other than your "home" resort.

That's possibly something that could change for new contracts, but for current owners, the ability to use points at any DVC resort is part of the contract. Disney wouldn't be able to arbitrarily change the way the system works.