SW:GE opening guess Dec 4 - DVC related

[CarolMN]

Exactly. The same rights as members. Not more rights. So they cannot book rooms before the 11 months mark and they cannot have automatic procedures to book room at 11 months and 0 seconds before members have a chance to use the website. Competition must be fair.
Value and consierge rooms at AKV have not been available to members for booking before the 11 months mark. We'll see if the whole 2 DVC floors will be out of service for that weeks (I believe value rooms are spread all over). If not, then DVCMC is doing something illegal.

Pretty much agree. That's why I think that the value & concierge situation has something to do with the hotel side rehab and/or possibly screw ups related to that. A few years ago, they had to move concierge guests to non concierge rooms at other DVC resorts and the boards were outraged. Many were demanding compensation way out of proportion to the "loss". Can't blame DVC if they are trying to avoid a repeat of that mess.

I do not believe there is any malicious intent or sinister plot happening. I prefer not to assume motives absent clear and convincing evidence. YMMV and I'm OK if others disagree.

 

[zavandor]

If value rooms are ALL out of commission, why are/were standard and savanna view available?
Is a refurbishment planned only for value rooms? That would be a first, refurbish all rooms in a category spread all overnthe resort instead of closing off a section and refurbish all rooms in that section.
It doesn't make much sense to me.

The only possible explanation would be an IT bug, but people have been calling MS for weeks about it, every day passing without a resolution it gets less and less credible as an excuse.

 

[meekey7197]

The value rooms are all away from the standard rooms in the front two trails. I too want to believe that there is nothing nefarious happening. The way people were losing their minds about the painting at Kidani makes me think they just pulled all the value rooms to avoid that. Just my two cents (again, LOL).

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

I also don't think anything nefarious is going on. My guess is this the reason the values are available for cash is most hotels will normally overbook their lowest category of room if they don't think they will sell out their highest categories. They then upgrade some people at check in. Let's say there's 10 value rooms @ $400/night and 10 savanna rooms at $500/night. Through years of data, they know at any given time 14 people will want to pay $400 and 6 will pay $500. They will continue to sell value rooms even after the 10 value rooms are booked (assuming the savanna rooms still have inventory). They'd rather get the extra $400 by overbooking value rooms and upgrade a few people than not get anything at all and have savanna rooms sit empty. Inventory management is an integral part of any business that sells perishable assets (hotel rooms, airline seats etc).

My guess is Disney IS doing a refurb on the value rooms like some have been told. CRO will still sell them because they want to be able to offer rooms at the value price point. CRO has the flexibility to offer those rooms then upgrade the guest to a savanna view. The DVC side does not.

I also think if they were going to do something illegal like booking a whole category before the 11 month window opens I'd think they'd swing for the fences and take BWV standard views. They'd get more for those with SW opening than AKV values

 

[cmwade77]

My guess is Disney IS doing a refurb on the value rooms like some have been told. CRO will still sell them because they want to be able to offer rooms at the value price point. CRO has the flexibility to offer those rooms then upgrade the guest to a savanna view. The DVC side does not.

Where do you get that the DVC side does not have that flexibility? I have had upgrades on DVC rooms, they do have a certain amount of inventory that they set aside in case the booked room is unavailable for some reason, just like on the cash side of things.

 

[cmwade77]

I also think if they were going to do something illegal like booking a whole category before the 11 month window opens I'd think they'd swing for the fences and take BWV standard views. They'd get more for those with SW opening than AKV values

I do agree with you on this point though, that would make a lot more sense.

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

Where do you get that the DVC side does not have that flexibility? I have had upgrades on DVC rooms, they do have a certain amount of inventory that they set aside in case the booked room is unavailable for some reason, just like on the cash side of things.

I'm assuming DVC has the inventory for a few rooms to deal with matinence issues that arise. Also upgrades can happen if a resort is not sold out and a maintenance issues arises. I don't think they have the inventory size to take whole categories out of inventory like the cash side would and still book them. Cash inventory and timeshare inventories are managed very differently.

 

[DenLo]

Where do you get that the DVC side does not have that flexibility? I have had upgrades on DVC rooms, they do have a certain amount of inventory that they set aside in case the booked room is unavailable for some reason, just like on the cash side of things.

DVC does not set aside inventory incase a room goes out of service. They might have rooms that have been pulled for maintenance or rooms that have been sent to CRO for cash reservations that are called breakage. Breakage rooms and rooms blocked for maintenance could be opened for such an emergency. But there is no other points held this purpose. And no the points owned by DVD (the developer) are not used for maintenance that is a myth, since DVD owns points they are a club member and use their points just like we do, it is right in the POS.

 

[CarolMN]

Back on topic, we now have a reason to believe SWGE will open prior to September 30.

On the earnings call a few days ago, Disney's CFO said WDW SWGE would open before the end of the fiscal year. That's September 30.

Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge may open in June in Disneyland and by September at Disney World.

I'd love that. Hope she is right!

 

[CarolynFH]

Back on topic, we now have a reason to believe SWGE will open prior to September 30.

On the earnings call a few days ago, Disney's CFO said WDW SWGE would open before the end of the fiscal year. That's September 30.

Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge may open in June in Disneyland and by September at Disney World.

I'd love that. Hope she is right!

On the SW:GE thread on the Rumors board, that same statement came up. Unfortunately, it was pointed out that if you listen carefully you'll hear Iger correct her by saying by the end of the calendar year. Sorry!

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

On the SW:GE thread on the Rumors board, that same statement came up. Unfortunately, it was pointed out that if you listen carefully you'll hear Iger correct her by saying by the end of the calendar year. Sorry!

Well shoot - I was able to be excited for our late Sept early Oct trip for about 5 seconds!

 

[CarolMN]

On the SW:GE thread on the Rumors board, that same statement came up. Unfortunately, it was pointed out that if you listen carefully you'll hear Iger correct her by saying by the end of the calendar year. Sorry!

Well shoot - I was able to be excited for our late Sept early Oct trip for about 5 seconds!

Well, darn it!

Carolyn, Thanks for the correction.

 

[zavandor]

I also don't think anything nefarious is going on. My guess is this the reason the values are available for cash is most hotels will normally overbook their lowest category of room if they don't think they will sell out their highest categories. They then upgrade some people at check in. Let's say there's 10 value rooms @ $400/night and 10 savanna rooms at $500/night. Through years of data, they know at any given time 14 people will want to pay $400 and 6 will pay $500. They will continue to sell value rooms even after the 10 value rooms are booked (assuming the savanna rooms still have inventory). They'd rather get the extra $400 by overbooking value rooms and upgrade a few people than not get anything at all and have savanna rooms sit empty. Inventory management is an integral part of any business that sells perishable assets (hotel rooms, airline seats etc).

My guess is Disney IS doing a refurb on the value rooms like some have been told. CRO will still sell them because they want to be able to offer rooms at the value price point. CRO has the flexibility to offer those rooms then upgrade the guest to a savanna view. The DVC side does not.

I also think if they were going to do something illegal like booking a whole category before the 11 month window opens I'd think they'd swing for the fences and take BWV standard views. They'd get more for those with SW opening than AKV values

We know for sure that all the value and club rooms where removed from the booking system before members could have a chance to book them.
We are only sure that at least one standard BWV was available. There are more of them, DVC could have easily pre-reserved 2/3 of them without us noticing (and probably blaming the walkers for the low availability).

 

[CarolynFH]

Well shoot - I was able to be excited for our late Sept early Oct trip for about 5 seconds!

Well, darn it!

Carolyn, Thanks for the correction.

Yeah, I was disappointed too! Sorry to have to pop the magic bubble!

 

[Mikey15]

Well shoot - I was able to be excited for our late Sept early Oct trip for about 5 seconds!

I'll be there early October, and, on the contrary, I'm breathing a sigh of relief that I won't have to deal with opening week!

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

I'll be there early October, and, on the contrary, I'm breathing a sigh of relief that I won't have to deal with opening week!

I'm a nut who's ok with openings. If you look under my avatar you'll see "Glad to be a Test Subject". That was something I wrote before the opening of WOC at DCA when I was there for the very first show and grand opening - packed in tighter than sardines. The Tag Fairy picked up on it and added it to my profile. I was feeling the need to live up to the tag again!

 

[Greg36]

Just got a call back from DVC about the value rooms. They are saying that there is a hard goods room refurbishment going to happen early Dec through mid Feb and this is why rooms have not been put into inventory... The CM who called me indicated they just found out about it last night...

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Just got a call back from DVC about the value rooms. They are saying that there is a hard goods room refurbishment going to happen early Dec through mid Feb and this is why rooms have not been put into inventory... The CM who called me indicated they just found out about it last night...

A hard goods refurb that wasn't on the schedule as of the December annual meeting? And AKV most definitely is not up for one yet.

I for one think things are holding up very well at AKV - the furniture etc. is very good quality. I'm not too happy to hear they are now doing refurbs much faster than necessary and so close to the soft goods refurb.

 

[Greg36]

A hard goods refurb that wasn't on the schedule as of the December annual meeting? And AKV most definitely is not up for one yet.

I for one think things are holding up very well at AKV - the furniture etc. is very good quality. I'm not too happy to hear they are now doing refurbs much faster than necessary and so close to the soft goods refurb.

I was really surprised when he told me this. We just stayed in a value studio a few months ago and I thought it was in decent shape.

 

[Greg36]

I should add too that he said it was only the value studios at this time. He did not mention anything about the 1 beds...