Originally posted by Pa@okw95
The tree houses were never part of the DVC equation. I believe they are really in a state of disrepair. They would have to re-built for sure, so near the water and elements, they must be a real mess by now. I think if they were re-built they would come under great demand given the location, out of the way look they have to them.
A few years ago (I think 3 and 4), we saw some of the treehouses along the water were re-built. Over the course of 3 trips in an 18 month period, we could see many of them had been stripped to bare framing studs and then rebuilt.
The bartender at OKW told my DH they were being used as overflow for some of the college program kids (which is the same thing that Cruelladeville posted a CM who was staying there said).
Originally posted by Webmaster Doc
Among those issues are accessibility (if they are going to upgrade them for public use, they will fall under current ADA standards and they'll require elevators) and security (consistent with the current increased security at all WDW resorts and theme parks).
The accessibility part may not be that difficult. They don't have to make them all accessible, just some. There is a formula regarding how many based on number of rooms in the whole "hotel/resort". I don't have time to look for the link right now, but it works out to only like 2%. They don't have it as a percentage, which would be easy, it's listed by number required per number of rooms. And another factor is that they require differing levels of accessibility - from just needing to have things like raised seat toilets and grab bars in the bathrooms up to fully wheelchair accessible.
From what I remember about plans I saw when they were open, I think they would have lots of flexibility to move walls to make spaces that are big enough for a wheelchair (ie, there didn't appear to be a lot of interior loadbearing walls). Getting up to the second floor (the main living area) would requires a pretty long ramp, but that would be do-able or they could build an elevator shaft on the outside of the deck that takes you to that level. They could add a door from the outside to make the bottom level accessible. Impossible and very expensive if you had to do it to all the rooms, but not a big obstacle if you are talking about only a handful of rooms.
I found my 1994
Birnbaum's Official Guide and here's what it had to say about the Treehouses:
Guests who lodge in one of these octagonal houses-on-stilts, scatterd along a barbell-shaped roadway at the westeren edge of the resort, go to sleep to a cacophony of crickets and wake up to a chorus of birds. You're literally in the woods, alongside some of the winding WDW canals, and you feel a million miles from the rest of the WDW property and all its hubbub. Upstairs is the small (but modern) kitchen, the living room (where the television set and a sleep sofa are located); two bedrooms (each with a queen size bed) and 2 bathrooms; the whole floor is surrounded by a deck where you can eat or just sit and look out into the trees. Downstairs, there's a bedroom with a double bed and a utility room equipped with a washer and dryer. The canals offer some of the World's best fishing, mainly for bass, and the roadwasys -shady, flat, and untrafficked as they are -are terrific for jogging. The nearest swimming pool is the one in the Treehouse area.
In the capacity and price table, they list the occopancy as 6, but adding up the beds mentioned, it sounds like 8 (6 in beds and 2 in the sofa bed in the living room).
The price was $355 "season" or $335 "Off-season" (they only list "in season" or "off season"). To compare, DVC (OKW was the only one then) was listed as $365 season, $345 off-season for a 2 bedroom. Grand Floridian was $265-345 for a standard room season ($245-320 off season) and the moderates were $89-119 season or off-season.
