For your information towards making a decision to buy VGF, this is VGF's current booking pattern:
1.
DVC's low to moderate season at WDW from the Monday after marathon weekend in Jan to to late Sep: Everything is open at 11 months out although on a rare occassion the studios might disappear very quickly in the morning at exactly 11 months out. Everything except studios, and on a rare occasion, 1BRs, is open even at 7 months out. Moreover, you have chances even for studios for several consecutive nights during the lowest demand times of the year: Feb 1 to the Thurs before Presidents' Day; late Feb after the Princess half marathon weekend to about mid-March, last week of April; and about July 10 to first week of Aug.
2.
DVC's high to extremely high demand season from late Oct to marathon weekend in Jan: studios often fill 11 months out to the day and during extremely high demand times, they can often fill very quickly, e.g., within 60 seconds after the 11 month window opens online at 8 a.m. for a particular date and on occasion even before the 11 month window opens. Even 1BRs can go fairly quickly during the extremely high demand times at exactly 11 months out. The GV's and dedicated 2BRs are usually open beyond the eleven month window but tend to fill before the 7 month window opens although outside of the extremely high demand times, there is occasionally a chance for those even at 7 months out. The extremely high demand times are the Thurs before Columbus Day to the second weekend after Columbus Day; early Nov for the Thursday through Sunday period when Disney has the Wine & Dine half marathon weekend; the Thurs through Sun of the last F&W weekend particularly if the weekend itself includes Veteran's Day; the Tues through Fri of Thanksgiving week; the first two weeks of Dec, which can include last few days of Nov depending on when Dec 1 falls, Christmas week, particularly Dec 27 through 31, and the Thurs to Sun of marathon weekend in Jan.
The reason for VGF's availability issues with studios even at 11 months out basically boils down to the fact that Disney built too few studios and then oversold them, legally. VGF has only 47 studios, a like number of 1BRs, and the combination of the studios and 1BRs make up the 2BR lock-offs; it also has 47 dedicated 2BRs (meaning they can be only 2BRs) and 6 Grand Villas. BLT was the last DVC resort that opened at WDW before VGF. During a less than two year period after most of BLT had been sold out in 2011 to when VGF went on sale in 2013, a time during which inflation was essentailly non-existent, Disney in increments raised the point price of BLT by about 40%. When VGF went on sale to new purchasers at $150 a point, it was priced lower than the then highly-inflated price of BLT at $165 so Disney could promote VGF as a "bargain" when in reality the vast majority who had purchased at BLT had paid $120 or less per point. Morever, VGF's real price even exceeded BLT's inflated price because the points needed per night to reserve a room were higher than most of BLT's rooms. In addition, Disney set only a 100 point minimum purchasse for new purchasers. Disney's main target audience for sales is not the rich. With VGF, Disney definitely reached the level where its price per point and points needed per night meant that the vast majority of its potential marketing audience could afford to buy only enough points to get studios. However, under its total points system, Disney gets to sell all points for all rooms to purchasers, even if all the purchasers can only afford studios, and still remain within the laws that prohibit overselling of timeshare interests beyond a total that would exceed full occupancy for a year. Net effect is that Disney sold all the points at VGF (other than a very small percentage it always keeps at each resort) for all rooms, including the 2BRs and GV's, mainly to buyers who could only afford studios. That "oversell" of studios coupled with the low number of studios is why there is now a problem at 11 months out during the last quarter of the year.
Bottom line is that if you intend to buy at VGF to regularly get studios during Oct to Dec, do so with the awareness that you have a real risk of striking out at times even if you try to reserve at 11 months out. At the very least, you may have to put up with stress to get all nights you want and go through wait-listing.
Moreover, you need to be aware of what is called "walking" a reservation. Some members try to beat the 11 month window via walking. A member can make a reservaton at their home resort for up to 7 nights at exactly 11 months from day of arrival. What happens is that some members start in late Sep to reserve a studio for 7 nights or as many fewer nights that they have points for. Any such reservation prevents others from reserving the same room space for both days that the walker has reserved the room and days after, e.g., if you have a reservation from Sep 28 to Oct 4, 2017, on Oct 28, 2016 at exactly 11 months out, no one who tries to reserve on Oct 29, 30, or 31, or Nov 1, 2, or 3, 2016, can get that already filled room for any days beyond Oct 3. The walker will then either call daily or every few days after making the reservation to drop days at the beginning of the reservation and add days to the end. The walker continously does that until he has the actual days he wants, which could be as late as mid-Oct or even after. The walker thus beats the 11 month system by masking the intial reservation for a time when there is no problem reserving 11 months out and then walks it to his desired time when such problems usually exist..
Walking is something that does occur with VGF for the last quarter of the year. If you become a VGF owner, you may even want to do it if you want to lower the risk of not being able to get a room in those extremely high demand times. However, and the reason would require more detail than I can through right now, if you want to be a walker for October vacation time then it is necassary that you have a Sep or before use year, because an Oct use year is going to prevent you from beginning that walk in Sep.
Also be aware that if you are considering purchasing Poly, Disney has been doing the same thing there -- overselling the studios by selling most of those bungalow points to purchasers who will resereve only studios (consider, who can really purchase a week in a bungalow annually during magic season, for which the points needed would cost close to $200,000?). However, Poly has thus far avoided any 11 month window issues due to the fact that there are a huge number of studios.
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