We am going to add on , my sweet thing loves WLV but I have been able to get pretty much what ever I want when I want when we stay there. So the question is, what are the difficult times to get rooms there?. Our home resort is AKV.
I doubt if I would need the villas then because we are home with the kids at Christmas, any others? I am leaning towards OKW because we love the room size, the layout and point value.
Not that you asked, but a bit of personal advice: I've found life is a lot better when you get what your sweet thing wants, rather than what you want.
Anyway, pretty much all of Thanksgiving - December is tough to get at VWL at the 7-month mark. The rest of the year you will usually be OK, though there are no guarantees. Nor are they any guarantees things won't get tougher in the future.
Interesting you should say that. If I hadn't chose to join DVC we wouldn't be having this conversation. My bride of 40+ years wouldn't have joined, in fact she really wasn't on board when we took the plunge.
I have never been one to say "If the wife isn't happy then nobody's happy".
Don't get me wrong, the best thing in life next to my relation with my God is the love of my life, my wife. But I am told to love, protect, and serve her and I hope that makes her happy.
So with that in mind I still am in a pickle wondering where to add on, oh wait I should just take a page out of DVC Mike's page and add on at both.
Just a thought to consider: WLV is MUCH smaller than OKW and (especially in December) has much less availability at the 7-month window and later...
We've done a fair number (4) of last-minute trips (planned 3 months or less from arrival date) in the last 2 years...we pretty much never had trouble getting villas at OKW or SSR (still haven't tried to stay at WLV, so can't say about it...but do know that BCV and BWV (my son mostly prefers to stay in the Boardwalk area) can be tough to get w/out a lot of lead time...I almost always try for one of them and almost always can't get them on a last minute basis...
So...as you decide between the two resorts, you might want to keep in mind that your chances for a 7-month (or later) reservation at OKW are much better than at WLV...
Your wife is a wise woman. If you want to stay at WLV with the 11 month advantage then purchase there. As another post said OKW always has availability due to its size, VWL is the smallest and as such will be difficult at the most popular times of the year, mostly holiday weeks, holiday weekends and the summertime. I owned at OKW and when I was waitlisted at 7 month mark for the week after Thanksgiving at the VWL and it never came through, I sold OKW and purchased VWL. Good Luck!
I love VWL, and I think the big draw to owning is being able to book the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas there at the 11 month time frame. My DS surprised me recently. I asked him/his family if I should try to change our VWL reservations for the 2010 Marathon week. I gave them the pros/cons of different places (DDiL will be running her first 1/2 Marathon, her training begins today!!! Congratulation, Maureen, she finished the 12th Annual Melrose Run for Women yesterday!), and in the end, they said "Stay, we're comfortable at VWL, it feels like home!" They've stayed at VWL, and BCV so far, with another BCV stay coming up for them this Sunday!