What I Over Heard About Next DVC

[Dean]

You would think by now that Disney would have learned that they can't compete in the timeshare world without their parks to tie into. I only bought DVC to be able to stay onsite and i bet the majority of other owners did as well. I can certainly get nicer/cheaper accommodation outside of Disney, so why pay that premium if there isn't a park tie in.

It's not that they can't but that they won't. I can't speak to why but my guess is they themselves believe they are different. That approach will work for the parks but not for other locations. I know many are glad that's the case but the reality is that the stronger the system is the better for the members. The reality is that we have all suffered the consequences of their complacency and better than they attitude. And it could have EASILY been done professionally without sacrificing those standards.

 

[DenLo]

They have 23 dedicated two bedroom units, 23 lockoffs (so 46 units) and 2 GV. So 71 units all together.

VGC has 48 units/vacation homes. A DVC unit is counted as one 2BR or one GV.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

VGC has 48 units/vacation homes. A DVC unit is counted as one 2BR or one GV.

Anaheim city documents consider it to be 71. For zoning purposes, their definition wins.

 

[Pixie_Dust]

At a Member Monday yesterday and iverheard someone say they were looking forward to the next one, words too indistinct to make out, but I thought it sounded like Port Orleans.

 

[Frederic Civish]

I always enjoy hypothesizing what Disney will do next and why. My guess would be that eventually they will convert some of the buildings at the GF over to DVC. Either the 2 larger out buildings or the 3 smaller ones. My rational for this is:

1. It's much much cheaper to convert existing structures over to DVC than building a whole new structure. They are outlaying a bunch for the new DVC over by Caribbean Beach. Next it might be time to get some of that easy money.

2. DVC steals guests away from staying at deluxe resorts. As DVC membership grows, Deluxe hotel occupancy goes down. We stayed quite frequently at the Poly, Boardwalk, AKL, and Contemporary paying cash for our rooms. Now that we own DVC we have stayed there on cash exactly 0 times. We cannot be the only ones that have done this or they wouldn't have converted half the Wilderness lodge and a bunch of the Poly over to DVC.

3. Converting the GF outbuildings over to DVC shifts the burden of upkeep from Disney to DVC members. I think I read once that they way they divide maint costs up at the shared resorts is based on theoretical occupancy not actual or average occupancy. This was the reason for that they like to add the murphy bed to the DVC studios. A DVC studio at Boardwalk can theoretically hold 5 people and a hotel room there only 4.

4. Disney can many times rent the DVC rooms out for cash. Sure some of the cash rooms are to pay for cruises etc. But I bet there is still plenty of breakage and Disney does have their 2% holdback that they can rent for cash (at least I think they can).

5. Did I mention it was easy money.

Let's face it, with respect to converting hotels to DVC or even the new construction of DVC units, Disney will do whatever they see as giving them the most profit. And sometimes, different divisions see things differently. Though the different Disney divisions co-operate, rather than compete, the DVC division and management is different from the Hotel division and management, which is different than the Theme Park Division, which is different than the Merchandising division, and so forth.

Disney has shown themselves to be a money making machine, and their eyes for the future are turned towards maximum profits. Figure out where they will make the most profit, and you will be able to figure out what they will do next.

 

[Frederic Civish]

The Disneyland Area Zoning Plan is such that Disney cannot put timeshare units in via a stealth mode. To develop a new timeshare ownership resort or portion, lots of things have to be filed. To develop units as timeshare, the builder has to file typical floor plans for each unit, a construction phasing plan, management stuff, some general boilerplate stuff about the timeshare operation, a parking study, and how they plan to collect the transient occupancy tax. It's pretty substantive.

If anything, Disney might apply for the Conditional Use Permits to repurpose part of Paradise Pier or the Disneyland Hotel, but, again, it would be subject to approval by Anaheim. Similarly, an application to build a DVC-only resort would be subject to the zoning code (not just Disney's property, but everything within certain geographic borders). Per 18.114.050 of Anaheim zoning code, up to 150 units total can be timeshare/vacation ownership units. There are currently 71. So it would either be a really small development (and maybe hard to get blessing to build, since the area plan seeks out a certain level of density), or need to get blessing to be bigger.

I would say, "Maybe Disney is thinking too small," but that would be wrong. I'm sure Disney has considered and evaluated something like what I am going to suggest below. Perhaps it is in their long term plans, perhaps not.

I presume Disney owns the Disney Parking Lots that are Southeast of California Adventure? I am talking about the massive parking lots that are east of Harbour Blvd and south of Katella? If you look on a map, they total an area that is approximately equal to California Adventure or Disneyland Park itself. So, what is to stop them from building a massive underground parking structure, at least one level and possibly two levels deep. This would preserve the parking that is there. Then, on top, they would build a new theme park, and in one corner, perhaps the corner towards Harbor Blvd, Disney could build a high rise hotel and DVC units? You could get a fleet of dedicated busses that run constantly from the underground parking, and from the hotel and from the new theme park, and go up the street to Disneyland/Calif Adventure, and back. It could be similar to the system they use at Disney World, except you would only go 1/2 mile between parks. (This presumes they could not get permission to build a system of Gondolas, or a monorail, or an underground tunnel all the way to Downtown Disney.

Now Disney would have a 3rd theme park in the area, plus a massive hotel, plus DVC, and it would be closely attached to the existing parks. I realize we are talking a few billion dollars here, in investments, but it would be paid back by the new hotel, new DVC and new theme park in a relatively short period of time. A thousand hotel rooms at a thousand dollars a day (lets face it, that is what they would be running for, by the time they are built) would bring in $365 million per year, by itself. When you add in the DVC, the merchandise, the new visitors paying new park entry fees, it would probably pay for itself withing just a few years.

 

[Frederic Civish]

How about another option? Rather than trying to 'buy out' the property owners to the east of Disneyland, when the property owners don't want to sell, why not take them on as partners, to form a new development area. They would give up their land and hotels to Disney. Disney would take over ownership of the land. Disney would tear down their hotels and then finance and build a new theme park extension on the blocks to the east of Disneyland. Part of the construction would be to build new, high rise DISNEY hotels along the east edge of that area, to replace at least the number of rooms that the hotel owners gave up. The partnership between Disney and the current Hotel and Land Owners would then own the new hotels (But not the new park extension. That would all be Disney.) The hotel owners would be paid something fair, like double their current room rate, adjusted for inflation forever, or maybe just for 100 years. But the rooms would also be more full, since Disney essentially sells out their hotel rooms most of the time. And Disney could and would charge a lot more for each room, just because they are Disney. Perhaps somewhere between $500 to $1000 per night, just like they do at their other premium hotels. The difference in room rates between what they paid the hotel owners, and what they keep for themselves, would turn Disney a nice profit, although not as much profit as they make on their other hotels, but they would also get a nice new theme park extension out of it.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

For any of those options they would still need city approval, and changes to the zoning plan.

The zoning plan sets where hotels can be built, how many units are allowed, minimum parking standards, how many can be timeshare. It is not just about who owns the land - the area plan is above ownership. It is not just Disney who can max out at 150 timeshare units in the hotel district, it is all owners/builders. The target number of hotel units is not "units owned by Disney," it's "units owned by all owners." The Disneyland zoning plan is for all landowners within certain boundaries - Disney, not Disney, everyone.

Everything has to comply with overall plan with permits.

So it doesn't matter if Disney want to build another gate, or hotels, or get new partners. All work must conform with zoning, which must be approved by the City.

 

[mickey&minniealways]

I really doubt that happens. They would have to create enough points to be used year round, but then would have people mostly only interested in going during ski season. Their "seasons" would have to be Ski Time -35 points per night for a studio, Non-Ski Time - 4 points per night, or something crazy along those lines.

A lot of the ski resorts in New England have many year round visitors. It is popular for hiking zip lining and many other outdoor adventures during the summer months. Fall brings out all the leaf peepers.

 

[Ben E N]

A lot of the ski resorts in New England have many year round visitors. It is popular for hiking zip lining and many other outdoor adventures during the summer months. Fall brings out all the leaf peepers.

Yes, but I took a look at their price differentials, and although they weren't as dramatic as a 35/4 ratio, the prices are way way higher in the winter than during other times of the year. DVC would be forced to do the same. Otherwise people would just spend cash to stay at those other places during offseasons for a much cheaper price than what Disney would be asking. This would drive the total points available at that resort down, and would lead to sort of wonky seasons where people would only be able to get what they want if they bought in there as a home resort.
While anything is possible, it is much less financially beneficial to Disney to make a resort that only has a max of, say 300,000 points than to just tear down part of port Orleans and build a new DVC that has 800,00 potential points in it.

 

[Dean]

A lot of the ski resorts in New England have many year round visitors. It is popular for hiking zip lining and many other outdoor adventures during the summer months. Fall brings out all the leaf peepers.

A lot of seasonal resorts struggle, this is one of the reasons points systems work well, it cons people into thinking their buying high season when not everyone can reserve. Traditional weeks timeshares struggle in very seasonal areas because the default on accounts is much higher. Even for HHI, about 1/4 of the weeks cost more than they're worth (can rent or trade in cheaper than owning).

 

[Sondra Sunflowers]

I think there is a market for non-park resorts. I haven't been to WDW in 3 years. We've been using DVC points for Vero & HHI. We did take advantage of the annual pass discount and will activate those on July 21. We'll be going to WDW at least 3 times over the next year. Looking forward to experiencing all the changes - Pandora & Toy Story Land! After the annual passes expire, we'll take another break and adventure out to other places.

I do wish there were other options b/c we do love to alternate between park and non-park resorts. I would go to any of these rumored places - ski resort, San Diego....and I agree with other posts that not fulfilling the National Harbor plan was a HUGE mistake.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

I think DVC struggles with the rules in any place that is not Orlando. AUL was a train wreck on regulatory stuff. They can't get permits to even expand in Anaheim up to their 150 cap in current zoning. Navigating other places' rules for timeshare sales, condo association and property tax has not been a big win for them. They aren't hiring the right people to make it work.

More non-park resorts will equal more stress at WDW resorts at 7 months. It's telling how easy it is to book at AUL, HHI and VB most seasons, although there are some time periods and units that can be tough, but they're so limited. Those points are being used somewhere else.

Be careful what you wish for.

 

[DenLo]

I agree a lot of owners of VB and HHI use more of their points at WDW than at their home resort, but so do many if not most SSR owners. Many are proud of never having stayed at their home resort. I am not sure about Aulani owners using their points at WDW as it so far away and many of the owners are from west coast. At VGF it is not that easy to get a room at the 7 month mark, so AUL owners really cannot assume to always use Aulani points at VGC. We own at Aulani and only use those points at Aulani. And I suspect that many Aulani owners prefer to use their points for Aulani.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

I am not sure about Aulani owners using their points at WDW as it so far away and many of the owners are from west coast.

The relative availability of Aulani inside 7 months suggests points being used elsewhere. I think a good number of people bought Aulani because it was what was being sold, especially in the "add 25 direct points!" push of last year, and on cruises. The level of scrutiny people on DIS use for purchase does not seem to be the norm amongst owners at large.

 

[Frederic Civish]

Has anyone heard of any plans to do any expansions or changes to AK lodges or the Animal Kingdom park? It would be nice if they extended their aerial tram, the Skyliner, that direction in a few years. Especially with the new buildings going in at Coronado Springs, with the 15 story high rise that is going to have DVC. The tram is going to increase park visitor numbers at Hollywood Studios and Epcot, no question. Maybe they might want to spread it out and include Animal Kingdom Park.

The current total length of the tram is probably going to come in at around 3 miles, including it's currently planned extensions to Art of Animation/Pop Century and then the Riviera and Epcot.

It is about 1.5 miles from the Skyliner location at Hollywood Studios to Coronado Springs. Then about 2 miles more to Animal Kingdom park (as the crow flies) and then another mile or so to AKL.

I'm not saying I have even heard rumors about this. I'm sure that Disney will want to wait and see how well the tram runs, and how popular it is, before they consider expanding it, but it would sure be nice.

Has anyone heard about anything else happening?

 

[Ben E N]

I'm not saying I have even heard rumors about this. I'm sure that Disney will want to wait and see how well the tram runs, and how popular it is, before they consider expanding it, but it would sure be nice.

I think that statement pretty much sums it up. Why even consider expanding the project until you know it works on a smaller scale, over considerable time, first?

 

[_auroraborealis_]

with the 15 story high rise that is going to have DVC

That's rumor. There is nothing to date to support the rumor, given that if it is to have DVC, that tower is scheduled to open around the same time Riviera opens. So why announce Riviera and say nothing about the CSR Tower that would be starting sales same time?

They've been doing PR around Riviera as DVC. Disney Files. Promos. Hype train.

Nothing on the CSR tower has mentioned DVC. Which makes it Worst Hype Train Ever if it is.

 

[LënuSëkahsëni]

Nothing on the CSR tower has mentioned DVC. Which makes it Worst Hype Train Ever if it is.

...or Best Kept Secret.

But my vote would be Worst Hype Train Ever.

 

[Ben E N]

...or Best Kept Secret.

But my vote would be Worst Hype Train Ever.

My vote is it isn't happening. That tower is meant for convention business. That would allow them to close the garden wing of the Contemporary and make that the next DVC property if they wish to.