Spirited News, Observations & Thoughts IV

[lazyboy97o]

Hey look, the Magic Band can be used on the Disney Infinity portal to unlock the Fantasyland Dragon for the Toy Box. It's a potpourri of marketing gimmicks!

This was mentioned by Staggs not too long ago in an interview.

 

[asianway]

We can all agree that the premier DVC resorts generally will have no availability at peak times unless booked at 11 and 7 month windows, That being said having the LARGE resorts SSR/OKW/AKL report NO availability at off season times when parks are running reduced hours defies logic unless one of several things are happening

- its as 1974 states and resort has taken a third of rooms out of service
- Disney is playing with breakage
- the stripped contracts have been used for 'Spec Reservations' commonly flogged on Ebay
- computer system upgrade now only searches for exact match it cannot assemble rooms with less than full availabilty into a reservation

OKW has a very generous point chart & 2 queen beds in the Studio-I think it's the only one-maybe the secrets out. I have no idea why SSR would be though-not much of an upside though I hear some people like it

 

[ThemeParkJunkee]

This was mentioned by Staggs not too long ago in an interview.

Yes, it was at the D11 "Digital" conference where he unveiled Magic Bands to a group of tech people. The video is available online.

 

[flynnibus]

Ok, time to use some post history to clear the air.

to the points @Tim_4 was trying to correct.. the $3billion NGE stuff is not something detractors made up. It's stuff posters have extrapolated from the NGE budget is out of control picture that has been painted here repeatedly by our resident insiders. We get the parroting and people putting their own spin on something and it gets out of control.

I'm not going to spend any time trying to find when the trend started, but the idea the budget was long past and no end in sight has been prompted by wdw1974 many times...

And all at the time the company decides to spend $1.5 billion on a datamining/trip planning system designed to bring in more/new revenue and one that is highly flawed

Things remain largely a disaster as the price tag on this thing is either just below or just above the $2 billion mark depending on who you talk to

Now, they can't even say when that billion over budget project will actually go live

So at this point.. it's commonly referred to the project being well over budget and even 2+ billion dollars.

So how about 3 Billion? Well, there we can't point the finger at wdw1974... that was fueled by @marni1971

Never called it minimal. 2 billion+, as it now stands is far from it

Then..

Wanna bet?

It's also now 2.5 billion plus and rising. Solely for WDW.

Then just 4 days later he says its 2.8 billion... it doesn't take much for people to see that sort of trajectory and then extrapolate to 3 billion for their own version of the tale...

2.8 billion. And the realisation of those involved that it may never deliver what was promised 6 years ago.

3 and a half billion? Ha ha!

Its 2.8

Adding fuel to that fire.. we even flirt with the '3' number...

Indeed. Good point. But if the budget hasn't almost tripled and hadn't started to have a direct effect on attraction investment (as it has) it would be a slightly less bitter pill.

Thankfully they're spending 3 billion on NextGen though...

Now.. in wdw1974's defense.. back at the beginning of the month when all this talk went from sub 2 billion to all of a sudden talking about near 3 billion as if it were common knowledge... wdw1974 did do his part to try to temper that.

it is not $3 billion ..yet anyway.

I do want to reinforce that no one has been able to confirm the current expenditure for NGE. No one knows or will say. It might as well be a government program because you aren't going to find anyone, likely other than 3-4 people at the VERY top of Disney, who know the answer.

We Do know, from reliable sources and company releases, it exceeds $1.1 billion. Looking at the reconfiguring of certain budgets, the movement of monies, many folks believe the $2 billion mark was passed long ago now and the steady march toward $3 billion is inevitable. That's all probably accurate.

So there you have it. These claims @Tim_4 was trying to debunk were not fictitious.. just some minor details lost in where they originated I'm glad that conversation was brought up tho.. as I had a real hard time following these posts back from the beginning of the month were all of a sudden the spend #s are rising by hundreds of millions of dollars a day.

I greatly appreciate the information @marni1971 brings to the forum and his incredible videos - but this conversation can't be had without naming names where this notion was shared with the forum. Maybe it came from others as well.. but he was the most credible guy on the forum repeating these numbers leading credence to the claims.

 

[stlphil]

Okay, here's more musings on the DVC cash vs. members reservation issue. If things are as WDW1974 suggests and DVC owners are feeling less tethered to WDW and not using their points at WDW, then more and more inventory will be shifted to cash. The more this happens, the greater the the potential for Disney to screw the owners in ways that are completely legal.

For example, as rooms get converted to cash use, there is nothing in the contracts that state which specific rooms get converted or when. There is nothing to keep Disney from reserving the rooms with the very best locations for cash ressies, since these can potentially command higher rates.

Or another possibility would be to only convert weekend dates, again because of higher rates. Then when a member tries to reserve a whole week, "so sorry, no whole weeks are available because all Saturdays are reserved for cash customers ".

Let me be clear that I'm not accusing anybody of anything, just pointing out that with higher rates of conversion from points to cash that there is greater flexibility in how the conversion could be done potentially in ways harmful to owners, while still not violating the contracts.

 

[englanddg]

Ok, time to use some post history to clear the air.

to the points @Tim_4 was trying to correct.. the $3billion NGE stuff is not something detractors made up. It's stuff posters have extrapolated from the NGE budget is out of control picture that has been painted here repeatedly by our resident insiders. We get the parroting and people putting their own spin on something and it gets out of control.

I'm not going to spend any time trying to find when the trend started, but the idea the budget was long past and no end in sight has been prompted by wdw1974 many times...







So at this point.. it's commonly referred to the project being well over budget and even 2+ billion dollars.

So how about 3 Billion? Well, there we can't point the finger at wdw1974... that was fueled by @marni1971



Then..


Then just 4 days later he says its 2.8 billion... it doesn't take much for people to see that sort of trajectory and then extrapolate to 3 billion for their own version of the tale...





Adding fuel to that fire.. we even flirt with the '3' number...





Now.. in wdw1974's defense.. back at the beginning of the month when all this talk went from sub 2 billion to all of a sudden talking about near 3 billion as if it were common knowledge... wdw1974 did do his part to try to temper that.





So there you have it. These claims @Tim_4 was trying to debunk were not fictitious.. just some minor details lost in where they originated I'm glad that conversation was brought up tho.. as I had a real hard time following these posts back from the beginning of the month were all of a sudden the spend #s are rising by hundreds of millions of dollars a day.

I greatly appreciate the information @marni1971 brings to the forum and his incredible videos - but this conversation can't be had without naming names where this notion was shared with the forum. Maybe it came from others as well.. but he was the most credible guy on the forum repeating these numbers leading credence to the claims.

I'd give you 3 billion likes for your well-reasoned response, but the like button stops at 2.8 billion.

<grins mischievously>

 

[71jason]

This has always been my impression of how it works. Disney can't just take rooms from DVC and sell them for cash. Timeshares are regulated and members have an ownership stake in those rooms.

Just to clarify, timeshares are heavily regulated, but DVC isn't timeshare. DVC members don't legally own anything at WDW. It's strictly a fancy vacation contract, which gives Disney a lot more leeway.

 

[doctornick]

Just to clarify, timeshares are heavily regulated, but DVC isn't timeshare. DVC members don't legally own anything at WDW. It's strictly a fancy vacation contract, which gives Disney a lot more leeway.

From the DVC website...

Your purchase is a real estate transaction for which you receive a recorded deed. This deed represents your "ownership interest." This ownership interest entitles you to an annual allotment of Vacation Points that you use to reserve accommodations.

It's true that DVC is for a limited timeframe, not indefinite, but it is definitely an ownership stake in that particular resort for that period.

 

[GoofGoof]

Okay, here's more musings on the DVC cash vs. members reservation issue. If things are as WDW1974 suggests and DVC owners are feeling less tethered to WDW and not using their points at WDW, then more and more inventory will be shifted to cash. The more this happens, the greater the the potential for Disney to screw the owners in ways that are completely legal.

For example, as rooms get converted to cash use, there is nothing in the contracts that state which specific rooms get converted or when. There is nothing to keep Disney from reserving the rooms with the very best locations for cash ressies, since these can potentially command higher rates.

Or another possibility would be to only convert weekend dates, again because of higher rates. Then when a member tries to reserve a whole week, "so sorry, no whole weeks are available because all Saturdays are reserved for cash customers ".

Let me be clear that I'm not accusing anybody of anything, just pointing out that with higher rates of conversion from points to cash that there is greater flexibility in how the conversion could be done potentially in ways harmful to owners, while still not violating the contracts.

Not sure how it all works exactly, but I think most trade-ins are a net zero for Disney. DVC has a large pool of points sold. Lets say 50 million points a year. The point charts for the rooms set aside for DVC add up to 50 million points. Those rooms may only be 90% of the occupancy of a given DVC resort with with 10% held back for cash guests. The 10% held back can't all be Friday and Saturday nights, they are the equivalent of a virtual room. Now if I own at BLT but trade in this year for Grand Californian or Hilton Head I will take those points and someone who owns there would need to book somewhere else. If I trade out through RCI to go to Aruba my points will go to someone else in RCI who trades in. They will need to use the points at a DVC resort. The only time Disney gets to convert my DVC room to a cash room is if I trade in for a room at a non-DVC Disney hotel or probably a cruise. Then I am taking a cash room out of circulation and they are getting one back. I guess if enough DVC members trade in their points for hotel rooms or cruises then the number of cash rooms would go up.

The system seems to work pretty well, but I guess it's possible that if you try to book last minute they may have converted some rooms to cash and made them unavailable. As someone else pointed out that keeps the rooms occupied and keeps dues down. I'm not buying onto the theory that management is trying to screw the owners out of anything. There are plenty of bigger, actual problems at WDW. This just seems to be barking up the wrong tree.

 

[stlphil]

I tell you what....All this DVC talk.....it might as well be Flynni talking tech. Is there a Rosetta Stone program for DVC? Anyway....I know one thing. If I paid all that money and was 11 months out and couldn't get a room at my home resort....I would be 74 mad! Even if there is no monkey business with occupancy, it still does not smell right. So what you are saying is that DVC can sell the rooms to a cash ressie but cant do it the other way around? or they don't want to do it the other way around? ie. sell a cash room to DVC?

Sure you DVCers might have a clear picture of this but if I am in a presentation and I ask about it....they start giving me the explanation given here. I am running out of the room. I have a question.... a serious....honest question. What is the hook? What is the best reason you could give for owning DVC? I just don't see it.

Here's the hook, at least for us: it has saved us lots of money while upgrading our vacation experience.

Now I know my specific situation may not be typical (I described it in some detail in a previous thread), but there was a point 5-6 years in where I could have sold my membership at a high enough profit to have paid for all my maintenance fees to that point. Yes, free deluxe vacations (sadly I know that that doesn't make me a faux one percenter).

At this point of course I wouldn't do quite so well, but overall it has still been a great bargain (for us).

Let me mention one other thing that rarely gets considered in the DVC cost equation. Spread out over the life of the contract, our initial purchase price was well under $2 per point (don't talk to me about opportunity cost, that's just another form of legalized gambling). For a typical deluxe studio room at 15-20 points per night, that's less than $40. And since DVC has a healthy resale market, if you sell you are likely to get some or all of that back.

So the real question is "are the maintenance fees reasonable, and are they likely to stay that way?" While they have gone up somewhat, so far it hasn't been onerous (for us).

 

[GoofGoof]

Just to clarify, timeshares are heavily regulated, but DVC isn't timeshare. DVC members don't legally own anything at WDW. It's strictly a fancy vacation contract, which gives Disney a lot more leeway.

Not true. You still own deeded property, but the deed just expires. It falls under timeshare laws.

 

[flynnibus]

Just to clarify, timeshares are heavily regulated, but DVC isn't timeshare. DVC members don't legally own anything at WDW. It's strictly a fancy vacation contract, which gives Disney a lot more leeway.

I think the deed recorded with the county and the bank's view of the world would disagree with you It was a new hybrid not used previously for timeshares.. but you do have an ownership interest. Hence the recording of deeds and not just simple 'right to use' contracts.

 

[ford91exploder]

Well, some of the "off season" times are the most in demand for DVC because of the cheaper rates. I don't know about Sept/late Jan though and would typically expect those to be more available.

Okay, here's more musings on the DVC cash vs. members reservation issue. If things are as WDW1974 suggests and DVC owners are feeling less tethered to WDW and not using their points at WDW, then more and more inventory will be shifted to cash. The more this happens, the greater the the potential for Disney to screw the owners in ways that are completely legal.

For example, as rooms get converted to cash use, there is nothing in the contracts that state which specific rooms get converted or when. There is nothing to keep Disney from reserving the rooms with the very best locations for cash ressies, since these can potentially command higher rates.

Or another possibility would be to only convert weekend dates, again because of higher rates. Then when a member tries to reserve a whole week, "so sorry, no whole weeks are available because all Saturdays are reserved for cash customers ".

Let me be clear that I'm not accusing anybody of anything, just pointing out that with higher rates of conversion from points to cash that there is greater flexibility in how the conversion could be done potentially in ways harmful to owners, while still not violating the contracts.

Good points here

 

[stlphil]

Not sure how it all works exactly, but I think most trade-ins are a net zero for Disney. DVC has a large pool of points sold. Lets say 50 million points a year. The point charts for the rooms set aside for DVC add up to 50 million points. Those rooms may only be 90% of the occupancy of a given DVC resort with with 10% held back for cash guests. The 10% held back can't all be Friday and Saturday nights, they are the equivalent of a virtual room. Now if I own at BLT but trade in this year for Grand Californian or Hilton Head I will take those points and someone who owns there would need to book somewhere else. If I trade out through RCI to go to Aruba my points will go to someone else in RCI who trades in. They will need to use the points at a DVC resort. The only time Disney gets to convert my DVC room to a cash room is if I trade in for a room at a non-DVC Disney hotel or probably a cruise. Then I am taking a cash room out of circulation and they are getting one back. I guess if enough DVC members trade in their points for hotel rooms or cruises then the number of cash rooms would go up.

The system seems to work pretty well, but I guess it's possible that if you try to book last minute they may have converted some rooms to cash and made them unavailable. As someone else pointed out that keeps the rooms occupied and keeps dues down. I'm not buying onto the theory that management is trying to screw the owners out of anything. There are plenty of bigger, actual problems at WDW. This just seems to be barking up the wrong tree.

For the record, I'm not saying that management is out to screw the owners. I'm just saying that the opportunity is there, is probably growing, and that there could be a financial incentive to do so.

By the way, I agree with most of your analysis, except the 90%, 10% part. The 10% held back in your example is measured in points, and that 10% can be converted to whatever specific rooms and dates that make the most sense for Disney, which may or may not be in the best interest of the owners.

 

[Clever Name]

Not true. You still own deeded property, but the deed just expires. It falls under timeshare laws.

It is a "deed" in name only. When the DVC fist started some buyers were concerned because they did not get a deed with their property purchase. Disney immediately recognized the problem and worked out a deal with county to create and record the DVC "deeds".

Disney is great at creating fictional things and convincing people to suspend their normal beliefs for the sake of magic!

 

[Rodan75]

It is a "deed" in name only. When the DVC fist started some buyers were concerned because they did not get a deed with their property purchase. Disney immediately recognized the problem and worked out a deal with county to create and record the DVC "deeds".

Disney is great at creating fictional things and convincing people to suspend their normal beliefs for the sake of magic!

Your post is fiction. It is a timeshare with a membership. It is a confusing morass of affiliate companies , but it is a timeshare. Nothing magical about it. The rules are clear that the membership can end at any time, leaving you with only the right to book your points at your home resort.

The way folks twist DVC around here makes me curious as to what other facts get twisted out of control.

 

[Longhairbear]

I really don't know and Disney is not giving us information, The last annual member meeting where the DVC execs USED to have a LONG Q&A period was totally scripted and they took NO questions, They also glossed over the financials and in the past they used to go into great detail.

With these changes it's hard NOT to think DVC is not playing by the rules, I have no evidence either way.

It could also be that the new NGE changes to computer system have broken the scheduling algorithm So where it used to be able to assemble reservations from fragments of inventory it now may only have an 'exact match' system ie there is no inventory unless a single room has EXACTLY what you are asking for.

I'm thinking they are trying to recoup monies because members are using their points in the Disney Collection etc., and not staying at WDW.

 

[Longhairbear]

Here's the hook, at least for us: it has saved us lots of money while upgrading our vacation experience.

Now I know my specific situation may not be typical (I described it in some detail in a previous thread), but there was a point 5-6 years in where I could have sold my membership at a high enough profit to have paid for all my maintenance fees to that point. Yes, free deluxe vacations (sadly I know that that doesn't make me a faux one percenter).

At this point of course I wouldn't do quite so well, but overall it has still been a great bargain (for us).

Let me mention one other thing that rarely gets considered in the DVC cost equation. Spread out over the life of the contract, our initial purchase price was well under $2 per point (don't talk to me about opportunity cost, that's just another form of legalized gambling). For a typical deluxe studio room at 15-20 points per night, that's less than $40. And since DVC has a healthy resale market, if you sell you are likely to get some or all of that back.

So the real question is "are the maintenance fees reasonable, and are they likely to stay that way?" While they have gone up somewhat, so far it hasn't been onerous (for us).

Also, room rates go up all the time, and points don't. We bought in 2003, and we used to stay in deluxe rooms. I haven't done the math, but I know I've saved a ton of money by now. For what we paid for points in 2003, we broke even around 2006 minus the maintenance fees. Those fees now are much less than I would pay for a villa, or a deluxe room.
We don't go to WDW anymore, and use our points at DLR, and we can drive there, so we save on airfare to FLA. Once it's all added up, I've saved money on my current vacations. The same for the Disney California Cruise we took. We drove to the port, spent 7 nights for the same amount of points we would use at a one bedroom (which we always get) at Wilderness Lodge for a week at the same time of year. Add in that all meals were included on the cruise.

 

[Joe]

<---Late to the conversation here.

Couldn't the amount of DVC rooms available for cash be because more and more owners are trading out to stay at other resorts (non-disney, out of state resorts)? I believe when that happens, the inventory those points represent are switched to cash rooms.

Most cash rooms are a result of DVC members using their points for DCL cruises. Then DVC sells the rooms for cash to pay DCL for the members cruise.

 

[marni1971]

All I can say is informed person(s) told me its heading towards 2.8 total and expected to rise. No arguments, no bluffing.

Things change, things slow. Much like Avland, FLE and DHS Carsland.