Recent content by Lynne M

The term "official Walt Disney World hotel" refers to a group of non-Disney-owned hotels that are located along Hotel Plaza Blvd, near Disney Springs. They have Disney's stamp of approval and are located on WDW property, but they're not Disney resorts, and aren't eligible for the perks you get...

Cheat Sheet is a clickbait site. Those are sites that use sensational headlines to get you to click on their link, and they get ad revenue from each link you hit on their site. The content isn't the point, and it's usually useless information, a rehash of an article on another site, or made up...

All you need to do is call Member Services and ask them to put in a request of "pool or monorail view."

But that's not gouging. Gouging is defined is "charging an exorbitant price for a product or service when no alternative is available." An example would be charging $50 for a case of water after a natural disaster, when clean water is not readily available. That doesn't apply to a campsite in a...

Make sure you include the finance charges when doing the math to see if it's worth it for you. Disney's interest rate is extremely high.

Again, they're not hotels. They're timeshares, which do not operate in the same way that hotels do. When you are renting someone's timeshare, you are saving a bundle of money because of the way services like housekeeping are structured. If you want to wash sheets, you have the option to. If...

The DVC resorts are not in the Deluxe category. They're timeshares, not hotels. Members pay all of the operational costs of the resorts, including housekeeping, so if you're staying on points, there's a pay-as-you-go housekeeping system. You can purchase additional housekeeping days at a nominal...

DVC is about the DVC resorts; it's about the villas. That's what you get. You're buying the right to stay at DVC resorts with your points, subject to availability, for the duration of your contract. EVERYTHING else, whether it's the ability to stay in moderate resorts, or get a discounted AP, or...

Of course not.

Yes, this is why you don't get your room number until it's ready for you to occupy. The room assignments may be made in advance, but they're never set in stone. It's very common for assignments to be switched around as guests check in throughout the day.

Renting for that time of year, you really need to start looking before the 11 month window opens. The period from October through the end of the year is the busiest for DVC bookings, and owners book as early as they can.

Yep, I've had good experiences with David's (dvcbyrequest.com). A travel agent isn't going to be able to help you with a rental, as they would make no money on the transaction. You would deal directly with the broker. Important things to know about renting a reservation from a DVC member: 1...

I'm going to take a slightly different tack. You can buy many timeshares (good, reputable ones, from major brands) that trade into the EXACT same RCI resorts as DVC for a tiny fraction of the cost of DVC. DVC is expensive, as timeshares go, because of the access to on-property Disney resorts...

Once you look at point charts, you'll see that you're not really losing anything by not being able to use points to book cruises, ABD, and the non-DVC Disney resorts. The point costs are extreme, go up every year, and access to those options on points is often restricted - for example, not all...

Disney keeps making it harder and harder to get away with this. DME and EMH will be off limits to you, and you may have issues getting into the pool area - Stormalong Bay is gated and magic bands that are coded to the resort are required for entry. Yeah, you'll save some money, but I don't...