DVC - Free Valet Parking Ends

MouseRight

MouseRight

Active Member
Original Poster
Disney Vacation Club Member Services is reporting that members are no longer eligible to receive free valet parking at Walt Disney World resorts. Effective Sunday October 11, 2009, DVC members using valet parking services will be charged a fee of $12 per day. Resorts impacted by this move include the Animal Kingdom Villas, Bay Lake Tower, Beach Club, BoardWalk and Wilderness Lodge.

Members staying at the above DVC resorts can continue to utilize the self-parking lots at no charge.

:(
 
WDW Vacationer

WDW Vacationer

Active Member
The resorts are spread out and not in one large building.

There are large "houses" divided up in to vacation homes.

Each area has its own parking lot.
 
maelstrom

maelstrom

Well-Known Member
WDW Vacationer said:
The resorts are spread out and not in one large building.

There are large "houses" divided up in to vacation homes.

Each area has its own parking lot.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know that. It just escaped my mind at the time of posting. OKW and SSR are set-up more like the moderate resorts.
 
reptar77

reptar77

Well-Known Member
This is very surprising. Has anyone called member services to verify yet? We just purchased add on points today and they are still advertising free valet.
 
MouseRight

MouseRight

Active Member
Original Poster
reptar77 said:
This is very surprising. Has anyone called member services to verify yet? We just purchased add on points today and they are still advertising free valet.
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Yes, it's verified. My friend, who valets all the time, was on the phone with a long chain of managers yesterday. We are going this weekend and he is po'd. The party line is - DVC decided not to raise the dues to cover the parking, blah, blah, blah.

Oh well. I need the exercise anyway. :ROFLOL:
 
Phonedave

Phonedave

Well-Known Member
MouseRight said:
Yes, it's verified. My friend, who valets all the time, was on the phone with a long chain of managers yesterday. We are going this weekend and he is po'd. The party line is - DVC decided not to raise the dues to cover the parking, blah, blah, blah.

Oh well. I need the exercise anyway. :ROFLOL:
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The valet charges make no difference to me, since I rarely rent a car.

However....

That "party line" makes no sense. Your DVC dues are supposed to cover the real costs of running and maintaining the resorts. Housekeeping, cleaning, landscaping, repairs, etc.

I was always under the impression that the cost of the free valet parking was not passed on in the dues, along with the other "perks" - dining discounts, AP discounts, etc.

I may have to get my contract back out an check again as to what exactly is allowed to be covred in dues and what is not.

-dave
 
D

DisneyChuck

New Member
I checked in Sunday morning, and was informed of the policy change. When I asked to speak to someone about it, they just handed me a form letter. Their (weak) explanation is that it was done to keep from increasing maintenance fees for everyone.

It seems like most of the valets are gone, too... Twice in the last 2 days I have had to walk to the desk to get a ticket because there are no valets around. And the valets that are here are naturally upset, since a large chunk of their tips left with this policy change...

Bad business...
 
dizzney

dizzney

Member
MouseRight said:
Yes, it's verified. My friend, who valets all the time, was on the phone with a long chain of managers yesterday. We are going this weekend and he is po'd. The party line is - DVC decided not to raise the dues to cover the parking, blah, blah, blah.

Oh well. I need the exercise anyway. :ROFLOL:
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Well not really surpised since DIsney outsourced the valet parking some years back, it was never as good as it was initially
 
MaxsDad

MaxsDad

Well-Known Member
So let's see ...

DVC is dropping the benefit of having valet parking included with your stay because of the price increase for this service property wide. Said increase would have been passed on to the members in the from of increased dues, and they want to avoid this. Since it was the increase that prompted this change, we must have been paying the old rate before out of our dues. Hence, we will no longer be paying any of it under the new policy.

So should this not mean our dues will decrease this year, especially for members with Home resorts that have this service, since we are no longer paying even the old rate?
 
slappy magoo

slappy magoo

Well-Known Member
My guess? DVC members were using the free valet parking. Many other guests weren't, especially in the tumult of this year's economy. So they started scaling back the valet staff. Now there aren't enough attendants at any given time to handle the load. So decrease the load, end free valet parking for DVC members. Now you can have 1 or 2 attendants handle the piddling number of cars paying for the service. Isn't that better? :rolleyes:


Here's what I don't get. Let's say for the sake of argument, a valet attendant is paid, by Disney, 200 dollars a day (which they're not). And every day, there are 10 attendants. 2000 a day. And how many resorts ave the valet parking option? I think 5 (AKL, BLT, BCV, BWV & VWL). So 10,000 a day for all the valet parking attendants. For a year, that's 3,650,000 dollars. A not inconsequential amount, and I'm sure they're not paid nearly that much (though once you factor in benefits - IF they get 'em...)

But HOW many DVC members are there, in total? I'd bet, if you raised all dues by a half-penny a point, that'd cover the cost of the staff. I just don't buy the cost as a valid argument.
 
worldfanatic

worldfanatic

Well-Known Member
I, for one, bought DVC so I could stay at high end Disney properties that I otherwise wouldn't be willing to shell out big bucks for.

The discounts and side benefits are nice. But that had no influence at all on why I bought in.

Disney had a reason they eliminated the valet parking perk.
If it saves me even a small amount of dues, right on!!

If all the so called 'DVC perks' were taken away, I'd still be thrilled about being a part of DVC.
 
kapeman

kapeman

Member
DisneyChuck said:
I checked in Sunday morning, and was informed of the policy change. When I asked to speak to someone about it, they just handed me a form letter. Their (weak) explanation is that it was done to keep from increasing maintenance fees for everyone.

It seems like most of the valets are gone, too... Twice in the last 2 days I have had to walk to the desk to get a ticket because there are no valets around. And the valets that are here are naturally upset, since a large chunk of their tips left with this policy change...

Bad business...
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I also checked in on 10/11 and we were not notified at all. In fact, the Portable Perks book they had in our check-in pack still listed the valet as free.

I had to hit the web to find out. Good thing I did because we were charged for 2 days worth, which I was able to get back.

MaxsDad said:
So should this not mean our dues will decrease this year, especially for members with Home resorts that have this service, since we are no longer paying even the old rate?
Click to expand...

You wanna lay odds on that? :)

What insults me is that they won't even address that, as if we are too dumb to figure it out!!!
 
oldkeyw

oldkeyw

New Member
Except for maybe Boardwalk, most of the lots actually aren't all that far away. The hotel we're most likely to visit is Wilderness Lodge and that one isn't a bad walk at all. Plus if one person doesn't want to walk, it's easy enough to do drop-off and pick-up. I'm all for keeping dues low if that's the reason.
 

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