Is DVC really that booked?

[mouselvrmom]

We are owners at saratoga. We were able to get 10 nights at beach club villas in a two bedroom in january. We booked 7 months out and had no problem, although january is considered to be a not very busy month.

I also know someone who was able to get a beach club reservation in september this year when she owns at akl.

I have heard a lot of talk about waitlists. Hopefully we'll have good luck with them when we need to.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

That was me!

We own at AKL and made reservations for beach club in September. We called about 4 months out! There were several open that week.

 

[MaxsDad]

I own at AKL. On 2/16/08 I called DVC to make 2 different ressie's one for the first week of june, and one the first week of August sohappy. So 3.5 months out and 5.5 months out.

I was able to get V@WL for august right off the bat.

I was able to get OKW for june, at first. I waitlisted for VWL, BCV, and BWV that day. First available, I said, I'll take whichever it is. (I didn't want AKV- wanted to explore. Didn't want SSR- would rather have OKW for less) It what seemed no time at all, V@WL opened up. I think VWL is one of the smaller resorts, so it is possible to get a small, popular resort in less than 7 months.

I may have been able to roll the dice again for BWV, as it is pretty big, but like I said, I felt lucky to get VWL on such short notice. Plus, it is beautiful! No regrets staying there.

 

[yankspy]

Hi Max's Dad and welcome to our little soiree!!!!! Thanks for the input. I have a question, for whoever would like to take a shot at it. My understanding is that one of the selling points of DVC is that you can stay at the other DVC resorts on Disney and other resorts elsewhere too. How easy has it been for anyone to get into one of the really popular ones such as Beach Club Villas etc if that was NOT your home resort?? As I said one of my friends does own and I have never seen her be able to successfully switch out to BCV or BWV for that matter. I am just curious as to what others experiences have been. Belle

We own at BCV and we have stayed at WL twice, BWV twice and I did my solo trip in march at Saratoga. I booked that one only two weeks out and so I was not able to get VWL or BCV. We generally go during the slower times of the year though.

 

[DisneyPhD]

Max's Dad brought something to mind and that is that one of the incentives that DVC has been using for the last few months is Developer Points equivalent to the points you are puchasing. These must be used within a year and are only good at SSR, so that might explain why SSR has been booked up even though it's one of the largest DVC resorts. All these new members need to use these points or lose them

To answer wannabeBelle's question, we own at VWL and have only stayed there once since 2002. We have stayed 3 times at BCV with one more booked for next year, 2-3 times at SSR, 3 times at Vero Beach, 1 time for OKW, VWL, BWV and AKV. We have waitlisted 2 or 3 times. One was for a Jan 1 stay, another to switch to BCV for a week in March. Both came through 4-5 months prior to the trip. All of these trips were either early January, early March or early May.

 

[GrowingUpDisney]

Max's Dad brought something to mind and that is that one of the incentives that DVC has been using for the last few months is Developer Points equivalent to the points you are puchasing. These must be used within a year and are only good at SSR, so that might explain why SSR has been booked up even though it's one of the largest DVC resorts. All these new members need to use these points or lose them

To answer wannabeBelle's question, we own at VWL and have only stayed there once since 2002. We have stayed 3 times at BCV with one more booked for next year, 2-3 times at SSR, 3 times at Vero Beach, 1 time for OKW, VWL, BWV and AKV. We have waitlisted 2 or 3 times. One was for a Jan 1 stay, another to switch to BCV for a week in March. Both came through 4-5 months prior to the trip. All of these trips were either early January, early March or early May.

Just FYI: The developer points given as incentives for purchase (when we added on in April) were not restricted to SSR only. As a matter of a fact we used ours at OKW.

Niki

 

[DisneyFanJen]

I'm over in WDW from December the 5th to the 16th and I had similar problems. I couldn't get into my home resort of SSR (Usually the easiest place to get) and ended up all over the place for my bookings.

I'm in a studio in one resort for the 5th & 6th.
I'm in a 2 bedroom at a different resort for the 11th (and there are only 2 of us).
and in another resort again in a 1 bedroom for the 12th to the 16th.

There was no availability for the 7th through 11th at all so in the end I decided to splash out on a cruise (Which is good as it's the Mousefest cruise, and yes I know using points for a cruise is a waste but it was last minute and I couldn't be bothered with all the renting then buying with cash thing).

I know that early December is busy for DVC, but I've never had problems getting to SSR before and I usually only get to book 4 - 5 months out...

 

[DisneyPhD]

Just FYI: The developer points given as incentives for purchase (when we added on in April) were not restricted to SSR only. As a matter of a fact we used ours at OKW.

Niki

Thanks for the info. Do you know if these could be used at any DVC? I only remembered SSR as the resort for Developer Points in the advertising materials we received. Perhaps it was limited to SSR and OKW.

 

[knights87]

I just talked to my friend about our Sept. Trip to Disney and he said that the only place that was available was at the Boardwalk and only during the first week of September. Everything Else was booked, which kind of suprised be, I always thought Sept. was one of the slow months at Disney World.

 

[GrowingUpDisney]

Thanks for the info. Do you know if these could be used at any DVC? I only remembered SSR as the resort for Developer Points in the advertising materials we received. Perhaps it was limited to SSR and OKW.

We were able to use them anywhere. It just so happened that we added on so that we had enough points to take a last minute trip in April so all that was available was OKW. We bough the points on a Fri and left for the trip on the next thursday.

Funny how I always seem to add on points when I want to go and don't have enought. Maybe a little irresponsible, but having extra points can't hurt - right??

 

[DisneyPhD]

Funny how I always seem to add on points when I want to go and don't have enought. Maybe a little irresponsible, but having extra points can't hurt - right??

Extra points??? What are those?:lol: We've never had extra points. We borrowed points on our first trip and have been ever since. We are cutting back to just one trip per year as we can't take the kids out of school as much so we are slowly catching up. At least DVC point debt is better than credit card debt.:lookaroun