We are on our way home and stayed at the BWV for the first time. We have a direct contract at Copper Creek and resale at Saratoga. We LOVED the Boardwalk and can easily see it being a family favorite for many years. The only problem is the 7 month availability at BWV is not reliable, so we started talking about buying a different contract. To make that work, we would sell the SSR contract and buy a BWV contract that had more points. As luck has it, there is a PERFECT resale contract on the market right now. The biggest downside that I can see is the different expiration dates from BWV to SSR. We would effectively be losing 12 years on the contract, but we would have more points…and you can always use more points. Any other major factors that I’m missing? Any BWV owners have issues at 11 months booking (we bought Copper Creek first and one of the reasons we bought SSR is due to the difficulty we had booking at 11 months with Copper Creek).
You’re going to pay quite a premium for a significantly shorter contract. For me, it would not be worth it. Even as I sit here stalking the site to make the rest of my September booking work at BWV (we have secured 2/5 nights so far).
To me More Disney At Less Cost > Any Resort Especially A More Expensive One With Shorter Contract
But that’s me and many people will tell you to buy where you want to stay.
You go on ahead and do that and I’ll use my cheap OKW points to stay at your premium resort whenever luck allows me to
That’s the exact reason we bought our SSR contract. We wanted the availability to have a definite reservation at 11 months in case there was limited availability at 7 months, so I’m nervous to give that up. We “need” maybe 50ish more points, but it doesn’t make sense to have a small third contract at another resort and I’m not sure I want to add onto either of the other two.
In a perfect world I would just buy another bigger contract, but I’m not sure I can get DH on board with that one. He has shot me down before when I said we needed more points, so the fact that he is considering additional points if we sell our other contract because we all loved BWV so much makes me worried I might miss my chance!
Disney math is hard!
I am a CC owner that added a small BWV contract mainly because of my frustration booking CC. The fewer years do not bother me because of my age (over 60). Every time I stay at BW I know I made the right decision for me. I love BW.
All that being said, I think I might consider keeping the SSR points and using them to waitlist pool/garden views at BW (unless you always need 2 bedrooms).
I didn’t realize how challenging booking at CC would be, it’s so frustrating.
We use 1 studio when it’s just our immediate family (usually long weekend trips when we don’t care as much about where we are staying) and either 2 studios or a 1-2 Bedroom (depending on the resort, we need two bathrooms) for our longer trips when we bring family. We would have to do a 2BR at BW, which is what got us thinking because they are impossible at 7 months out and waitlisting 2 studios is too risky to end up at two different resorts.
We would make money off of our SSR contract now that could go towards a new contract.
I am tempted to keep it too, but then I’m not sure the best way to go about getting some more points.
I think it depends on how value oriented you are. My husband and daughterove AKL where we own, but I love BWV, love it. I have thought about buying there 100 times, but just can’t do it because of the shorter contract.
For me, it is more a matter of having an “out” if we stop going to Disney so much. At some point soonish, the resale value is going to start dropping. If I knew for sure I would be using the contract for the next 20 years, I would go for it.
That’s very true.
I guess we never know where we will be in 20 years and it’s hard to have that perspective - we are a family with young kids so it is hard to imagine a time when Disney won’t be our preferred place to go. I like having the option to bank/borrow points so that we can stay in larger rooms when we go less often and bring friends and family for those future trips.
I think you are right though, is it worth it knowing we will probably get more out of it with our experience now, but maybe not as much in the long term with resale value vs something that will hold up longer for resale.
Understand that we are just easing into the “Disney as our regular vacation spot” waters. I have slowly been leading us here for years, but buying DVC in the first place required that there be reasonable financial “out” (nothing is ever for sure, but some things are reasonable to expect) in order to convinve my DH.
BWV will only become more awesome as your kids get older and fall in love with HS and WS.
I think this is worth A LOT. I just love the Crescent Lake area.
Very true. I think if I knew that there would definitely be an option to extend the contract it would be no question for us, so I guess I have to make the decision as if it could not be extended and if that would be worth it for us.
That was exactly our thought when we were there. The boardwalk area at night has so much to offer also.
My husband is very much the same, so the fact that he is all about BW while it knocks 12 years off the length of our contract and costs more per point has me feel like I’m missing something.
I am the same!
We would probably buy the contract first and then not list ours until we had the new points in hand so we wouldn’t be without for months and months especially if it gets held up in ROFR.
So many factors to consider
As a CPA I’m compelled to remind you that the gain on the sale of your SSR contract is taxable. Just something to keep in mind.
The Cresent Lake area is really great - even more so as the kids get older. We’ve stayed there more than any other resort, and we don’t own there, so it’s not impossible to get a room (current availability the exception). Have you seen these charts from dvchelp.com?
They are super informative on showing where/when rooms are available. So for example, for a 2bdrm garden view (which for boardwalk follows the pattern of a studio) except for the 1st two weeks in Dec, it’s wide open from 11 mos to just before 7 mos. At that point it starts to get dicey, depending on time of year.
I have not seen those charts, but they are extremely helpful, thank you!
Hadn’t thought about the taxes, so that is a good point to consider as well - it’s not a huge profit, but still would need to factor that in. Thank you!
We had a similar dilemma a few years ago (it was BC not BW, but whatever). We ended up buying a small BC contract and keeping SSR. So we’re guaranteed our happiest place every other year and play the stalking game on off years. I’m happy, but the decision was entirely about what I could convince DH to do. I was on thin ice after the “added on a tiny direct contract for the blue card and didn’t tell him until we had to go sign the paperwork” incident.
