So, up until now I’ve been looking at David’s as our potential DVC rental place. (I also have the name of a private owner who we can go through.)
But my wife and I have been watching various Vlogs, and now we have a total of four options:
David’s DVC Request
Private owner
DVC Rental Store
The Timeshare Store (mostly resale, but they do rentals as well)
There are other places I know. But now I’m wondering which is ultimately the best option. I’m not necessarily looking at price differences, since they are all pretty much the same. But I’m wondering which is most likely to have availability (at 11 months out)? Or will it matter?
I do like the DVC Rental Store has their PPP (Points Protection Plan), and that they will do an availability check without any deposit. The Private owner doesn’t require full payment up front. For David’s, you would have to pay for travel insurance separately, and they require a deposit (refundable if they can’t find what you want). Not sure about the Timeshare store.
I feel like where we want to rent (Boardwalk Villa 1 bedroom) and when (first week of December 2020) it will be a race, so I want to know up front which option to go with. Of course, I’m still in research phase since we can’t actually reserve anything for 11 more month.
1 br villas (garden view) are currently available the entire month of december for 2019…doesn’t guarantee anything for 2020, but that is probably a good indicator of what your chances will be at 11 months out
Thanks. Curious if any availability is standard view rooms or not. If need be, we could go to preferred, but it would seem like a waste of money to do so. Prefer standard view if possible.
Anyhow, this reminds me. We want to do 8 nights. But when you want to reserve 11 months out, it is 11 months from the LAST day of your stay, or 11 months out from FIRST day of stay?
If we want to check in Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020, and check out Friday, Dec. 11, it wasn’t clear to me if at the 11 month out mark from Dec. 3, if that means you can reserve any length of stay (depending on availability).
Also, how do they calculate 11 months? Is it literally MONTHS out, meaning, we could try starting Jan. 3. Or is it “30 days per month”, meaning 330 days ahead of Jan. 3, wherever that may fall.
the first couple weeks of Dec 2019 for standard view 1br are hit/miss…the weekends are waitlist only weekdays are available…interestingly the 2nd 1/2 of the month is fully available at the moment
we can book at our home resort 11 months from the check in day (ie, I can book Jan 25-Feb 1 2020 today)
Okay. Thanks! I’d been wondering that for a while, and I keep forgetting to ask!
Well, that does give me some hope that if you had looked at availability on Jan 3 or the following days, it would have been available. We can only hope at this point.
Okay. I just looked that up. You’re right. But it is possible to add on additional days after that as the 11 month mark + 7 days comes along.
So, it sounds like I could book 7 nights for Dec. 3 starting on Jan. 3. But on Jan. 4, I could add the eighth day. Well, I couldn’t. If I were a DVC owner, I could. Presume the rental stores handle this kind of thing automatically.
It also means I could book the entire 8 nights if I waited until Jan. 4. The downside to this is if there is any risk of it filling up on Jan. 3. But once you have the reservation made on Jan. 3 for the seven days, the eighth day is “out of range” for someone to reserve it at the 11 month mark, so there is no risk. In fact, the forum thread I was reading about this on recommends doing the initial reservation, and then waiting a few days to add on (assuming you wanted to add on more than 1 additional day) all additional days at once since there would be no risk in doing so.
Seems rather tedious. But it is good to know. I’ll have to check with the DVC rental places to see how they handle this kind of thing.
I have rented from DVC Rental Store 4 times and can’t recommend them enough. Our next trip is later this year, the week before Thanksgiving. We booked a studio at Boardwalk around 10 months out. There were lots of options still available to us during that time. We have always gotten our first choice resort (Bay Lake Tower twice and now Boardwalk twice) but we have also travelled at relatively slow times of year. If you are booking at 11 months out, I can’t imagine you would have any issues. If anything, you might not get the “standard” view as those seem like the first to go and might have to pay a few bucks more for a pool or similar view. No biggie, in my opinion! I had never heard of the 7/8 day restrictions but I would have no concerns about waiting an extra day to book just to avoid having two reservations. I don’t think the owner could just add a day to your reservation so it would be a separate transaction, different owner, etc. And would you risk having to switch rooms for the second reservation? Just isn’t something I would want to manage in my brain just to book one day earlier.
At BWV, the price difference for 8 days between Standard and Preferred is just over $1000! And, well…we just don’t care about the view that much! I’d be willing to pay for the extra view if we were getting a view of the fireworks or something, but a preferred view at BWV just doesn’t seem worth it.
That’s good to know! My one concern with DVC Rental store is that they are charging about $2 more per point than other places. And if you want their PPP, that’s another $2/pt. Not necessarily a HUGE deal, but I do wonder why. Do they offer some advantage over other rental places? More availability?
Actually, it would be adding to the existing reservation, not a separate transaction. Obviously, if you’re the DVC owner, it is easy enough. The rental places would need to know ahead of time that you want an eighth night and then add the extra night on after the fact. I’m going to contact the DVC rental place, though, to be sure.
11 months to the day. I actually put my request in a month early, and got the email on the 11 month day. They emailed me when I put my request in stating they couldn’t grant anything until 11 months, and did I want to keep my request or them give me a refund for my deposit. I told them to keep it and on the 11 month mark I got the email saying I am in WL BR.
Oh! I didn’t realize that the price difference for views is that significant! That wouldn’t fly with me either. Haha. I don’t care about the view - we just go with whatever is cheapest! My kids are still young (8, 6, 2) so we have always crammed into a studio as the price jump to a 1-bedroom is too much for us.
Okay. That’s good to know! So, it sounds like they will handle it all smoothly. It also answers a question I didn’t realize I had…that is, how early can you put in your request ahead of the 11 month mark. Good to know that I could put in a request in December 2019, and they will hold it until the day of the 11 month mark.
I thought about it and came to work one day and put in my request. I figured the least they could do is say they couldn’t grant it and I had to put in the request at the 11 month mark. If you put it in early, I think you get priority. If you absolutely know FOR 100% sure when you are going, I don’t think there is a reason you couldn’t put it in now, but you’ll be in the front of the line (or at least close ) if you do it in December.
Yeah. I think if we end up doing any on-site DVC rentals with just my wife and I again, we’ll do a studio. But this is a special trip for us (25th Wedding Anniversary) that we are splurging on! But I only really want to splurge on the things that actually feel like a splurge. Studio to 1 bedroom is a splurge that we’ll like. What we see when we open our curtains? Not so much.
Not sure how old your kids are but the Boardwalk studios can sleep 5 with the bed, pull out sofa, and the little pull-down trundle bed thing under the tv. We don’t mind things being a little crowded when you consider the $aving$!
I was able to book 8 nights at the 11 month mark through DVC rental store for trip in October. I am sure the other companies/options are fine, but I do like the fact that the rental store has the Point Protection Plan…Had to use it for my cancelled trip last September
