I currently have a 2BR villa at SSR booked for my family of six in late August this year. My wife’s brother and his family of four are maybe interested in “joining” us, but it will require we move our reservation up a week - meaning we have to rebook.
My question is - am I wasting my time hoping for a 3BR villa? Are all the 3BR villas reserved for DVC?
It’s important to us that we stay on-site and at the same resort, but I’d be open to booking two or three separate rooms. I also thought about booking the 2BR villa at SSR and booking a room at one of the Disney Springs hotels, thinking at least the kids could be registered at SSR.
I’m checking the WDW room finder periodically, and I did briefly see that I would have been able to book a 2BR villa and a Studio at SSR, but I think that window of opportunity is closed already.
If our dates are flexible - are there arrival / departure days of the week we might try to maximize availability? The site defaults to a six-night stay. We previously had a seven-night stay booked, but that was mostly because airfare and it worked for our plans.
The main constraint is that my in-laws need to be back for their kids’ first day of school, meaning a departure on/before August 22 in their case.
I’m kicking myself for not grabbing the SSR rooms when they were available.
Good news that it does actually look like SSR has studios and 2-bedrooms available for most of August. Have you looked into renting points? Looks like you can have a good choice of dates. Mayyyyybe you could get a deal from someone with points expiring 8/31!
Yes, I’m looking on Disney’s site. I see studios and 1BR, but no 2BR, no matter what dates I use in August (this year).
I’m also looking at renting points, but I’m not sure what counts as a good deal. Going rate seems to be $17-18/point, and I think I’d need 320 points for my stay (I think) - assuming 245 and 75 points for a 2br and studio respectively.
Disney has a completely different set of rooms from actual DVC availability. I think your best bet is to rent points. I think that $17 is a good price. $14-15 is more of a “deal.” But I have no idea what the Disney direct price is!
6 nights, Aug 15-21 is 87 points for the studio and 221 for the 2-bedroom.
Ah - your original comment about August availability was for DVC.
If I can herd the cats and rent the points, I will.
At $17/point and 245 points, I was saving the tax (which is not insignificant, I found). But that assumes a similar rate for a different week, and I think the rates are higher in early August compared to late August.
To those of you that have rented DVC direct from owner - how much validation do you do before renting? I’m trying to follow the precautions outlined at Mouse Savers, but (a) reviewing the public records is not trivial, and (b) I’m getting some resistance from at least one owner (politely suggesting I’m a n00b for even asking for validation).
Ugh! Some people on Mouseowners are terrible. If you are renting for this August they should be grateful. I personally would just move along if someone is giving you a hard time. But reviewing the public records really isn’t that hard, you can just search their last name, right?
Yes - and one owner pointed me directly to the record. The problem is that the record shows that he bought from another owner, not directly from DVD. I don’t think that’s necessarily a problem, but it’s just more paper to shuffle through I suppose.
Another potential complication - one owner is not in the US. Even if we have a “contract” - trying to litigate across country lines would be next to impossible.
Anyway - this doesn’t seem for the faint of heart. I don’t consider myself to be, but I also don’t want to blindly send someone thousands of dollars.
Ya, it is hard! I think that there are probably a lot of international folks renting out points because they usually have a lot and can’t use them! I would only be working with someone who seems to be going out of their way to make you comfortable. If someone is giving you a hard time then don’t deal with that!
So you should be able to link the reservation to your MDE prior to giving any payment. So you definitely are able to see if they are legit in that they can make the reservation. The risk comes that they could cancel it after you pay. But if you don’t pay in full until less than 30 days prior to check-in, then their points would go into holding (aka hard for them to use) so it’s a little more in your favor.