So, the other day, after I told him I was able to get the AP renewal, DH suggested an October 2022 trip on top of our big 2023 trip to maximize the AP. I was like but you don’t have to convince me! He’s usually the big no fun, let’s be reasonable guy.
Today, he calls me at lunch and says, " I’ve been thinking, we’ve been 3 times in 2 years and if we go in October the price we’d have paid for hotels, we could’ve bought DVC! Maybe we should consider it!"
He’s always been dead set against it.
Of course, I’m going to talk to him more later, but I’d like to ask some owners some questions.
What do you wish you knew back when you first bought?
I know some resorts are hard to book even at the 11 month window. Would AKV be one of those? I’m thinking that if we do go that route, we’d buy cheaper at SSR as long as AKV is reasonably bookable at 7 months. Obvs not a value room.
What resorts are usually bookable at the 7 month window? Is like to know what my options are likely to be.
Thanks!
In general, I usually can book Kidani at 7 months. Some times (early December especially) can be very difficult to find anything, anywhere. You should always book your home resort (even BWV has been challenging at 11 months for me) at exactly 11 months when you can.
Super exciting! I think the biggest ‘darn I should have rethought this’ moment was with choosing my use year. Now I have a lot of flexibility planning trips so I don’t really think I’ll ever get completely screwed, but I ALWAYS travel in early December and my use year is February so I could get screwed if I can’t travel in December or January because my banking deadline is September 30.
Thank you for the link! I knew availability was going to be an issue for a little bit, this helps! Looks like I’ll be traveling at difficult point times. Which means if I want AKV, I might need to buy at AKV.
For clarification, we’d need to travel during the big Jewish holidays bc DHs job is closed with pay for those times. So, usually September, October, and maybe March depending on how Passover plays out that particular year.
We’d usually only need a studio bc two of our kids are almost grown and not likely to travel with us every year.
I do have some time to think about things, and I’m interested to see how the market plays out once the pent up demand gets leveled out.
Oh, that is good to think about! So in theory I should make my use year right before the time I usually travel, so that if something happens, I have almost a whole year to replan or decide to bank or rent my points. Am I getting that right?
I kind of lucked out in that I bought two resale contracts that have August and September use years. I didn’t really understand use years at the time, but this is great, because I would not normally want to go in the summer and anything after mid-March seems to start getting crazy. I will try to focus future visits on the September - February time frame. My contracts are at OKW and Poly but I love AKV! I just wasn’t seeing smaller contracts come up on the market. Maybe someday. BUT … I booked my very first trip as an owner for two nights last week at a Kidani savanna view studio.
No so much what I wish I KNEW but rather what I wish I was more focused on when buying.
The amount of rooms you’re after at your home hotel will directly affect your ability to get what you want, and will then domino effect into your ability to get what you want at other resorts.
For example, my “home” hotel is Copper Creek, which has a laughably low amount of studio rooms, so me having an 4-month home-resort booking advantage should be a benefit, but because CC’s studios are so limited, it’s kinda wasted. As everyone who had CC as their home all want to stay there at the same time. So even though there’s a time advantage, the rooms still get scooped up QUICK. Not a deal-breaker mind you, but like I said… wish I woulda put a bit more thought into that side of things.
The usual things always come into play too
Get points where you would be comfortable staying at no matter what (“If you can only go to one resort for the rest of your life, where would you be comfortable staying?”)
Get a bit more points than you think you’ll need (cause… you’ll be amazed at how fast you can burn through them)
Figure if resale vs direct is for you (As Disney is playing games with their rules and benefits of those who buy resale).
I can’t honestly think of any benefit that direct has that resale doesn’t that is worth paying and extra $65 per point for.
The whole “original 14 resorts” thing? Don’t really care about Riviera and have no interest in staying there. Seems crazy to pay extra now for a future resort that I may or may not even want.
As a non Florida resident, the AP discount isn’t much better than the renewal discount.
Shopping and dining discounts… Maybe, I don’t know.
I just can’t get past paying $6k more for that.
The gold AP (blackout dates two weeks around Christmas and two weeks around Easter) is actually at least $350 or so savings for an AP? Of course they are not being sold right now and Passover will fall into that blackout at times. If there are three of you the question would be if the 1k a year would at some point be “worth it”.
One thing that I wish I had put more thought into is how much more money we’re spending on vacations now that we’re DVC members. The main reason for that is we’re going every year instead of every other. And as a member, there are no room/ticket/dining packages or discounts, generally. So dining and park tickets are full price out of pocket. DH and I get gold APs, which help with the cost of tickets because the two of us do go more than once a year. It rarely made sense to buy them for the kids.
Another thing to consider is how much advance planning is necessary. We’re going to Disney tomorrow(!) and I already have two more trips booked, one for September and one for January. I’m in a constant state of planning multiple vacations, always afraid of missing a banking or booking window.
We chose to buy at AKV because we enjoy it and knew we wanted to vacation there most especially in the next few years I feel like this will be critical.
Totally unrelated, but when I bought my DVC resale contracts, I really hoped one day to be able to use them to stay at the Grand Californian. This thread prompted me to go look and see what was open and I actually booked two nights for this November! One of my besties and I have always talked about staying there. I’m so excited.
but you don’t have to convince me! He’s usually the big no fun, let’s be reasonable guy.
