499 days out for booking window

[Farro]

I just called to check on a few 10 day blocks in May of 2019 and October of 2019 for the following:
Art of Animation
Pop Century
Swan/Dolphin

and they were all booked. I couldn't believe they are booked this early-that is incredible.

Anyone have any tips on how to get the place/date that you would like? How early is safe?

I'm an SPG member and was looking at swan/dolphin for dates in May 2019 too. I wanted to do stay 4 nights get 5th night free. There were not very many periods of time that you could book 5 nights in a row because some days were already booked out. I'm going to just transfer my points to use for flights and pay to stay at coronado.

Reading this makes me feel less like a lunatic for planning to book May of 2020 in January of 2019 - calling as soon as we are at 499 from date of checkout! We stay 9 nights and I want to be sure to get our room on the books at Yacht Club - deal with price increase, discounts, tickets later.

That does seem weird though. You can still book 10 nights at a number of resorts over Thanksgiving and Christmas of this year!