Let's Face it, Disney has turned Value Rooms at AKL into almost a scam.

Yes, I have also had value rooms, but generally, you need to hit it at the stroke of 11 months, for several days in a row, and then walk it.

After reading this thread last night I checked availability just for the heck of it. All but the first night were available (of course). I checked again this morning (prior to 8am EST) and all were available. So in short, had I tried at exactly 8am I'm pretty sure I would've got the room. This is the tactic I've used any other time I booked it and I got what I wanted - no walking necessary. Would I walk just in case? Probably, but only by a couple of days and basically as a "just in case" I miss on the first attempt.
 
After reading this thread last night I checked availability just for the heck of it. All but the first night were available (of course). I checked again this morning (prior to 8am EST) and all were available. So in short, had I tried at exactly 8am I'm pretty sure I would've got the room. This is the tactic I've used any other time I booked it and I got what I wanted - no walking necessary. Would I walk just in case? Probably, but only by a couple of days and basically as a "just in case" I miss on the first attempt.
I have been trying to book a value studio/2bedroom right at 8am since 1/1 with no luck so far.
 
Booking a reservation for dates earlier than you want And then modifying the reservation to move it to end up at what you want.

Some rooms are hard to get at 11 months, so if one sees it for booking, people will reserve it and move.

I am doing this for a BWV SV studio for Xmas/NYE next year, I happened to luck into one last week, and are now moving it forward each week until I get it for my dates.

I think I picked up some of your days as you walked by!
 


I don't ask this question to be snarky, I am sincerely not sure of the answer: if I want to go to WDW, say, 1-2 times per year, why would I at this point purchase DVC? Even at that rate, even staying at a premium resort, aren't I spending FAR more money to buy into DVC than just booking the trip through a travel agent?
Jon, I did this analysis before I bought in. I am a numbers nerd, so I developed an elaborate spreadsheet that covered all my dues, all my maintenance (with a 3% annual increase which is far higher than what reality has been). I came up with a cost of $5.56 per point. When I determine if I should pay cash or use points, that is my factor.

As a more extreme example given above, we have a large blended family, so 2 adults and 6 kids. So we need a 2 BR each time we go. I check the Disney site to rent that room every time I go. Typically a 2 BR is between $700 and $1,500 a night. For a 10 day stay the best I could do was about $13,500 for AKL where we stayed. It cost be around 398 points. So $2,200 versus $13,500 pays for itself and starts saving you money pretty fast. We felt we broke even in about 11 trips.

I typically smirk at the ads for products where people say "the only regret was we did not do it sooner". DVC is the only product I have ever purchased where I feel that wholeheartedly.
 
Jon, I did this analysis before I bought in. I am a numbers nerd, so I developed an elaborate spreadsheet that covered all my dues, all my maintenance (with a 3% annual increase which is far higher than what reality has been). I came up with a cost of $5.56 per point. When I determine if I should pay cash or use points, that is my factor.
The lowest maintenance fees in 2020 are VGF, and they are 6.5616 PP. That doesn't factor in the purchase price, time value of money, US inflation, or maintenance fees inflation.

$5.56 < $6.5616
 


Jon, I did this analysis before I bought in. I am a numbers nerd, so I developed an elaborate spreadsheet that covered all my dues, all my maintenance (with a 3% annual increase which is far higher than what reality has been). I came up with a cost of $5.56 per point. When I determine if I should pay cash or use points, that is my factor.

As a more extreme example given above, we have a large blended family, so 2 adults and 6 kids. So we need a 2 BR each time we go. I check the Disney site to rent that room every time I go. Typically a 2 BR is between $700 and $1,500 a night. For a 10 day stay the best I could do was about $13,500 for AKL where we stayed. It cost be around 398 points. So $2,200 versus $13,500 pays for itself and starts saving you money pretty fast. We felt we broke even in about 11 trips.

I typically smirk at the ads for products where people say "the only regret was we did not do it sooner". DVC is the only product I have ever purchased where I feel that wholeheartedly.
That's a great analysis. I would also say that the benefit becomes more obvious when you know you'll keep going back to WDW for your vacations and trips for years and decades.

Just to add devil's advocate pov, a counter point, if you will. I could also book an offsite or a value resort and pay about $2000 for the 10 day stay. You're not getting the same product but you're still staying on a disney property (or good neighbor hotel) and going to the same amusement park.
 
That's a great analysis. I would also say that the benefit becomes more obvious when you know you'll keep going back to WDW for your vacations and trips for years and decades.

Just to add devil's advocate pov, a counter point, if you will. I could also book an offsite or a value resort and pay about $2000 for the 10 day stay. You're not getting the same product but you're still staying on a disney property (or good neighbor hotel) and going to the same amusement park.

I think that is key when deciding about DVC and your example is a great point to consider One should be comparing your what one would do without DVC vs. with. Those that would stay at moderates or values...or even offsite...will have a tough time ever making the DVC cost pay off.

However, if someone wants and is paying for deluxe accommodations, even with a Disney discount, DVC can be a plus if one vacations that way and plans to for many years to come.

DVC isn’t for those that see themselves as short term visitors, IMO, either. if you don’t see committing to at least 15 to 20 years for trips, it is is much harder to see the savings with today.s prices.
 
That's a great analysis. I would also say that the benefit becomes more obvious when you know you'll keep going back to WDW for your vacations and trips for years and decades.

Just to add devil's advocate pov, a counter point, if you will. I could also book an offsite or a value resort and pay about $2000 for the 10 day stay. You're not getting the same product but you're still staying on a disney property (or good neighbor hotel) and going to the same amusement park.
I appreciate that, but we still felt we got a good value, though admittedly not as great. Anyone asking me if DVC is right for them will hear from me as the first point, if you want to stay at value properties or will be looking for ways to do a vacation cheaper, you will find them. Your point is the key, you are not getting the same level of accommodation, so is you are going to say "I can stay for less at a Motel 6" you will be right. Don't buy DVC. But we have used our points to stay at RCI resorts in Virginia, Tennessee and Montana, and the challenge here is those places do not rent direct, so I have no way to check what it would cost, but we stayed at this proerty https://www.rci.com/resort-directory/resortDetails?resortCode=C921 for our honeymoon, and I am fairly certain is would be more than $2,000 for the week.

So it is important to determine what your apples are that you will compare to my oranges. If you are OK with your apples having some worms, or even just being the casts offs, then DVC may be a poor choice. If you want to have access to above average accommodations for a reasonable price I still stand by the fact DVC is great. The individual nights in the Concierge Collection are almost a wash or can be had a bit cheaper in cash, so those are a worse trade.

I bought with the express intent that over time we would likely never return to Disney and instead start going to Europe, China and other places. Getting to do that for around 200 points means I an doing that for about $1,200 which is hard to beat.
 
I think that is key when deciding about DVC and your example is a great point to consider One should be comparing your what one would do without DVC vs. with. Those that would stay at moderates or values...or even offsite...will have a tough time ever making the DVC cost pay off.

However, if someone wants and is paying for deluxe accommodations, even with a Disney discount, DVC can be a plus if one vacations that way and plans to for many years to come.

DVC isn’t for those that see themselves as short term visitors, IMO, either. if you don’t see committing to at least 15 to 20 years for trips, it is is much harder to see the savings with today.s prices.
These are all great points. I would also add that part of why we did it was to "force" ourselves to at least think about a vacation on a regular basis. Too often it gets too easy to say "we'll skip vacation this year and save money", but if you have it prepaid that excuse goes away and it helps your family enjoy a trip. We also thought about "what if we lose out great jobs and can't buy park tickets etc.?" and determined it would still be awesome to be able to just sit at the hotel for days and do a really cheap Disney experience and have done that at times. Those are some other things/ways to look at it.
 
The lowest maintenance fees in 2020 are VGF, and they are 6.5616 PP. That doesn't factor in the purchase price, time value of money, US inflation, or maintenance fees inflation.

$5.56 < $6.5616
Figured someone would point that out. So since you did, here is my explanation. So I bought back in 2001 so my contract is nearly half over. The dues per point we from $2.50 to $3 if I recall. I'd have to go back at the contact and look. Again, this was a number over the life of the contract that I built an increase into (3%). I have not tracked if the dues went up at the level I estimated (just doing quick match now shows that it was actually about 5%, so I stand corrected on my original statement that it was not that high. Thanks for keeping me honest.). I would need to re-run again and might get as high as $8-$9 per point based on changing from 3 to 5% by quick estimates, which changes the situation a bit but not the overall view that it is still hard to beat. Keep in mind hotel rates rise between 8-12% a year on average if you look at industry documents and trends. Remember when All Star resorts were $59/night? I do. That was the rate we paid the year we finally took the plunge. Even a value resort like that is now $150-$185 most of the year when I just checked on the Disney site, which is between 6-7% not including the increase in hotel taxes etc. The deluxe resorts (ones that really are comparable to DVC) increase at a higher rate. So DVC rises at a lower pace than the hotels which adds up over 42 years to be a good amount of savings.

My intent was to show the method, and yes I did not use time value of money. I did not treat this as an investment, other than an investment in my family's ability to enjoy themselves, so TVM is irrelevant. I rationalized I would spend money for a vacation either way, not that I should buy DVC versus shares in Google. I paid $12,000 for my 200 points for a 42 year contract so less than $1.50 per point when spread over the lifetime of the contract. The dues are the largest expense, the purchase price is a pittance in that case, but everyone can run an analysis. How everyone looks at certain items is up to them. US inflation not only impacts DVC is impacts everything, so there is little point in adding it to the calculation, it is already factored into the dues increase which is a factor in how I did my analysis. As a simple spot check I currently pay a bit over $1,500 for my dues this year basically half way through the contract. Can I get similar accommodations that I do get for that same price? I have felt comfortable that for me that answer is no. That check each year shows that I am ending up better off year over year and therefore I am happy that I am saving money.
 
Figured someone would point that out. So since you did, here is my explanation. So I bought back in 2001 so my contract is nearly half over. The dues per point we from $2.50 to $3 if I recall. I'd have to go back at the contact and look. Again, this was a number over the life of the contract that I built an increase into (3%). I have not tracked if the dues went up at the level I estimated (just doing quick match now shows that it was actually about 5%, so I stand corrected on my original statement that it was not that high. Thanks for keeping me honest.). I would need to re-run again and might get as high as $8-$9 per point based on changing from 3 to 5% by quick estimates, which changes the situation a bit but not the overall view that it is still hard to beat. Keep in mind hotel rates rise between 8-12% a year on average if you look at industry documents and trends. Remember when All Star resorts were $59/night? I do. That was the rate we paid the year we finally took the plunge. Even a value resort like that is now $150-$185 most of the year when I just checked on the Disney site, which is between 6-7% not including the increase in hotel taxes etc. The deluxe resorts (ones that really are comparable to DVC) increase at a higher rate. So DVC rises at a lower pace than the hotels which adds up over 42 years to be a good amount of savings.

My intent was to show the method, and yes I did not use time value of money. I did not treat this as an investment, other than an investment in my family's ability to enjoy themselves, so TVM is irrelevant. I rationalized I would spend money for a vacation either way, not that I should buy DVC versus shares in Google. I paid $12,000 for my 200 points for a 42 year contract so less than $1.50 per point when spread over the lifetime of the contract. The dues are the largest expense, the purchase price is a pittance in that case, but everyone can run an analysis. How everyone looks at certain items is up to them. US inflation not only impacts DVC is impacts everything, so there is little point in adding it to the calculation, it is already factored into the dues increase which is a factor in how I did my analysis. As a simple spot check I currently pay a bit over $1,500 for my dues this year basically half way through the contract. Can I get similar accommodations that I do get for that same price? I have felt comfortable that for me that answer is no. That check each year shows that I am ending up better off year over year and therefore I am happy that I am saving money.
So that $5.56 per point is in 2001 dollars. That is equivalent to $8.00 in today's dollars. Given that the maintenance fees increased closer to 5% than your estimated 3%, the real cost would be about $9 to $10 per point, in today's dollars, which seems pretty accurate to me. A week in dream season (middle of the road season), at AKL standard view is 95 points. 95 points x $10 PP = $950 / 7 nights = 135 before taxes / 1.065 tax rate = $127 per night before taxes. So ya, its a pretty sweet deal.
 
She also would not or could not admit that BLT, which was under construction, was a DVC.
A little off topic, but there was a period where DVC was legally forbidden from discussing BLT even though it had gone vertical, as it had not yet gone through necessary Florida approvals. So, "could not" might have been true.
 
Depending on how DVC advertises the AKV Value rooms their guide comments may be a little deceiving. I for one have had luck stocking AKV 2 bdrm Value units. This June I have a AKV 2 bdrm Value unit for 8 nights :)
 
I think that is key when deciding about DVC and your example is a great point to consider One should be comparing your what one would do without DVC vs. with. Those that would stay at moderates or values...or even offsite...will have a tough time ever making the DVC cost pay off.

Actually one of the things that finally drove us to look seriously at DVC (after avoiding eye contact with the sales people for 15 years 8-) ) was the price increases at the moderates we usually stayed at. The last few years, even with decent discounts, the nightly cost was over $200. The much nicer and bigger DVC rooms start making sense even for moderate guests with the never ending Disney hotel inflation.
 
For us, DVC only made sense because we wanted our children in a different room and we wanted to be on site. At that time, that's DVC or the Ft. Wilderness cabins. I would have never bought it to stay in studios.
 
For us, DVC only made sense because we wanted our children in a different room and we wanted to be on site. At that time, that's DVC or the Ft. Wilderness cabins. I would have never bought it to stay in studios.

And this is how DVC was originally marketed and built. It wasn't envisioned that families would put five in a studio. It was envisioned that families would book condo like units. That's why the original point requirements were high. That's why there aren't many studios in the early DVC resorts. DVC wasn't designed to save you money over a moderate, it was designed to put your kids in a separate room and be able to cook dinner. And yes, some families would book studios - but few families, most of the time studios would be occupied by couples. But Disney quickly figured out that saving money was a better marketing pitch.
 
I’ve also booked a value several times, but always booked 11 months out.
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!













Top