Riviera?

[Sandisw]

It will be very interesting to see how Riviera pans out. I for one am not a great fan (but as I say never stayed so my opinion could change) but that is a personal decision and there is a DVC for everyone. The resale restrictions still put me off- whether they are putting people off generally though, or just people who know and care about such matters remains to be seen. The sales are said to be record for December, and that healthy sales may or may not continue- I would caution it did open December and the only other resort to open December was Old Key West- so if it was not the biggest selling December, something would perhaps be seriously wrong as there is bound to be a lot of pent up demand who wanted to see it first, and of course the huge media events etc all over Youtube etc. If that was paid for advertising, I dread to think how much it would have cost. They are also pushing it very hard- the hardest sales push I have personally witnessed at WDW- lots of posters etc- but I think I underestimated why it will probably sell so well.
It also has a massive advantage initially in that a large proportion of people, at least staying on property and many off property guests will ride the Skyliner out of necessity or curiosity and where does it go- straight through Riviera. So whilst it is easy to avoid say Copper Creek if staying on property, many are taken straight into Riviera- that may prove in the long run to be an amazing sales tool. The footfall or just Gondola view of visitors who do not own must be massive compared to virtually any other resort- and seeing is selling. I think many of us may have underestimated what a sales tool having thousands of non owners travel through the resort daily is- imagine all those staying at Caribbean Beach, having just dropped $5k on a vacation, learning they can make the upgrade to Riviera and go for 50 years for a lot less, whilst Riviera is rubbed in their face every time they go to Epcot. Or the visitor who stays in a villa as they see the room rates too high, to be going straight through Riviera on their Skyline ride from HWS to Epcot and learning when they buy in (which they can do for a monthly cost) the daily cost of those Tower Studios is on a par with the villa they are in. The more I think about it, the more I think this will drive a crazy number of sales until the resort sells out.
So it is way too early to say how it will do on resale. And I would also caution, just because it sells well direct in the first years does not necessarily mean it will be popular long run, especially with the restrictions. But maybe DVD were correct and the restrictions will not affect it- who knows!

i think you are right about the Skyliner and it giving Riveria an audience. Cash rates are pretty steep, even with discounts, and what a great way to get people thinking.

I also think that as more people stay there, you could have people who pick up RIV points resale, depending on price, in a few years, who want it to add to other points they have that trade.

 

[RivShore]

It also has a massive advantage initially in that a large proportion of people, at least staying on property and many off property guests will ride the Skyliner out of necessity or curiosity and where does it go- straight through Riviera. So whilst it is easy to avoid say Copper Creek if staying on property, many are taken straight into Riviera- that may prove in the long run to be an amazing sales tool. The footfall or just Gondola view of visitors who do not own must be massive compared to virtually any other resort- and seeing is selling. I think many of us may have underestimated what a sales tool having thousands of non owners travel through the resort daily is- imagine all those staying at Caribbean Beach, having just dropped $5k on a vacation, learning they can make the upgrade to Riviera and go for 50 years for a lot less, whilst Riviera is rubbed in their face every time they go to Epcot. Or the visitor who stays in a villa as they see the room rates too high, to be going straight through Riviera on their Skyline ride from HWS to Epcot and learning when they buy in (which they can do for a monthly cost) the daily cost of those Tower Studios is on a par with the villa they are in. The more I think about it, the more I think this will drive a crazy number of sales until the resort sells out.
So it is way too early to say how it will do on resale. And I would also caution, just because it sells well direct in the first years does not necessarily mean it will be popular long run, especially with the restrictions. But maybe DVD were correct and the restrictions will not affect it- who knows!

That's a great point that RIV will have such a big audience to sell to and one I hadn't considered. There's really nothing else like it on property, except maybe the monorail resorts. With thousands going by on the skyliner every hour and thousands more staying at CBR, it should have a much larger sales pool to pull from than other resorts that get little to no "drive by's". And if thier smart, they will push it to CBR guests since the value proposition is there on moderates too.

Does anyone know what time period the DVCNews numbers really cover? Is it all sales thru Dec. 31st or just what deeds have been recorded by the county in Dec.? If its deeds recorded, I would think there's a lag especially around the holidays. Wondering how many post-opening points are really accounted for in the reported number.

 

[TexasChick123]

Wouldn’t the Skyliner through Riviera be a lot like the monorail through Poly, GF, and the Contemporary? I know there are always people who just “ride the monorail” for the experience every time we go. I also know there are a lot of people who hop around those 3 resorts just to check them out, eat, shop, etc. I guess the biggest different would be you have to go through the Riviera station if coming from certain points along the Skyliner route to get to Epcot versus you can bypass the monorail resorts with the “express monorail” when it’s working which just goes back and forth between the TTC and MK. Yes, I’ve been to WDW when there was no “express monorail” because of some technical difficulty for our whole trip. That was fun having to wait a long time and share every monorail with all the huge TTC crowds when we stayed at VGF, but I digress.

 

[Sandisw]

Wouldn’t the Skyliner through Riviera be a lot like the monorail through Poly, GF, and the Contemporary? I know there are always people who just “ride the monorail” for the experience every time we go. I also know there are a lot of people who hop around those 3 resorts just to check them out, eat, shop, etc. I guess the biggest different would be you have to go through the Riviera station if coming from certain points along the Skyliner route to get to Epcot versus you can bypass the monorail resorts with the “express monorail” when it’s working which just goes back and forth between the TTC and MK. Yes, I’ve been to WDW when there was no “express monorail” because of some technical difficulty for our whole trip. That was fun having to wait a long time and share every monorail with all the huge TTC crowds when we stayed at VGF, but I digress.

Yes, but with RIV and the Skyliner, you have people from values and moderates as a target audience, who are not DVC members already..at least 99% won’t be.

With monorail, they are either already DVC or used to paying deluxe rates
so it may not be as much of a wow.

Yes, some offsite guests from TTC use resort monorail , but those rates make a sell about DVC...in my opinion..probably harder!

 

[GeneralTso]

We just stayed there and we are huge fans. We plan to purchase there. Resale restrictions mean nothing to us. We don't care. We don't plan to sell.

The property meets all of OUR needs. It may not be for everybody, obviously.

The villas are gorgeous with plenty of storage. It is very well thought out.
There is not a ton of Disney theming, if you want that, a Value Resort is your best bet. It's a heavily themed with Mediterranean as Poly and Animal Kingdom are with theirs. There are gorgeous mosaic murals of Tangled and Peter Pan. Truly breathtaking.

The Skyliner access to Epcot and Hollywood Studios is the best thing ever. We were in the parks within 15 minutes of boarding. It was fantastic.

 

[Wakey]

Re the monorail, these are DVC resorts tucked away in another resort- a lot of people won’t even realise there’s DVC there. Before I looked into DVC I didn’t have a clue what DVC was. These hotels have been there years.
But with Riv it’s all a DVC resort and brand new, this will get people asking what it is, getting off to have a look etc, and being introduced to a DVC resort. Any sense and DVD will have a lot of posters etc at those Skyliner resorts.
Sandi’s point is also good- most people on the monorail loop are staying at the resort, here you have thousands every day from Pop, AoA and CBR riding through it.
I definitely underestimated this factor.
And you have to go through Riv coming from ALL points to get to Epcot on the Skyliner- everyone going to Epcot is going through Riv from the Gondola linked resorts. It’s basically a conveyor belt of sales targets running to thousands a day having the product paraded directly in front of them.
For this reason, I believe Riv will now be the fastest selling resort ever.

 

[crvetter]

Re the monorail, these are DVC resorts tucked away in another resort- a lot of people won’t even realise there’s DVC there. Before I looked into DVC I didn’t have a clue what DVC was. These hotels have been there years.
But with Riv it’s all a DVC resort and brand new, this will get people asking what it is, getting off to have a look etc, and being introduced to a DVC resort. Any sense and DVD will have a lot of posters etc at those Skyliner resorts.
Sandi’s point is also good- most people on the monorail loop are staying at the resort, here you have thousands every day from Pop, AoA and CBR riding through it.
I definitely underestimated this factor.
And you have to go through Riv coming from ALL points to get to Epcot on the Skyliner- everyone going to Epcot is going through Riv from the Gondola linked resorts. It’s basically a conveyor belt of sales targets running to thousands a day having the product paraded directly in front of them.
For this reason, I believe Riv will now be the fastest selling resort ever.

Also the Skyliner literally plays an add for DVC at Riviera when you go through the station. I know it states that it is the Riviera Resort apart of the Disney Vacation Club. So guests like yourself (when you didn't know what DVC was) would ask what is the Disney Vacation Club and that resort looks nice. I'll have to listen to the full message again in a few weeks when I go down and ride the skyliner (didn't get into the Riviera sadly but managed a VGF room instead).

Isn't the current fastest selling resort the Polynesian? I would suspect that will be pretty hard to top with that coming on line earlier into the bull market when people were more confident that the economy would be trucking along (on top of the Polynesian probably being a huge bucket list of many buyers that couldn't afford to stay cash there). But I do think Riviera will do very well.

 

[Wakey]

Also the Skyliner literally plays an add for DVC at Riviera when you go through the station. I know it states that it is the Riviera Resort apart of the Disney Vacation Club. So guests like yourself (when you didn't know what DVC was) would ask what is the Disney Vacation Club and that resort looks nice. I'll have to listen to the full message again in a few weeks when I go down and ride the skyliner (didn't get into the Riviera sadly but managed a VGF room instead).

Isn't the current fastest selling resort the Polynesian? I would suspect that will be pretty hard to top with that coming on line earlier into the bull market when people were more confident that the economy would be trucking along (on top of the Polynesian probably being a huge bucket list of many buyers that couldn't afford to stay cash there). But I do think Riviera will do very well.

You are correct it does say that, you just reminded me.

 

[jerseyduke]

Isn't the current fastest selling resort the Polynesian? I would suspect that will be pretty hard to top with that coming on line earlier into the bull market when people were more confident that the economy would be trucking along (on top of the Polynesian probably being a huge bucket list of many buyers that couldn't afford to stay cash there). But I do think Riviera will do very well.

I think the Poly sold out in basically 3 years. The GF was 2 with pretty much half the number of points.

I think it will be hard to beat the Poly, one thing DRR does not have is a group of people with Nostalgia for it. (Obviously through no fault of its own) I think it helps when the people with enough money to buy DVC have memories of staying at the resort that is currently on sale when they were a child.

 

[MJ NH]

Is this new thought process of people passing through mean resale will be easy in the future. Therefore reducing the resale restriction risk? A built in resale market 10-15 years from now.

 

[Wakey]

Is this new thought process of people passing through mean resale will be easy in the future. Therefore reducing the resale restriction risk? A built in resale market 10-15 years from now.

I think it will help, but I doubt it will be the same level. We are talking about non owners here, 95% of which I guess, possibly more would only buy direct. And the restrictions. So it will help a little, but not like with new sales would be my prediction. But you are correct in that (with the voiceover as well- whose betting that will change to something like ‘You are now passing through Disney’s Riviera Resort, our sold out Disney Vacation Club Resort- our new Resort, Reflections a Disney Lakeside Lodge is now open for sales’) it will always act as an in your face DVC advert for thousands of new customers a day.
Funny as I saw a Vlog last night of these fellas who were stopping in a villa. They then did the Skyliner. Guess what, they got off to have a look at Riviera. Then what did they do, they asked for a tour when they were in the lobby (on spec not pre arranged) and got added to one (of course!), and went to look at the rooms. After seeing the rooms they were saying how much they’d like to buy. Exactly what I’m talking about. See the Lodge Guys on YouTube to see it for yourself. This would probably not have happened at Copper Creek, or even Poly or Grand Floridian.