Are you a member of the Disney Vacation Club?
Riviera Resort
The pricey timeshare-style program from Disney allows owners to buy points that they can then use to book stays at a variety of Disney properties, including hotels at Disney World and Disneyland Resort. You don’t have to be a DVC member to stay at those particular resorts, but if you travel to Disney destinations often enough, it might be worth buying into the program. However, recently there has been a big problem facing DVC members.
If you’ve been a Disney Vacation Club member for several years, you may have noticed that recently, there’s been a BIG push for people to join DVC. Disney has been advertising the perks, offering tours, and hyping up the new resorts constantly, trying to get people to buy in.
Saratoga Springs
And honestly, it’s been working pretty well! For Disney as a company, this is good news. But for the average consumer? Well, it might not be so convenient. Because now, the pool of DVC members is much greater than it was before, which means the pool of available reservations to book is much smaller.
Wilderness Lodge
When you become a DVC member, you choose a “home” resort for signing your contract. With that particular resort, you’ll be able to book your stay 11 months in advance. At any other resort, availability will open 7 months in advance. But thanks to the influx of members, many DVC people are having a hard time finding availability at that 7-month mark, meaning that it’s more of a challenge to snag reservations that aren’t your home resort.
Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort
This is particularly a problem during popular travel dates or holiday seasons. During those times of the year, some people have begun the frustrating practice of “walking” reservations. What does that mean? Allow me to explain. Let’s say, for example, that you want to stay in a Disney World hotel December 23rd-27th. “Walking” a reservation would mean that you start booking early — like making your reservation for December 15th when it opens up, then waking up every day and modifying the reservation back a day until you have your desired dates. This practice makes it very hard for the people who are actually booking for December 15th to find their desired room or dates.
The Disney Vacation Club Imaginatrium
But what about the new hotels? Yes, Disney has added new DVC properties in recent years, like at Disneyland Hotel or the Fort Wilderness Cabins. And at the end of 2024, they’ll be opening a DVC tower at the Polynesian Village Resort. But with each new property, more and more people are tempted to buy DVC, and therefore the demand is sometimes outpacing the supply.
Disney Vacation Club
Ultimately, this makes it more of a challenge for DVC members to get “bang for their buck” when it comes to those contracts. They’re often having to book single-night stays randomly to actually use their points. That can be frustrating when you paid big bucks to get those points in the first place!
Riviera Resort
We’ll make sure to keep you updated with any other Disney Vacation Club problems, so stay tuned to DFB for the latest.
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What is even worse is when companies like David’s vacation rental allows non-members to book at the 11-month window. We have been Bay Lake owners since it opened and in order to go with our grandchildren last Easter to stay at the Boardwalk we had to pay for David’s vacation rentals to get us the Boardwalk resort. It doesn’t seem fair. We were happy to be able to stay there however I feel something needs to be done about that! I feel maybe they should not be allowed to book with the vacation rental shops until after the 7-month window giving all vacation club members first opportunity.
It’s so odd that an inventory problem is happening in general, when all the news I’ve read has indicated that DVC sales in 2024 have not been impressve. There is a theory that people have been holding out for the Polynesian, and undoubtedly some are, but it seems unlikely that is all there is to it. I can see that ‘walking’ reservations would be an issue, especially at busier times of the year, and Disney should find a way to address it. Thanks for the insight around home vs. not home resorts – if we ever join DVC, we will definitely only do it if we can get the home resort we’d want.
This is not a NEW problem. It’s been going on for several years. It was worse after the shut down in 2020.
What I hate is that when I go to make a reservation on the DVC web site only to find out that there’s no vacancy but yet I go to Disney.go, under the travel section and find that the same room is available for rent on the Disney web site. It’s like Disney is double dipping on renting out their rooms. The DVC owners have already paid their part and then Disney is forbidding them access to the rooms and at the same time renting them it to the general public.
I really think the problem is so many people are booking there rooms and then renting them out for the cash. I see it all the time on a DVC Facebook page. This makes it impossible to get stays anymore. I’ve been a member for 30 years and it was never as hard as it is now to get a reservation.
The problem here is buying a resort with an intent to use it for other resorts.
Buy where you want to stay. Use your priority booking windows.
There is enough inventory for everyone, it’s the share part of timeshare. You can’t sell 60 weeks in room. You can only sell 50.
Typically book at the 11 month window, several weeks, different resorts. Never had a problem at 11 months.
I agree with the previous comments. We tried booking Disney World at the 7 month before our trip and we were very open to many of the different hotels for DVC however we could not get a reservation anywhere other than the Dolphin Hotel (which is lovely) but we can’t use our points for this trip. It is very frustrating. We have been DVC members for about 12 years.
Yes I have i bought into DVC in 1993. It was wonderful until a few years ago. They are selling MORE than there is room for!!! It’s ridiculous and I hate it. I raised my boys going to WDW 2 times a year and now they have kids and it is very hard to get a place. They need to stop selling!!!!!
As others have pointed out, this is nothing new. Certain resorts are always going to be a harder to get at 7 months than others due to the smaller size of the resorts and higher demand usually based on location. Other resorts like Saratoga Springs will always be easier to get because it is a large resort and a lot of people don’t like it for a variety of reasons (I actually love SSR).
The other thing I recommend is use the wait list tool. I have had great success with it over the years.
We’ve been at Bay Lake Tower since 2010 and have never had a problem with the 11-month window..
Agree that this problem is not new. And to clarify–while you get to “choose” your resort when buying directly from Disney, there’s usually only a handful of resorts selling at a given time.
We joined in 2011. Our tour guide was great, but the amount of information is overwhelming. You can look at points charts, but you don’t REALLY know how many points you need until you start using them. And we also figured we’d pay off the first set of points, and then add later.
As a result, we didn’t buy enough at first (in Saratoga at the time), and decided to buy additional points. Problem was, Saratoga was sold out, so we had to buy from AKL and then the third time from Copper Creek as AKL was sold out.
So for the 11 month window–you can only use the points attached to your resort. If I want to book Copper Creek 11 months out, I can’t use my Saratoga or AKL points until the 7 month point. I really don’t have enough to stay in any of my home resorts for most of the year at the 11 month mark.
I’ve considered selling back and buying points all in one resort on the resale market (which is much cheaper), but Disney has been reducing benefits for secondary market points slowly over time. You don’t get the same discounts, and if I recall correctly, you can’t use them at Riviera and I wouldn’t be surprised if they continue to restrict them more.
It’s the definition of a “First World Problem”, I know…but having spent 10s of thousands of dollars, it does get frustrating that for much of the year, it is hard to find the room I want even though I have the points for it.
One sentence is key…BUY WHERE YOU WANT TO STAY. Buying where you want to stay and being ready to book at 11 months eliminates the problem. Those buying with intentions of staying everywhere else are going to face constant frustrations.
Disney greed has ruined DVC. More DVC resorts is the primary reason for the overcrowding of the parks.
This is nothing new. As more people buy in, more rooms become available to book. It “should” balance out. However some resorts are always going to be more popular than others and will be harder to get, especially at busier times.
Buy where you want to stay – period. I understand it’s tempting to pick up Saratoga Springs on the resale market as it’s one of the best values when you consider buy-in cost and dues. But don’t do it unless you’ll be happy staying there. You cannot count on using those (relatively) inexpensive points at Grand Floridian or Poly for example. Can it happen? Yes. But there are no guarantees.
Honestly, the only time we’ve had trouble booking is when we try to book last minute. You can almost always work something out in advance. And the “cast members” on the phone are very good at finding vacancies. We love our membership and use it yearly, sometimes more than once a year
When we travel, we usually do not care what hotel we stay at. My favorite are Saratoga or Old key west, bigger resorts, never had a problem getting a room, just maybe not the section. Also cheaper on points so can give us a extra night or two. A few times we have looked at other resorts, but like most people have said, at the 7 month window it can prove tricky.
I agree this is not a new problem. In fact, it’s the reason I’ve stayed at Saratoga Springs and Old Key West more than any other DVC resort, even though neither is my home resort. My goal is to stay at each DVC resort at least once, but it’s harder than expected to make that happen.
I agree with most of the comments. We are locals and want to use our points for special events and find it very hard to get reservations. We’ve heard that some people book 11 months out “just in case” with no specific plans to use the rooms. This makes it difficult for those of us who do have specific plans and needs. I also dislike the bookings that then sell to the rental companies. Very unfair to those who want to actually use their points. We are losing 30 points this year.
I have dvc at Disneyland hotel and Polynesian. It’s false to say more dvc members mean less availability. DVC only sells new inventory they release. By law they cannot sell more points if they haven’t build a new resort or bought back old contracts. The points you buy are at your home resort and you can almost always book there 7-11 months out. Also if you use your points or rent them makes no difference on capacity. It’s still the same piece of inventory that you own no matter who uses it. Whether you can get another resort at 7 months is luck of the draw. But I have found you can often get shorter stays and you can make a waitlist request which I’ve had good luck with. Also sometimes if you check enough you can get lucky. I recently got boardwalk inn for Dec 21 within 60 days for Jollywood nights. Perfect!!!! Buy the resort you really want to stay in and plan ahead and you’ll be fine. Consider any other resort you’re able to get at 7 months extra magic.
Yup, we’re having trouble as we speak. I’m a Bay Lake person, but we’ve been to Aulani more than BLT. I’ve never had a problem getting a room at the 7-month mark and have been six times. The booking method is very frustrating when the availability isn’t there. Not being able to resolve your vacation in one day is stressful. The “try again tomorrow” answer feels like I didn’t buy a Lightning Lane pass.
My wife and I are looking at DVC now. We’ve “rented” at Poly and a couple of other DVC resorts and enjoyed but the price may not be doable. Plus looking at some of the videos for some of the DVC resorts, the really nice rooms (the suites) would be more points. One video said “suite” but it was one room (OKW) while another video showed a suite that had two rooms (Sarasota Springs). So the rooms themselves are different at each resort?
To Ryan, the basic rooms, studio, 1 bedroom, 2 bedroom, are pretty much the same, the main difference is theme and location.
As far as cost, yea, it is almost unaffordable for a average person to buy directly from Disney, minimum 150 points at like$225 per point. Disney already got rid of the biggest perk, magical express.
The resale market is more reasonable priced. You will not get perks, which disney says perks can be taken away at any time. But if you get disney visa card, free to have, you still get 20 percent off merchandise. So question to ask is the 10-20 percent I would save on sit down dinner worth the extra 10-15 thousand dollars spent buying directly from Disney.
I think the biggest problem is the reselling of your reservation. When you sign up and spend all this money and you can’t get in to a resort and then you see on line all these Non DVC members are staying in the resorts because people are buying from reselling companies instead of people just canceling their reservation there is the problem. Now i know it’s people’s right to do with their points what they want to do but when the dvc resorts are full of non DVC members there is a problem. If i knew I could stay in a dvc resort without spending the 20 thousands of dollars I spent on my contract you know I would of, now the only resort I can get in most of the time is my home resort as long as I book 11 months out. SMH
Demand rises and falls.
When economic hardships hit (Great Recession and Covid) we were able to book Beach Club and Boardwalk (board walk view) during food and wine. (7 month and less window).
Those resorts are so called impossible,
but they are not.
After those hard times we have seen revenge travel, making booking harder. However, we just stayed at Riviera (booked less than 3 months out) and Polynesian Island Tower (booked first day for owners of Polynesian). Riviera is supposed to be difficult.
Maybe we were lucky, but the number of times we have been so called lucky, tells me it happens more than people think. If you look once and give up you, your odds will be smaller.
2024 Disney direct DVC sales have exceeded 2023, so it might get more difficult. However, Riviera had more than 800,000 points declared but unsold just a few months ago. Disney wants people to stay at new resorts. Similarly, they just declared more units at Island Tower when they have not sold all the points in their initial declaration. Easier to sell someone staying at new properties.