Considering purchasing BWV - How hard is it to get a GV for Christmas at 11-months?

[Disneymooner07]

Originally Posted by Deb & Bill

How often do you really plan to try for a GV? Sometimes too much closeness can get a little overbearing. in 15 years of DVC we got a GV once, for a graduation trip from HS for our son and eight of his friends (we went along too). It was good from the standpoint of being able to keep track of the kids, but sometimes, I would wish for a one bedroom villa for us.

So consider multiple smaller villas as well to keep the family sane.

The current plan is to get a Grand Villa once every 5 years, but possibly every other year depending on time of year and how many points it'll eat up. We always travel with one or both Grandmas in tow. We travel fine with them, especially if we have that much space! They both LOVE Disney and offer babysitting in the evenings, which is great!, but it's nice to have them in the same room and not in a separate room down the hall. On occasion we'll invite my sister and her family, but the Grand Villa will be more than enough space for all of us. I think the square footage in a GV is actually more than our house!

Originally Posted by ELMC

Sorry I wasn't clearer. There is a popular misconception that the 11 month mark from your check in day is the earliest that you can book a reservation. That's actually not entirely true the way the rules are set up now. Instead, the earliest you can book a reservation is 11 months plus 7 days. (The catch is that you can't book your entire stay at once). I'll explain what I mean.

So let's say that you want to stay in a GV from December 7-14. If you don't "walk" your reservation, you would call MS on January 7 and book your entire stay. However, there is a catch. There is a chance that even though you went on at the first possible minute at the exact 180 day mark, all of the GVs have been booked. This is because people who are staying earlier may have already booked all of the available GVs because Dec 7 is at the tail end of their reservation.

So instead, you call up MS on January 1 and book a 7 night reservation starting on December 1 and ending on December 7. That is the earliest possible day that you can make a reservation for Dec 7 and it is a full 7 days earlier than people who don't walk their reservation can book that room. So now you have a reservation for 6 nights you don't want and 1 night that you do. So the next day you go online and book a reservation for Dec 8. Now you have the first two nights of your reservation booked at the very earliest possible moment that you can. Then when MS opens, you call them up and cancel your reservation for Dec 1 (last I checked you can't cancel one night of a multi night reservation online. If I'm wrong someone please correct me.) You do this each day for 7 days and you have booked reservations for each of the 7 nights of your stay at the earliest possible moment.

I hope this makes it clear, please let me know if you still have questions.

Originally Posted by gatorgirl02

Just a quick note, online booking opens at 8:00 am EST, not 7:00 am.

Originally Posted by zavandor

You cannot add a night to an existing reservation online, you have to call MS for that too.
Since the room is locked for the 7th, none can book it for the 8th. You can wait the 7th to call MS and cancel and then book 6 nights. Software glitches apart.

Originally Posted by ELMC

Sorry I wasn't clearer. What I meant was that you book a stand alone reservation for that day. My understanding is that MS can connect all of your reservations at the end provided that you reservations are for the same type and size of room.

As far as the second part about the room locking, that's a good point. Do you really trust the system to work that way though? It makes me a little nervous.

Ah, I see. Thanks for that information! Sounds like an insider trick! I guess the only limitation is if you have enough points to book all those 7 days! I guess sometimes I'll only have enough to walk the 3 or 4 days before!