Walking at VGF is getting ridiculous

[ziravan]

Dec 1-14 deserves to be changed for all resorts.

While not all resorts/rooms/views book up immediately at 11 months, the trend has shown much higher demand for that period than is deserved by dates placed in the lowest-cost season.

Even if those dates were moved up a season or two, demand would still be quite high given the holiday festivities & decor, moderate weather and relatively low crowds.

Couldn't do just those two weeks because demand would shift around the edges, for a long way.

Dec 1-14 higher? We'll squeeze in between Thanksgiving or week before: cheaper points, still Christmas-y, maybe even warmer.

Those weeks are higher, too? 2nd week of Nov is cheap, Christmas, warmer, and F&W to boot. Awesome! Etc. etc.

My guess is that DVC will have to shift everything from start of F&W to the Jan marathon if they make a change: late Sept - early Jan.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Do any of you think that this situation led to the only studios and bungalows at the Polynesian? I have wondered for a long time why the December weeks were in the lowest season. I feel it is more desirable than those last weeks of August which are in Dream Season.

I easily remember the time when early December was very slow and afaik the seasons date back to then. Personally, I think the Poly decision was more related to costs and thus overall profit. PVB was planned long before VGF started showing the problem that certain times, and most especially Dec, would be for booking. Although I was pointing out long ago that the majority of people buying small amounts of points stated they planned to use them for Dec - it was a pretty easy thing to see what was probably going to happen especially when it started sinking in that fixed weeks were also going to take inventory out of the mix before booking even started and shrinking a small inventory down even more.

With Poly, beyond construction costs, I think we also are were seeing a recognition by Disney that it is a good thing cost wise to get hotel rooms turned over to DVC ownership and then be able to allocate costs to those owners. That will be most advantageous if you use every room to hold up to 5 people rather than reduce that number of unit rentals and still only have the same occupancy. DVC is a business and they are going to focus on what makes the most money vs minor concerns of booking issues a few weeks out of the year.

 

[tjkraz]

Couldn't do just those two weeks because demand would shift around the edges, for a long way.

Dec 1-14 higher? We'll squeeze in between Thanksgiving or week before: cheaper points, still Christmas-y, maybe even warmer.

Those weeks are higher, too? 2nd week of Nov is cheap, Christmas, warmer, and F&W to boot. Awesome! Etc. etc.

My guess is that DVC will have to shift everything from start of F&W to the Jan marathon if they make a change: late Sept - early Jan.

Any change will have some impact on surrounding weeks. That's the point of balancing demand.

Simplest change to make would be to move the 2 Dec weeks up one season from Adventure to Choice. To compensate move May 1-14 down from Dream to Choice. (Another candidate would be the 2nd half of August.)

Choice season currently consists of most of November (except Thanksgiving.) If Dec 1-14 was moved into that same season, those 2 weeks would still be among the most popular all year.

First half of May has no business being priced higher than the entire span from September - Dec, excluding Christmas week and 3 days around Thanksgiving.

 

[DebbieB]

The difference between adventure and choice is so small for studios, I can't see anyone changing dates for it. In fact, at VGF a standard studio is the same. Lake view is only 5 points more for the week.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

I'd think that converting the existing longhouses at Poly to anything BUT Studios would have been an issue.

Much as was done at the Contemporary, when the Poly was built in the 1970s, it was built with pre-fab rooms then put into place within a steel shell, a lot like cruise ships are built. Moorea and Pago Pago were built in the 80s, so I suspect they have a different construction and would have been easier to convert.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

I'd think that converting the existing longhouses at Poly to anything BUT Studios would have been an issue.

Much as was done at the Contemporary, when the Poly was built in the 1970s, it was built with pre-fab rooms then put into place within a steel shell, a lot like cruise ships are built. Moorea and Pago Pago were built in the 80s, so I suspect they have a different construction and would have been easier to convert.

I believe that all 3 of the buildings they converted were the ones built in the 80's - also the only ones with balconies on all the floors. I also suspect the construction was much different from the originals.

 

[easyd]

Obvious solution... DVD converts hotel rooms at VGF to studios!

Or, do like I did and sell the VGF contract...

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Obvious solution... DVD converts hotel rooms at VGF to studios!

Or, do like I did and sell the VGF contract...

The conversion may happen. I suspect if it does, though, they do like WL and it becomes VGF2 and the VGF1 owners are 7 months at VGF2.

I'd think trying to find shoreline to squeeze bungalows would be their next move at VGF given their mania for giant, point-heavy mayhem.

 

[Minniesgal]

Obvious solution... DVD converts hotel rooms at VGF to studios!

Or, do like I did and sell the VGF contract...

Or do like I did any buy more points for bigger room

 

[wdrl]

The difference between adventure and choice is so small for studios, I can't see anyone changing dates for it. In fact, at VGF a standard studio is the same. Lake view is only 5 points more for the week.

But a reallocation would not have to be tied to the current point costs for the Choice Season. As drusba points out, DVC could do a reallocation of 20%, which would raise the cost of a Standard View studio from 125 points to 150 points for each week. Sure, a 25 point increase for a week long stay doesn't sound like that much, unless a member doesn't have an extra 25 points to spare.

As DVC members learned in when the point charts for 2010 and 2011 were reallocated, DVC could work around the 20% yearly reallocation cap by splitting the reallocation over two years. For example, a Standard View studio could go up from 125 to 150 points the first year, and then as many as 30 more points -- to 180 points -- the second year. Each year increases no more than 20%, but the total increase would actually be 44%.

I'm not saying that a reallocation should be done, but I think DVC has a number of options available to it if it decides a reallocation is necessary.

 

[easyd]

If VGF wasn't sold out!!!

 

[disneynutz]

IMO Disney will always do what is good for Disney but make it seem like it's good for paying public.

Some periods, resorts, and room categories will always be more popular than others.

Changing the point requirements may change who stays there but in the end all rooms will be booked by someone.

Bill

 

[Sammie]

Any change will have some impact on surrounding weeks. That's the point of balancing demand.

Simplest change to make would be to move the 2 Dec weeks up one season from Adventure to Choice. To compensate move May 1-14 down from Dream to Choice. (Another candidate would be the 2nd half of August.)

Choice season currently consists of most of November (except Thanksgiving.) If Dec 1-14 was moved into that same season, those 2 weeks would still be among the most popular all year.

First half of May has no business being priced higher than the entire span from September - Dec, excluding Christmas week and 3 days around Thanksgiving.

I agree. I never did understand the season choice for early May and late August, especially late August. Hurricane season, hot as heck and many schools are back in session. Right now studios are still available at VGF for late August.

 

[T00dles]

I still don't see the need to increase point requirements for high demand periods, when the resort is booked, it's booked.

Bill

Right! Disney just wants the rooms booked. 11 months out is fine with them. If they added Points onto early Dec they'd have to lower them elsewhere...just moving the problem.

And here's another question. What happens with fixed weeks that undergo point reallocation? Is that what the 10% premium covers? We never considered a fixed week so we didn't dig that deep.

 

[pangyal]

Right! Disney just wants the rooms booked. 11 months out is fine with them. If they added Points onto early Dec they'd have to lower them elsewhere...just moving the problem.

And here's another question. What happens with fixed weeks that undergo point reallocation? Is that what the 10% premium covers? We never considered a fixed week so we didn't dig that deep.

Nope, the fixed week just continues to cover the cost of that week, regardless of whether it's reallocated or not. This is definitely a strong selling point. The premium is for the "luxury" of them booking it for the owner in advance, with no effort on the owner's part.

Also, fixed week bookings automatically occur twelve months before the reservation. So, any rooms showing as available before a certain day's window opens at 8:00am should not logically already have been booked to a fixed week reservation- those would have been locked down a month earlier.

 

[gdrj]

VGF is small and few studios. If I had a VGF contract and was using primarily studios I would think about selling and buying elsewhere. Of course that would be dependent on whne you are traveling and the difficulties I was having booking. Personally I don't book at the 11 month mark so that is another strike against a smaller property

 

[drusba]

I agree. I never did understand the season choice for early May and late August, especially late August. Hurricane season, hot as heck and many schools are back in session. Right now studios are still available at VGF for late August.

What you see today as seasons and times in them is just a creature of historical happenstance. The original OKW seasons in 1991 were simply based on the pattern of demand for WDW in general at the time. The current adventure seasons were WDW's slowest times of the year then and there was no marathon weekend in Jan. October and November, other than Thanksgiving time, were almost just as slow and there was no Food & Wine and no more-than-month long Halloween party. Christmas and Easter were the highest demand times. The "spring" break period of mid-Feb to end of April and summer from mid-June to mid-Aug were the highest demand times behind Christmas and Easter. May, first part of June, and last half of Aug, and third week of Dec were not real heavy but quite a bit more busy than any of the Adventure and Choice times.

That Disney in general seasonal demand controlled the first point chart seasons, and it remains the same today despite that the Disney in general seasonal demand has changed, at least for the Fall months. and DVC demand is an animal significantly different from WDW in general demand. DVC essentially has two seasons at WDW: high to very high from end of Oct to marathon weekend in January, and the rest of the year which is practically an off-season. That is due to a number of factors, including modern events, the growing population of older DVC members that no longer need to follow school schedules, and the point charts and their lower cost seasons. If Feb and March had been selected as choice season in 1991 and October and November magic season, the demand patterns would look signficantly different today.

The biggest obstacle Disney would face with changing first two weeks of Dec is how to do it without changing something that should not be changed and staying within the 20% per year change per night per room point limit change. Moving that December time to choice season and May 1-14 down to choice season cannot be done without doing some other significant changes since, for example, at some of the resorts that would not be a change at all in the points needed for studios during the first two weeks of December. Moreover, that would have little to no impact on the December demand. It would raise the demand for first two weeks of May which are actually properly in the dream season now.

The second way that would actually change the December demand patterns is the one Disney would likely choose and many of those who are currently insisting a change should be made are going to be sorry for what they asked for. Disney would not make a change just to effect 14 days in the year when it has skewed demand problems throughout the year. For example, the first part of Feb before Presidents’ Day weekend, the last part of Feb through mid-March, and all of July after about July 7 are actually DVC’s lowest demand times of the year and need point corrections. Likewise October and Nov have very high demand.

The Disney solution would take two years and would be simple. It would lower the magic season point costs to be just a tad higher than dream season is now and raise adventure and choice season to be just a tad lower than dream season is now. That would go a long way to fixing all the current overly high and overly low seasonal demand problems, but of course all those who bought just enough points to stay in their chosen size room during adventure and choice season are not going to be very pleased with that change.

 

[FrostMommy]

I'm thinking part of the problem is so many people bought just enough points to book at studio, and there are only 47 studios. Demand will always be higher than the supply.

I think this is a big part. We own at VGF, but because we have 4 (soon to be 5) kids, a 2-bedroom is the only option for us. I have booked for two years now without any issue at all. I was well within the 11-month window, but before the 7-month window hit. We have had lots of options between views and have a lock-off or not during that time with a 2-bedroom.

 

[calleger]

Also, at VGF a studio and one bedroom sleep the same. So, unless I really want the kitchen or the privacy of a bedroom, why would I buy the points for a 1 bedroom? I have a family of 5 and really the only choice was between a studio(enough for the immediate family) or a two bedroom(enough to bring people with us).

 

[tjkraz]

Some periods, resorts, and room categories will always be more popular than others.

Changing the point requirements may change who stays there but in the end all rooms will be booked by someone.

Bill

The foundation of the system we all bought into is demand-based pricing. If Dream season is the midpoint, members should be getting a discount to travel during less-popular Choice and Adventure Season dates and they should have to pay a premium for more popular Magic and Premier dates.

Due to 25 years of changes in member booking patterns, demand is completely disconnected from the current seasonal configuration. It makes absolutely no sense to charge the lowest points of the year for some of the most popular dates and high rates for dates with little demand.

Right! Disney just wants the rooms booked. 11 months out is fine with them. If they added Points onto early Dec they'd have to lower them elsewhere...just moving the problem.

The goal isn't to move the problem, it's to correct the problem.

It's really not a difficult process to reclassify dates. Disney has years of data on member booking patterns. Dates where they have trouble filling rooms should go down in cost and dates which are among the fastest to book should go up. For 6-7 years now DVC has been making modest adjustments to weekday/weekend costs and even some changes to how points are spread across Studio/1b/2b villas in a single resort.

Hypothetically speaking, if I like to visit in May (unquestionably a month with light attendance), why should I have to pay 15-20% more points than someone visiting during the popular December weeks? Why should I pay more than during Food & Wine Fest? Who is properly served by that pricing?

Naturally any changes to the charts will cause shifts in demand. DVC would have to commit to making SOME adjustments on a regular basis. Not every year, of course...maybe some sort of 5-year cycle. 25 years is far too long to go without reevaluating the seasons.

The second way that would actually change the December demand patterns is the one Disney would likely choose and many of those who are currently insisting a change should be made are going to be sorry for what they asked for. Disney would not make a change just to effect 14 days in the year when it has skewed demand problems throughout the year.

They worst decision they consistently make is to do nothing. Reevaluating the entire calendar serves the greater good and is fair to all.

The current 25-year old setup is ineffective and does a poor job of serving members.