PVB Tower Charts, Sales Date and more!!!

[MerlinandtheMouse]

Garden spaces are only available if staying in the tower I presume? and not dvc longhouses / bungalows or poly hotel?

Yes, the elevators and terraces are all “locked”behind room key/magic band readers. You need to be staying at tower specifically to have access. Not sure how safeguarded this will be in practice though. I’m sure plenty will try to sneak in with other families.

 

[New Mouse]

Yes, the elevators and terraces are all “locked”behind room key/magic band readers. You need to be staying at tower specifically to have access. Not sure how safeguarded this will be in practice though. I’m sure plenty will try to sneak in with other families.

It's about as safeguarded as the pools.... unless guests want to police it Disney doesn't overly care who uses it.

 

[davidhr]

Yes, the elevators and terraces are all “locked”behind room key/magic band readers. You need to be staying at tower specifically to have access. Not sure how safeguarded this will be in practice though. I’m sure plenty will try to sneak in with other families.

Can you take the stairs to get there?

 

[maui22]

Great to hear!! I think we will be in the same boat. Was NOT expecting to feel that way. I think IT TPV will be in more demand than BLT TPV.

During the tour, the guide asked which resorts we owned. I told him BLT and PVB. He asked which TPV we preferred. He was genuinely surprised we liked PVB better. Overlooking the parking lot takes away some of the magic. Some fireworks (MNSSHP when they fired them off around the entire park) used to be closer. However, the angle was more off.

After looking closer at our room (8712), I realized we were one of 2-3 rooms that we a paper airplane throw from the water. Heck, I could possibly have throw a bowling ball from our balcony into the lagoon. This was the GF side, but not the final section (which only goes to the 6th floor). Center area is a bit further, but still close to the lagoon. Our angle required us to look left to see the castle, but we were both seated watching the MK fireworks. We also watched the Epcot fireworks from a seat on the balcony. Also watched Electric Water Pageant directly from our seats on the balcony.

At BLT, we used to watch MK fireworks from TOTWL then watch Epcot from our LV room facing Contemporary pool. I can’t remember if the Electric Water Pageant was after or before Epcot fireworks.

Quick question - are there any side exits or is it all out the lobby front and back?

Admittedly, I didn’t think to check. Because the 7th floor doesn’t span the width of the entire building, the end of 7th floor was a staircase. It was interesting to see only 2 lower numbered even (TPV) rooms next to us. After that was 2 doorways for CM staff. End of hallway turned left. There was a window I could look over the roof of the end section of Island Tower and over GF buildings (glad Disney didn’t make people view this from any rooms). I didn’t go down the stairwell.

End result of the middle sections is it encourages using the elevator or stairwell to the middle areas. Once in the lobby, it’s so encouraging to walkout to the lagoon that we never went out the front until the last night when we realized we should look at it. Honestly, Disney knew the lagoon was going to be the focal point and did a great job with it.

Bell services the exit morning did take us through a path we didn’t realize existed. He mentioned about being able to take that between GCH and Island Tower. This looked like it came out near the end of Island Tower. There may have been an entry/exit point there. Note: this path was more on the front side of the longhouse as opposed to walking along the marina side of that longhouse.

 

[maui22]

Low floor and/or north facing (toward VGF) would feel like a ripoff…

Agree.

The tour rooms in Island Tower were second floor. Disney did use a longhouse LV studio for a model room in the original PVB. However, I think Disney would face complaints if these were TPV rooms.

Tour guide didn’t know for sure but he thought everything higher than second would be TPV because the palm trees were only 2 floor heights and blocking some views. I told him they should not even consider the 3rd floor as TPV because those palm trees will grow. Look at the longhouses. Trees were smaller decades ago and grew. In 10-20 years third floor could face complaints. (Not all, but depends on angles). Of course, many companies push the envelope so it wouldn’t surprise me. IIRC, BLT bamboo was a lot shorter on the inner C. Rooms on the third floor had better lake views. Today, not even sure if some of those rooms can see the lake.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Had a drink at Wailulu the other day (walked right up to the bar on a weekday 3ish, plenty of seats) and walked the grounds a bit. View as the castle from the bar is just crazy good. Fantastic addition all around, in my humble opinion. Really rounds out that ‘side’ of the resort and adds to the energy of the Seven Seas Lagoon resorts.

Also love the addition of so much more shoreline for fireworks viewing. The view from the path/old beach was always great, but the audio was often hit or miss over there so not the best show. They’ve really made an effort with the audio with the Tower and I consider it a plus that Poly guests now have a second option besides the main beach.

Look forward to staying sometime!

 

[MerlinandtheMouse]

Can you take the stairs to get there?

That’s a good question. There are definitely staircases to get to each floor but I never thought to check if they’re key card accessible only or not. I’ll check next time we’re there.

 

[maui22]

Yes, the elevators and terraces are all “locked”behind room key/magic band readers. You need to be staying at tower specifically to have access. Not sure how safeguarded this will be in practice though. I’m sure plenty will try to sneak in with other families.

After the first day, they did not have a CM at the elevator. A few people were trying to sneak on the elevators.

We would scan our MB and press our floor button. Next person would scan theirs and press their button.

Thing is, without scanning a MB can’t get to any floors but the first. For example, we were 7th floor. One night I wanted to stop on the 6th floor. It required me to scan the MB/keycard.

 

[MerlinandtheMouse]

After the first day, they did not have a CM at the elevator. A few people were trying to sneak on the elevators.

We would scan our MB and press our floor button. Next person would scan theirs and press their button.

Thing is, without scanning a MB can’t get to any floors but the first. For example, we were 7th floor. One night I wanted to stop on the 6th floor. It required me to scan the MB/keycard.

Interesting. I could’ve sworn I didn’t scan every time when we were floor hopping to find all the terraces lol but you’re probably right, I wasn’t paying much attention.

 

[maui22]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned. The pie section (pool and Wailulu wall) with the tattoo artwork has balconies. I checked the 6th floor because I wanted some pictures of the artwork up close. That balcony was a CM only area. From below, I noticed the same sign on the lower floors.

 

[maui22]

Interesting. I could’ve sworn I didn’t scan every time when we were floor hopping to find all the terraces lol but you’re probably right, I wasn’t paying much attention.

I wonder if they changed things. I thought the same thing. The day I tried going to 6 was on our last night. (Thursday).

 

[MarkNC2Disney]

Agree.

The tour rooms in Island Tower were second floor. Disney did use a longhouse LV studio for a model room in the original PVB. However, I think Disney would face complaints if these were TPV rooms.

Tour guide didn’t know for sure but he thought everything higher than second would be TPV because the palm trees were only 2 floor heights and blocking some views. I told him they should not even consider the 3rd floor as TPV because those palm trees will grow. Look at the longhouses. Trees were smaller decades ago and grew. In 10-20 years third floor could face complaints. (Not all, but depends on angles). Of course, many companies push the envelope so it wouldn’t surprise me. IIRC, BLT bamboo was a lot shorter on the inner C. Rooms on the third floor had better lake views. Today, not even sure if some of those rooms can see the lake.

Interesting, thanks for your insight! Touring Plans has first floor TPV rooms on the room finder. Hopefully they’re wrong.

 

[maui22]

Interesting, thanks for your insight! Touring Plans has first floor TPV rooms on the room finder. Hopefully they’re wrong.

Thanks for pointing out Touring Plans. I hadn’t paid attention.

Having been through BLT change and seeing LV longhouses at PVB (first floor bungalow view), it wouldn’t surprise me if Disney went overboard. It allows them to sell more points.

This does give me pause to adding on. Why should DW and I buy more points expecting an unobstructed view? We were not even looking at a FW. Imagine someone paying a premium to guarantee a room type and view only to be stuck in an obstructed view a few years in a row.

 

[maui22]

Here is an evacuation map of the 7th floor. We were 8712 (red dot). Floor doesn’t show the wing closer to GF because that wing ends on the 6th floor.

We were dedicated studio. I believe it was 8708 and 8710 toward GF side (left of image).

I can’t recall if Disney’s filings so far show all the floors and their rooms. If not, this can be used to compare to other floors to see if they are using same dedicated/lockoff with other floors.

 

[MarkNC2Disney]

This does give me pause to adding on. Why should DW and I buy more points expecting an unobstructed view? We were not even looking at a FW. Imagine someone paying a premium to guarantee a room type and view only to be stuck in an obstructed view a few years in a row.

Yup. Room anxiety is no fun.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

I don't think I've seen this noted yet, been trying to keep up with the thread but maybe I missed it when traveling - but Disney recently declared some more rooms...sorry if I'm behind here.

 

[Tatebeck]

This does give me pause to adding on. Why should DW and I buy more points expecting an unobstructed view? We were not even looking at a FW. Imagine someone paying a premium to guarantee a room type and view only to be stuck in an obstructed view a few years in a row.

Exactly. And I don't think it's just a Poly problem. I think Disney both highly overvalues it's views (as seen in point pricing) as well as over promises on views.

Views can be an extra 50% cost for the same resort between categories (1.5x cost from lowest to highest view type for the same room). Most people aren't there for the views and the cheaper views book first and are generally harder to book while the more expensive views are last to book. In my opinion they should have a much lower delta between the cost of the cheapest view vs the most expensive view. It would feel like less of a gut punch when you can't get what you want and have to pony up the extra points for the higher view. If you tell someone their trip will be between 150 and 250 points depending on availability, they feel like they lose out on 100 points of value if forced to book the most expensive view. Where if they said your room may cost 180 to 220 points depending on availability of room type, they would only feel like they lost out on 40 points of value in the worst case scenario. At most resorts, they should have made the cheapest view a tiny bit more expensive and the most expensive views a bit cheaper to balance demand.

On our last trip for example, we booked a Lake view room at BLT. Would have booked standard but there were none available at the time we booked. Not a huge deal, because I love the water, but we definitely paid more points for it, a few per night I think. And we could see almost 0 water at all unless we stepped all the way to the end of the balcony and looked all the way to the left. From the room all you could see was the contemporary, some parking lot, and a bit of the beginning of the docks and pools behind BLT. Felt like we paid for lake view but got standard, but maybe that is just me. Not a view that was worth points that could have been used for another night or two in the future.

 

[maui22]

I don't think I've seen this noted yet, been trying to keep up with the thread but maybe I missed it when traveling - but Disney recently declared some more rooms...sorry if I'm behind here.

Here is a link to a thread on this. So many different threads it can be hard to keep up. In time, hopefully LSL and all future DVC resorts have similar threads.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/d...entory-incresed-to-54-vacation-homes.3959054/

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Here is a link to a thread on this. So many different threads it can be hard to keep up. In time, hopefully LSL and all future DVC resorts have similar threads.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/dvcnews-polynesian’s-island-tower-dvc-inventory-incresed-to-54-vacation-homes.3959054/

Ahh, sorry, my bad - I've only been following this one and don't often keep up regularly with other corners of the DVC boards, but should probably look around more I guess! Thank you!