We've been arguing this since the beginning that we started speculating this was DVC. I was the crowd that to be DVC, certain conditions HAD to be met. That lead to a very lengthy boat and location argument, just to have the gondola rumor pop up a few weeks after we had argued that fact that you couldn't enlarge the canals to accommodate the Friendships for 67 pages. None of us expected Disney to go airborne, but they solved the problem we had said had to be solved to make it DVC: they had to connect it to a park.
The second problem we saw to be DVC, it had to be separate from CBR. It seems they're attempting to do that by putting up a fence, giving it a new transportation option, and calling it something else besides CBR 2.0, but it's the equivalent to Bay Lake being Contemporary 2.0. It's the exact thing. I am sure there will be a "bridge" from Riviera over to CBR, just as there is one from BLT to CR. I am sure it will end up sharing buses with CBR, just as BLT shares the bus and monorail station with CR. I do believe Riviera will get it's own bus station and gondola station, however. I am sure Riviera will rely on the QS options over at CBR (hence the revamp of CBR's food court) just as they do at CR. This is BLT all over again. BLT is an extension of the contemporary and Riviera is an extension of CBR. So, imo, they haven't done enough to separate Riviera from CBR unless they address these issues.
The third thing that made the argument that to be DVC, this had to be in a good location. It's not. It's surrounded by moderate and value resorts. It's surrounded exactly by the crowd that DVC owners hope to avoid. That's not to say that people who stay at Values or Moderates are bad people, but those are people who are on budget and time crunches. They tend to be a little more fast paced commandos vs the DVC demographic that's here for extended or larger vacations that take their time. If you've ever spent the night at All-Star and then hopped over to a deluxe for the rest of your vacation then you know exactly what I am talking about. The Riviera will have the BEST dining options out of its surrounding resorts. It will be full all the time from those on the
DDP staying at the All-Stars. I am shying away from this one mostly because I am concerned with crowd levels at the resort itself.
The fourth argument was price point. They had to find a way to price this along the lines of BLT without devaluing other DVC points. Besides being the only DVC resort on the gondola line (so far) I am having a hard time with this. The gondola station will be accessible by Epcot DVC resorts pretty easily, so being directly on the line isn't as large of an edge.
I have to agree with
@lockedoutlogic. I think we're seeing a new DVC model coming into play and we're all in for a bit of a rude awakening as DVC owners.