First DVC Resale Contract for The Villas at Disneyland Hotel

[emchen]

if I was DVD and motivated to sell a lot of points, I’d probably do a big push for a short period BEFORE Poly 2 comes online (especially if it’s the same association as PVB).

And this is where you and others are wrong. DVD is NOT motivated to sell a lot of points, exactly for this reason:

I still think they don’t really care because RIV sells out for cash.

…and to add AUL to the list…and undoubtedly VDH.

Many here have described Disney’s modern grand strategy with regards to their hotels and DVC Villas that can be summarized thus:
1. Maximize profit of each resort.
2. Rent room at “rack rates” (because that is 2x or more revenue per stay compared to a stay on points).
3. If resort not full occupancy, then convert to DVC villas to achieve full occupancy.

These have been the guiding principles on the basis of and corroborated by history of AUL, CCR, RIV, VGF BPK, and VDH (check out @ehh ‘s VDH sales thread for sales pattern).

The old Cabins at Fort Wilderness may seem to be an exception, since it was always sold out. But I think Disney knew that as a “value property”, it would never achieve max profitability. Thus complying with principle #1 when it decided to convert them to “deluxe property”. No doubt per night rack rate will exceed $1500 per night. Points value I would guess to be around $800/night.

Based on the above logic, DVD will also not be in a hurry to sell out CFW nor PVB2.

For PVB2, I will guess that incentives will be best during presales to current owners. Once they are comfortable that DVC stays + rack rate stays = near 100%-occupancy, they will be perfectly happy to fall back to minimal incentives! Just like they did with VDH.

You may ask, what was VGF2 (BPK) excuse? It is widely reported that GFH was unable to sell out, so principle #3 kicked in. I’m guessing the same was true for CCR at WL.

Even the fact that DVC peak-seasons coincide with Park trough-seasons is evidence of the role DVC plays.

To summarize, we DVC members, are a buffer / a useful lever to ensure full occupancy at Disney’s resorts to maximize profits.

 

[AstroBlasters]

And this is where you and others are wrong. DVD is NOT motivated to sell a lot of points, exactly for this reason:

…and to add AUL to the list…and undoubtedly VDH.

Many here have described Disney’s modern grand strategy with regards to their hotels and DVC Villas that can be summarized thus:
1. Maximize profit of each resort.
2. Rent room at “rack rates” (because that is 2x or more revenue per stay compared to a stay on points).
3. If resort not full occupancy, then convert to DVC villas to achieve full occupancy.

These have been the guiding principles on the basis of and corroborated by history of AUL, CCR, RIV, VGF BPK, and VDH (check out @ehh ‘s VDH sales thread for sales pattern).

The old Cabins at Fort Wilderness may seem to be an exception, since it was always sold out. But I think Disney knew that as a “value property”, it would never achieve max profitability. Thus complying with principle #1 when it decided to convert them to “deluxe property”. No doubt per night rack rate will exceed $1500 per night. Points value I would guess to be around $800/night.

Based on the above logic, DVD will also not be in a hurry to sell out CFW nor PVB2.

For PVB2, I will guess that incentives will be best during presales to current owners. Once they are comfortable that DVC stays + rack rate stays = near 100%-occupancy, they will be perfectly happy to fall back to minimal incentives! Just like they did with VDH.

You may ask, what was VGF2 (BPK) excuse? It is widely reported that GFH was unable to sell out, so principle #3 kicked in. I’m guessing the same was true for CCR at WL.

Even the fact that DVC peak-seasons coincide with Park trough-seasons is evidence of the role DVC plays.

To summarize, we DVC members, are a buffer / a useful lever to ensure full occupancy at Disney’s resorts to maximize profits.

Truth

 

[intamin]

To summarize, we DVC members, are a buffer / a useful lever to ensure full occupancy at Disney’s resorts to maximize profits.

Exactly. We're basically the insurance plan for if a resort is struggling to sell for cash. Struggling? Convert to DVC and put aggressive incentives on it ASAP. Not struggling? Bide time and keep selling for cash as long as possible, minimal incentives. I don't think we'll ever see a standalone cash resort ever again. Maybe as a value but even then they wouldn't be able to sell it as DVC so they're a lot less likely to. DVC guarantees nearly 100% occupancy and if a member doesn't use the room, from Disney's standpoint, even better. That means they get to pull the room back into hotel inventory and get breakage. Either way Disney gets their money.

Option 1 (best for Disney): Room is sold as DVC, member doesn't book room or cancels within 60 days and is pulled back into inventory
Option 2: Room is sold for cash
Option 3: Room is booked with DVC
Option 4 (worst for Disney): Room isn't booked at all with either cash and unit hasn't been bought by DVC

Option 1 isn't always a guarantee, at the very least with DVC they guarantee Option 3 but if they can, option 2 has significantly better profit margins

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

And this is where you and others are wrong. DVD is NOT motivated to sell a lot of points, exactly for this reason:

…and to add AUL to the list…and undoubtedly VDH.

Many here have described Disney’s modern grand strategy with regards to their hotels and DVC Villas that can be summarized thus:
1. Maximize profit of each resort.
2. Rent room at “rack rates” (because that is 2x or more revenue per stay compared to a stay on points).
3. If resort not full occupancy, then convert to DVC villas to achieve full occupancy.

These have been the guiding principles on the basis of and corroborated by history of AUL, CCR, RIV, VGF BPK, and VDH (check out @ehh ‘s VDH sales thread for sales pattern).

The old Cabins at Fort Wilderness may seem to be an exception, since it was always sold out. But I think Disney knew that as a “value property”, it would never achieve max profitability. Thus complying with principle #1 when it decided to convert them to “deluxe property”. No doubt per night rack rate will exceed $1500 per night. Points value I would guess to be around $800/night.

Based on the above logic, DVD will also not be in a hurry to sell out CFW nor PVB2.

For PVB2, I will guess that incentives will be best during presales to current owners. Once they are comfortable that DVC stays + rack rate stays = near 100%-occupancy, they will be perfectly happy to fall back to minimal incentives! Just like they did with VDH.

You may ask, what was VGF2 (BPK) excuse? It is widely reported that GFH was unable to sell out, so principle #3 kicked in. I’m guessing the same was true for CCR at WL.

Even the fact that DVC peak-seasons coincide with Park trough-seasons is evidence of the role DVC plays.

To summarize, we DVC members, are a buffer / a useful lever to ensure full occupancy at Disney’s resorts to maximize profits.

I don’t think you read my post correctly, I specifically caveated it was what DVD should do *if I was eager to sell out a property*. I have long said that I agreed with @Sandisw — that Disney must be content with the pace of sales at RIV because they chose to keep its price fairly high relative to VGF. I think you are generally correct that they will sell more aggressively if and when they are having trouble consistently selling out rooms.

I think the other mistake in your analysis (which I doubt Disney is making) is assuming they can continue to keep all of their deluxe resorts anywhere near full at anything close to rack rates. Two years ago it was a scramble to find ANY deluxe room availability around Christmas and NYE, now they are offering Beach Club at 30% off at the most popular time of year. Poly Tower will cause a huge increase in monorail loop room availability and I assume they are going to want to sell a big chunk of it quickly. Poly Tower should have some incredible views, but I’m not sure that it will offset the inconvenience of being far from monorail stops for many WDW guests—especially the ones like us who don’t spend much time in their rooms.

There are fewer resort rooms available convenient to Epcot and DHS (compared to MK’s loops), so it may be that RIV can continue to attract cash bookings better than Poly Tower can, at least after the initial excitement and FOMO work their way through the Disney fanatic community.

 

[Sandisw]

I don’t think you read my post correctly, I specifically caveated it was what DVD should do *if I was eager to sell out a property*. I have long said that I agreed with @Sandisw — that Disney must be content with the pace of sales at RIV because they chose to keep its price fairly high relative to VGF. I think you are generally correct that they will sell more aggressively if and when they are having trouble consistently selling out rooms.

I think the other mistake in your analysis (which I doubt Disney is making) is assuming they can continue to keep all of their deluxe resorts anywhere near full at anything close to rack rates. Two years ago it was a scramble to find ANY deluxe room availability around Christmas and NYE, now they are offering Beach Club at 30% off at the most popular time of year. Poly Tower will cause a huge increase in monorail loop room availability and I assume they are going to want to sell a big chunk of it quickly. Poly Tower should have some incredible views, but I’m not sure that it will offset the inconvenience of being far from monorail stops for many WDW guests—especially the ones like us who don’t spend much time in their rooms.

There are fewer resort rooms available convenient to Epcot and DHS (compared to MK’s loops), so it may be that RIV can continue to attract cash bookings better than Poly Tower can, at least after the initial excitement and FOMO work their way through the Disney fanatic community.

One of the cards Disney has for the hotels, if things on the cash side go down, is upgrade guesrs from a moderate, and then shut down some of the rooms at that resort to cut down on operating costs..

It’s one of the reasons when they reopened after Covid they used DVC resorts and kept others shuttered longer…

The Poly tower though will offer larger rooms that don’t exist there so I honestly can see it being a very popular resort for cash guests….so it could turn into the same situation…no rush when they are making money..

Of course, they build to sell, but when you can get hotel guests to book while sales are happening, it is a plus so they don’t have to discount.

BPK was added to DVC, in part because GF was having trouble…from reports…filling up…and why I believe they declared all 202 rooms from the start…this way, they reduced their carrying costs….

It could be the same with VDH….and to bring this back to resale contract, I do think that the TOT will impact the market for this resort and it may take time to find buyers willing to pay over $13/pt yearly to own it…
We shall see what happens!

 

[emchen]

I don’t think you read my post correctly

Apologies for misinterpreting the meaning. I hope you didn’t misinterpret what i wrote as an adversarial statement either…I admit I could use emojis more often to better express intent.

I think the other mistake in your analysis (which I doubt Disney is making) is assuming they can continue to keep all of their deluxe resorts anywhere near full at anything close to rack rates.

I don’t make a claim that they will continue to keep all of their deluxe resorts near full at or close to rack rates. Just that they will use DVC as a lever to try to keep near full occupancy. I’m sure they have plenty of other ways (like 30% discounts you mentioned) to ramp up short term demand when they need to. I will add that 30% off $1500 is still $1050/night. Still higher than the likely all-in per point value if the room were booked on points.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Apologies for misinterpreting the meaning. I hope you didn’t misinterpret what i wrote as an adversarial statement either…I admit I could use emojis more often to better express intent.



I don’t make a claim that they will continue to keep all of their deluxe resorts near full at or close to rack rates. Just that they will use DVC as a lever to try to keep near full occupancy. I’m sure they have plenty of other ways (like 30% discounts you mentioned) to ramp up short term demand when they need to. I will add that 30% off $1500 is still $1050/night. Still higher than the likely all-in per point value if the room were booked on points.

Thanks for clarifying your intent, sorry if my inner lawyer kicked in instead of my decent human being who tries to interpret things charitably.

I agree they could slide quite a bit from rack rate before they aren’t making more money on cash than DVC stays…I think the most interesting question is how high discounts or vacancies have to climb before they decide they want to sell existing DVC (and the tower) more aggressively. I still think that a lot of the monorail resorts are close substitutes for each other and if they were willing to sell VGF for (effectively) $163, there must be significant softening from a year ago.

I do completely agree that Disney is trying to offload risks of empty rooms to us DVC owners while keeping as much profit as they can as hotel booking rates are high.

I think you could eventually see new developments that are built (like BWV, I think?) as deliberate hotel/DVC hybrids, and making them even easier to flip more and more to DVC if they want to going forward…or potentially they could make some sort of “bungalow” (cabin) at the moderate resorts if the Cabins at Ft Wilderness is popular.

 

[CastAStone]

I think you could eventually see new developments that are built (like BWV, I think?) as deliberate hotel/DVC hybrids, and making them even easier to flip more and more to DVC if they want to going forward

I think the pandemic taught them that this is a potentially expensive proposition if stuff goes wrong. Because they HAVE to open the DVCs but they can choose to open the cash resorts. So initially post Covid they had a bunch of hybrid properties all the way open - security, landscaping, pools, etc - generating tons of expense, but the cash side rooms were closed.

And yes that was a one off event but it was the 2nd time in 20 years that a one off event caused Disney to close entire hotels. Stuff happens.

So I don’t personally expect to see more hybrids.

 

[emchen]

Thanks for clarifying your intent, sorry if my inner lawyer kicked in instead of my decent human being who tries to interpret things charitably.

my inner clinician is a bit too clinical sometimes!

I think you could eventually see new developments that are built (like BWV, I think?) as deliberate hotel/DVC hybrids

vs…

So I don’t personally expect to see more hybrids.

Who cross examines first?

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

my inner clinician is a bit too clinical sometimes!

vs…

Who cross examines first?

Haha. I think @CastAStone makes a very important point—I didn’t own or follow WDW closely during the pandemic. I think one counterpoint is that RIV and VDH are going to function as hybrids for several more years whether or not they were designed that way, and if they really got burned by it they might be trying to sell more aggressively?

It does bode ill for my idea of DVC cabins at Caribbean Beach and other moderate expansions, and probably any Yacht Club tower (Lighthouse Tower at Disney’s Yacht Club Resort, anyone?)—but maybe makes it even more likely the keep adding towers (or more hotel to DVC flips) at the DVC properties they’d need to keep open in the future anyway? Maybe we are looking at Bay Lake Tower Two and BCV Tower type projects next?

Wait, one last counter arg before I get back to work—if that (very reasonable) theory is correct, wouldn’t it preclude Disney from flipping cabins at Ft Wilderness?

 

[CastAStone]

Haha. I think @CastAStone makes a very important point—I didn’t own or follow WDW closely during the pandemic. I think one counterpoint is that RIV and VDH are going to function as hybrids for several more years whether or not they were designed that way, and if they really got burned by it they might be trying to sell more aggressively?

It does bode ill for my idea of DVC cabins at Caribbean Beach and other moderate expansions, and probably any Yacht Club tower (Lighthouse Tower at Disney’s Yacht Club Resort, anyone?)—but maybe makes it even more likely the keep adding towers (or more hotel to DVC flips) at the DVC properties they’d need to keep open in the future anyway? Maybe we are looking at Bay Lake Tower Two and BCV Tower type projects next?

Wait, one last counter arg before I get back to work—if that (very reasonable) theory is correct, wouldn’t it preclude Disney from flipping cabins at Ft Wilderness?

Probably. It is always possible that i am/will be wrong!

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

It is always possible that i am/will be wrong!

Same, same.

 

[emchen]

It does bode ill for my idea of DVC cabins at Caribbean Beach and other moderate expansions, and probably any Yacht Club tower (Lighthouse Tower at Disney’s Yacht Club Resort, anyone?)

I’ve always been a fan of this idea. Cabins at FW is certainly a proof of concept and I think if successful, may open floodgates to other “moderate” or dare we say, even “value” expansions…

I liked an idea I heard from @pkrieger2287 and @Amy Krieger …DVC expansion at Grand Destino! Imagine expansion of Skyliner to it and other “moderates”.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

I’ve always been a fan of this idea. Cabins at FW is certainly a proof of concept and I think if successful, may open floodgates to other “moderate” or dare we say, even “value” expansions…

I liked an idea I heard from @pkrieger2287 and @Amy Krieger …DVC expansion at Grand Destino! Imagine expansion of Skyliner to it and other “moderates”.

If they are going to do it at all, I would expect them to convert more aggressively (including perhaps “moderates”) into DVC as BCV/BWV/BRV/OKW sunset (assuming they don’t replace them with something similar)—it would be helpful DVC to offer owners some less desirable resorts they can actually book less than 7mo in advance. If you can never get in anywhere less than 7mo, you may as well buy the restricted resorts you like resale.

 

[CarolynFH]

If resort not full occupancy, then convert to DVC villas to achieve full occupancy.

And, even if not occupied, the DVC owners still pay the costs to operate and maintain the resort. That was the lesson they learned during the pandemic.

 

[bwvBound]

First DVC Resale Contract for The Villas at Disneyland Hotel NOW Available

The first DVC resale listing for The Villas at Disneyland Hotel has finally hit the DVC Resale Market! Let's dive into what we know so far!

https://www.dvcresalemarket.com/blo...hotel/?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=dvcfan

#disneyvacationclub #dvcresale #dvc #disneyland

OP (@pkrieger2287) - would you be willing to update the first post when something moves on this contract? Thank you!

 

[AstroBlasters]

OP (@pkrieger2287) - would you be willing to update the first post when something moves on this contract? Thank you!

I would imagine it will show up in the avg resale price or ROFR report on DVCFan.com either way the following month.

 

[Cfabar1]

I hope DVC does not move into moderate territory at all... If they do, I hope the points chart will reflect the fact that it is a moderate and not a Disney Deluxe resort which is a major downgrade to the program. I'd also hope that owners at moderates couldn't transfer into a deluxe dvc until say 5-6 months before instead of 7.

 

[intamin]

I hope DVC does not move into moderate territory at all... If they do, I hope the points chart will reflect the fact that it is a moderate and not a Disney Deluxe resort which is a major downgrade to the program. I'd also hope that owners at moderates couldn't transfer into a deluxe dvc until say 5-6 months before instead of 7.

I wonder how CFW will be classified since FW is not a deluxe. Will staying there still get you into deluxe extended evening hours? I’d imagine so. I don’t even know how you could compare points at a moderate to points at a deluxe. I always said itd be easiest to make a separate DVC program with moderates only. The issue with allowing moderate points to trade directly with deluxe points is most people when they signed up for DVC did so because they wanted larger more deluxe accomodations. If you start letting moderate points book deluxes it kicks someone from a deluxe hotel out. I know nothing is guaranteed except for 11 month access to your home resort but I think things would get messy fast if they created a system that allowed for both.

 

[AstroBlasters]

I hope DVC does not move into moderate territory at all... If they do, I hope the points chart will reflect the fact that it is a moderate and not a Disney Deluxe resort which is a major downgrade to the program. I'd also hope that owners at moderates couldn't transfer into a deluxe dvc until say 5-6 months before instead of 7.

If they cost the same upfront direct and resale is restricted to only that resort…