Hi! My family and I are currently booked to stay at POFQ for a surprise last minute trip. Last night I checked into renting points for our stay at SSR through a disboards member and it was only a couple of $100 more so I think that's what we would prefer to do. We're a family of 7 (5 kids ages 1,3,7,10 & 11.) we usually stay in a villa because of our family size. The only concern I have is we'd need to wait list one night of our stay right now. I've never had to deal with wait listing before. What are the odds that it comes through? We'd be wait listing 9/26 if day of the week matters. (Stay would be 9/20-9/27.) we've never stayed here before but the resort looks beautiful so I'd be excited to try it out!
What size villa are you looking for? If anything other than a Grand Villa, I'd say your chances fall somewhere along the spectrum of a slim-to-fair-to-marginal chance of it coming through. There is a chance, but it would be something of a long shot this close to the trip. There are a few things that work in your favor. SSR is a very large resort, and there is a lot of churn. We're also coming up on the 30-day point, so anyone who's sitting on a reservation but is unsure if they're really travelling or not will make their decision to cancel or not in the next few weeks. Also, while SSR is my personal favorite resort and there are many, many of us who absolutely love it and seek it out, unfortunately, there are many in DVC who look at it as a "fallback" location. Rest assured that there are a lot of people holding reservations at SSR who have a waitlist in to move to another resort. If their waitlists come through, it may open a slot for you to get in.
Some things that work against you, though, are that your trip is during the Epcot Food and Wine Festival, which is very popular with DVC members. (At least it's not the half-marathon weekend, so that's good.) There's also a Mickey's Not-So-Scary-Halloween Party on the 26th, which is also a draw for DVC members.
I just re-checked availability for that night, and there are no 2-bedrooms or tree house villas available at SSR. OKW also doesn't have a 2-bedroom. So this is a night that's currently in high demand.
Once you're within 30 days of check-in, the chances of a wait list drop. (Wait lists often come through as part of a daisy-chain effect. Someone who has a reservation for the room you want may be waiting to see if their wait list comes through for another room. If they get theirs, you get yours. Shortly before the 30-day point, there is a flurry of wait list activity as people try to make final changes to their reservations before there are penalties for changing/canceling reservations. When you're within 30 days of check-in, though, there are different rules on how the points associated with a reservation can be used. If a wait listed room uses a different number of points than the reservation the member currently has, those points could go into holding. That's something most members want to avoid, so many wait lists cancel at 30 days out. That means the amount of churn slows down, and the chance of a wait list coming through goes down.)
Good luck, whatever you decide.
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