Does anyone think there should be "home resort" member benefits?

I wouldn't mind have priority on location requests at your home resort. I know it's only a request, but if 2 people want location "X", one is an owner here the other at another DVC, let the owner have their choice before a not owner and always give the least favorite location to CRO cash visitors. That dreaded dumpster view at WL.
Agree that it would be nice. However, it would end up making the room assigner's job much more difficult, and increase the confrontations at the front desk. Sadly, too many of us do not understand the meaning of "request" and also feel entitled to special treatment because we "spent a lot of money" on DVC memberships.

Probably not worth it.
 
Agree that it would be nice. However, it would end up making the room assigner's job much more difficult, and increase the confrontations at the front desk. Sadly, too many of us do not understand the meaning of "request" and also feel entitled to special treatment because we "spent a lot of money" on DVC memberships.

Probably not worth it.

All of it should just be automatic. I find it crazy in 2020 that anyone would actually manually be doing anything. There is nothing that complex about room assignment its only roughly 5 or 6 variables.

Even with rooms going out of commission plenty of people likely put in no request and when number of days lines up to when the room will get closed off you stick them in there.

Also by making the room assignment automated you could potentially open up room selection (same way I do it at Hilton) that give possibly only home resort members access to keep the automatic assigned room (based on requests) or flip it out for rooms that will be assigned to non-owners morning of.

For a vacation that requires reserving a table at a restaurant 180 days out its funny that there is minimal input in room location.
 
All of it should just be automatic. I find it crazy in 2020 that anyone would actually manually be doing anything. There is nothing that complex about room assignment its only roughly 5 or 6 variables.

Even with rooms going out of commission plenty of people likely put in no request and when number of days lines up to when the room will get closed off you stick them in there.

Also by making the room assignment automated you could potentially open up room selection (same way I do it at Hilton) that give possibly only home resort members access to keep the automatic assigned room (based on requests) or flip it out for rooms that will be assigned to non-owners morning of.

For a vacation that requires reserving a table at a restaurant 180 days out its funny that there is minimal input in room location.

IMO - they're just lazy about it and they've cut back on the few resources they did have devoted to it.
 
All of it should just be automatic. I find it crazy in 2020 that anyone would actually manually be doing anything. There is nothing that complex about room assignment its only roughly 5 or 6 variables.

Even with rooms going out of commission plenty of people likely put in no request and when number of days lines up to when the room will get closed off you stick them in there.

Also by making the room assignment automated you could potentially open up room selection (same way I do it at Hilton) that give possibly only home resort members access to keep the automatic assigned room (based on requests) or flip it out for rooms that will be assigned to non-owners morning of.

For a vacation that requires reserving a table at a restaurant 180 days out its funny that there is minimal input in room location.
Marriott does their's manually as well. Certainly an automated system would be more efficient but less accurate in terms of actually filling true request. To do it manually you'd have to limit the choices to specified generic parameters which I think would be good anyway. You'd still have to do special situations manually such as having multiple units.
 


Marriott does their's manually as well. Certainly an automated system would be more efficient but less accurate in terms of actually filling true request. To do it manually you'd have to limit the choices to specified generic parameters which I think would be good anyway. You'd still have to do special situations manually such as having multiple units.

There is zero chance a human is more accurate than a computer system. There is no requirement for "generic parameters" to be leveraged or used in the automated system. As an example at AKV all rooms could be ranked in partial savanna views, distance from elevators, distance from each other room, distance from pool, ect.

In addition automated systems can allow feedback from individuals on assigned rooms, request reassignment, and analyze trends of feedback to request placement. Over time it can become more complex and account for various variables based on the resort requirements.

As an example if you request a room like 1401 data could be leveraged to place you in rooms either in the same area, same room configuration, or same type of view. These inputs could be part of the room request even allowing people to do an "advanced" request allowing specific selection of rooms, hallways, sections of resort, ect.

Want to talk about generic? Talk about the system today where of the requests put in likely 90% of them just use the offered "near elevator" or "high floor". They are required to use generic modifiers to requests today based on it being a person instead of a computer doing the assignment. A person would take an extremely long time if everyone was given the option to input specific room area requests like a room number.

I have optimized various processes in my career although none of them are room requests so I couldn't lay out every aspect of what needs to be accounted for. I do know one thing there are many people out there who are more than happy to do the same slow repetitive process daily without optimizing their workflow. Disney can do whatever they want but "it won't work" or "humans are more accurate" is not accurate in my opinion.
 
There is zero chance a human is more accurate than a computer system. There is no requirement for "generic parameters" to be leveraged or used in the automated system. As an example at AKV all rooms could be ranked in partial savanna views, distance from elevators, distance from each other room, distance from pool, ect.

In addition automated systems can allow feedback from individuals on assigned rooms, request reassignment, and analyze trends of feedback to request placement. Over time it can become more complex and account for various variables based on the resort requirements.

As an example if you request a room like 1401 data could be leveraged to place you in rooms either in the same area, same room configuration, or same type of view. These inputs could be part of the room request even allowing people to do an "advanced" request allowing specific selection of rooms, hallways, sections of resort, ect.

Want to talk about generic? Talk about the system today where of the requests put in likely 90% of them just use the offered "near elevator" or "high floor". They are required to use generic modifiers to requests today based on it being a person instead of a computer doing the assignment. A person would take an extremely long time if everyone was given the option to input specific room area requests like a room number.

I have optimized various processes in my career although none of them are room requests so I couldn't lay out every aspect of what needs to be accounted for. I do know one thing there are many people out there who are more than happy to do the same slow repetitive process daily without optimizing their workflow. Disney can do whatever they want but "it won't work" or "humans are more accurate" is not accurate in my opinion.
Manual is more accurate for specific requests, no way around it as some of them would be difficult to impossible to track, but you could have a computer do it and then double check it against those type of requests. It would be more accurate and easier for generic requests for a computer to do it. The history on DVC and requests is that they used to put specific effort into it and give priority to requests based on date of the reservation but they abolished this years ago, likely for the issue that Carol alluded to. Certainly if you limit to the underlying reservation parameters and general location within the resort you'd be golden. DVC doesn't track view so that'd be an issue. They could I suppose but that'd be very variable. Now there is no system wide method, it's all resort by resort. Then there's the IT requirements underlying, not Disney strong suite even though I don't have quite the negative sense there that some do.
 


After having witnessed some awful behavior at the front desk, IMO, they'd be totally justified to refuse to take requests at all.

In my experience it happens in all customer service arenas. Most companies don't just stop trying because of it. Some customers that are habitual about it might be encouraged to find another place to go.
 
I always wondered why DVC didn't make a bigger deal about expanding members benefits at their home resort. For instance, it seems that you should ALWAYS be able to pool hop at your home resort regardless of where you're staying on property. It's your "home", and you're paying for that pool in dues! Or, if you're a member at BLT, you get access to a TOTWL first for special nights (like the 4th), even if you're not staying there. There's lots of exclusive things they could come up with for "home" members. They could even add your "homes" to your member card in the form of initials on the front or back (which I think would be cool in and of itself.)
I completely agree with this. We live in Orlando about 15 minutes from our home resort VGF and we would love to be able to frequent the pool as often as we like. When we go we always spend significantly on food and beverage at the poolside bar. I would also love to have the home resorts name on our member ID blue card, heck we paid so much for that name!
 
I always wondered why DVC didn't make a bigger deal about expanding members benefits at their home resort. For instance, it seems that you should ALWAYS be able to pool hop at your home resort regardless of where you're staying on property. It's your "home", and you're paying for that pool in dues! Or, if you're a member at BLT, you get access to a TOTWL first for special nights (like the 4th), even if you're not staying there. There's lots of exclusive things they could come up with for "home" members. They could even add your "homes" to your member card in the form of initials on the front or back (which I think would be cool in and of itself.)
Another idea would be to have special events for those home resort members within that home resort, for example once a year to have a VGF ball during the holidays just for those home resort members or a summer pool party just for those home resort members. In the case of AKV do a special home resort member only animal tour which you get at least once a year to them and their party, these would be excellent benefits to sell members to each specific resort even moving forward.
 
Anything funded by dues cannot be restricted from resale.
BVTC is funded by dues but RIV resale owners cannot use it. Actually, now that I think about it, shouldn't RIV resale owners receive a refund for the fee paid for the exchange system? I think it's something like $1 per member, but it's the principle.
 
BVTC is funded by dues but RIV resale owners cannot use it. Actually, now that I think about it, shouldn't RIV resale owners receive a refund for the fee paid for the exchange system? I think it's something like $1 per member, but it's the principle.
As I understand it, BVTC (DVC's registered Trading Company) is not funded by dues as I understand it. The same for RCI. The option comes through DVD rather than DVCMC. Besides I don't think BVTC is still active since the Embarc and Club Cordial resorts were excluded in 2016. The DC, DCL, ABD, are not covered under BVTC. I haven't seen the Riviera documents but if they can use RCI, I suspect they would be able to use BVTC if operational.
 
I'm against anything that puts more restrictions on members in general. I dislike anything that makes things more complicated. The ability to try out other resorts and fully enjoy them is a huge selling point for DVC too. We're in the process of considering the addition of a small contract, but I refuse to commit until I stay at some of the resorts we're looking at.

The ADDITION of a perk could be nice. Maybe adding a home member hour to the pool, either before opening or after closing, would be nice. Or a voucher for a free drink at your resort.

But honestly, I'd be ok if they left things as they are. The 11 month window is enough.
 
I completely agree with this. We live in Orlando about 15 minutes from our home resort VGF and we would love to be able to frequent the pool as often as we like.

Do you not recognize how damaging it would be to the overall guest experience if DVC resorts were essentially country clubs for any buyer in Central Florida?
 
Do you not recognize how damaging it would be to the overall guest experience if DVC resorts were essentially country clubs for any buyer in Central Florida?
Tim, the only resorts I know that allow this type of usage actually sell memberships just for pool usage. For all the rest that allow day use, it's space available and they usually don't allow it during busier times. For DVC that means it's simply not workable since in theory it should always be busy.
 
As I understand it, BVTC (DVC's registered Trading Company) is not funded by dues as I understand it. The same for RCI. The option comes through DVD rather than DVCMC. Besides I don't think BVTC is still active since the Embarc and Club Cordial resorts were excluded in 2016. The DC, DCL, ABD, are not covered under BVTC. I haven't seen the Riviera documents but if they can use RCI, I suspect they would be able to use BVTC if operational.

As I understand the POS BVTC is the division that handles the internal DVC trades too and still is mentioned everywhere as doing so. I believe there is a nominal membership fee of maybe $1 per member that is included in dues but I'm not 100% on that.
 
Another idea would be to have special events for those home resort members within that home resort, for example once a year to have a VGF ball during the holidays just for those home resort members or a summer pool party just for those home resort members. In the case of AKV do a special home resort member only animal tour which you get at least once a year to them and their party, these would be excellent benefits to sell members to each specific resort even moving forward.
Who would pay for that event? Maybe make it a cost to the member and their guests attending to cover all the costs. And it would probably only be the home resort guests staying at WDW during that time and locals. If you aren't local and aren't staying at WDW, you don't even get to participate in that even. Just like the Magic evenings in the parks. I was going to attend the one in May during our May stay, but covid got in the way. Since DVC started those special evenings in the parks for members, we've only been there once and were planning on May 2020.

It would probably be a better benefit to give more park reservations to DVC member since they are the majority of people in the parks right now. APs without a resort reservation sure aren't getting those park reservations.
 
As long as you can still bar hop I'm good the outdoor bar at CCV and Poly I like and the RIV pool bar I like as well. I will say I wouldn't travel halfway across Disney to use a pool, now you can say what you want, but water is water and the sun shines the same at all resorts and I don't see an advantage especially because I am much older than 10.

If we were talking beaches that's a whole different matter and I have my favorite but it's in Maine and no I won't tell you because I don't want all you Disney people cramming your butt on my beach.

So perks, hmnn let me think......what would I really like other than pool privledge.....I know I would only want fast passes going to resort guests and anyone not staying at Disney (on property) to pay for a fast pass if they were available. Now your going to say that's wrong not inclusive but I am not a Liberal and many here remember how fast pass used to work and it worked well and now its a cluster.
 

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