Pool Hoping - is this wrong??

[Sammie]

But why would Disney care if the pool is expensive to upkeep? If it's a DVC pool, member pay the upkeep. Heck, as Disney's management fee is a flat percentage of actual costs, it's actually slightly in their interest to have an expensive pool.

Call me a cynic, but I don't think Disney is rejecting uberpools because they are concerned about member's future maintenance fees. It might have to do with either

1) People spending all day at the resort pool aren't spending money at Disney theme parks and shops.

2) Not wanting to undermine the deluxe non-DVC resorts (folks paying GF prices don't want to see people with better amenities than they have).

Are you talking about Disney or DVC, not necessarily the same thing. DVC might build something similiar and pass the cost to the members if they could find the manpower to staff it. SAB requires 10 water park trained lifeguards, not something easy to do year round.

However I don't think members would be happy with the increase in dues necessary to cover the expense.

 

[DisDaydreamer]

I don't have a pool so I don't know what the costs are.

Heat
Chemicals

- these you'd have at the smallest Disney community pool - but the costs would go up in relation to the size of the pool.

Lifeguards
Liability Insurance

I'd think both of these would be more significant at SAB than any other pool.

Perhaps so.... I don't really know, but I am in a job that lets me see the costs of running a business.... and labor in this kind of business is but a small portion of the costs. I can't imagine that BCV/DVC is running in the red because of SAB. On the contrary, I imagine BCV is probably the most booked resort because of SAB. Possibly, the most profitable.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

But why would Disney care if the pool is expensive to upkeep? If it's a DVC pool, member pay the upkeep.

Considering the fact that SAB is also for guests who stay at the Yacht Club which is not a DVC Resort, wouldn't that mean SAB is not just a DVC pool? I understand what you're trying to say however wouldn't a true DVC pool be at the Resorts like Saratoga Springs and Old Key West, since those Resorts do not share space with a regular WDW Resort? Also what about the pools at the Wilderness Lodge, Boardwalk Inn and the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Those Resorts are both regular rooms and DVC rooms, and guests who use the pools are not always going to be DVC members.

 

[Longhairbear]

Ok You guys have my vote , do whatever need be done to add a lazy river to any DVC and I'm buying <G>

Every summer I try to convince my family to let me put in a lazy river in our backyard , but no luck yet !!!

We want to do the same thing, and have seen them as very popular alternatives to the usual backyard pool in landscaping magazines and on HGTV.

 

[crisi]

Perhaps so.... I don't really know, but I am in a job that lets me see the costs of running a business.... and labor in this kind of business is but a small portion of the costs. I can't imagine that BCV/DVC is running in the red because of SAB. On the contrary, I imagine BCV is probably the most booked resort because of SAB. Possibly, the most profitable.

Maybe the earliest booked (most booked becomes sort of moot since the resorts are designed to operate at very high occupancy - by the time check in day comes all the resorts should be full), but profitable is meaningless in this discussion since profits are fixed.

IF pool costs are fairly high for SAB and they put a similar pool in a DVC only resort, those costs would be passed on to the home resort owners in terms of dues. Right now those costs are shared with Y&BC guests (and Disney doesn't seem pleased with what's happened to their margins at the Y&BC - or they would have put in more pools). If dues are significantly higher, there will be a lot of "buy a different resort, hope to use the seven month window" behavior.

With fixed profits, there isn't much of a drive except to create sales on the front end (where Disney can make a profit). To date, they haven't needed SAB type pools in order to sell resorts.

BTW, your experience is different than mine, I'm an accountant by training and do some cost accounting at work (I'm a project manager professionally, not an accountant). Every project I work on labor ends up being one of the major costs, particularly operationally. But I've never done a project for a pool (I'm in IT) - which is why I want to know what the ongoing costs are. We know the lifeguards probably cost $15 an hour and up by the time you pay all the incidental costs and I believe SAB requires eight, but I'd have to go look. Energy - someone with a pool in the Orlando area want to provide a dollar cost per square foot for heat and chemicals? Liability insurance - I can't imagine SAB is any cheaper for insurance than a traditional pool.

 

[salmoneous]

Just to throw some numbers on paper:

8 life guards x
$15/hour x
8 hours/day x
365 days year =

$350,400/year

Now we need to pad that for some benefits, home office overhead, etc. Call it $500,000/year. A full-sized DVC resort will have, what, 4 million points. So that's $0.125/point to cover lifeguards.

Now, if we use a "normal" pool instead of a SaB pool, maybe we only have to hire 3 lifeguards, and we cal pay them only $12/hour. Running through the same calcs, that gets us to 3.75 cents per point in maintenance costs. So the extra lifeguard cost due to for having a SaB-esc pool is 8-9 cents per point per year.

Now, there's a whole lot of assumptions in that calculation. But I think it gives us a reasonable ballpark. No matter how what assumptions you use, the cost is more than a penny per point, but not 50 cents a point.

For even a big owner at such a resort - 500 points - that works out to roughly $40 (again, maybe its $30, maybe $50, but not $2 and not $200) in extra costs per year. That's about the cost of one ticket to BB or TL.

Reasonable?

 

[crisi]

Reasonable?

Isn't SAB open more than eight hours a day?

Reasonable, but my kids would rather just go to TL or BB. SAB is a really cool pool, but my kids don't mistake it for a waterpark. So it isn't like an SAB like pool would save us the $40 on a waterpark ticket.

 

[spiceycat]

okay this will make some people mad. but that pool closes when the lifeguard leave. I want the pool open 24 hours or close to it.

also there is something called teens who have been getting to be more and more bold in their mischief - some people would call it a crime. Disney is perhaps more aware of this behavior than I am.

to get a pool that surrounded the resort that could not possible be watched 24 hours - unless you want to add around what 10 security guards to the price. One guy on a TV won't work not with today's teens. the guards have to be in person.

I don't like to swim in any area where security guards are necessary. give me my simply quiet pool no slides or anything that would attract teens who don't care about others possession.

they use to blame this on the kids who parents are poor. SORRY!!!! but that is NOT true at all. Kids with money (lots of money) do this more often than the poor kids. they have more opportunity.

until parents are ready and willing to control their children - forget it.

can you imagine - the stuff kids could throw in the pool that surrounds a resort.

 

[crisi]

okay this will make some people mad. but that pool closes when the lifeguard leave. I want the pool open 24 hours or close to it.....


until parents are ready and willing to control their children - forget it.

Agree with the first - a pool certainly needs to be open fairly long hours.

The second point though - it isn't just kids. There are plenty of adults who drink and then try and swim in closed pools, take their glass containers down by the pool and maybe don't get in, but break beer bottles, and generally misbehave. The bigger the pool, the harder it is to watch. The more attactive the pool is, the more you need to watch it for pool jumpers or people trying to use it when closed.

All this is great dreaming and fantasing and additional SAB pools WOULD be cool - certainly not "wrong" to hope, but I just don't see it as something worth getting your hopes up about - it doesn't seem likely - winning the lottery would be nice, too.

 

[DisDaydreamer]

Maybe the earliest booked (most booked becomes sort of moot since the resorts are designed to operate at very high occupancy - by the time check in day comes all the resorts should be full), but profitable is meaningless in this discussion since profits are fixed.

IF pool costs are fairly high for SAB and they put a similar pool in a DVC only resort, those costs would be passed on to the home resort owners in terms of dues. Right now those costs are shared with Y&BC guests (and Disney doesn't seem pleased with what's happened to their margins at the Y&BC - or they would have put in more pools). If dues are significantly higher, there will be a lot of "buy a different resort, hope to use the seven month window" behavior.

With fixed profits, there isn't much of a drive except to create sales on the front end (where Disney can make a profit). To date, they haven't needed SAB type pools in order to sell resorts.

BTW, your experience is different than mine, I'm an accountant by training and do some cost accounting at work (I'm a project manager professionally, not an accountant). Every project I work on labor ends up being one of the major costs, particularly operationally. But I've never done a project for a pool (I'm in IT) - which is why I want to know what the ongoing costs are. We know the lifeguards probably cost $15 an hour and up by the time you pay all the incidental costs and I believe SAB requires eight, but I'd have to go look. Energy - someone with a pool in the Orlando area want to provide a dollar cost per square foot for heat and chemicals? Liability insurance - I can't imagine SAB is any cheaper for insurance than a traditional pool.

I see what you're saying about the fixed aspect. I tend to look at things from profit perspective and even tend to think of the resorts as competing for guests, but you are right it's like the "Borg" and everyone is just part of the collective.

Salmoneous.... I think the calculation of life guard costs ($350K) is a reasonable calculation, although, I already employ 2 of the 8 of them at my regular pool. What we don't know is what is the total operating budget of the resort is and what percentage $350K is. It wouldn't surprise me if a small resort like VB had an operating budget of $2-4mil/month.

I think crisi has gotten me to see the key to this... that these are not profit centers that increase income by drawing more people.

 

[tjkraz]

If memory serves, when OKW added the pool slide and lifeguards, they stated at the annual meetings that the dues impact was about $.05 - .07 per point, per year for lifeguard compensation and added maintenance. OKW has, what, maybe 2 lifeguards on duty at a time?

To go from a standard pool to something like SAB, I think it would be a minimum of 3-4 times the increase OKW experienced.

But still, the cost to members is the least concern here. The reasons Disney didn't continue to build these big pools is:

1. It would reduce paid admissions at the waterparks.
2. It means less time for people at the theme parks or DTD spending their money on extra park days, food and souvenirs.

It will be interesting to see how well-received the Kidani pool is at AKV when open. I applaud Disney for trying different things in the form of the water play area. However, I don't believe that they simply decided to splurge on AKV above-and-beyond the previous resorts. The pool itself is 20-25% smaller than the likes of SSR and BWV. So, in a sense, they're "giving" by "taking away." I hope there's enough capacity at the pool to satisfy everyone (ok, make that most everyone.) Of course, it's not like you can exactly swim laps at any of the Disney pools.