What's happening? No DVC Resort availability December and January

This is the first year that UK residents cannot book OKW and SSR more than 11 months out. Until last year the UK website used to open in April reservations for all the following year (so up to 20 months in advance) offering a discount (usually 25%) and free dining.

Possibly Disney had to use "their points" against the refurb, versus rental.
 
Possibly Disney had to use "their points" against the refurb, versus rental.

That's what the 2% they keep is for.
Okw and ssr (and other DVC resorts, but others have much limited availability, if any) are still bookable, but not before the 11 months window opens.
 
Earlier in this thread I had mentioned my surprise at only being able to book SSR for February. I just wanted to add comments about how quickly I have been able to make changes to other resorts. I made the initial reservation a little over a week ago. Within a few days I was able to change to AKV, not among my top choices, but for us better than SSR. Today I was able to switch to the Poly, which was my first choice. So it may take a little more work, but still possible to book other resorts in a somewhat busy DVC time.

We own at BCV, and will take advantage of the 11 months for planned trips, but this one was just decided on last week.
 
Um you're trying to book for December/January in September?
Xmas eve to New years day is the absolute busiest time of the year.
You need to book well in advance for that time period.
Think April if you want to go in late December.
Also DVC members generally have an 11 month and 7 month booking window and even then I hear of many people being wait listed.
Its much harder to get a DVC room than one might think.

Um you’re talking about one week, one week in which two holidays fall.
The OPs question was for two entire months and wasn’t specifically asking about Xmas eve to New Years...
 


Actually, I think It is a legitimate question. In my opinion, when EVERYONE is needing to plan 7 months in advance, then the system is too tight. People pay a LOT of money for DVC and should really have a little more flexibility in how they can use it. Disney is not honest in their presentations, they don’t fill their commitments well, and we let them get away with it..

I agree. Especially given the fact that if you need to cancel a trip you must book and use those points before the end of your use year. That isn’t possible unless you cancel 7 months before you were to go on the trip...and that still may not make it possible given your use year. Additionally, members pay breakage fees - this seems hardly possible that any rooms wouldn’t be booked given that there are seemingly no rooms available anywhere at the 2 month mark - except for perhaps in February.
 
Um you’re talking about one week, one week in which two holidays fall.
The OPs question was for two entire months and wasn’t specifically asking about Xmas eve to New Years...
Nothing in the original message specifies what part of the months they were looking for.
 


Does anyone know why all WDW DVC resorts are fully booked on Dec and Jan? Very frustrating!
Unfortunately for this time you need to plan 11 months out.

I totally agree with you. Disney just keeps selling more and more DVC. Even with new resorts opening, the demand outweighs the supply.
I think the problem is that they are dumping so many more members into the system who are only buying enough points for studios simply because the cost per point is so high. I think the majority of people buy a small amount of points, say 100 points at $182 per point ($18200) vs a 1 BR (say 220 for CCV) $40,000+ Not many people will be willing to dump that much at one shot = They are just selling the points they don't care that 90% of them only purchase enough points for a studio, when there are only enough studios for 10-20% of those buyers.
 
Earlier in this thread I had mentioned my surprise at only being able to book SSR for February. I just wanted to add comments about how quickly I have been able to make changes to other resorts. I made the initial reservation a little over a week ago. Within a few days I was able to change to AKV, not among my top choices, but for us better than SSR. Today I was able to switch to the Poly, which was my first choice. So it may take a little more work, but still possible to book other resorts in a somewhat busy DVC time.

We own at BCV, and will take advantage of the 11 months for planned trips, but this one was just decided on last week.

Thanks for updating with this info! We just purchased our first contract (resale) and are waiting for our points to be in our acct. We had been hoping to score literally anything in Jan but looks like that isn't going to happen, Feb is do-able for us but we'd have to wait until May if we can't get anything in Feb and I was so bummed reading your first post, this gives me some hope - calling to try and get my member number tomorrow (closed 10 days ago) fingers crossed!
 
Thanks for updating with this info! We just purchased our first contract (resale) and are waiting for our points to be in our acct. We had been hoping to score literally anything in Jan but looks like that isn't going to happen, Feb is do-able for us but we'd have to wait until May if we can't get anything in Feb and I was so bummed reading your first post, this gives me some hope - calling to try and get my member number tomorrow (closed 10 days ago) fingers crossed!

Depends on what you are looking for. SSR has availability in a 1BR every day of January. 2BR's are just missing a couple of nights. And there currently is at least 1 full week of availability in an SSR studio (early Jan) , 5 nights the 3rd week and also Jan 28-Feb 16th is available. OKW is also pretty good for 1 and 2BR's but not much for studios. Jambo 1BR's also have some partial week availability.
 
Depends on what you are looking for. SSR has availability in a 1BR every day of January. 2BR's are just missing a couple of nights. And there currently is at least 1 full week of availability in an SSR studio (early Jan) , 5 nights the 3rd week and also Jan 28-Feb 16th is available. OKW is also pretty good for 1 and 2BR's but not much for studios. Jambo 1BR's also have some partial week availability.
This is amazing, thank you so much! we really don't care where we stay and a 1 bedroom works perfectly for us - we are super aware that we won't be able to be picky - so anxious to get it booked!
 
This is amazing, thank you so much! we really don't care where we stay and a 1 bedroom works perfectly for us - we are super aware that we won't be able to be picky - so anxious to get it booked!
Completely understand. Good luck!
 
This is amazing, thank you so much! we really don't care where we stay and a 1 bedroom works perfectly for us - we are super aware that we won't be able to be picky - so anxious to get it booked!

Good Luck! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you!
 
Earlier in this thread I had mentioned my surprise at only being able to book SSR for February. I just wanted to add comments about how quickly I have been able to make changes to other resorts. I made the initial reservation a little over a week ago. Within a few days I was able to change to AKV, not among my top choices, but for us better than SSR. Today I was able to switch to the Poly, which was my first choice. So it may take a little more work, but still possible to book other resorts in a somewhat busy DVC time.

We own at BCV, and will take advantage of the 11 months for planned trips, but this one was just decided on last week.

Depends on what you are looking for. SSR has availability in a 1BR every day of January. 2BR's are just missing a couple of nights. And there currently is at least 1 full week of availability in an SSR studio (early Jan) , 5 nights the 3rd week and also Jan 28-Feb 16th is available. OKW is also pretty good for 1 and 2BR's but not much for studios. Jambo 1BR's also have some partial week availability.

Completely understand. Good luck!

Good Luck! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you!


AH! thank you all! Just booked a 1 bedroom at SS for MLK week which was our first choice travel time - we've stayed at SS before so I may waitlist somewhere else just in case but I'm so thrilled to get the week I wanted this close to travel time!
 
AH! thank you all! Just booked a 1 bedroom at SS for MLK week which was our first choice travel time - we've stayed at SS before so I may waitlist somewhere else just in case but I'm so thrilled to get the week I wanted this close to travel time!

Yay!!! I knew finding that heads up penny at noon today meant good things!! :-):-):-)
 
I realize all of this. We have been members for 13 years; however, it was never like this. We used to be able to grab a few days here and there. Even Saratoga is booked now.

We just returned on Saturday from BWVs and decided on our trip to head back in January before my dd goes back to school. I went online today and didnt see any availability for a full week from January 5 - January 12 and started putting together a stay at our home resort SSR. I am only looking for a studio or one bedroom since I want to save our points. I had to wait list two days and when I was done with the first wait list and went back to do the second night it was open so I booked. Then I kept refresshing and found the full week available. I canceled my ressies and then the week was gone when I went to book. I just about died. Then after about 30 minutes I found it again and went to book and Stitch showed up and wanted to throw my computer out the window. I tried again and got it. Im just letting you know this to keep trying and hope you get something.

Good luck!
 
Earlier in this thread I had mentioned my surprise at only being able to book SSR for February. I just wanted to add comments about how quickly I have been able to make changes to other resorts. I made the initial reservation a little over a week ago. Within a few days I was able to change to AKV, not among my top choices, but for us better than SSR. Today I was able to switch to the Poly, which was my first choice. So it may take a little more work, but still possible to book other resorts in a somewhat busy DVC time.

We own at BCV, and will take advantage of the 11 months for planned trips, but this one was just decided on last week.

Hi. Can you elaborate a little more how you did this? We own and very much love SSR since love having DTD in our backyard, but would like to try to book another resort for January 5-12 if we can just to try something different that my dd hasnt stayed at yet at Disney.

Did you keep refreshing and find full weeks or put together days and stalk to find remaining days?

Thank you.
 
Absolutely. It’s a consistent strategy now to buy SSR with the expressed intention of never planning to stay there. Those SSR points end up at BCV, BWV, VGF, etc. at off peak times.

With an increasing number of resale buyers deploying that tactic en masse, and another large contingency paying top non-economically driven prices for BCV, and BWV especially, with the intention of actually staying there, you can guess how much harder those places will be to get into year round. That’s already happening with BCV (hence the $135/pt for a 2042 resort).

Although Im not sure what you say is a fact, I can say this is me although we purchased SSR since we wanted to have the golf and DTD for evenings. We purchased SSR resale about 10 years ago for $67 per point for a 220 three year loaded contract and then $7O for another 200 points, same use year so have 420 points, which werent financed so that total number wasnt higher. We pay the maintenance. While I have stayed at SSR GVs, THVs and studios, we also have stayed many times at BLT, Poly, BWVs and many times at GFVs. I feel lime I get a great value staying at the newer resorts based on the current price per point, for example the Poly or GF than my $67 per point. I am grandfathered in resale. I have a SSR stay booked for January in a studio but if I can get another monorail or BW DVC, I will move.
 
Hi. Can you elaborate a little more how you did this? We own and very much love SSR since love having DTD in our backyard, but would like to try to book another resort for January 5-12 if we can just to try something different that my dd hasnt stayed at yet at Disney.

Did you keep refreshing and find full weeks or put together days and stalk to find remaining days?

We were only looking for three nights, but it is for presidents day weekend, so very little is available. I was also not willing to change rooms, so I would not switch unless I could find all three days. After booking SSR, I put in a wait list for both CCV and AKV Kadani, which I later changed to the Poly. At the same time kept checking a few times a day for something else to open. I saw that AKV at Jambo house opened, so I called and booked that. I still kept my wait lists. I was still checking and happened to see the poly open. When I called they said my wait list did come through, I just didn't see it yet.

All of that said, if you are there a week I would very much suggest a split stay. Pulling off a full week during that time would be really hard. You can wait list a group of three days either at the beginning or end at other places you want to stay. I do think your best chance is AKV. I also think the Poly tends to open due to the relatively high number of points.

I would also keep checking whether a group of days opens anywhere at the beginning or end. There are so many resorts and room choices, and you can only wait list two. It only takes a few minutes to check, I was doing it multiple times a day.
 

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