All Disney Vacation Club Members will know the importance of seven months from their vacation date. This is the point at which you can book at Disney Vacation Club resorts where you don’t hold an actual ownership.
And much as I’m sure we all love our home resorts, which can of course be booked at 11 months out, I’m sure many of us have gone through the process of looking to see what else is available, and perhaps having to trade up the bookings we’ve already made in favor of something at another resort.
That’s exactly what I’ve been busy doing over the last couple of weeks. Of course we will be spending time at our beloved Beach Club Villas, although even that wasn’t completely straightforward, with a waitlist needed to get our first night’s stay there.
It’s fair to say I was dejected at first when I looked at the options for our December trip. There seemed to be so many dates that had the depressing cross over them when I logged on the Member website, meaning they weren’t available. My initial plan of starting off at Animal Kingdom Lodge Villas, then moving to the Beach Club Villas quickly went out of the window, due to the lack of availability.
Getting into Jambo House proved to be a challenge...
I then decided to reverse things around, and even that wasn’t much more encouraging. Unsurprisingly, of course there was nothing at concierge level, as there are so few units, but even trying to get a savannah view at Jambo House was tough. We could’ve got in easily enough to Kidani Village, but we don’t particularly like that part of Animal Kingdom Lodge Villas, so we kept persevering.
The key here was to be flexible. We were looking for a one-bedroom villa, but when a studio shows up and it’s exactly what you want, you’d be mad not to take it, so that’s what we did. It’s a case of deciding what’s most important to you. Was it the view from the room and its location or was it the size? We quickly worked out, for us, it was the former.
There were still a couple of dates in the middle of our stay that were still proving to be a problem. Nothing at Animal Kingdom Lodge Villas in either a studio or a one-bedroom villa, and even only one night available in a studio at the Beach Club Villas. Now what? Well, try everything else of course…
Getting into Bay Lake Tower was less of a challenge though!
We also like Bay Lake Tower, so I had a look through the options. Nothing doing in a studio in any of the views – either theme park, lake or standard – but I had more luck with a one-bedroom villa. Ok, so I got a standard view, but at least we had a place that we liked to spend those final couple of nights, and we amended our plans accordingly, to spend as much time as we could at the Magic Kingdom, and the Contemporary.
Could we get into the Grand Californian at the seven month mark?
But still I wasn’t done. I needed to book a total of six nights at the Grand Californian Villas, hopefully in a studio, as I didn’t have the points for a one-bedroom villa. Ok, that’s not entirely true, we did have the points, but I’d prefer to try and keep some back for a future vacation… I wasn’t holding out much hope on this front, as the total number of Disney Vacation Club villas there is just 50. It’s not many, and it’s always a potential long shot getting in there.
It didn’t start off too well. When my seven month mark opened up, all I could get was the first two nights. Well, that’s not entirely true, I could also get the fourth and sixth night, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go down that route. After all, I could waitlist those two individual nights, but what if they didn’t come through for me? Then we’d be left with a lot of moving around…
A one-bedroom villa was available for the final four nights, so although not ideal, I figured that would have to do, and at least it would only mean one move. I still had a couple of days before I could make that booking, and in that time, the one-bedroom villas started to lose availability as well. This really was looking bad…
We'll be back at the Grand Californian and this time in a studio!
However, the Disney Vacation Club booking Gods must have been smiling on me, because when I came to book the final four nights in a one-bedroom villa, I thought I’d check out availability at a studio, just to see if there’d been any improvement on that front. What I saw next shocked me. The studio showed up with no crosses through any of the nights I was after, meaning there was availability on every night.
How that happened, I do not know, but it’s taught me something – never give up on getting what you want at seven month mark. My experiences this time around of trying to swap out reservations have certainly been an interesting experiment, and I’ve learnt a lot from it. If you do want to stay somewhere else other than your home resort, I say go for it, but go in with a pessimistic attitude. I say that simply because if you assume you won’t find anything else, if you do then it’ll be a very pleasant surprise for you.
So what about you? How often do you make bookings at resorts other than your home resort? Is it something you manage to do easily or have you had problems?
I have been incredibly lucky booking at just a few weeks out, but flexibility is the key for sure!
We are waiting for a 2BR standard view at Kidani for the week of Thanksgiving to come through. We booked at 11 months for a 1BR, now we need room for my mother-in-law. Thanks for this article! I check my email everyday hoping for some magic…
We have had good luck at the 7 month mark. We are fairly new to DVC, so maybe that is it. I’ve gone into the process knowing that I’d have to be flexible. Thanks for sharing your story.
We have been DVC member since 2007 home resort Animal Kingdom & 2009 home resort Bay Lake Tower. We have since been lucky and stayed at all of the DVC resorts except for Hilton Head and Beach Club. We have taken advantage to try each resort at least once so we can make a better choices in the future. I will say each DVC resort has its own themes and atmospheres.
Our top 3 are Wilderness Lodge, Boardwalk, and Animal Kingdom. We really like Boardwalk because it is centrally located between EPCOT and Hollywood Studios. We love walking over to EPCOT or taking the boat for the two parks. We can also walk through EPCOT and catch the monorail to Magic Kingdom. We dislike the bus system but they do their best. We rented a car for $9 a day for 2 weeks and we got everywhere in minutes; even at 9p at night for a snack of ice cream at Downtown Disney or binnaes at Port Orleans.
I was very fortunate to get AKLV Savanna view studio for 5 nights in early November. Because of this stay we are doing the evening safari with dinner at Jiko (with wine pairing). However, I have ALWAYS wanted to stay at the Beach Club. I am currently waitlisted but since it’s the last few days of the F&W Festival I am not holding my breath. I still have a one bedroom at our home resort of SSR which we really like so it won’t be a total disappointment. Oh, I did get BCV for August, unfortunately we won’t be there. We are gifting 4 days to our eldest grandson for his honeymoon. They will stay one night at Pop, do 5 days on the Dream, then back to BCV for 4 days. Sounds pretty romantic to me. But I sincerely don’t think they’ll want me to show up to help them enjoy it! But it is a one bedroom and I have an AP!!!
2 weeks ago we stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge in a Value studio for a 7 nights. Our home resort is Old Key West so we had that booked. I called the morning of the 7 month mark thinking I would be lucky if I were able to stay a few nights in a value but was thrilled to find all 7 of the nights I wanted were available. We had a wonderful stay. We loved the Jamba House!!!