I’m looking to book a value studio for next September directly through Disney. I just called and there was no availability, does anyone know if they’ve been released yet or if they are all sold out? I’ve been checking daily and haven’t seen any villa availability for September.
We are planning a December 2019 trip and previously planned a December 2017 trip and I have been watching the WDW website and putting in dummy dates for quite a while to try to figure out when cash reservations directly through Disney become available for the DVC resorts. What I have learned:
1. You can book a room only reservation at the hotel resorts starting at 499 days before the checkout day of your intended reservation. Since staying in the hotel side if there is no availability on the DVC side is our fallback, we have booked hotel rooms we would be happy with (in our case, AKL pool view, and WL courtyard view) in terms of location and price. Keep in mind that far out it is rack rate and there is no guarantee there will be any discounts closer in.
2. Disney's cash inventory of DVC rooms available for the public to rent becomes available to reserve on the WDW website in the 11 to 8 month window before your dates. When exactly seems to depend on the resort, but most appear to start around the 10.5 month or so point. Initially there may be limited availability, it increases and decreases over time, sometimes considerably even from day to day. Check often if you do not initially see what you want.
3. On multiple occasions I have seen value studio and value 1 bedrooms available, so they can be a possibility. However, they are much less common than seeing availability for non-value rooms. Your chances seem to be better booking them when they first start appearing.
4. You can play with dates now to get a sense of what availability looks like; for example check out July which for AKL-J appears to be what is loading as the furthest out right now. For example, at AKL-Jambo for 07/22/2019 - 07/25/2019 there is a 1 bedroom villa - value available for $552.00 USD Avg/Night Excl Tax but no other DVC rooms available at all. For Mon-Thurs the week after there is nothing, and for the week before, 07/15/2019 - 07/18/2019, there are deluxe studio standard and savanna views, and 1 bedroom value, standard, and savanna views available.
5. Finally, carefully check the price difference between the value and standard studios; you could be as low as around $60/night difference. This is the pricing for November/December 2019:
Value studio
Deluxe studio - standard view
Good luck !
SW
Was there any "end date" of completion heard around the resort for the pool rehab?
Thanks!
