The Official VILLAS at DISNEYLAND HOTEL (Discovery Tower) Owners and Fans Info Thread

If you are not opposed to using an accessible room, there are several categories available dor the dates you mentioned. Just check that box when doing your search. In general people tend to give our awesome ADA fellows members a head start but at this point they’ve had plenty of time. A hearing accessible unit is hard to even tell the difference from a non ADA room. If you fancy a balcony and the amount of points work for you, consider a garden studio. A 1 bedroom would be decadent (and a ton of transient tax).
Sorry to bring up an older comment, but is this a CA thing? So if you don't book an accessible room you can't be put in one? I don't feel like I've ever noticed this with Disney World inventory having availability in accessible rooms but not the regular rooms... it seems to always match...
 
We opted for option 3. We would have done option 1 but what we had reserved was the accessible room. I would have no issues doing that if we were well within the 7 month mark, but we decided we weren't comfortable doing it with more than 7 months to go.

Decided that on day 4 we'd be getting a full cleaning anyway so would have to be out of the room for a while in the afternoon anyway, so switching rooms isn't really any more of a hassle (beyond packing / unpacking).

We might try to change the first 4 nights in the Duo Studio to a Deluxe Studio when we hit the 7 month mark and we can use some of our SSR points.
Wanted to follow up with what we actually were able to do. We decided to start walking a 9 night stay in a standard deluxe studio with our SSR points (knowing we could get blocked). Turned out to be very simple and got all 9 nights that we wanted. It also freed some bankable points up from our VDH points so that was a bonus. The other bonus was that we somehow were able to also luck into a standard view studio at RIV for the week at WDW before we head to DL,
 
Sorry to bring up an older comment, but is this a CA thing? So if you don't book an accessible room you can't be put in one? I don't feel like I've ever noticed this with Disney World inventory having availability in accessible rooms but not the regular rooms... it seems to always match...
It is a CA thing. Accessible inventory and non-accessible inventory has to be separate in CA. Like you said, at WDW its all the same inventory but you can specifically reserve an accessible room if you need to.
 
Sorry to bring up an older comment, but is this a CA thing? So if you don't book an accessible room you can't be put in one? I don't feel like I've ever noticed this with Disney World inventory having availability in accessible rooms but not the regular rooms... it seems to always match...
One thing that came up at VGC a few years ago was you could reserve a room at 11 months and still be put in the HA room because it was in general inventory. We usually came in late from the east coast. I don't know if our original room assignment was changed by someone else who didn't want the HA room or if we kept getting it by "luck" of the draw, but we got assigned the HA room quite a bit.
I was super happy when they changed it so that you specifically had to reserve that room. Now, you know if you are reserving it and you can make a choice: take the HA or chose different dates or a different room category.
 


Just got back from a week in a 1 bedroom. It was great! Very few complaints. I do wish there was a little more storage, the bedside nightstand in the bedroom could easily accommodate a drawer.

Everything was in working order except the Faucet in the master bath leaked a tiny bit when you turned it on. Could also use a little more silverware as we were constantly having to wash it to make sure there was always enough.

Loved the room and decor (princess and the frog). The room still had that “fresh paint” smell and no signs of early wear and tear. Housekeeping was quick to respond to any requests and the CM in general were great. No charges for parking, we just made sure they linked our room to our Dvc account and we were able to come and go as we pleased.

Didn’t have a chance to try the palm breeze but will next time. They were consistently busy and there was live music at least one night as I recall.

We’re pretty happy (which is good cause we have A LOT of VDH points) we’ll be back in mid Jan in a 2 bedroom.


Edit…..pic added….not perfect but still decent view of the fireworks.
Nice pic! Can you tell us what room number you were in? It’ll help people strategize for their room choices.
 
I was able to book three nights in a Deluxe Studio Standard View today at the 7 month mark. After trying and failing for June 18 last week, I decided to slide a week; my travel dates are flexible. Plus, I needed to buy 2 one time use points in order to make the reservation.

This morning I booked the first two nights online at 8 AM, then called Member Services at 9 AM to add the third night / buy the two points.

As the CM was assisting me, she asked why I was buying points when I had a few left. I explained that some were about to expire because of a previous one time use purchase that I didn't need. The CM put me on hold. After a few minutes, she came back on to tell me that she was able to move all of my soon-to-expire and OTU points to the correct use year. In essence, I ended up keeping six points in the 2025 UY (we are always borrowing) instead of draining it and buying OTU points. Nice!
 
We stayed in 2 other hotels before VDH without any incident. It wasnt that they put 1 continuous hold on our card, it was that they kept going into our account, putting different amounts on hold. For example the first few days it was about $700 then that would come off and they would go in again within an hour or 2 and put another hold on. We’ve stayed many times in America with holds on our cards with no issue., but because they kept coming in and out of our account it look like someone trying to commit a fraud thus the fraud alerts and the freezing of the cards. We love Disneyland, its a beautiful park. Walt had such great vision. We will definitely return just not to VDH.
Sorry your experience was so awful. I really hope one day you’ll be able to see your situation was a CM issue and not VDH necessarily. They had to hire a bunch a new people to accommodate for the new building so you’ll have mistakes. Too bad they couldn’t fix it for you early on. I would definitely just prepare a credit card for any future dvc bookings. I know you said you didn’t have any issues before but I always have a hold on my account whenever I check in but I don’t really notice it with a credit card. I had 3 holds just last week at WDW because I did 3 split stays. If you ever do a search a debit card hold causes headache for tons of guests. I would love for you to give VDH another try maybe a few yrs later after they figure everything out, but it’s understandable if it now triggers bad memories for you. I’m going for my 4th stay next month so I personally love being an owner!
 


We no longer do room charges on our magic bands in WDW because I hate all the constant holds & pings on our card on file every day. Our bank would text or email everytime something hit which was so annoying. We started using gift cards to pay for everything & we only charge to the room on the last day or so of the trip (only if we happen to run over budget & run out of gift cards). Would they allow us to apply gift cards at check-in for this silly transient tax in order to avoid some of the problems that have been described in some of these posts?

It was my understanding that as DVC members staying on points parking would be free - we're likely going to rent a car for the week so we can also sightsee a few days around the SO CA area but it sounds like they try to charge for parking up front? I won't be happy if they keep trying to charge us for stuff & they say they'll credit it back later. That seems excessive and unnecessary. We're from the US and not international members but I have a very low tolerance for these sorts of hiccups. We don't go until May so perhaps some of this nonsense will be corrected by then?!
 
It was my understanding that as DVC members staying on points parking would be free - we're likely going to rent a car for the week so we can also sightsee a few days around the SO CA area but it sounds like they try to charge for parking up front? I won't be happy if they keep trying to charge us for stuff & they say they'll credit it back later. That seems excessive and unnecessary. We're from the US and not international members but I have a very low tolerance for these sorts of hiccups. We don't go until May so perhaps some of this nonsense will be corrected by then?!
I live 20 minutes from DLR, and have now stayed at the Villas twice. Once during the second week of operation, and again last week. On neither occasion did they try to charge me for parking, nor did they charge me the TOT up front. I had a normal hold placed on my CC, and the only thing charged to it by DLH was the TOT (at checkout).

At VDH, you drive up to the guard gate, you tell them who you are, they give you a card for your dash with your name on it saying you are staying at the Villas, and they pull a ticket for you to open the gate. They do not take down your license plate number or anything else. When you leave, they look at your dash card, and open the gate for you. You don't even need to give them the ticket they pulled when you arrived, so there's zero possibility of them charging you up front. Also, because both were staycations, we had two cars going in and out every day. I asked the parking lot CM if I needed to keep the tickets they pulled to open the gate every time we came back, and was told I could just throw them away. All I needed was the dash card.

Conversely, at VGC, the parking charge ALWAYS appears on the bill, but is backed out at check out.
 
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I live 20 minutes from DLR, and have now stayed at the Villas twice. Once during the second week of operation, and again last week. On neither occasion did they try to charge me for parking, nor did they charge me the TOT up front. I had a normal hold placed on my CC, and the only thing charged to it by DLH was the TOT.

At VDH, you drive up to the guard gate, you tell them who you are, they give you a card for your dash with your name on it saying you are staying at the Villas, and they pull a ticket for you to open the gate. They do not take down your license plate number or anything else. When you leave, they look at your dash card, and open the gate for you. You don't even need to give them the ticket they pulled when you arrived, so there's zero possibility of them charging you up front. Also, because both were staycations, we had two cars going in and out every day. I asked the parking lot CM if I needed to keep the tickets they pulled to open the gate every time we came back, and was told I could just throw them away. All I needed was the dash card.

Conversely, at VGC, the parking charge ALWAYS appears on the bill, but is backed out at check out.
I can concur that this is exactly how it worked for us 2 weeks ago.
 
We no longer do room charges on our magic bands in WDW because I hate all the constant holds & pings on our card on file every day. Our bank would text or email everytime something hit which was so annoying. We started using gift cards to pay for everything & we only charge to the room on the last day or so of the trip (only if we happen to run over budget & run out of gift cards). Would they allow us to apply gift cards at check-in for this silly transient tax in order to avoid some of the problems that have been described in some of these posts?

It was my understanding that as DVC members staying on points parking would be free - we're likely going to rent a car for the week so we can also sightsee a few days around the SO CA area but it sounds like they try to charge for parking up front? I won't be happy if they keep trying to charge us for stuff & they say they'll credit it back later. That seems excessive and unnecessary. We're from the US and not international members but I have a very low tolerance for these sorts of hiccups. We don't go until May so perhaps some of this nonsense will be corrected by then?!
If done correctly, you won’t get anything other charges other than transient tax and like the $200 hold for incidentals. I never mark needing parking at online check in but they always have my little paper placard ready and I never got charged so far. I still think it’s the luck of the draw for the unfortunate mistakes that happen to people.
 
Conversely, at VGC, the parking charge ALWAYS appears on the bill, but is backed out at check out.
Interesting. I've had a no issues and no charges streak at two VGC and 1 VDH stay. To save any potential hassle I just "forgot" to list any cars at all on the pre-check in on the Disneyland app. All of the cars in our party just said we were DVC and gave the name/room number. When we left the parking area we just said we were DVC guests and no issues at all. We even had an extra guest visit for a day (they were on the room) and they also had no issues.
 
I know we've talked on this thread before about the need for more dining options. This announcement, although not in the Hotel area, is probably one step in the right direction with Disneyland's thinking. Essentially quick service and not a sit down like the Steakhouse that was in the Disneyland hotel area before. Hopefully more dining options to come.

1701275564579.png

https://chipandco.com/disneyland-parkside-market-in-downtown-disney-548244/
 
Interesting. I've had a no issues and no charges streak at two VGC.
It's not an issue. I'm just saying that at VGC, the parking fee does appear on the bill initially, but is backed out before you check out (you don't need to do anything and it's always gone for us too). I'm just saying that at VDH, the parking fee doesn't even show up on the bill at any time, not do they really know when you come and go.

I HAVE heard of several times where others didn't have the parking charge backed out, a problem that can't happen (at least under the current process) at VDH.
 
Hello, fellow DVC Members who own at VDH. CodeSpyder, me, the developer of the DVC Planner app wonders if one or more of you could donate several pictures of the VDH resort. Pictures which do not show people would be desired as well as something you might call an 'iconic' picture, one that can be used as a thumbnail picture. If you would like, I would give you credit on the website, which is at the link WebSpyderCode. If you would like to donate pictures, please see the email link on the main page of the website. Thank you.
 

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