What is availability like at 11 months for Animal Kingdom Villas?

[jmurray2446]

Hi, we are close to making a decision to buy at Animal Kingdom. One of the concerns that my wife and I have is the availability of rooms. We talked to a DVC sales agent and he was bragging about how many new members they are currently signing up a week, which makes us nervous that we would make this investment and not be able to use our points how we want because of how competitive it is to get rooms. Does anybody have any insight on booking 11 months out at AK and 7 months out elsewhere? I get that holidays are probably tough. We are a young family that would look for studio rooms in the offseasons/Value Seasons. Thanks!

 

[Ruttangel]

Hi, we are close to making a decision to buy at Animal Kingdom. One of the concerns that my wife and I have is the availability of rooms. We talked to a DVC sales agent and he was bragging about how many new members they are currently signing up a week, which makes us nervous that we would make this investment and not be able to use our points how we want because of how competitive it is to get rooms. Does anybody have any insight on booking 11 months out at AK and 7 months out elsewhere? I get that holidays are probably tough. We are a young family that would look for studio rooms in the offseasons/Value Seasons. Thanks!

Availability is great at 11 months for all times of year with the exception of value/club rooms.
AKV is a sold out resort so availability shouldn’t really change that much going forward.

 

[supersnoop]

Hi, we are close to making a decision to buy at Animal Kingdom. One of the concerns that my wife and I have is the availability of rooms. We talked to a DVC sales agent and he was bragging about how many new members they are currently signing up a week, which makes us nervous that we would make this investment and not be able to use our points how we want because of how competitive it is to get rooms. Does anybody have any insight on booking 11 months out at AK and 7 months out elsewhere? I get that holidays are probably tough. We are a young family that would look for studio rooms in the offseasons/Value Seasons. Thanks!

I can't imagine any issue booking a standard or savanna view room at 11 months. Do not plan on booking a value or club level room ever. You might get a value room every now and then depending on season, but with only 18 studios, it's unlikely. There are only 5 club level rooms, so you have to be very lucky to get one of those.

 

[jmurray2446]

Thanks for the responses. And at 7 months everywhere else, in your guys experience is that difficult?
I also was wondering how booking works. I have always disliked the way Disneyworld works now where you put in the dates and it says unavailable or available without showing you what days are available. Does DVC offer a better system or is it also just plug in days, and see?

 

[Ruttangel]

Thanks for the responses. And at 7 months everywhere else, in your guys experience is that difficult?
I also was wondering how booking works. I have always disliked the way Disneyworld works now where you put in the dates and it says unavailable or available without showing you what days are available. Does DVC offer a better system or is it also just plug in days, and see?

You can put in a date range to check availability and then scroll forward or back months to check that as well as the same at other resorts.
Availability can be tough at 7 months for quite a few resorts, especially on studios.
SSR and OKW will be the exception due to size of resorts.
Where are you looking at staying?

I have managed to get a 5 night stay at VGF and BWV with my AKV points

 

[jmurray2446]

You can put in a date range to check availability and then scroll forward or back months to check that as well as the same at other resorts.
Availability can be tough at 7 months for quite a few resorts, especially on studios.
SSR and OKW will be the exception due to size of resorts.
Where are you looking at staying?

I have managed to get a 5 night stay at VGF and BWV with my AKV points

That's helpful, thank you. We live in the Orlando area, so we'd try and stay at Vero or Hilton Head once a year, at least 1 trip at AKV, being our home resort, and fill in the rest if we have points for short stays at whatever we find. At least that's the idea.

 

[Ginamarie]

We own at AKV. The 11 month window is pretty easy for booking, as long as you're not banking on getting a value or club level room. There are a ton of standard/savannah views in all room categories.

7 month bookings can be tough depending on what resort you pick (but that will be the same no matter where you buy). A studio at the beach club will be hard to find if you don't own at the beach club. I have been able to pick up some studios at 7 months at various resorts, but the more popular ones may not have a long string of nights you can book together. I'm booked right now at a boardwalk studio in July (2 nights), which I waitlisted and then wound up finding because I was stalking the website. I'm booked again in September and doing one night at Boardwalk and 7 nights at AKV- no worries booking any of it, even the Boardwalk at the 7 month mark.

 

[Ginamarie]

That's helpful, thank you. We live in the Orlando area, so we'd try and stay at Vero or Hilton Head once a year, at least 1 trip at AKV, being our home resort, and fill in the rest if we have points for short stays at whatever we find. At least that's the idea.

I will say, Hilton Head is very tough to book if you don't own there, especially in the popular season.

 

[Ruttangel]

That's helpful, thank you. We live in the Orlando area, so we'd try and stay at Vero or Hilton Head once a year, at least 1 trip at AKV, being our home resort, and fill in the rest if we have points for short stays at whatever we find. At least that's the idea.

As @Ginamarie just mentioned VB a lot easier than HHI.

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

Offseason for Disney World resort rooms isn't necessarily offseason to DVC. For example, early December is incredibly hard to book at certain DVC resorts as are fall weekends. We own at AKL and we never have an issue booking savannah or standard view at 11 months. Booking studios at 7 months is hard to do anytime during the year at VGF, Copper Creek and BCV. Standard view at Boardwalk and BLT are usually gone by the 7 month mark. I wanted 4 nights at Beach Club in a studio for late August, it was so stressful! I was able to get the nights I needed but it took several weeks of stalking the site to get all of the nights I needed. You should definitely buy where you want to stay.

A quick look at DVC availability for 7 months from now (a full week starting Oct 22nd) and only Saratoga Springs has 7 nights available. You can do a split stay between several resorts but getting a 7 night stay for exactly the dates you want in a studio can often be a challenge.

 

[sndral]

Your guide saying he/she is seeing a lot of sales sounds to me like typical salesperson talk & not something to pay any attention to, especially regarding a sold out resort like AKV, they can’t make new points for AKV so the number of people you are competing with for a reservation at 11 months won’t really change. New resorts add points to the system so the 7 month window gets harder and harder, especially at smaller resorts like VGF & BCV, because more people buying at the new resorts = more competition at 7 months. Also, because more people are buying smaller contracts there’s more competition for studios especially at 7 mo.s.
Here’s an old thread that has some data about booking trends, worth taking a look at w/ the caveat that all of the Covid caused ‘extra’ points in the system will most likely make everything tougher to book for the next year or two until all of those banked points get used up or expire. https://www.disboards.com/threads/p...-bd-charts-september-2019-2-bd-added.3689931/
I own at AKV and we stay in early December, sometimes early January, those are really popular times amongst DVC owners, I book right at 11 months and have never had a problem.
AKV has more choices of types of villas to book than any other DVC resort. You have the choice of staying in Jambo or Kidani. Jambo has fewer villas & they fill faster than Kidani. At Jambo there are the club villas on the 6th floor - these are very popular and very very hard to book - I’ve never gotten one, but they cost a lot of points, so I’m ok w/ that. Also at Jambo are the smaller value villas which are on the 5th floor on Ostrich and Giraffe trail in the front of the building, these too are popular because they don’t cost a lot of points. The rest of the villas at Jambo are on Kudu and Zebra trails on the 5th floor and your choices are standard or savanna views. At Kidani there are savanna or standard views, these cost the same pointwise as the standard/savanna views at Jambo but are larger & the 1 br. & larger villas have an extra bathroom. Kidani is all DVC so there are villas on all the floors.
At 7 months I’ve successfully used my AKV points to stay in Dec. at BWV & VGF, 1 br.s, - but I stalked the RAT to get those stays (ended up adding on at VGF for 11 month window there.) The resort availability tool (RAT) on the DVC member site is much easier to use, IMO, than the regular Disney room booking site.

 

[thegash35]

AKV is not difficult to book at 11 months except for value and club rooms.

 

[Sandisw]

Thanks for the responses. And at 7 months everywhere else, in your guys experience is that difficult?
I also was wondering how booking works. I have always disliked the way Disneyworld works now where you put in the dates and it says unavailable or available without showing you what days are available. Does DVC offer a better system or is it also just plug in days, and see?

7 months all depends on room size and when you travel.

DVC busy times are not the same as busy for cash. Mid September to mid January is the busiest time so changing at 7 months will be difficult. For example if I wanted a studio for my upcoming October 2021 trip, I’d be hard pressed to find much at places other than the big 3...OKW, SSR or AKV.

if you are flexible with dates, want larger room sizes, and open to split stays your chances increase.

The nice thing about DVC booking tool is that you can put in the dates for you are searching and choose all resorts and you can see what is and is not there. You can even check before you can book to see how things are looking before your actual 7 months.

Buy a resort that you would be okay staying at if trading out is not possible. Don’t buy one you want to trade out regularly. I own RIV and BLt so I can book there at 11 months. I own lots more f SSR points to use to trade at 7 months for the trips so I can upgrade to larger rooms. Or use to swap out my other points if something is there.

For example, I just snagged today the 2 nights I needed in a 2 bedroom at RIV using my SSR points. Freed those up to now be able to book my Match 2022 trip!

 

[rick1zoo2]

We bought into Jambo house July 2020 117 points (that's all they had at the time) and because of the pandemic, we were able to book Bay Lake Towers for our mid-November 2020 trip, then a last minute trip with my sons at Boulder Ridge in early December, and just did a split stay in February at Grand Floridian and Riviera (we were upgraded at both). When we bought in, we had 2019, 2020, and now 2021 points to use.

Our thought process for deciding on Jambo house is similar to others comments - we really like Animal Kingdom Lodge and are ok "settling" on staying there if other options aren't available. We have 'provisional' reservations at Jambo house for November this year and Feb 2022. Provisional meaning that we may change our minds and switch them around a bit, but are fine with keeping them.

 

[Eric Smith]

We own at AKL. It really depends on what room type you want to book outside of AKL and at what resort. For example, it’s very difficult to book at studio or one bedroom at Beach Club 7 months out, but it’s much easier at Boardwalk.

As long as you’re not planning on booking value studios or club level rooms at AKL at 11 months, you won’t have trouble.

 

[Yinn]

Hi, we are close to making a decision to buy at Animal Kingdom. One of the concerns that my wife and I have is the availability of rooms. We talked to a DVC sales agent and he was bragging about how many new members they are currently signing up a week, which makes us nervous that we would make this investment and not be able to use our points how we want because of how competitive it is to get rooms. Does anybody have any insight on booking 11 months out at AK and 7 months out elsewhere? I get that holidays are probably tough. We are a young family that would look for studio rooms in the offseasons/Value Seasons. Thanks!

I bought AK direct. In hindsight...I'm not sure I'd do it again. I love the resort, but it is readily available at 7 month. But 11 months out does give us access to values and clubs. So if that's what you're gunning for, AKL points for that and use 7 months elsewhere is fine.

But my CCV points are much more valuable (to me) at 11 months out for CCV than my AKV point at 11 months out for AKV due to availability. At 7 months, they dont make a difference either way.

 

[The Jackal]

I bought AK direct. In hindsight...I'm not sure I'd do it again. I love the resort, but it is readily available at 7 month. But 11 months out does give us access to values and clubs. So if that's what you're gunning for, AKL points for that and use 7 months elsewhere is fine.

But my CCV points are much more valuable (to me) at 11 months out for CCV than my AKV point at 11 months out for AKV due to availability. At 7 months, they dont make a difference either way.

CCV is much smaller than AKV and CCV has millions of points sold for the Cascade Cabins that people want to book studios with. AKV doesn’t have this issue. Yes AKV has good availability at 7 months for most of the year, but not all year. If you want to stay in a studio at your resort for the first 2 weeks in December, you better book it at 11 months out. Even SSR sells out before 10 months out Pre Covid. If you go in the summer, lots of DVC resorts have decent availability.

 

[crisi]

if you are flexible with dates, want larger room sizes, and open to split stays your chances increase.

I'll add, and have a couple of places you'd be happy to switch to. A lot of members book home at eleven months and at seven months they will say "lets see where we CAN move" - if something is available they'd like better, they take it and are happy. If not, if they've bought where they don't mind ending up, they are happy.

The people DVC doesn't work well for are the ones that bought cheap points not intending to ever stay at that resort, and get their hearts set on switching to ONE particular popular resort at seven months. If you own anyplace other the BCV and want BCV for Food and Wine, and will be heartbroken if you don't get it, you are very likely to be heartbroken. If you really NEED that VGF studio and only that will do for this trip, you may be heartbroken.

Because VAKL is a large resort and a little off the beaten path, it tends to be one of the easier ones to book at seven months - especially if you don't mind Kidani.

 

[Leight19]

Hi, we are close to making a decision to buy at Animal Kingdom. One of the concerns that my wife and I have is the availability of rooms. We talked to a DVC sales agent and he was bragging about how many new members they are currently signing up a week, which makes us nervous that we would make this investment and not be able to use our points how we want because of how competitive it is to get rooms. Does anybody have any insight on booking 11 months out at AK and 7 months out elsewhere? I get that holidays are probably tough. We are a young family that would look for studio rooms in the offseasons/Value Seasons. Thanks!

As many have said akv is fairly easy to book with exception of value and club level rooms. For some reference, I was debating to buy at either akv or ssr and settled on akv mainly due to the large number of options for booking. If you can get the value studio or 1br, it is one of the cheapest ways to stay in dvc for those categories. If you want to treat yourself, you can go the other way and get club level. Both these options are difficult to get and shouldn’t be counted on when deciding to buy but over lifetime of contract if you are flexible on dates and check often you likely can experience them sometime.

The one “regret” I will say I have is we are soon to be a family of 5 and this will cut off value 1 bed room and all akv studios. The positive here is akv has some of the nicest rooms for 1br/2br and have some of the cheapest point charts for these room categories.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Buy at the resort you want to stay at the most. Then you will never be disappointed if you cannot change at seven months out to another resort. Fall 2020 and early 2021 were not difficult to book even a few months out with covid. But now so many owners have points to burn and are booking longer stays or larger villas. DVC busiest time in late Sept through mid-January with the first two weeks of Dec the hardest time to book at less than 11 months out. Summer isn't all that hard except for July 4th. Studios always book up first. Two bedrooms next and one bedrooms last. Grand Villas have their fans, but they require a lot of points to book. Holidays, Spring Break, RunDisney events are alway tough at less than seven to 11 months out.