ALL RESORTS BOOKED FROM OCT to JAN

[Dean]

Agreed. That 2nd bathroom is big enough to put a W/D in the corner. Since they don't offer options besides bungalows with w/d, adding those in would have made Poly unique and solved a big complaint about not having 1BR and 2brs.

Either of those options, or both, mini kitchen or W/D would have made Poly a unique offering and the space was there.

They were thinking outside their normal box enough to create a far different layout, but not enough so to break their own rules on what a studio vs a 1BR should have.

More to the point, they almost certainly could have justified a higher MRA for Poly studios with such additions. And as I suggested earlier, 2 additional points MRA for studios is worth about $45 million in sales.

There are 380 studios. An additional 5 grand in each for a W/D and mini kitchen layout would have cost $2 million more and they almost certainly could have sold and justified those $45 million in extra sales (2 more points per night on average) for the expense. Indeed, they probably could have pushed it by 3 points to about $70 million more.

Money on the table.

IMO it would have been easy to do a true mini kitchen along the lines of hundreds of hotel conversions I've seen and call it a full kitchen. There are many space savings options for smaller kitchens that include smaller dishwashers (under sink, thinner, drawer type), smaller stoves, micro convection, smaller burner tops, smaller but better fridges, etc. For W/D the all in ones take significantly less space. And that's just kitchen & W/D options, there are bedding options as well. They could have called it a mini 1 BR, studio plus or similar. They could still have had the connecting option and effectively have had a 2 BR situation. But in reality they could do much of this in the regular studios as well and other companies tend to. It would have made a lot of sense given the villa set up of the Poly in general and been win/win IMO. That they didn't (and they're not uneducated people) and the past plans that were not enacted makes me wonder if they have future plans for the Poly that we don't know yet.

 

[ziravan]

IMO it would have been easy to do a true mini kitchen along the lines of hundreds of hotel conversions I've seen and call it a full kitchen. There are many space savings options for smaller kitchens that include smaller dishwashers (under sink, thinner, drawer type), smaller stoves, micro convection, smaller burner tops, smaller but better fridges, etc. For W/D the all in ones take significantly less space. And that's just kitchen & W/D options, there are bedding options as well. They could have called it a mini 1 BR, studio plus or similar. They could still have had the connecting option and effectively have had a 2 BR situation. But in reality they could do much of this in the regular studios as well and other companies tend to. It would have made a lot of sense given the villa set up of the Poly in general and been win/win IMO. That they didn't (and they're not uneducated people) and the past plans that were not enacted makes me wonder if they have future plans for the Poly that we don't know yet.

Yes but it could also just mean that they cancelled plans for 1 and traditional 2 BRs too late in the game to stop and reconfigure studios.

I considered when I bought Poly that they might still expand and if they do that before Poly II in 25 yrs, that that might give more value to my purchase. But I was forced to discount that because it's not a given.

If DVC still plans to add a mini tower with 1 and 2 brs, I don't know why they aren't putting that in concrete, figuratively and literally.

If they're still planning to add that kind of value to Poly, why on earth don't they use that feature to push through Poly sales instead of depending on an incentive?

It would go a very long way to selling out Poly ahead of VWL II and sandwich Poly sales on either side of VWL II.

Otherwise, if they go Poly to VWL II to CBR Deluxe, by then it's 10 yrs down the road and far easier to continue to push that off UNTIL Poly II, if ever.

 

[Brian Noble]

How many of those 380 studios are Lake vs. Standard?

 

[_auroraborealis_]

How many of those 380 studios are Lake vs. Standard?

Poly has 72 LV and 288 Standard. The 72 LV studios are divided onto three floors of 24 studios each. The first floor LV studios often make people angry about the view.

 

[CarolMN]

How many of those 380 studios are Lake vs. Standard?

From the DVC Resource Center:

PVB - 288 Standard Studios - 72 Lakeview Studios - 20 Bungalows = 380 villas/ 380 Max. Available

So far, 218 studios and 16 bungalows have been declared.

 

[Brian Noble]

So, using the maximum reallocation values (22, 26, 146), bungalows account for a little more than 1/4th of the total nightly points. That's more than I might have guessed.

288 Standards at 22 pts/night: 6336
72 Lake at 26 pts/night: 1872
20 Bungalows at 146 pts/night: 2920

 

[Matty B13]

I just think that DVC missed a huge opportunity to make a lot more money by adding 1 & 2 bedrooms to Poly. We loved our stay in spring of 2015 there and were just starting to look into DVC at the time. We would have easily dropped $25k on points at Ploy if they had more than studios. They could have charged the same amount of points as VGF if not more for 1&2 bedrooms with the loyal following of Poly fans.

I just wonder how many of the people that made the decisions to limit it to just studios, are DVC owners or at least vacation with their family at DVC resorts. The 1&2 bedroom option with a kitchen and laundry in the unit is what had us buy into DVC.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

I was told today NO.

All you have to do is took look for a room on the disney.com site. Select the room and there is link to sign in to view the DVC rates available at all the resorts.

 

[Just Peachy]

I just think that DVC missed a huge opportunity to make a lot more money by adding 1 & 2 bedrooms to Poly. We loved our stay in spring of 2015 there and were just starting to look into DVC at the time. We would have easily dropped $25k on points at Ploy if they had more than studios. They could have charged the same amount of points as VGF if not more for 1&2 bedrooms with the loyal following of Poly fans.

I was touring all of the WDW - DVC properties this last August and had the opportunity to have a lengthy discussion with a DVC Special Events Manager (I didn't even know such a thing existed). He told me that the original plans for the Poly was to make a standard DVC property with a selection of Studios, 1BR, 2Br and the special Bungalows. However, the permitting process ran into a brick wall with how the land immediately around the Poly had been originally permitted. The result was that the addition of the DVC units to the Poly had to remain within the original sewer effluent levels. The only piratical way forward was to use the existing building and convert rooms, limiting the number of added bathrooms so that there was enough effluent capacity remaining to put in the bungalows. He told me that the set of plans he saw three years ago were very different from what was eventually created.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

I was touring all of the WDW - DVC properties this last August and had the opportunity to have a lengthy discussion with a DVC Special Events Manager (I didn't even know such a thing existed). He told me that the original plans for the Poly was to make a standard DVC property with a selection of Studios, 1BR, 2Br and the special Bungalows. However, the permitting process ran into a brick wall with how the land immediately around the Poly had been originally permitted. The result was that the addition of the DVC units to the Poly had to remain within the original sewer effluent levels. The only piratical way forward was to use the existing building and convert rooms, limiting the number of added bathrooms so that there was enough effluent capacity remaining to put in the bungalows. He told me that the set of plans he saw three years ago were very different from what was eventually created.

Unfortunately that does not make complete sense. 1BR's take twice the amount of space as a studio and has the same, or in the case of VWL, SSR, BCV and BWV less bathrooms. The occupancy by doing studios was doubled to what it would have been if they had donw 1BR's. And if it was 2BR's it would have been using the equivalent space of 3 studios but the same occupancy as two. It may explain why there were no new buildings, but not why it was done as studios only.

And for the studios? They added to the bathrooms, thus increasing vs what was there as a hotel. Jambo converted to studios, 1BR's and 2BR's and it appears that WL is doing the same.

 

[Matty B13]

I was touring all of the WDW - DVC properties this last August and had the opportunity to have a lengthy discussion with a DVC Special Events Manager (I didn't even know such a thing existed). He told me that the original plans for the Poly was to make a standard DVC property with a selection of Studios, 1BR, 2Br and the special Bungalows. However, the permitting process ran into a brick wall with how the land immediately around the Poly had been originally permitted. The result was that the addition of the DVC units to the Poly had to remain within the original sewer effluent levels. The only piratical way forward was to use the existing building and convert rooms, limiting the number of added bathrooms so that there was enough effluent capacity remaining to put in the bungalows. He told me that the set of plans he saw three years ago were very different from what was eventually created.

So was your August touring for work or pleasure??? And where can I sign up!

Usually the permitting is the first thing that is looked at on any type of project, especially sewer use. I've done some permitting research for some big name tech companies in the Northeast, so Florida might be different, but any large company does there homework before spending any money on site design. It would be interesting if the DVC Manager was talking about preliminary concept drawings.

From my very limited knowledge of the issues, it sounds like they were try to remain in the original footprint of the existing buildings and didn't want to have to add to sewer capacity, which would have required an increase of the sewer pipe to their on-site treatment plant or the counties. I don't know if Disney treats their sewage on-site or if they connect to the county sewer treatment plant? If the new sewage capacity exceeded either their own treatment plants capacity or the counties, capacity would have been needed to be added which is a costly add on to any project, might have cost more than the DVC project at the Poly. As KAT4DISNEY said the 1 & 2 bedrooms could have been added with less impact to the sewer capacity, but and it's a big one, the total amount of units probably would have been less than at VGF. This would have limited the profitability in DVC's mind, and wanting to make the most profit off of the Poly they went with the studios. This all being said, I still think it was a short-sighted decision on DVC part. If they wanted to experiment with bungalows and studios they shouldn't have used one of the premiere resorts that Disney owns, and now they are locked in to it for 50 years. My view is somewhat selfish because I really liked the Poly and hoped to buy into DVC there, instead of at VGF, but I'm sure that I'm not the only person with a large family that was very disappointed with the options that DVC has at the Poly. Yes, I understand it is a number's game with any company, but still disappointed.

I guess I'll just have to walk over to the Poly from VGF to get my Dole Whip........

 

[Just Peachy]

Unfortunately that does not make complete sense.

I agree that it all doesn't add up and it may be that I was told only a piece of the story...or I may have just misunderstood. I don't think the guy was blowing smoke as he seemed to have some authority at the DVC models and was scheduling the DVC sales people for their tours (his touring job was to take the lookie-loos a.k.a. the current DVC members who just want to look) as he was not on a commission and would pass anything that looked like a good prospect off to one of the sales Cast Members.

So was your August touring for work or pleasure??? And where can I sign up!

It was pleasure. My son had just received his position with the Disney College Intern Program and he and I drove to Florida so he would have a car. I decided to use some of my extra DVC points to stay in three of the DVC properties and tour the others. I didn't go into the parks but spent 4 days touring all the properties. It is something I have wanted to do for some time now, but never was able to arrange the time (and be without my family as they would not have liked being near the parks but spend all the time at the resorts).

 

[BWV Dreamin]

Our friends had plumbing issues their last stay Poly. I could see the sewer argument.

 

[Matty B13]

Our friends had plumbing issues their last stay Poly. I could see the sewer argument.

On tikimans facebook there were a lot of complaints about drain issues in the ground floor unit showers from new owners, so they must have just used the existing sewer pipe that was from the original construction which might continue to cause problems for the resort. I wouldn't be to happy with that if I was an owner there, might cause MF's to sky rocket when a new sewer main is needed when the existing one finally fails.

 

[kittyab]

We were told at the time of our sale to guarantee to getting a room, to book our home resort at 11 months out. Non-home resort 7 months out. Many will book their home at 11 and switch at the 7 months mark.