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Old 5 Jan 22, 09:38 AM  
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#21
samhartwell
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Hi Abby

Great pre trippy- so exciting to read! let the planning commence!

Sam
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Old 5 Jan 22, 03:27 PM  
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Goldia
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Originally Posted by eleele View Post
My DS who is nearly 17 will only come back to Florida with us next year if I present him with 100 chocolate oranges when I book it otherwise he won’t come.

Try bribery - it works!

I know it’ll be DS’s last time coming with us as he is not a Florida fan and prefers to stay home. Once he’s 18 and can legally look after himself he will absolutely refuse to come
I'm so going to try that out what a great idea. He is massively motivated by chocolate, he finished all his Christmas goodies about 72 hours after getting them and his sister is still working through hers.

I'll let you know if he accepts the offer!

Originally Posted by samhartwell View Post
Hi Abby

Great pre trippy- so exciting to read! let the planning commence!

Sam
Hey Sam

I'm really excited to be planning another trip. The planning is almost as much fun as the holiday

x
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New pre trip report - Summer 2024

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2017: NYC and Orlando. Salzburg. Boston.
2018: Orlando. Berlin.
2019: DLP. Orlando. Washington DC.
2020: DLP.
2021: Jamaica. Rome.
2022: Orlando.
2023: Orlando. Niagara and Toronto.
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Old 5 Jan 22, 04:20 PM  
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DVC Purchase Part 1 – Decision making process

In my intro post I shared that we had purchased DVC points. For those who want to skip the lengthy post – we have 150 points at Copper Creek Villas (CCV) which is one of the DVC resorts at Wilderness Lodge. That was the short version.

If you choose to read on it is at your own peril, copying over from my word document this post is over 3,500 words long . This is the long version of how the DVC purchase came to pass. We will go down a rabbit hole of the thought processes experiences. I’m going to break this down into two posts, the first being the decision making process and will go up to the point of the offer being accepted. The second post will explain the buying process through to us being set up as DVC members and making our first reservation.

Given this is such a lengthy post and very little in the way of pictures to break it up for you here is a photo of the four of us in Rome from October 2021.



As you can see we are all looking a bit older than the last Disney trip.

Right back to the matter at hand, in our previous visits we have stayed on site at Disney when going to WDW. We’ve stayed on I Drive and at RPR when visiting Universal and SeaWorld, but we’ve never visited Disney from an off site hotel or villa. This was a massive part of the decision for us. We like the bubble, we like the convenience, we like not having a car, we like the whole experience. But of course it is expensive. So far we’ve only stayed moderates, we’ve been to Caribbean Beach a couple of times, Port Orleans French Quarter and Port Orleans Riverside, one year we stayed at Old Key West. We’ve always booked with the free dining plan offer. I’d have loved to have stayed at a deluxe but couldn’t ever justify the extra cost .

Like many of us I love watching you tube vlogs of trips to Florida. I also enjoy watching you tube channels that give tips and have discussion based shows that help us with planning. So, I’ve watched many shows about DVC over the years and knew a fair bit. Last summer when it became clear our Orlando trip was going to end up being cancelled for a 2nd year in a row I decided I needed to seriously research buying DVC. We were in the fortunate position of not having paid for two Orlando trips and therefore we had money in the bank.

The other thing that spurred me on was the lack of free dining. I know this has always been a hot potato on the Dibb with many advocating better value for money with other offers. But for us being a family of four all in one hotel room the free dining offer made sense and it meant that I never had to say to the kids “No you can’t have the big ice cream sundae” as we had snack credits galore. I loved the freedom of being able to order the most expensive item on a menu and not be thinking, but I could have the chicken option for $25 instead of the steak for $35. While DDP wasn’t for everyone we really loved it and I’m sad it doesn’t exist at the moment. When the dining credit was announced I kind of thought that was the final nail in the coffin for the UK free DDP offer. So, with no dining credit and the idea of having to pay for all our food I started doing some calculations and the 'value' of doing a hotel booking over renting or buying DVC changed dynamic.

I knew that buying resale was far cheaper than buying direct. There are some restrictions in buying resale though:
• Points cannot be used for stays at Riviera or any new DVC resorts that open up
• Our membership doesn’t give us access to the DVC members only parties or annual pass price rates
• No ‘Blue Card’ for merchandise, dining discounts or other perks
There are probably other restrictions, but none of these was a deal breaker for me. We can always rent points or do a normal hotel booking if we want to stay at Riviera and I’m not buying DVC to be able to get access to an after hours party – yes it’s a nice perk, but as we are tied to the UK school holidays for our trips then the chances of a party being on at the time we are visiting is always going to be slim. The lack of discount for dining is a shame as I would like to still dine on site, but we’ve never spent that heavily on souvenirs so I didn’t feel we’d be missing out on this perk.

Before doing any chatting about the idea at home I did a heck of a lot of research. I spent hours and hours reading virtually every thread on the dibb. I spent hours looking at resale prices for contracts on offer. I made a lot of notes and did a lot of thinking.

For each of the DVC resorts I looked up the cost per point for the annual dues payments, I found out about the expiry dates of each of the contracts at each resort. I looked up how many points we would need for a two week stay in the summer time. And I started a daily look at the selling price per point for the contracts offered at that time.

For example at that time I could get a 160 point contract at Animal Kingdom Lodge for $140 per point, or at Bay Lake Tower for $179 or at Grand Floridian for $199. There were lots of 200 points contracts but I really didn’t think we could stretch that far. Larger points contracts were a lower price per point, but our funds didn’t reach that far. I started out thinking 100 points would be good, but this would not have been enough for a full two weeks stay.

In the end I put together a table showing the expiry date and annual dues price, we do love a spreadsheet don’t we?

This actually really helped me as I could see there was a big difference in the annual dues fee between the resorts. Plus, it really put me off Beach Club, Boardwalk, Old Key West as the contracts there will expire in 2042. Again I feel like I need to clarify, some DVC owners took up the offer of extending their contracts at those resorts so there are some contracts with a longer life. If you are thinking of making a DVC purchase please do your own research and do not just take my word for it . I’m really trying not to give out mis-information about all this, and it is of course possible that I have misunderstood things. With that caveat out the way I’ll carry on with the story.

At this point Saratoga Springs was looking like my best option with lower annual dues fee, longer life contract and the cost of resale contracts in it’s favour. While I loved the idea of Grand Floridian or Bay Lake Tower the price per point of the contract in the first place meant that we would not be able to afford 100 points and so that ruled out those resorts.

From reviewing the points charts 100 points would get us about a week at the resort in a studio and I knew that I wanted more than one week. Again, a caveat the number of points needed per night of stay changes throughout the week, weekends cost more points. Plus it also changes throughout the year, Christmas costs more points than the summer when we usually go. But I knew that we would need more than 100 points to be able to stay the length of time we like to.

I looked at the DVC resorts availability website as home resort reservations can be made at 11 months and reservations at other resorts can be made at 7 months. Even though Saratoga was looking like the winner at this point due to it being slightly cheaper it wasn’t one of the resorts that were all ‘wow’ about, in fact it is a resort we’ve never been to.

I then tried to get my head around the idea of use years, when the points will be deposited into our account and banking deadlines. DVC assigns contracts with Use Years in February, March, April, June, August, September, October and December. Why the heck they don’t just use all the months is beyond my limited understanding. I do know the points are deposited on the first of the month and the banking deadline is 8 months after the use year. This where another table was drawn up.

I’m not sure that this made much of a difference to me at the time, but the contract that we have is a December Use Year. This makes sense to me as so far we have only ever traveled to Orlando in the school summer holidays and so I think this means that my 2021 points came into my account on 1st December 2021 and I have 12 months to use them as they will expire on 30th November 2022. If I don’t use them then I can bank them by 31st July 2022 and they can then be added to my 2022 allocation, which would mean they expire 30th November 2023. At least I think this is how it works .

At this point I was looking at all the contracts that came up for around 150 points and, yep you guessed it, I put it all in a table so I could compare! I did a rough and ready conversion from dollars to pounds for the cost of the contract and the annual dues as it was so I could see how much this was going to cost us up front and then the recurring cost.

150 points at Animal Kingdom would cost about £16,000 with annual dues of around £950, compared to £13,000 for Boulder Ridge and Old Key West, £14,500 for Saratoga which also had the lowest dues of £780 and Copper Creek was looking like £17,500 with annual dues of about £830.

I feel we need a few photos here to break up all the text. We first went to Wilderness Lodge in 2018 as we had dinner at Whispering Canyon Cafe.





Of course we asked for kethup! I cannot wait to get back in the restaurant after having walked down from our room.



Ok, so, the lower cost of the contract was appealing for Boulder and Old Key West but once again those contracts expire in 20 years. More and more I was thinking that I’d like to make this purchase so that in the future we can take our grandchildren to WDW and I’m hoping we won’t have any grandchildren come along for at least 10 to 15 years . Therefore the shorter life of the contract didn’t appeal. Plus I figured that if we decided to sell up then the contract would be more appealing resale if it had a longer life.

So, it’s a lot of money as of course the cost does not include ticket prices and there’s no free DDP. I then decided I needed to think a bit more about the cost of doing a normal hotel stay at WDW and looked up the cost of 10 nights from 29th July 2022 in all the hotels. The All Stars were cheapest at £1481, the moderates were coming in at £2234 to £3074 depending on room type. The deluxes started off at £3897 for AKL, Boardwalk was £4860, Grand Floridian £6304 and of course the others were anything in between and more for the larger suites and better views. While many love the off site villa option, it’s just not us. We’ve stayed in villas elsewhere and agree they are fab, but I suppose it’s not what we go to Orlando for.

This all was helping to build up a picture in my mind of the costs and benefits. I was trying to weigh up how much we would be likely to spend in the next 5 years on trips and see if we would come out at least at break even within 10 years.

I was now seriously interested in Saratoga as this would let us buy in, we’d have the luxury of the walk to Disney Springs if we stayed there, or the option to switch at 7 months if there was availability at other resorts. A massive table comparing all the SSR contracts was drawn up. At this point I was looking at whether the contracts had been ‘stripped’ meaning the points for the current year were all used up by the owners or ‘loaded’ meaning the current year’s allocated points were double because the previous year points had been banked. There were a heck of a lot of SSR contracts out there for resale – over 30 contracts offering between 120 and 200 points. All with different use years, some with points banked, some with no current points, some with lower asking prices.

On 27th August I started a thread asking for advice as I was thinking about purchasing DVC resale for SSR, linked here. I wanted to clarify my own thoughts and I got some fantastic advice. I was very grateful for people sharing their knowledge. People suggested I try and think about the future where we may not want to go to WDW, gave advice about bequeathing a purchase in our wills and everything in between. One of the things that was giving me concern was how on earth did the money get transferred? We had the money sitting in our holiday savings account, we didn’t need a loan, but I just wasn’t sure about how that would happen. All the replies were really helpful and it seemed I did understand things properly.

Of course the next step was to have a proper conversation with Dave. He loves all our holidays, but is not at all interested in the planning of them. He is more than happy to ask over dinner the night before we fly “Where are we staying?”. As far as daily plans go he is happy to be told on the morning of (or maybe the night before) what the plans are for that day. The costs and everything else involved from insurance, to flights, to spending money he is happy to leave to me. This suits us both though as I love the planning and it means I get to holiday in the places I’m interested in. Ok, this a bit over simplified as we do have conversations about holidays and I will say “I’m thinking our next holiday should be to Rome” for example to gauge his interest, but he has never yet said “Nah, I’m not interested in that”. He doesn’t really want to have to think about holidays in advance of the trip. Therefore, me planning to spend money on a holiday for the next 50 odd years was planning a bit too advance for his liking .

Anyway, I wanted to make sure that he could see himself wanting to visit Orlando at least once every other year for the next few years. I also wanted to talk through with him that buying DVC was a timeshare, we would end up making a property purchase, but that he could kind of think of it like a holiday pre-payment plan. I explained that we could sell up in the future and potentially make a profit, but that wasn’t the reason I was wanting to buy DVC. I also wanted to talk through with him that there are lots of ways to visit WDW and that we didn’t have to stay on site at WDW – we know it’s far cheaper to stay at an I Drive resort. He said that he liked staying on site at Disney, he’d like to still be able to go elsewhere and not exclusively go to Orlando, but that otherwise he trusted me to make the decision. Effectively he was saying that it was fine to go ahead as long as he didn’t have to do a lot of stuff and I could take care of all the sorting out myself. It was a Yes from him !

Back on the Dibb thread people were asking if it was the right decision to buy at Saratoga. And I guess it was a head vs heart decision, sort of. The whole buying of DVC is a heart decision, but I was trying to make it ‘sensible’ or financially worthwhile. One of the things I’d read elsewhere and people on the Dibb were saying too was to buy where you want to stay…if there’s no availability at the preferred resort at 7 months would I be happy staying at Saratoga? This gave me a lot to think about and I knew that while Saratoga may be lovely resort, as we’ve never been there, let alone stayed in one of the rooms overnight it was crazy to think of buying a DVC contract there as we may end up hating it. Comparing Saratoga and Wilderness Lodge, well there's no comparison.

Wilderness Lodge is the resort I loved when we first walked in.



I went back to all the DVC sites and had a look again at prices for Copper Creek. There were actually quite a few contracts listed. I found 15 contracts from 100 to 160 points with prices from $163 per point up to $183 depending on whether the contracts were stripped of points or loaded with points ready to spend.

I also had a look on the ROFR (right of first refusal) thread on the other boards. I knew that when a buyer and seller agree a price all resale contracts are then sent to Disney for them to either buy back themselves at that price or not in which case ROFR is waived and the transfer goes ahead. In the last quarter there had been 5 Copper Creek contracts passed by Disney, three were waiting for ROFR and none that had been taken. This was helpful as posters had shared the price that had been accepted by the buyers. There were some 200 points contracts that had gone for $160 to $163 per point and a 75 points contract that had gone for $165 per point.

I asked Dave what his preference for home resort would be and he said “Grand Floridian or the other one” I’m assuming he meant Wilderness Lodge, let’s hope so!



I went back to the Dibb thread and posed the question. If you can afford 100 points at Copper Creek or 150 points at Saratoga Springs what would you do? The good dibbers who had previously advised me knew how impatient we can be at times and my first reply was within 3 minutes of the post . Of course, it’s an impossible question to answer and I had to try and weigh up whether we would be disappointed with only ever being able to stay at our home resort compared to the additional points that we could get. The longer length of contract was appealing for Copper Creek as it would have greater value for money overall and if our holiday habits change in the next 10 years we are more likely to be able to sell it on and potentially not lose out on money.



So, I was now leaning more towards Copper Creek as I just love Wilderness Lodge. I went back to the resales websites and I double checked how much money was in our holiday savings account and I decided to make an offer.



On 29th August 2021 I made an offer of $156 per point for a Copper Creek contract for 150 points. Those of you paying attention will note this is not the comparison I had made in the Dibb post as I'd said it's either 100 points at CCV or 150 at SSR, well that clearly went out the window

The offer was all done online, in fact throughout the whole process I have not had to 'speak' on the phone to any of the people I dealt with in the US. Everything was done via email. I had the email confirmation the offer had been received at 14:37. The contract was listed at $164 per point so I figured they would come back and say NO and I could then offer to split the difference in the hopes that $160 would be the final accepted price per point. However, at 16:10 the same day I had an email to tell me the offer had been accepted. I could not believe it . It took 1 hour 30 minutes for the buyer to say yes. I was speechless and I needed to get a stiff drink and then tell Dave what I’d done. He was happy as Wilderness Lodge is a fantastic resort. Of course I had to update everyone on the Dibb. It was so exciting, but also very scary! It was and still is a lot of money to spend.

On that evening when we went to Whispering Canyon Cafe we took the boat over to MK. He we are waiting for the boat.





The resale company were really good at providing updates and we got lots of information through. I will explain the whole process from the offer being accepted to the points being used for our next holiday in the next update.
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New pre trip report - Summer 2024

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2017: NYC and Orlando. Salzburg. Boston.
2018: Orlando. Berlin.
2019: DLP. Orlando. Washington DC.
2020: DLP.
2021: Jamaica. Rome.
2022: Orlando.
2023: Orlando. Niagara and Toronto.
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Old 5 Jan 22, 08:12 PM  
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caitlinsmummy
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That sounds like an absolute minefield Abby but I am absolutely over the moon for you. Wilderness Lodge looks absolutely stunning and you got an amazing price too x
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Old 6 Jan 22, 03:23 PM  
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Goldia
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Originally Posted by caitlinsmummy View Post
That sounds like an absolute minefield Abby but I am absolutely over the moon for you. Wilderness Lodge looks absolutely stunning and you got an amazing price too x
It was hard to come the point of making the decision, the weighing it all up part took ages. But, once the decision was made the rest of it was relatively painless. I think we got a good price, at least it was a price I was happy with when I compared to other accepted offers on the ROFR thread on the other boards.
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New pre trip report - Summer 2024

Link to all my completed trip reports
2017: NYC and Orlando. Salzburg. Boston.
2018: Orlando. Berlin.
2019: DLP. Orlando. Washington DC.
2020: DLP.
2021: Jamaica. Rome.
2022: Orlando.
2023: Orlando. Niagara and Toronto.
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Old 6 Jan 22, 03:41 PM  
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DVC Purchase Part 2 – Offer Accepted to Points Being Used

So, part 1 focussed on how we (I ) came to the decision to buy DVC and the build up to putting in an offer. This post will explain the process from the offer being accepted to the completion of it all with the points being used. I’m going to include all the dates in this post as hopefully knowing how long the process takes will help those who are interested in buying DVC resale.

Again I've included some photos from a previous visit to Wilderness Lodge, these are all from our 2019 trip with Mum and Dad where we ate at Artists Point.

29/08/21
Offer of $156 per point on a 150 point contract at Copper Creek Villas Wilderness Lodge made and accepted. The deeds expire on 31/01/68, I will be 92 when they expire, so should get a good long use out of them .



30/08/21
I received an email from the resale agent explaining the process. They said the full transfer should take about 3 months so we were expecting the points to be in our DVC account by the end of November. They broke down the process into the following steps:
• Pay the deposit of $2000
• Sign the contracts
• Contracts passed to Disney for Right of First Refusal (ROFR)
• Final Documents are received and reviewed
• Pay the final balance
• Transfer of the Title
• DVC membership set up

31/08/21
So, I paid the deposit and looked through all the contract details. This explained that if Disney exercised ROFR then we would get the deposit back within 7 days. The closing costs would be $740 and the 2021 dues would also need to be paid at closing. The contract also explained that we can only use the points on the 14 existing DVC resorts, not future resorts and not at Riviera. It also said that as we were buying resale we would not be able to use the points for Disney Cruiseline, Adventures by Disney, dining or shopping discounts.

The signing of the contract was done by printing, signing, scanning in and then emailing back the scanned documents.

01/09/21
The contract was submitted to Disney for the right of refusal process. We were told this would take up to 30 days. If ROFR is waived Disney will then need to issue an estoppel certificate to the title company and that this could take 14 – 21 days. After this the closing documents would be prepared and we would need to review them and return to close the contract. At this point Disney membership activation would happen and this could take another 14 – 21 days.

I was really trying hard to be patient and accept that the process was going to take a long time!

I was dreaming of being back on this bridge in the WL lobby.





29/09/21
Wahoo! Disney had waived ROFR, this was so exciting. The resale agent sent an email explaining that the process had now changed and that Disney had also issued the estoppel certificate at the same time – so they had combined the process of ROFR and estoppel which was fab news .

30/09/21
We had an email from the title company saying we needed to print everything, sign, scan and email all the signed documents back. When we were happy we needed to make the final payment. The email had 7 attachments:
• Buyers closing statement – needed a signature
• Bank wire instructions
• Compliance agreement – needed a signature
• Florida deed
• Instructions
• New owner set up information required to set up DVC membership
• Occupancy and use disclosure – needed a signature

There was a lot to read, but in all honesty it was a pretty painless process thus far. Once the decision to buy had been made it was just a case of signing the contracts and sending the money .

02/10/21
I started moving the money from our holiday savings account into the current account to pay the final balance and printed out all the documents. These were signed and returned by email to the title company.

04/10/21
I’d set up an XE account (an online money transfer site) to be able to pay the money to the title company. This was a bit stressful we had the funds in the current account and had to set up XE. I had the XE app so I could sort out the transfer on my phone, setting up the bank details for the title company.



07/10/21
I could see in the XE app the transfer had been made to the title company, but they were saying the money had not been received. Argh , I was really starting to worry about this, but it did say that some transfers could take 3 – 5 working days. Again, trying to be patient .

13/10/21
The title company let me know the funds had been returned as the money had not been sent as a ‘true wire transfer’ but was an ACH . I am still not really sure what the difference is between an ACH and a true wire transfer – I have googled it a lot and remain unclear . Anyway, I sent a message to XE through the app to say that the transfer needed to be a ‘true wire transfer’ not ACH and asked them to try again.

15/10/21
The title company confirmed they had received the final balance. Phew! That was such a relief . Thank goodness.



26/10/21
We had an email to say the contract had been closed and the deed sent to county for recording. Once this had been done the transfer from Disney would take place and our DVC account set up. This could take around 30 days.
I was really hoping it would happen soon as I was keen to book Copper Creek for summer 2022 before the 7 month window opened up and it was available for any DVC owner to book.



16/11/21
I had an email from Disney with our DVC member login and an activation code. This was brilliant news ! I logged in, but then discovered that there were no points loaded onto our account. It showed zero points available .

I was a bit worried and turned to the Dibb, but apparently this is perfectly normal and the membership is activated before the points are loaded and once again this can take a while. Come on Disney, how difficult can it be?

20/11/21

I logged into the DVC member account just in case and whoop, whoop the points had been loaded. Hurrah. Now to look at availability.



Annoyingly there was no availability for a deluxe studio at Copper Creek on any Saturday in August. So, I pondered a bit what to do…

21/11/21
Well I didn’t wait too long. I decided to book 5 nights at Copper Creek from 1st August. Hurrah, we will check into our home resort as our first DVC stay as members. I was so excited about this .

It took 2 and a half months from the offer being made to our DVC member account being set up by Disney and then just a couple more days until I’d made our first reservation. Apart from the hassle of sorting out the money transfer the rest of the process was really easy and I was pleased with all the email communication from the resale agents and the title company. They were helpful and informative and always responded very promptly if I had a question.

I’m also so grateful for all the advice and questions posed by the Dibbers on the thread I started. They challenged my thoughts and helped me come to the decision about what to do comparing SSR and CCV.

Now we can get on with the actual business of the pre trip planning. I want to get the flights sorted so that the hotels can also get sorted .

Hotel Reservations

I think now it’s time to recap the hotels I’ve booked for next summer as we already have 3 and they overlap!
• Direct booking with WDTC for 10 nights at Coronado Springs with the dining credit and 14 day tickets check in 29th July, check out 8th August, for four people (inc Max)
• DVC reservation from our account for 5 nights in a deluxe studio at Copper Creek check in 1st August, check out 6th August for three people (no Max)
• DVC reservation from David’s DVC rental for 6 nights in a studio at Boardwalk Villas, check in 6th August, check out 12th August for three people (no Max)



So, the CSR booking was made way back when the dining credit offer was released. I was excited to stay at CSR as the new restaurants and lounges in the tower look great and we’ve not stayed at this resort before. I’ve not changed this booking yet as I’m waiting until I’ve booked flights and the dates are all set in stone. It may be that I just cancel it as I just can’t see us needing those days, but if I do cancel it then I will need to get tickets elsewhere. I’d kind of like to fly out before the 1st August though, so I’m not throwing this reservation away just yet.

The David’s DVC rental I added on as I we had a $1638 credit from them for the cancellation in 2020. I had booked up 3 nights at AKL Jambo House and 3 nights at Boardwalk Villas for our holidayin 2020. Of course this didn’t happen and David’s issued a credit which had a very generous three years expiration date. So, I could see on the DVC member site there was availability at Boardwalk for the dates I wanted and all I needed was an owner at Boardwalk with points to rent as we were still outside of the 7 month window. David’s confirmed the booking really quickly within 24 hours of me putting in the request and this felt like it was 'free' as no money was due the credit paid for it in full and I still have about $26 credit with them. This is a non-refundable and non-changeable booking, so it will have to stay as it is.

When we check out of Boardwalk on 12th I’d like to check in at Universal, likely Royal Pacific Resort for a three or four night stay. We have annual passes for Universal that we’ve not been able to use yet. They were bought in 2019 as we upgraded our tickets. It would be nice to put them to use.



Right, that’s where we are at the moment. Three hotels booked, tickets booked for WDW and annual passes for Universal. Flights still need to be sorted. Then I can start thinking about dining options and daily plans. That’s what we’re all here for isn’t it?
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New pre trip report - Summer 2024

Link to all my completed trip reports
2017: NYC and Orlando. Salzburg. Boston.
2018: Orlando. Berlin.
2019: DLP. Orlando. Washington DC.
2020: DLP.
2021: Jamaica. Rome.
2022: Orlando.
2023: Orlando. Niagara and Toronto.
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Old 7 Jan 22, 06:27 PM  
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Hi Goldia! I've just allowed myself to start reading trip reports again as I've been a little sad about missing out on all the fun. Now that our countdown is in double figures I've decided to let myself get excited again. I was so pleased to see that you are embarking on another trip. We are heading back to OKW in the Easter break and are now learning all about Genie+ and working out how to best plan meals and ride tactics.

I've only read page 1 so I have a bit of catching up to do. This also reminds me that I should start work on the McFluffs trip report.

Have a wonderful trip. I know I'm going to enjoy reading all about it.
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Old 7 Jan 22, 08:38 PM  
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Goldia
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Originally Posted by Kidd McFluff View Post
Hi Goldia! I've just allowed myself to start reading trip reports again as I've been a little sad about missing out on all the fun. Now that our countdown is in double figures I've decided to let myself get excited again. I was so pleased to see that you are embarking on another trip. We are heading back to OKW in the Easter break and are now learning all about Genie+ and working out how to best plan meals and ride tactics.

I've only read page 1 so I have a bit of catching up to do. This also reminds me that I should start work on the McFluffs trip report.

Have a wonderful trip. I know I'm going to enjoy reading all about it.
Hi there

I know what you mean, reading trip reports is a bit like torture when you can't go on a trip.

I'm glad to see your countdown is so low. Double digits is fab! I'm looking forward to reading your trippie.
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2017: NYC and Orlando. Salzburg. Boston.
2018: Orlando. Berlin.
2019: DLP. Orlando. Washington DC.
2020: DLP.
2021: Jamaica. Rome.
2022: Orlando.
2023: Orlando. Niagara and Toronto.
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Old 7 Jan 22, 09:11 PM  
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Cutiepie
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Hi Abby, how exciting that you are planning another trip.. Loving the accommodation plans so far and delighted that all your research paid off for your DVC purchase

I’m currently reading up on Gene + for Disneyland. I’m also looking at Touringplans. I have never used them before but I think you have.

I’m actually beginning to think that we will actually get to go in the summer I hope I haven’t spoken too soon

Looking forward to the next instalment. Happy planning
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Old 7 Jan 22, 09:38 PM  
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Buggles94
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Originally Posted by Goldia View Post

Hey there lovely lady

Did your Christmas plans go ahead or should I not ask? I hope whatever happened that you had a lovely time. I'm looking forward to planning for summer and getting back to the States.
I am delighted to report that after many many cancellations we made it to WDW for Christmas! So worth it 😀😀😀 I really didn’t believe it though until the plane took off!
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