# Staying on Disney Property



## dja1980 (Oct 5, 2019)

Hi All,

My family and I are looking to book a Disney vacation in October of 2020.  We've been owners at Orlando Tuscany Village since 2011 (thanks to this forum), and we stay at our home resort annually.  However, we've been holding off on going to Disney until our girls are 7 & 8.  And, since 2020 marks that time, we figured it might be fun to stay on Disney property to get the full Disney experience.  We're just in the beginning stages of planning, but one thing we've never done is exchanged thru RCI... so I figured it might be worth reaching out to see if anyone who has some experience in this area can give us some pointers.  Any advice/recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance... Dave & Vanessa


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## Cyberc (Oct 5, 2019)

dja1980 said:


> Hi All,
> 
> My family and I are looking to book a Disney vacation in October of 2020.  We've been owners at Orlando Tuscany Village since 2011 (thanks to this forum), and we stay at our home resort annually.  However, we've been holding off on going to Disney until our girls are 7 & 8.  And, since 2020 marks that time, we figured it might be fun to stay on Disney property to get the full Disney experience.  We're just in the beginning stages of planning, but one thing we've never done is exchanged thru RCI... so I figured it might be worth reaching out to see if anyone who has some experience in this area can give us some pointers.  Any advice/recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
> 
> Thanks in advance... Dave & Vanessa



Well You certainly can exchange into Disney. However you should only expect to get a 1Br at Saratoga springs as that is all that Disney is depositing. Sometimes you will also find Okw or akv but they are rare. Your checkin days are Friday, Saturday or Sunday. 

This year Disney have deposited October around 5-7 months in advance and it seems that they continue to do so with other dates. For comparison Easter 2020 was just deposited. 

I recommend that you setup an ongoing search in RCI so you get sort of first dips at the inventory when it’s deposited. 

I also recommend that when we reach 7 month before check that you start checking RCI for any available dvc inventory.

Remember that there will be a $190 fee payable when you checkin.


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## Mizzou39 (Oct 5, 2019)

Cyberc - can you explain the point exchange for DVC?  In other words how many HGV points are required for a stay at Sarasota Springs?


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## PigsDad (Oct 5, 2019)

Mizzou39 said:


> Cyberc - can you explain the point exchange for DVC?  In other words how many HGV points are required for a stay at Sarasota Springs?


There is a standard exchange point table for all RCI resorts.  For high season, a 2BR is 4800 points, and a 1BR is 3400 points.

I would second the recommendation of setting up an ongoing search in RCI *now*.  October is a surprisingly popular time for Disney, so you want to be in the queue as early as possible to get a match in RCI.

Kurt


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## frank808 (Oct 6, 2019)

PigsDad said:


> There is a standard exchange point table for all RCI resorts.  For high season, a 2BR is 5000 points, and a 1BR is 3400 points.
> 
> I would second the recommendation of setting up an ongoing search in RCI *now*.  October is a surprisingly popular time for Disney, so you want to be in the queue as early as possible to get a match in RCI.
> 
> Kurt


I thought a 2br trade was 4800 hgvc points.  Did it change recently as my last HGVC trade was over 3 years ago?

Sent from my SM-T217S using Tapatalk


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## RX8 (Oct 6, 2019)

frank808 said:


> I thought a 2br trade was 4800 hgvc points.  Did it change recently as my last HGVC trade was over 3 years ago?
> 
> Sent from my SM-T217S using Tapatalk



You are correct. It is still 4800 points for a 2 bedroom.


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## Mizzou39 (Oct 6, 2019)

Can you trade for less than a week?  We would also probably not be look at high season since kids start college next fall (Yeah!!!)  I would use this as a quick getaway with my wife.


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## PigsDad (Oct 6, 2019)

frank808 said:


> I thought a 2br trade was 4800 hgvc points.  Did it change recently as my last HGVC trade was over 3 years ago?


Yep, my bad!  I corrected it above.

Kurt


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## brp (Oct 6, 2019)

I'll start by saying that I have nothing to add to the specific nuances of this discussion as we have never done, and would never need, to do this. We own at DVC, so we use those points.

With that said, we are two adults, no kids (mrs. brp debates the "no kids" thing, and I may be inclined to agree with her). With, or without, kids, there is nothing like staying on the Disney properly. I've done it multiple times both ways and, to me, there is no comparison. Yeah, off-site resorts can be of better quality for the money/points. But if the goal is Disney, really nothing like being here (says the man leaving for WDW in about 2 weeks )

Cheers.


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## pianodinosaur (Oct 6, 2019)

The Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek might be be a viable alternative if you cannot book a Disney timeshare but still insist on being on the Disney property. However, you would then be staying in hotel room rather than a timeshare.  Transportation from Tuscany Village to any of the Orlando theme parks is easy to arrange.  We visited Epcot, Universal, and Sea World during our last trip to Orlando in 2017.  Four of our close friends have taken Disney Cruises out of Orlando after a hotel stay on the Disney property.  They traveled with children and loved it.


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## SmithOp (Oct 7, 2019)

Mizzou39 said:


> Can you trade for less than a week?  We would also probably not be look at high season since kids start college next fall (Yeah!!!)  I would use this as a quick getaway with my wife.



Absolutely.  There are search filters on the left side of the RCI portal screen, there is one for length of stay, pick 1-6 days.  By doing this you are searching points inventory, not weeks.  I dont believe you can set an OGS for points inventory however.  The shorter stays cost less in exchange fees, pro-rated by days.

If you join TUG and monitor the Sightings forum you will see messages reporting some of these unicorns.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro


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## Cyberc (Oct 7, 2019)

Mizzou39 said:


> Can you trade for less than a week?  We would also probably not be look at high season since kids start college next fall (Yeah!!!)  I would use this as a quick getaway with my wife.



You can’t exchange into Disney for less than 7 days. You are allowed to checkout our earlier or arrive later if you prefer. However you still pay for all 7 nights.


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## mdurette (Oct 7, 2019)

I thought DVC had a regional block, thus not allowing OP that already owns in Orlando to exchange into it.   I could be wrong......


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## Cyberc (Oct 7, 2019)

mdurette said:


> I thought DVC had a regional block, thus not allowing OP that already owns in Orlando to exchange into it.   I could be wrong......



That is true, however with mini systems like HGVC the points all originate from the same place, therefore any regional block from any resort is invalidated. 

So RCI nor the resorts can see where the hgvc points are coming from.


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## Mizzou39 (Oct 7, 2019)

SmithOp said:


> Absolutely.  There are search filters on the left side of the RCI portal screen, there is one for length of stay, pick 1-6 days.  By doing this you are searching points inventory, not weeks.  I dont believe you can set an OGS for points inventory however.  The shorter stays cost less in exchange fees, pro-rated by days.
> 
> If you join TUG and monitor the Sightings forum you will see messages reporting some of these unicorns.
> 
> ...


Dave - please don't laugh at me...  I am a TUG member but have never been able to find the Sightings forum.  Can you tell me where to find it?


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## SmithOp (Oct 7, 2019)

Mizzou39 said:


> Dave - please don't laugh at me...  I am a TUG member but have never been able to find the Sightings forum.  Can you tell me where to find it?



From the main tugbbs page its the very last forum in the list, you have to scroll all the way to the bottom.  Here is a direct link.

https://tugbbs.com/forums/index.php?forums/sightings-distressed.3/

You will see several recent titled RCI Points, those can be booked for less than 7 days.





Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro


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## PigsDad (Oct 7, 2019)

SmithOp said:


> From the main tugbbs page its the very last forum in the list, you have to scroll all the way to the bottom.  Here is a direct link.
> 
> https://tugbbs.com/forums/index.php?forums/sightings-distressed.3/
> 
> You will see several recent titled RCI Points, those can be booked for less than 7 days.


Don't you need to be a paid TUG member in order to have access to the sightings board?

Kurt


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## presley (Oct 7, 2019)

Mizzou39 said:


> Dave - please don't laugh at me...  I am a TUG member but have never been able to find the Sightings forum.  Can you tell me where to find it?


You are showing as a guest under your name. That means you aren't really set up as a member. If you've already paid the $15. there's instructions on how to change the title under your name at the top of this page.


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## Mizzou39 (Oct 7, 2019)

presley said:


> You are showing as a guest under your name. That means you aren't really set up as a member. If you've already paid the $15. there's instructions on how to change the title under your name at the top of this page.


Ok, hopefully I have that corrected now.  Thank you!


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## Cyberc (Oct 7, 2019)

Mizzou39 said:


> Ok, hopefully I have that corrected now.  Thank you!


Unfortunately not. Your are still showing up as guest.


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## emoneybug (Oct 28, 2019)

Does Disney have Studio for trade also or just mainly the 1 bdrm SSR mentioned above?


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## escanoe (Oct 28, 2019)

emoneybug said:


> Does Disney have Studio for trade also or just mainly the 1 bdrm SSR mentioned above?



See thread above about becoming a TUG member and viewing the sightings board. It has a great Disney stickey on it. 1BRs are all that have been spotted through RCI for some time.


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## Cyberc (Oct 29, 2019)

emoneybug said:


> Does Disney have Studio for trade also or just mainly the 1 bdrm SSR mentioned above?



Yes only 1br and mainly for SSR. 

However last week there was 1BR inventory at BWV, BRV, OKW and AKV too. First time in years that I have seen AKV, BWV and BRV available. 


Those sightings was posted in the sighting forum for members only but are all gone now.


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## Arimaas (Oct 29, 2019)

pianodinosaur said:


> The Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek might be be a viable alternative if you cannot book a Disney timeshare but still insist on being on the Disney property. However, you would then be staying in hotel room rather than a timeshare.  Transportation from Tuscany Village to any of the Orlando theme parks is easy to arrange.  We visited Epcot, Universal, and Sea World during our last trip to Orlando in 2017.  Four of our close friends have taken Disney Cruises out of Orlando after a hotel stay on the Disney property.  They traveled with children and loved it.



Along those lines, Wyndham Bonnet Creek is "on property" that is, beyond the welcome gates (but isn't connected via Monorail or a Disney ran facility). Probably pretty easy to get in there with RCI. We stayed there last year, it's a traditional Timeshare style accommodation - kitchen, W/D, etc. loved it.


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## JohnB3 (Oct 31, 2019)

While Bonnet creek is nearby and a better value in my mind it's not the same as staying on property (as defined by disney).  If your visit to orlando is to visit the house of the mouse there are a couple of things that make staying in a disney property worthwhile, First is access to fast passes at 60 days and second is extra magic hours and finally if you stay at DVC you can park at the parks and resorts for free as well as use the airport transportation for free.  For those things I find the premium worthwhile.  To the OP Join TUG the sighting board has a great deal of info on trading into disney.  I too have DVC points but I also trade in most years thru RCI.  My girls can't get enough disney.


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## JohnB3 (Oct 31, 2019)

emoneybug said:


> Does Disney have Studio for trade also or just mainly the 1 bdrm SSR mentioned above?



Studios are the most requested room type by DVC members (you get the most nights for your points and when at the park its just a place to sleep ) so few (to none in my experience) ever see RCI inventory.  The $15 a year investment in joining TUG is a major bargain for me you should think about Joining  . the sighting board has a bunch of good stuff on DVC thru RCI


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## dja1980 (Nov 14, 2019)

Thanks for all of the awesome responses! What I've done is to save an on-going search for our two weeks during October 2020 that we are wanting to go. So, my many follow up questions...do we just need to periodically check to see if there are any matches for our search? Do they email us if something pops up? Is there a time frame that things open up typically or is it hit or miss? At what point should we forgo staying on Disney property and just stay at our HGVC home resort? 
TIA


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## JohnB3 (Nov 14, 2019)

dja1980 said:


> Thanks for all of the awesome responses! What I've done is to save an on-going search for our two weeks during October 2020 that we are wanting to go. So, my many follow up questions...do we just need to periodically check to see if there are any matches for our search? Do they email us if something pops up? Is there a time frame that things open up typically or is it hit or miss? At what point should we forgo staying on Disney property and just stay at our HGVC home resort?
> TIA


you will likely not see any deposit before 6 months before your date.  DVC members are free to book any resort at 7 months so I've not seen many if any deposits before that (disney wants to provide their members first call).  The deposits happen up to a week or so before check in.  your OGS will likely only match weeks inventory (or so ive been told) but if it matches you will get an email from RCI to let you know you have a match.  Because disney also deposits points inventory starting at 6 months I'd start checking RCI each morning to see if you can get points inventory that matches your needs.  I think the question of when to stop waiting is really based on the risk you will not be able to get into your home resort.  I don't own hilton so I don't know when you run out of options with them.  Spend the $15 to join tug and take advantage of the sighting board it was the best $15 i ever spent on timeshares


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## bogey21 (Nov 14, 2019)

Many (say 39-35) years ago in our pre TimeShare days when our kids were in the  6-10 year old range we always stayed at the Contemporary Resort Hotel.  The big attraction was  Breakfast with the Characters.  It was great.  When the kids got hot and/or tired we would just take the monorail back to our room and take a break.  I'm sure things are different today but back then it sure worked out great...

George


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## brial05 (Nov 16, 2019)

I believe I may have posted on this before.
I took the time to look up all the Disney Properties via RCI ID, I created an OGS listing each specifically with a Check-In Date Range that was the whole summer long.
That OGS never ever result in a match for a single Disney property. I believe my OGS went on for half a year, starting about now (late Nov/Dec)

As mentioned by others, we have stayed in Hilton Bonnet Creek more than a few times and the place is fantastic. I've converted points and often I've received promotions from Hilton as the hotel is often priced very reasonably.

We have stayed at Hilton Bonnet Creek, Hilton Par Soleil and your home resort Hilton Tuscany Village. 
All were great .. I've yet to stay on property since I was very young. Maybe I'll try another OGS .... never hurts. 

I will mention that as you note, there are benefits to being checked into a Disney property, my sister who always travels with us always stays on property to take advantage of these benefits for her kids ..... BUT ....while many of the extra benefits to staying on property are certainly great .... ..you have to plan a YEAR in advance to realize some or most of those extra perks as the whole of Disney guests who are on property are fighting for the same.


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## brp (Nov 16, 2019)

brial05 said:


> .
> 
> I will mention that as you note, there are benefits to being checked into a Disney property, my sister who always travels with us always stays on property to take advantage of these benefits for her kids ..... BUT ....while many of the extra benefits to staying on property are certainly great .... ..you have to plan a YEAR in advance to realize some or most of those extra perks as the whole of Disney guests who are on property are fighting for the same.



As a DVC owner who does stay on property multiple times a year, the only thing I see that requires planning far in advance (and it's only 11 months and not a year ) is getting a room with DVC points. None of the other on-site perks require anything to be done more than 60 days out, unless there's something I'm missing.

Really, the main on-site perk that I can think of is access to Extra Magic Hours for on-site guests only, and that's a day-of decision.

Cheers.


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## capjak (Nov 16, 2019)

Perks are available as brp mentioned.
To the OP:   Staying on site at a themed DVC resort is something many people really/really enjoy and with the kids at 7/8 I think it likely will be something they and you will remember fondly for the rest of their lives take many pictures/videos etc.....It is an experience in itself (of course others will say they enjoy off site more)...

October is not easy to get into a DVC, it is the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot (which I attend every year...its worth it) I would recommend you rent a DVC from someone using DIS rent/trade board or other, It will be significantly cheaper than direct and you will get your stay at the resort you want.  Save your HGVC points for another vacation/year.


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## brp (Nov 16, 2019)

capjak said:


> October is not easy to get into a DVC, it is the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot (which I attend every year...its worth it) I would recommend you rent a DVC from someone using DIS rent/trade board or other, It will be significantly cheaper than direct and you will get your stay at the resort you want.  Save your HGVC points for another vacation/year.



I second this, but will strongly suggest www.mouseowners.com over DIS. Much friendlier group of people, much more rational moderation and something I would want folks to support over DIS.

Disclaimer: I am a member of Mouseowners, but I do not rent DVC points (we use them all  so have no vested interest in the above recommendation.

Cheers.


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## louisianab (Nov 16, 2019)

I matched my OGS for Oct 20-27 on May 19 of this year, in case that is helpful. Plenty of time for the 60 day onsite fastpasses. I had gone ahead and made dining reservations at 180 days since you are able to cancel those and they don't rely on the hotel reservation.


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## dja1980 (Jan 28, 2020)

Alright y'all, I'm so impatient. I want to book already!!  
So, when do you decided to book outside of hgvc/RCI? Like, when is it too late to book "out of pocket"?


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## louisianab (Jan 28, 2020)

You can make dining reservations without a room reservation at 180 days out. Fast passes for onsite reservations start 60 days out. I don't think October reservations will be up for at least a month or two... 
It's so hard, but be patient! 


dja1980 said:


> Alright y'all, I'm so impatient. I want to book already!!
> So, when do you decided to book outside of hgvc/RCI? Like, when is it too late to book "out of pocket"?


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## Mowogo (Jan 29, 2020)

louisianab said:


> You can make dining reservations without a room reservation at 180 days out. Fast passes for onsite reservations start 60 days out. I don't think October reservations will be up for at least a month or two...
> It's so hard, but be patient!


With what I was seeing today, they are out to May right now


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## escanoe (Jan 29, 2020)

I have a week at Old Key West  week starting April 5th that I booked in late October. Not that it matters, but i used my RCI points standalone account rather than the HGVC portal.


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