In February 2023, direct sales of Disney Vacation Club points hit the lowest point during the non-pandemic period. But with the help of better discounts and incentives, sales began to rebound in March 2023.
Disney's Polynesian Villas & Bungalows
In March 2023, 119,029 DVC points were sold for the 11 resorts at Walt Disney World. The good news was that direct sales increased 34.5% over the month of February. It marked the 25th time that month-to-month sales increased by 30% or more in the 12-plus years DVCNews has tracked direct sales. The not-so-good news is direct sales are still lagging behind recent trends. The March point total was 27.2% and 16.7% below what sales have averaged over the last 12 and 24 months, respectively.
For the third month in a row, Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort led all resorts in sales. Disney’s Riviera Resort was in second place and Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows came in third with sales of 10,159 points. It was the first time in five years (March 2018, 19,946 points) that sales for the Polynesian topped the 10,000-point mark.
On March 23, 2023, Disney introduced new developer incentives for Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas. It will not be until the April or May sales data becomes available that it will be known how these incentives impact sales for the resort. In March, Animal Kingdom Villas sold only 1,755 points.
In March, there were two 1,000-point deeds sold for the Grand Floridian. The next largest single deed sold in March was a 700-point deed for Polynesian. A new DVC member also bought 700 Polynesian points split between two 350-point deeds. Three 25-point deeds were sold for Grand Floridian, two of which were bought by the same existing member. No 25-point deeds were sold for Riviera.
Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort — Since late 2022 when Disney began offering slightly better incentives for Grand Floridian, its sales have outpaced those of Riviera for three months in a row. In March 2023, 57,972 points were sold, the most since August 2022 when 71,924 Grand Floridian points were sold.
Since resuming sales in March 2022, Disney has sold 953,386 Grand Floridian points, 53.6% of the 1,779,822 points that have been assigned to the 202 Resort Studios located in the Big Pine Key Building. Disney must retain at least 2% of the Grand Floridian’s total points, which means that it still has about 810,000 Grand Floridian points it can sell to the general public.
The Big Pine Key building is comprised of two Residential Units, each containing 101 resort studios and the same number of DVC points. Unit 11 was declared for the DVC inventory before sales began and Unit 12 was declared on June 10, 2022. Disney has sold 97.3% of Unit 11’s points and, beginning in February, has sold 9.9% of Unit 12’s points. No points have been sold from the 36 Residential Units in the original Grand Floridian DVC building since August 2021.
No Fixed Week deeds for Grand Floridian were sold in March 2023. So far, Disney has sold 39 Fixed Week deeds for the new Resort Studios. Since sales resumed, Disney has not sold any Fixed Week deeds for the Deluxe Studios or larger accommodations at the original Grand Floridian DVC building.
Disney’s Riviera Resort — In March, Riviera sold 38,523 points, a 24.6% improvement over the 30,905 point sold in February, It also reversed a trend of four consecutive months of declining sales, Nevertheless, March is the second lowest monthly total since Riviera sales started in April 2019, except for the four-month period in 2020 when all DVC sales were depressed by the Covid pandemic.
Disney has sold 3,578,644 Riviera points, or 53.1%, of the resort’s 6,739,966 points. There are still over 3 million Riviera points that Disney can sell to the general public.
For the fifth consecutive month, no Fixed Week deeds were sold for Riviera. Disney has sold 111 Fixed Week deeds for the resort: 93 Fixed Week deeds have been sold for Deluxe Studios, eight for one-bedroom villas, eight for two-bedroom villas, and two for three-bedroom grand villas.
On December 16, 2022, Disney declared 25 more vacation homes for the DVC inventory, increasing the number of declared vacation homes from 199 to 224. There are still 117 vacation homes that have not yet been declared and are still under the control of Disney. The declared inventory accounts for about 4,458,999 points, or 66.2% of the resort’s total points.
The sales data includes all 11 DVC resorts at Walt Disney World, as well as Disney's Vero Beach Resort, and Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort. Point sales data is not available for the Villas at Disney's Grand Californian Hotel. The data is compiled from deeds filed by Disney Vacation Development and recorded with the Orange County (FL) Comptroller, the Indian River County (FL) Clerk of Court, and the Beaufort County (SC) Register of Deeds. Thanks to Chris for assisting in the compilation of the sales data.
Wil Lovato is a contributor to DVCNews.com and has been a Disney Vacation Club owner since 2009. His DVC Home Resorts include Copper Creek Villas, Bay Lake Tower, Animal Kingdom Villas, and Aulani. He can be found posting on many Disney discussion forums under the username of “wdrl.”
