In 2018, Disney Vacation Club direct sales started strong, but by the end of the calendar year sales weakened to its lowest point in two years.
The first three months of 2018 saw direct sales for the 10 DVC resorts located at Walt Disney World post its best performance in 18 calendar quarters. A total of 676,809 points were sold in the first quarter of 2018 as Disney wrapped-up sales for the Polynesian Villas & Bungalows and shifted the focus to Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge.
As 2018 came to a close, sales weakened. Only 464,935 points were sold during the last quarter, capped-off by 140,877 in sales for December. These are the fewest quarterly and monthly totals since 382,734 points were moved in the fourth quarter of 2016 and 124,746 in December '16.
For the calendar year, 2.16 million DVC points were sold, down 3.8% from the 2.25 million points in 2017.
Monthly sales were steadily dropping throughout 2018 but December’s lower sales might be due, in part, to a holiday slowdown. Through December 21, 2018, 926 deeds were recorded across the ten resorts located at Walt Disney World. In the final 10 days of the month, only 57 deeds were recorded.
Now that the holidays are over, recorded sales have picked up considerably. The Orange County Comptroller shows that over 370 DVC deeds have already been recorded in the first three workdays in January, more than double the usual pace.
Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge — In December, 115,865 points were sold for Copper Creek. Disney has sold 64.6% of the resort’s 3,321,966 total points and still has about 1,110,000 points that can be sold to the general public.
Copper Creek is still on pace to be “sold out” within the next eight months. The resort would have to average fewer than 93,000 points per month in order for sales to extend beyond 2019.
Effective December 17, 2018, Disney declared 19 more vacation homes for the DVC inventory at Copper Creek. DVC members now have access to 161 of the resort’s 184 vacation homes for them to book using points. In terms of points, 86.4% of Copper Creek is now declared for the DVC. At the current rate of sales, it is quite possible that Copper Creek will be fully declared for the DVC inventory by March 2019.
The sales data includes all 10 DVC resorts at Walt Disney World, as well as Disney's Vero Beach Resort, Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort, and Aulani, Disney Vacation Club Villas. 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.
Wil Lovato is a contributor to DVCNews.com and has been a Disney Vacation Club owner since 2009. His DVC Home Resorts include Bay Lake Tower, Animal Kingdom Villas, and Aulani. He can be found posting on many Disney discussion forums under the username of “wdrl.”
