The influx of sales for Disney's Riviera Resort, as well as very strong sales for Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge and several older DVC resorts, yielded the best month for Disney Vacation Club direct point sales in almost six years.
Disney's Riviera Resort (concept)
On April 12, 2019, deeds for the newest Disney Vacation Club resort, Disney’s Riviera Resort, began appearing on the Orange County Comptroller’s website. A total of 267,280 points were sold in April for the 11 DVC resorts at Walt Disney World, the most number of points since 364,416 points were sold in July 2013.
It is not just the Riviera that helped boost sales in April. Copper Creek recorded its third best month for sales during its brief two-year history, while several other DVC resorts sold more points than in quite awhile: Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas (7,912 points) had its best month since January 2017; Disney’s Beach Club Villas (1,506 points) had its best month since May 2017; and Disney’s Old Key West Resort (9,121 points) sold more points in a single month since August 2012.
Due to a recent change in the DVC Membership Agreements, the points in a Residential Unit are no longer limited to a single Use Year. In April 2019, Disney used that flexibility to sell deeds with different Use Years than what had previously been assigned to the parent Unit. This change permitting multiple Use Years within Residential Units may explain why some of the older DVC resorts had higher than average sales in April.
Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge — In April, 166,129 points were sold for Copper Creek, the 16th consecutive month that the resort’s sales have topped the 100,000 point mark. April’s sales total is the third highest monthly total since sales began in March 2017, trailing only the 218,382 points sold in January 2019 and the 175,167 points sold in March 2018.
Disney has sold 80.6% of Copper Creek’s total points and has about 445,000 points it can still sell to the general public. The resort is on pace to be sold out by June 2019 as previously announced by Disney.
Copper Creek has averaged 112,584 points a month since sales began in March 2017. Initially, sales were relatively slow, averaging only 57,025 points during the first nine months. But sales improved in January 2018 and have averaged 143,836 points in the 16 months since then.
No Fixed Week deeds were sold for Copper Creek in April. Only 23 such deeds have been sold to date, accounting for a minuscule 0.16% of the total points sold.
Disney’s Riviera Resort — Sales for the newest DVC resort began March 27, 2019, and the first Riviera deeds started appearing on the Orange County Comptroller’s website on April 12, 2019. Disney sold 407 deeds containing 59,246 points, about 0.88% of Riviera’s 6.7 million points.
It is not uncommon for sales of a new resort to start slowly. Copper Creek sold only 51,675 points in its first month and Disney's Polynesian Villas & Bungalows sold 61,050 points in its first full month of sales.
In the past, Disney had to tap at least eight different Residential Units to support sales, one for each Use Year. Now, with each Residential Unit being able to have multiple Use Years, Disney is drawing deeds from only a handful of Units. Of the 407 deeds sold, 361 deeds were drawn from only four Units which have seven of the eight Use Years. For some reason, the 46 deeds sold with the February Use Year are being drawn from two other Units.
Disney sold six Fixed Week deeds for Riviera. For the other DVC resorts that offer Fixed Weeks, the most popular weeks are the last six weeks of the calendar year, and Riviera is following that trend: the six deeds were for Weeks #48, #49, and #51.
The sales data includes all 11 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.”
