Disney Vacation Club Timeshare

Plan on a Disney Vacation Club Timeshare holiday. Take the kids and see Cinderella, Mickey, and all the other lovable characters at Walt Disney World. But don’t plan on taking your children with you if you have reservations to dine at Victoria & Alberts at the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa.

Victoria & Alberts is the only Orlando Disney restaurant with a 5-diamond rating, and offers unquestionably some of, if not the best dining at Disney World. But this crystal and linen dining room serves 7-course meals that can last as long as three hours. Prices start at $125 per person and there has never been a children’s menu available at Victoria & Alberts. Obviously, the restaurant was never intended to attract family dining.

After Disney made the announcement, The Orlando Sentinel quoted Rosemary Rose, Disney World’s vp of food, beverage and merchandise operations, as saying that no more than two or three families a month brought young children to Victoria & Albert’s. Which now makes you ask, “So what was the problem?”

I wonder if Norman Van Aken, owner of Norman’s at the Ritz Carlton in Orlando, doesn’t have the right idea when he suggests that banning children from the restaurant is a clever marketing strategy that causes people to now view Victoria & Albert’s as extremely special. Disney’s announcement has certainly garnered plenty of press coverage as people examine their thoughts on the, “happiest place on earth,” no longer permitting children under the age of 10 in their best dining room.

But go ahead and plan your stay at your Disney Vacation Club timeshare. Whatever the reason for the new policy, the decision shouldn’t cause a problem for more than, “two or three families a month”.

Owning a Disney Vacation Club Timeshare is easy and affordable when you shop timeshare resales and timeshare rentals available through Sell My Timeshare NOW. To learn more about Disney Orlando timeshare visit the links below:

• Disney’s Villas at Wilderness Lodge Resales
• Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa Resales
• Disney’s Old Key West Resort Resales
• Disney’s BoardWalk Villas Resales
• Disney’s Beach Club Villas Resales

And for a retro view of the Happiest Place on Earth, watch this YouTube video of a 1971 television commercial for the (then) very new, Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom.

In our September 6 blog post, titled, “Planning Your Orlando Timeshare Vacation”, I noted that Disney had banned their guests from using the two-wheeled, battery-powered individual people transporters, known as Segways. Disney, and other Orlando theme parks permit Segways, as does the City of Orlando, but use is restricted to authorized personnel, and not available to their paying customers.

In the October 14 edition of the Orlando Sentinel, an article stated that, “Advocates for the disabled are pushing Walt Disney World and SeaWorld Orlando to lift a ban on the use of Segways in the theme parks.”

The Disability Rights Advocates for Technology, known as DRAFT, is an organization that raises money to donate Segways to disabled US military veterans. As the article explained, many people with prosthetics, as well as people with disabilities that permit them to stand but not walk, benefit from the mobility Segways provide. An estimated 5,000 disabled people now use Segways to increase their mobility options.

In one further note, the Sentinel article stated that Disney runs paid, guided Segway tours of Epcot and the Fort Wilderness campground, however in response to our phone call, we were again told by a Disney customer service representative, that those tours have been suspended.

The Timeshare Owners Blog will keep you posted on the status of the Segway at Orlando theme parks.

Here are a few suggestions for enjoying Orlando timeshares on your next Florida vacation:

• Disney’s Beach Club Villas Resales
• Disney’s BoardWalk Villas Resales
• Disney’s Old Key West Resort Resales
• Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa Resales
• Disney’s Villas at Wilderness Lodge Resales
• Magic Tree Resort Resales
• Marriott’s Cypress Harbour Resales
• Marriott’s Grande Vista Resales
• Marriott’s Horizons of Orlando Resales
• Marriott’s Imperial Palm Villas Resales
• Marriott’s Royal Palms Resales
• Marriott’s Sabal Palms Resales
• Mystic Dunes Resort and Golf Club Resales

And here’s a You Tube video of Segways in use at Walt Disney World.

Yesterday, the Timeshare Owners Blog told you about Disney’s expansion plans in Hawaii. The planned Oahu resort will occupy 21 acres of prime oceanfront property and will be Disney’s first hotel and timeshare resort that is not part of a theme park. While other sources list the property as yet unnamed, the Honolulu Star Bulletin calls it the: Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Ko Olina Family Resort.

COURTESY WALT DISNEY PARKS & RESORTS

From a business perspective, there are several ways to view Disney’s move to expand in Hawaii going there without the benefit of thrill rides and mouse ears as a draw for tourists. Even Disney Vacation Club timeshares currently only offer two locations that are not at a theme park destination: Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort and Disney’s Vero Beach Resort.

In some regards, Disney is a relative newcomer to the hotel and resort industry. The Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, which opened in 1955, was the first Disney-branded hotel, but it was not owned and operated by the Walt Disney company until 1988.

Still, nearly 19 years in the hotel business, is long enough for you to learn some of the ups and downs. And long enough to establish that not everything Disney touches thrives, despite magic pixie dust to help it along.

In the 1990’s Disney planned a project in Newport Coast, California, which was subsequently cancelled, and the land later sold to Marriott, who built the very successful Marriott Newport Coast Villas on the site.

Disney also planned hotels for Beaver Creek, Colorado, and in New York’s Times Square, but neither ever came to fruition. There’s a reason that Disney has shied away from the hotel business in areas that don’t have theme parks and maybe it’s been a good one.

Without Magic Mountain and twirling teacups, a Disney hotel is, well, just another great hotel, and perhaps not even as great as some of their competition. The developers of the property at Ko Olina were also in negotiations with Four Seasons, Trump Entertainment, and Ritz-Carlton for the land Disney has acquired. Recognizing that the Hawaii hotel and resort market is not one of the easiest—after all it’s not a drive-to destination for anyone—you have to wonder if Disney beat out the competition, or if the other hoteliers were wisely more conservative.

As with most things, time will tell. But if you are a member of the Disney Vacation Club, then maybe you’re in luck, and in the near future, a Disney Hawaii timeshare vacation will be in your plans.

Until then, here are only a few of the other excellent options for your Hawaii timeshare vacation:

• Marriott’s Kauai Beach Club
• Marriott’s Waiohai Beach Club
• Marriott’s Maui Ocean Club
• Marriott’s Ko Olina Beach Club
• Shell Vacations Club at Kona Coast Resort I Resales
• Westin Ka’anapali Ocean Resort Villas Rentals
• Whaler on Kaanapali Beach Rentals
• WorldMark at Kapaa Shore Rentals
• WorldMark at Kihei Resales
• Wyndham Hawaii at Kona Hawaiian Resort Resales
• Wyndham Hawaii at Royal Sea Cliff Resales

A Disney resort and Disney timeshare will be built in Oahu, Hawaii. The Disney company reportedly paid $144 million for land at Ko Olina Resort and Marina, located on the western side of the island.

COURTESY WALT DISNEY PARKS & RESORTS

The new Disney timeshare and resort is expected to open in 2011, and will include over 800 units, some of which will be for the hotel, and others will be timeshare villas for the Disney Vacation Club. According to Commercial Property News, Disney has not identified how many of the units will be timeshare and how many will be part of the hotel.

Currently there are over 350,000 members of the Disney Vacation Club, with a sixth timeshare property preparing to open in Orlando later in 2007.

The Disney timeshare at Vero Beach, Florida and the Disney timeshare at Hilton Head, South Carolina are the only two existing timeshare properties that are not built at the Disney Orlando theme parks. But this is quickly changing, with the Disney Vacation Club villas planned for the Grand Californian Hotel & Spa in Anaheim, and now the planned Disney timeshares in Hawaii.

Once the Disney timeshare in Hawaii is complete, it will employ 1000 people on the island of Oahu. Commercial Property News quoted Walt Disney Parks & Resorts chairman, Jay Rasulo as saying “This resort hotel will give our guests another way to visit an exciting part of the world with a brand they trust…Hawaii has been among our most requested Disney Vacation Club getaway location beyond our theme parks.” An article in the Honolulu Star Bulletin said that Rasulo also identified beach vacations as the number one most popular trips for families, and Hawaii is the second most popular destination after Florida.

To find out more about becoming part of the Disney vacation club by purchasing affordable Disney timeshare resales, visit the following links:

• Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas
• Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort
• The Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
• Disney’s Beach Club Villas
• Disney’s BoardWalk Villas
• Disney’s Old Key West Resort
• Disney’s Vero Beach Resort
• Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort

And for a look at the flip side of Disney’s expansion to Hawaii timeshares, be sure to check the blog tomorrow. Perhaps some of the “Imagineers” have escaped from Disney’s design departments and found their way into Disney’s business development divisions.