Riviera Resort Sales Announced, Point Charts, other Details

[Micah008]

We have been getting information about Riviera Resort over the last few months, and today the rest of the details have been announced including the beginning of sales and the point chart. If anyone here has questions, I have been following it closely the last few months and can post additional pictures and information.


I first saw on DVC News, they get credit for breaking the story:
https://dvcnews.com/index.php/resort...riviera-resort


Summary of info:
- Cost $188 per point (with some incentives available)
- Maintenance Fees $8.31
- Minimum of 50 points add-on (per my guide)
- No Guaranteed weeks on Tower Studios (per this chart: Link)
- Sales officially start 3/27, but they will start immediately if people want to write the contract now.
- Booking for current members 4/10, others 4/15 (reportedly)
- Resort will open 12/16, same as cash bookings have been
- Point Chart at this Link.
- Floorplans at this Link.
- Resort Map at this Link.

More here: http://www.dvcexplorer.com/qm/index.aspx ("welcome" and "home")

[Micah008]

For me the Point Charts actually weren't quite as high as I feared based on the trend of the last few new resorts that opened (VGF and PVB specifically). The Tower Studios were a little higher than I hoped they would be, but the normal Studios were a little less (especially in the cheaper seasons).

The $188 per point is very high, but isn't as bad as some were predicting/fearing, and is in line with CCV.

The main surprise was the $8.31 MFs which is the highest at WDW. I haven't seen a breakdown of them MFs to see where this is coming from. Some are guessing that they are helping pay for the Skyliner, others are guessing that the minimum wage increases are a large part of it and the other resorts will be just as high next year, and officially the guides are not saying much other than just general statements that this will be one of the best DVC resorts (they aren't wrong). Hopefully we can better understand it once we see the breakdown.

[bnoble]

Amortizing the $188 purchase price at 3.5% across 50 years gives you just under $8/pt/yr. Let's call the total PV cost $16. At $16pp a week in a Tower Studio during Fall frenzy is $1,440. So, about $200/night. Conversely, a week in the unit I'd be most interested in (a 1BR in Magic Season) is north of $5K. (!)

How many tower studios are there? They could easily join the hard-at-11-months club.

Also, remind me: resale Riviera points can *only* be used at Riviera, right?

[mgarbowski]

First, Micah, thanks so much for compiling and sharing all this.

Second, the inflation in Points cost plus points needed tells me that buy-in costs have roughly doubled since we purchased 8 years ago in 2011. Viewed as a real estate asset purchase, that kind of makes sense. But viewed as an operating expense, which is how I view vacations even if I prepay, that's kind of crazy. If my whole family were 8 years younger I doubt we would buy in today. Not direct anyway.

[kmc8826]

Thanks Micah!

I can’t help it; still really tempted by the 50 years and location. Dues are a shock but I think they will be going up even more on all the resorts next year.

[DopeyRunr]

I'm shocked at the point charts. A 2-person Tower Room is more than a Value Studio at Animal Kingdom Lodge (which sleeps 4). A Preferred Studio at Riviera is the same or more than a concierge-level AKL room? I guess they're really counting on the skyway to increase the perceived value - like a second grouping of monorail resorts or something.

As for the annual dues, there is an annual limit of 15% increase, so for all of the properties that are around $6.50-$7.50 now, it would take a little while (assuming a 5-10% annual increase at Riviera) to reach parity. The 2018-2019 increase was pretty large and attributed to the new wage structure, so I think that's mostly baked in.

AKV2019.jpg

[Micah008]

How many tower studios are there? They could easily join the hard-at-11-months club.

Also, remind me: resale Riviera points can *only* be used at Riviera, right?

There are 24 Tower Studios, and I expect they will be only bookable if you own there. Even the Standard View rooms are estimated to only be about 25% of the rooms, where the Preferred View are the other 75%... so with the Standard View requiring fewer points and less availability, I expect them to also be difficult to book without owning there.

And, you are correct... the resale will be limited to Riviera only (and likely RCI).

Second, the inflation in Points cost plus points needed tells me that buy-in costs have roughly doubled since we purchased 8 years ago in 2011. Viewed as a real estate asset purchase, that kind of makes sense. But viewed as an operating expense, which is how I view vacations even if I prepay, that's kind of crazy. If my whole family were 8 years younger I doubt we would buy in today. Not direct anyway.

At least the point inflation in the charts themselves has slowed a bit... Riviera is closer to BLT points, and generally below VGF points (and even below Poly in some seasons). Where it is hard to compare is the season to season differences seem larger ... so if you travel in the more expensive seasons Riviera seems like a worse point chart.

I can’t help it; still really tempted by the 50 years and location. Dues are a shock but I think they will be going up even more on all the resorts next year.

We are still tempted too, but mostly due to the Tower Studios (even though they aren't as cheap as I hoped). If we did, we would buy the smallest possible add-on, and use it every 2 to 3 years. This is the only way I can see *possibly* making the resale restrictions not have as much of an impact if we ever sold. But even then its a difficult purchase after getting our other contracts resale.

I'm shocked at the point charts. A 2-person Tower Room is more than a Value Studio at Animal Kingdom Lodge (which sleeps 4). A Preferred Studio at Riviera is the same or more than a concierge-level AKL room? I guess they're really counting on the skyway to increase the perceived value - like a second grouping of monorail resorts or something.

As for the annual dues, there is an annual limit of 15% increase, so for all of the properties that are around $6.50-$7.50 now, it would take a little while (assuming a 5-10% annual increase at Riviera) to reach parity. The 2018-2019 increase was pretty large and attributed to the new wage structure, so I think that's mostly baked in.

I thought the point chart for the Tower Studios would be a little less too (maybe matching AKV Value), they must be banking on there only being 24 rooms, so they will sell out either way. For the other rooms, they are high, but surprised they were not quite as high as I feared... though we normally go in the cheaper seasons.

I think Riviera will stay on the higher end of Dues, but I think in 2020 the others will catch up to it while it remains somewhat level. This is what happened with CCV over the last few years, it even went down a little in year 2, and PVB didn't change much in its first 3 or 4 years either. We will see...

[Micah008]

Here are a few Dues comparisons that I found interesting... sure makes it hard to predict what they will be in 20+ years.



For CCV, the dues are currently the same as AKV, but when it first went up for sale they were much higher.

	AKV	CCV
2019	7.44	7.42
2018	6.76	7.26
2017	6.59	7.33

And for VGF, it matches both SSR and BLT right now but none of them started out that way. In fact back in 2013 when we first purchased I remember how one of the big selling points on BLT was having the lowest dues (and they are still low but they appear to be increasing at a different rate than others).

	SSR	BLT	VGF
2019	6.40	6.40	6.39
2018	5.86	5.92	6.13
2017	5.60	5.62	5.90
2016	5.44	5.28	5.71
2015	5.17	5.05	5.52
2014	4.91	4.78	5.41
2013	4.81	4.50	5.41

For PVB, there is not as good of a current comparison, it was similar to BWV when it started but it has been moving at a slower pace.

	BWV	PVB
2019	7.17	6.76
2018	6.55	6.20
2017	6.47	6.14
2016	6.18	6.09
2015	6.07	6.02

[mgarbowski]

Yes the point requirement inflation at RR is concentrated in the prime seasons. I was looking at Magic Season as that has been when every one of our DVC trips has been. There the RR bump for Deluxe Studios is not too bad, but it gets much bigger for 1, 2 and 3 bedrooms. My estimate is we would need 250 points to roughly match the 200 we have at BLT, or downgrade to studios much more often. Alternatively, we could buy at RR but almost never stay there and use the points at resorts with lower point requirements, but that is pretty sub-optimal.

No matter what, when I plug in the RR purchase parameters into the calculations I used to figure out how long it is taking my family to recoup our DVC purchase and dues cost, it does not come close to being a good based on our usage.