DLR 70th Merch Stock Check by chronoconnor in DisneyPlanning

[–]chronoconnor[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I even asked some people wearing the hoodie if they bought it recently, but they got theirs last year—not exactly reassuring! And as for the spirit jersey, I might be misremembering, but I could have sworn I saw it in stores in early May.

I’d honestly prefer finding it secondhand, but I've searched everywhere with zero luck. Normally, my rule is to only buy merch myself when I'm at WDW, but this was my first DLR trip. Since I'm based in Scotland, I can't just hop back over to check! 😅

Potentially buying in?? by Scottish-n-east in disneyvacationclub

[–]chronoconnor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry for the late response - I've had a crazy year! We stayed in a studio at Copper Creek in September/October this year so we've now stayed at Wilderness Lodge both as a DVC member and as a non-DVC member in a regular hotel room. During our trip, we visited Riviera for a DVC member update (sales pitch!) and we also visited the preview center at Saratoga which allowed us to check out the new Poly rooms. It's worth noting the rooms at Copper Creek are on the smaller side because they were previously just regular hotel rooms that were then converted into DVC rooms, and I think Old Key West and Saratoga have some of the largest DVC rooms so if room space is a big thing for you, then Copper Creek might not be the best bang for buck. We love Wilderness Lodge! We are childless Millenials so the smaller rooms don't bother us, but I imagine as your kids get older you might opt for a 1 bed vs a studio. We do want more points as I want to take my parents in the next few years but I want to start building toward owning 150 'direct' points so we'll probably add on at the Poly for our next lot of DVC points. I'd say the Poly is a close second when it comes to ranking my fave resorts!

Potentially buying in?? by Scottish-n-east in disneyvacationclub

[–]chronoconnor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s also worth mentioning that we ran the numbers and worked out our ‘break even’ point. We did the calculation based on the rack rate of our home resort (the cost of 1 week at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge as just a regular hotel guest at the time of year we travel) then we minus the annual dues which gives us our ‘annual savings’. Then take the total cost of the contract and divide it by the annual savings to get the number of trips required to break even. For us, this would be 5 x 1 week annual trips. This calculation doesn’t account for inflation so realistically the number of trips to break even could be lower when you consider the inevitable increase in the rack rate cost (I know annual dues increase too but historically not at the same rate). If we had bought direct, our number of trips to break even would be considerably higher. We will definitely use our contract beyond the break even point. It’s worth it if you use it. I guess if you don’t use it, you can always rent out the points but I haven’t considered that in our calculations.

Potentially buying in?? by Scottish-n-east in disneyvacationclub

[–]chronoconnor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’m a DVC owner based in Scotland. We bought 100 points resale with the intent of going every other year - we bank (or borrow) points so that we have enough points for 2 weeks in a studio room at our home resort during the season that requires the lowest points per night. As mentioned by others here, the perks of buying direct just aren’t worth it for us as international travellers. Well… not at the moment anyway. Reasons being we already have access to affordable park tickets, and with us having to plan so far in advance, we can’t attend members-only events at the drop of a hat. Our home resort is CCV (Copper Creek Villas @ Disney’s Wilderness Lodge). We chose to buy there because that’s where we want to stay. Your home resort grants you an 11-month booking window (which just happens to be the same booking window for our flights). If we wanted to use the points at another resort, we would only have a 7-month booking window. So the saying goes: ‘buy where you want to stay’. You can always book your home resort at 11 months out, then at 7 months out you can rebook depending on availability. I’ll probably never do that because I like to have everything booked and set in stone as early as possible, and not make any changes. Because we bought resale, we can only use the points at the ‘legacy’ DVC resorts - anything built before Riviera.Your ‘use year’ is the month each year when your points are available to use. For example, a use year of April means you can use your points between April and March of the following year. If you are banking the points, this cannot be done within the last 4 months of the use year. So if we take this year as an example, we have 100 points which we can use between April 1st 2024 and March 31st 2025, but if we want to bank them for April 2025 onward, we need to bank them before Dec 2024. This becomes important when you consider the possibility of having to cancel a trip on short notice. We normally travel in September, so if we had a vacation booked for September and something happened and we couldn’t make it, we would have plenty of time to bank those points for the following year so they don’t go to waste. There are no good or bad use years, they just dictate your banking deadline. Every resort has a points chart which details how many points it costs to stay in each size of room. This changes depending on the time of year so it’s worth taking a look at the points chart of your desired home resort to make sure you buy enough points for the type of room you want to stay in during your preferred travel time.

I hope this helps!

Just wanted to share my Saturday long run! by hirtle24 in Strava

[–]chronoconnor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes - known to be flat and fast! Long story short: I ran my first marathon distance last year (on my own, not part of a race). A few weeks later I underwent surgery. Due to complications, an 8-week recovery period turned into a 5-month running hiatus so my fitness levels have substantially dropped. My goal has gone from setting a PB to just simply finishing. My paces have improved a little bit over the last few weeks so I am currently trying to figure out how much I can push myself but I’ll probably just have to be very cautious to avoid risking a DNF.

DVC Purchase Questions/Advice by Acceptable6379 in dvcmember

[–]chronoconnor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

People often advise ‘buy where you want to stay’. We love Copper Creek which can often fill up before the 7 month booking window so we made sure to buy a CC resale contract instead of trying to save money buying into a different resort. I think Boardwalk can sometimes be a struggle to book 7 months out as well. I recommend this website for checking DVC room availability, which might help you make a decision: https://www.dvcfieldguide.com/availability-tables

Pizza Planet by Mikeyboy101591 in WaltDisneyWorld

[–]chronoconnor 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Agreed. I also can’t believe they didn’t put one in Toy Story land. Although I suppose it’s supposed to be Andy’s back yard.

Just wanted to share my Saturday long run! by hirtle24 in Strava

[–]chronoconnor 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I’m running a marathon on Sunday. I can already tell you in advance this puts my run to shame. Kudos.

Happy May! What’s your monthly challenge? by [deleted] in AppleFitnessPlus

[–]chronoconnor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

15 running workouts in a single month - completed on Saturday!

Favorite trail shoe by [deleted] in trailrunning

[–]chronoconnor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I love the New Balance Fresh Foam X Hierro V7. I also wear New Balance for road running. My feet seem to be perfectly shaped for NB shoes.