Hey everyone, it's Jacqueline at Pixie Dust PhD. Recently we got some
very exciting news about new Disney Vacation Club villas at the Polynesian,
so we'll go over what we do know and we'll do some speculation in this video--stay tuned!
It's no secret that I love the Polynesian. If you watched my ranking video it was pretty high for
DVC, and just in general we end up spending a lot of time over at that resort even when we're not
staying there… which we haven't stayed there yet, so yeah. I mean, I’m very excited about this news.
I know not everyone feels the same, but let's go over some facts before we get into feelings,
opinions, and speculation. The press release was actually very slim on details. So they are
expanding their Disney Vacation Club villas at the Polynesian. This is projected to open
in late 2024. It will be a tower. There will be additional rooms, new recreation options,
and new dining options. But in terms of facts that's really all we know. They did also share
this artist's rendering. Several press outlets followed up since this news release and they
did confirm that the Spirit of Aloha show will be closed forever. It is going away. Essentially this
tower is going in the same place as Luau Cove, so Spirit of Aloha can no longer operate. A lot
of people are very bummed about this. I never did Spirit of Aloha. It looked very expensive. And as
a person that grew up relatively fortunate on the west coast I’ve been Hawaii a handful of times;
I’ve done a real luau, so I’ve never felt the need to do Spirit of Aloha. I’m sure that is a loss,
but we also are getting new dining options. And the press release does say options plural
in the new DVC tower at the Polynesian, so I’m really looking forward to what those will be.
As is, for the DVC portion of the Polynesian there are 380 villas with a vast majority of those
being studios and then just a handful of those bungalows. I think it's safe to assume though,
not absolutely confirmed, that the new tower will contain one bedrooms and two bedrooms, maybe
normal three bedrooms, maybe some other studios. But considering there are already so many studios,
I wouldn't be surprised if they really focus in on one bedrooms and two bedrooms here. That being
said, of course for two bedrooms, unless they make them all dedicated, it would make sense to
have some studios in the tower that way you can have a mix of dedicated two bedrooms and lock off
two bedrooms--with those one bedrooms and studios next to each other in a lock-off configuration.
Also based on the concept art that they released, which frankly I don't know how closely that has
to stay to current architecture and engineering plans or if they have quite a lot of liberties and
licenses and it'll end up looking very different, but anyway… based on this concept art it does look
to me personally like there are some different size rooms here, with some smaller ones presumably
being studios. We do not know anything about if they're planning on doing those two person only
like tower studios again; like from the drawing it's it's really hard to say. It doesn't look
like anything is particularly tiny, but we'll just have to wait and see. I think also in this
artist concept drawing the further away wings look to be maybe about six stories of rooms,
and then the tallest part of the tower looks to be maybe about 10-ish stories of rooms.
Presumably the bottom floor or two is going to be more general use space in terms of dining, lobby,
other things for all guests, and not necessarily just rooms. Doing a rough count and a very rough
estimate, I would guess you're gonna get maybe around 200 rooms in this tower? I think anything
less than about 150 probably doesn't seem worth it. It can't be a particularly huge tower though,
because you do have the monorail line sort of right behind you in that space, and they're
definitely not doing monorail construction to make room for this tower--that would be ridiculous.
And there's also been a lot of questions about how big the footprint of the tower will be. A
lot of people are concerned that they're going to take away some longhouses that are near that area.
And I don't think Disney has confirmed this, but I highly doubt they would do that.
The longhouses are money; why would you take those away to make a tower that's not going to replace
all of those rooms plus more? Plus, in my opinion, they already have the square footage they need
with this area of the Luau Cove and some of the greenery near it to get a tower in. The point
of the tower is that it is dense, it's compact, it's [a] smaller footprint and just taller to get
more rooms in. As opposed to those traditional longhouses that are really not dense or compact.
And like I said, Disney did confirm that the Spirit of Aloha show is going away, Luau Cove is
going away presumably to make room for this tower. So I think they already have the space planned
out, and if they were going to close three of the longhouses I think we would know about that. Other
things we can glean from the drawing… so it does look like there's going to be a pool, you can see
that on the left edge of the drawing, so that's exciting. Then on the bottom floor sort of at the
front of the tower you can see a bunch of people sitting around--that could be a dining area. And
then what looks to be on the second floor there seems to be the semi-circle area outside with
some other folks; maybe this is a lounge or a bar? Maybe it's a small dining experience? Who knows.
The very top of the tower has these huge windows; it looks very beautiful. These could be grand
villas. Personally I’m hoping for a sort of Top of the World lounge situation, but at the Poly. It's
also entirely possible they make like a Topolino's Terrace but Polynesian themed. So another
[Californian Grill]-esque dining experience where you're at the top of a tall-ish building,
you're gonna get great views, probably signature dining. But again, they haven't told us what the
dining options will be. I do think it's safe to ascertain that there's going to be something on
the bottom floor based on the artist's concept. I would guess it's a quick service, or it may be a
lower priced sit-down? But yeah, if they were going to put very expensive dining in here I
would think they would want to put it at the top of the tower… like part of the advantage of
building a taller structure is those views. So if you're not going to give those to guests spending
a ton of money or a ton of points, one would think you would want to entice people to come spend a
ton of money on overpriced food and drinks for the view. The press release also didn't contain
anything about transportation from this section of the resort. So it's possible that they add
a new bus stop for those locations where you need a bus, like Hollywood Studios you have to bus to.
But in terms of the monorail, like I highly doubt… personally, I don't think you're getting your own
monorail station. I think you're going to have to go walk over to the grand ceremonial house.
Right now, the current Polynesian DVC area, which is over by the TTC does have its own bus stop I
believe for Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. So I do think it's possible that this new tower
area, which is like further away--it's, it's the opposite side of the resort basically--may also
get its own bus stop. But again, for the monorail like I think you're pretty much out of luck when
it comes to that. Current DVC contracts at the Polynesian, so just those studios and bungalows
that already exist, those contracts expire in 2066. Now, it wasn't clear from the press release,
or it wasn't abundantly clear at least from the press release, whether or not the new
tower set to open in late 2024 will be part of the same overall resort as the Polynesian DVC
contracts already or if they're going to treat it separately. So what I mean, for example, is with
the Grand Floridian expansion that is treated as the same as the prior Grand Flo contracts;
so they all have the same expiration date, they all have the same access to all of those rooms,
etc. In contrast, you have Copper Creek and Boulder Ridge, which are at the same resort,
but are treated as separate Disney Vacation Club properties. So they have different expiration
years; if you have a Boulder Ridge contract you don't get priority access at Copper Creek,
and vice versa. Disney has not said in extremely clear terms if the new Polynesian tower will be
part of the already existing Polynesian DVC resort and therefore take on that 2066 expiration year,
and you would have equal access to tower rooms and the already existing bungalows and studios,
or if they will be separate. If they are treated as separate it's typically fairly safe to assume
50 years for contract expiration from any new build; so it's being built and supposed to open
in late 2024… 50 years from that would be 2074 roughly expiration. I personally think that they
will be combined into one resort because I also think that gives them the opportunity
to reshuffle point allocations, and maybe make the bungalows not such a weird situation where they're
often kind of empty and they cost just way way way too many points. With the Polynesian DVC as it is
right now you only have studios in bungalows, so it's a little bit harder to redistribute points.
With a tower, and an additional 200 rooms or so, and some of those being two bedrooms and one
bedrooms, I think it's a lot easier to reallocate the points to make the use of all of those types
of rooms appealing. The other thing that I think would be appealing to DVC the corporation
about combining the tower into the existing contracts is you are then sticking with the
2066 expiration. So you're recouping a few years of time in terms of whenever they decide to resell
or or whatever they'll do when it expires. You don't have to wait those extra years to get that,
which presumably is a shorter amount of time to make more money. So that's my personal opinion.
That being said I think the one clear caveat is that if they wanted to impose resale restrictions
like they did on the Riviera. They couldn't do that if they combined to the tower with
the existing Polynesian resort; you would have to make a whole new resort to change those types of
terms. So if they're really set on these resale restrictions like they implemented at Riviera,
then the tower would have to be its own resort. But all in all, Disney Vacation Club hasn't said
one way or the other, so we can speculate all we want and I would love to hear your opinions in the
comments down below! But we just don't know the facts yet. We also surely do not know the pricing
or the points charts or any of those big factors that may sway your decision to buy in or not.
The last thing I want to touch on is the aesthetics of the tower itself based on
that artist concept image. This has quite the range of opinions based on what I’ve seen over
on Twitter so far. Essentially I think this very much goes with what I’ve been saying for a while,
wherein I feel like Disney is moving towards generic looking buildings--like this could be a
nice Marriott or a nice Hilton that you plopped on a beach on Waikiki. Personally that doesn't bother
me a ton. I think when you're talking about a time share it does feel a little different if you're
considering owning… like do you want to “own” at a generic looking building versus something more
themed? I get that. But for general hotels like it doesn't really bother me to be honest. I think a
lot of people are very bothered. When you think about how it fits in with the resort overall,
I think, I mean I’m the kind of person that is more like wait and see, and let's not judge
drawing. But I do understand that hesitation in terms of you'll have the great ceremonial house;
you'll have the longhouses, which are all very intricately themed, and, you know,
in a different mindset in terms of it's not about being dense and compact--it's way more sprawling;
and then you're gonna walk out towards the Grand Floridian, so up towards the wedding
pavilion I believe, and there'll be this massive tower. And so I do understand that that might be
jarring. I think the theming on the exterior of the building, even if the architecture of the
exterior doesn't really match, I think the theming could tie it in very well. Also, personally,
I’m not too concerned about the exteriors for the most part… like if I’m staying there I want
to know what is the dining--is it good? Is it reasonably priced? Are there good drinks? And
also how are the rooms? Like that's what I care about the most, is the interior of the rooms;
how those are themed I care a lot more about than the exterior of the building. And like the comfort
of the beds, and the the space itself and like does the layout make sense… that kind of stuff.
But that tower style certainly is a departure from the original Polynesian architecture of those
longhouses, and we are seeing this trend towards towers with Gran Destino, Riviera,
and now the Polynesian tower. And I do think it just is about density and efficiency and getting
more people in a smaller amount of space. I also enjoy living in big cities, so tower life really
doesn't bother me. But yeah, let me know what you think. Try to be reasonable; let's not, you know,
be rude and attack anyone. And again it is just an artist concept, and I think we should wait to
fully judge it until it's actually built. But I am very excited about this overall, even if I’m not
crazy about the exterior of the building. I know some people feel it's not worth the loss of Spirit
of Aloha, and some people very strongly feel that the building is ugly and just shouldn't exist as
is in the artist concept. But I think getting more rooms, especially a mix of different
room types--so adding in a bunch of one and two bedrooms, at the Polynesian for Disney Vacation
Club is massive and such a huge upgrade. Also more dining options at the Poly is very exciting to me
because I love what they have going on right now, so thinking about basically expanding
those offerings to more awesome food and drinks makes me very excited. Definitely though let me
know what you think in the comments down below! I know I’m excited, but I want to hear from you.
What are the huge pros and cons that you're seeing from this? Is this starting to make you think
about maybe buying a Poly contract? And what are some details you definitely want more clarity on?
Other than price of course, I think we all want to know that. As the months go on hopefully we
learn more and more details, but ultimately if they stick to this timeline this resort's
gonna be open in less than three years so it's coming pretty fast. As we learn more I’ll try
to keep you updated. It may not always be a dedicated video like this, so definitely tune
into my monthly creator updates for little bits of news that I think are worth sharing.
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I hope the rest of your day is magical, and we'll see you real soon at Pixie Dust PhD!