“A Room with a View”

To readers of E. M. Forster, it’s a 1908 novel. To arthouse moviegoers, it’s the 1985 Merchant-Ivory film based on that novel. To Disney Vacation Club (DVC) members, it’s what they want—and expect—when staying at a DVC resort.

Most of these photos are from villas that I’ve occupied. While no two villas at any resort have exactly the same view, these photos are examples of what you might get if you stay at a DVC resort.

By the way, in the context of this article, a villa is not a luxurious country residence high on a hill somewhere; it’s a term that timeshare developers use because it sounds better than small apartment.

I originally published a much smaller version of this photo essay in February 2009.

, Curator of Yesterland, October 16, 2015

Disney’s Old Key West Resort is woven between the fairways of Disney’s Lake Buena Vista Golf Course. That means that most villas have open views of fairways, ponds, and trees. The photo above is typical, except that it’s unusual not to see any other buildings in the background.

Some buildings are along the Trumbo Canal, a waterway connecting the resort’s small marina to the Sassagoula River which leads to Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney). The villas in these buildings have views of the canal, boat traffic, and the natural woods on the other side.

Disney’s Old Key West Resort was originally called Disney Vacation Club when it opened in 1991. It got its current name when Disney decided to expand Disney Vacation Club from a single location to Disney’s timeshare brand. The trees have had a long time to grow. In some cases, they’ve grown so large that the views of the golf course are partially obstructed, but that’s not bad either.

In my opinion, Disney’s Old Key West Resort has the best—and most consistently good—views of any DVC resort in this photo essay. When you consider that Old Key West also has larger balconies than any other DVC resort and that the balconies have actual tables, it’s the ideal resort for guests who enjoy relaxed meals on their balcony.

Not all villas at Disney’s Old Key West have wide-open views. Studios have smaller balconies, often on the sides of buildings. And those on the ground floor might have no view at all.

Disney’s BoardWalk Villas Resort has three distinct view categories. Standard View villas require fewer points than Boardwalk View and Preferred View villas (DVC is a timeshare system based on points, not weeks). My preference is Standard View. Not only can you get more nights for the same number of points, the views can be quite nice.

The photo above is typical for Standard View villas that are far from the elevator. Although the view includes the driveway and parking lot, the main impression is one of grass, trees, and water. The parking lot is mostly hidden by trees.

When Epcot presents Illuminations: Reflections of Earth each night, the higher fireworks are visible above the BoardWalk Inn Convention Center (left side of photo). Frankly, I wouldn’t get too excited about seeing fireworks from the balcony. If you want to see Illuminations, just walk over to Epcot.

The Standard View villa above is a corner room with an unusual floorplan. It’s quite far from the elevator, but I would gladly stay there again. I don’t mind the longer walk down the hallway. The views are better. And the there’s less noise from guests talking and running in the hallway.

In comparison to the first two BoardWalk Standard View villas, this villa is closer to the elevators are also closer to the porte-pochère—but there are other BoardWalk Standard View villas that are much closer. There’s no view of water from these rooms.

There are DVC members who like the convenience of being near the elevator and don’t mind the view of cars, taxis, and Magical Express coaches.

The trees around Disney’s BoardWalk Villa have grown considerably since the resort opened July 1, 1996. Even on the third floor, a large tree can block most of the view.

The Preferred View villas are those that don’t look onto the actual wooden boardwalk along Crescent Lake and that aren’t categorized as Standard View.

The photo above is what my wife and I called our “butt view” room—based on what we saw as guests headed up to the top of Keister Coaster water slide in their swim suits.

The photo also shows that landscapers planted trees close to the building. The resort opened in 1996, and the trees are quite large by now. When a large tree is directly in front of a small balcony, there can no view at all—and that can be the case for both Standard View and Preferred View villas.

As the photo above shows, there are Preferred View villas at the BoardWalk Resort with better views than the “butt view.” This villa faced the smaller pool, the Community Hall, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Another common view in the Preferred View category is the Walt Disney World Swan hotel.

I wish I could show you the view from a Boardwalk View villa, but I’ve never stayed in one. The view of the wooden boardwalk, Crescent Lake, and the Disney’s Yacht and Beach Club Resorts across the lake should be great. The downside is that it can be loud down on the boardwalk, so a Boardwalk View would not be a good option for someone who likes quiet. Although it requires the same number of points as Preferred View, the Boardwalk View category is preferred over Preferred (if that make sense), so such reservations are booked up quickly. If I were booking early enough to get a Boardwalk View, I would also be booking early enough to get a Standard View (and that’s what I like to book).

I wish I could tell you the exact room number where I took the photo above, but I no longer have it. It was near the end of the hall on a high floor on the side that’s away from Bay Lake.

Except for the villas above the pool, most villas at the Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge have a view of natural evergreen trees. Even the villas on the lake side of the building look onto a cluster of trees between the building and Bay Lake.

Unlike the BoardWalk Villas Resort on the other side of Crescent Lake, Disney’s Beach Club Villas Resort does not have bookable view categories.

Views include the resort’s pool (with the parking lot beyond it), Disney’s Beach Club Resort, and Epcot Resorts Boulevard with natural trees and backstage parts of Epcot on the other side of it. There are no views of Crescent Lake because the DVC resort is separated from the lake by the original Beach Club Resort.

Disney’s Beach Club Villas Resort derives its popularity from it close proximity to Epcot and its access to the wonderful Strormalong Bay swimming pool—which is more of a mini-water park than a typical hotel pool.

This is the first of three photos from Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa. The huge complex has 18 large residential buildings, several lakes, a shoreline facing Disney Springs, some of the fairways of Disney’s Lake Buena Vista Golf Course, and a large “downtown” inherited from the old Disney Institute. Despite a multitude of different views, there are no bookable view categories.

The photo above shows a view toward what was then Downtown Disney and is now Disney Springs. A relatively small percentage of villas have such a view, and there’s no way to guarantee it.

Each residential building at Saratoga Springs has villas facing three directions. For a building next to a lake, more than half the villas face the lake, while the rest, at either end of the building, are along hallways that a perpendicular to the shoreline. In some cases, such villas face roads and parking lots.

Looking at the photo above, you’d never guess that we were in a building adjacent to a lake. Our balcony faced the old Disney Institute Performance Hall, the road through the resort, and parked cars. I loved our villa! I’m serious. We were right next to a bus stop. The Carriage House and restaurants were a short walk away. It was too cold to go to the High Rock Spring Pool (although that didn’t stop some people), but it would have been very close.

I stayed in a studio at a Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas soon after the hotel-to-timeshare conversion opened. I was too busy enjoying the antics of the critters to remember to take any photos.

I didn’t make the same mistake when we returned in October 2009.

Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas Resort consists of two distinct sections. The first section was Jambo House, a conversion of part of Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge from a deluxe resort hotel to a timeshare resort. Then Disney built a dedicated timeshare section, Kidani Village, with its own lobby and restaurant. Both sections have villas that have views of animals (Savannah View) and those that do not (Standard View). Jambo house has a third category (Value) for smaller rooms; with these, you might get a view of animals—or you might not.

Bay Lake Tower is the first DVC resort at a Monorail Resort and the first DVC resort with views of the Magic Kingdom. I’ve never stayed there, but I visited the model in 2009. Surprisingly, the model was on the ground floor.

Overall, I’m very impressed with the villas at Bay Lake Tower. The interiors are sleek and contemporary, yet comfortable.

Now let’s look at the kind of view that makes DVC owners want to pay premium points.

I wanted to see what a Magic Kingdom view might be like, so I took an elevator ride. With a view like this, there’s no doubt that you’re vacationing at Walt Disney World. And I can imagine how spectacular the fireworks are at night.

However, a Magic Kingdom view is also a parking lot view. At BoardWalk Villas, being able to see cars parked on an asphalt lot means a villa is in the lowly Standard View category, requiring fewer points. Apparently, at Bay Lake Tower, the view of the Magic Kingdom is so desirable that people glady exhaust their DVC point balances and look right past the parking lot.

In my opinion, the Villas at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa is the best DVC resort on the Mainland. It starts with the quality of the room. The California Craftsman style is clean and simple, yet warm and inviting. Being a short walk from Downtown Disney and both theme parks is great. And being part of Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel means having the renowned Napa Rose restaurant, the ever-so-pleasant Hearthstone Lounge, the big fireplace in the lobby, and delightful art throughout.

The photo above was our south-facing view into the Paradise Pier section of Disney’s California Adventure (as the park was still named in April 2010). We were on the third floor. In addition to seeing into the park, the view included a tall wall and the backsides of Corn Dog Castle and the defunct Souvenir 66 (now Seaside Souvenirs). The view would have been slightly better from the 4th floor, not quite as good from the 2nd floor, and probably pretty sad from the ground floor.

Our stay was before World of Color premiered. We were treated to testing almost every night. Yes, I enjoyed watching some of the tests. Now that the show is running every night, I’m sure some guests sit on their balconies during the show. However, as I watched the tests, it was clear that the resort balconies provide a limited view at best.

There are no view categories on the DVC point chart for the Villas at the Grand Californian, but there are two distinct views—theme park and pool.

Villa 5514 provides another example of a view into Disney California Adventure. This time, we faced east and were on the fifth floor—the top floor of this part of the resort. The trees of the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail filled most of the view, with a particularly tall tree directly in front of the balcony. The view went well with the theme of the resort.

The living room was not directly behind the tall trees, so we had a panoramic view that included Grizzly Peak, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, the lift hill of Grizzly River Run, and even the desert mountains of Cars Land.

Our next 1-bedroom villa at the Villas at Disney’s Grand Californian was two floors below the one we had stayed in in 2013. We faced a wall of trees, primarily evergreens. Leaning over the balcony railing, we could see Mickey’s Fun Wheel to the right and a resort pools to the left.

As all the trees continue to grow taller, it’s likely that the villas on this side of the resort will eventually all have views of a dense forest, regardless of the floor.

This view is from a Grand Villa—a magnificent two-story villa with three bedrooms and even its own pool table. No, we didn’t stay there. I was able to see the Grand Villa as part of a tour.

I was surprised how nice the view of the swimming pool courtyard is. In some ways, it’s better than a Disney California Adventure view.

DVC villas at Aulani fall into four categories:

• Standard View includes either a view of the conference center, parking lot or parking garage from the room or balcony.
• Island Gardens View includes at least a partial view of the mountains, spa or landscaping from the room balcony.
• Poolside Gardens View includes at least a partial view of the pool, courtyards, water features, or landscaping from the room or balcony.
• Ocean View includes at least a partial view of the ocean from the room or balcony.

For our July 2013 stay at Aulani, I reserved an ocean view villa. Having breakfast on a private lanai with a view of the ocean is the perfect way to start a day in Hawai‘i.

I was very happy with our villa. We were on the 10th floor of the 16-floor Ewa Tower, close to the Maka‘ala lobby. That gave us a great view of the resort’s Waikolohe Valley and the ocean beyond it.

In 2013, Aulani converted a ground-floor DVC Grand Villa into Ulu Café, a poolside grab-and-go eatery. It was part of a a construction project to transform the original wedding lawn at Aulani into new pools, a water play area, spa, decks with more room for chaise lounges, and a dining patio.

To make up for the lost timeshare inventory, Disney declared an equivalent amount (in DVC points) of Standard View Hotel Room inventory into DVC. The point requirement for such a rooms is slightly lower than for a Standard View Studio.

When I booked a one-night Aulani stay for October 2015, I knew we would not spend much time in our room or on our lanai. It made sense to use as few points as possible.

I expected a view of the side of a parking structure or something along those lines. Our lanai actually had a pleasant garden view. Two large electrical service boxes were below the lanai, but they were painted dark green. The parking structure was mostly hidden by bamboo and other plants.

The final view is from a Grand Villa at Aulani—a three-bedroom villa on the 10th floor of the Waianae tower. No, we didn’t spend 159 DVC points per night to stay there; we just took a tour for current DVC members.

A lanai stretches across the entire villa, which is around six time the width of a studio villa. Although Aulani categorizes it as an Ocean View, most resorts would use the even more desirable Ocean Front label because it faces directly toward the coastline and is near it.

In the photo above, the 2013 construction project is underway. That’s why there’s a crane. By now, the view should be even better.

The Grand Villa provides a great view of Lagoon 1 at the Ko Olina Resort. And this just might be the most perfect view at any Disney Vacation Club, anywhere.

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© 2009-2019 Werner Weiss — Disclaimers, Copyright, and Trademarks

Updated April 20, 2019.

Photographs of views from Disney Vacation Club villas: 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2015 by Werner Weiss.