I am sure you have all read and heard in recent weeks about the upcoming reopening of Disney’s Treehouse Villas. According to the Orlando Sentinel earlier this week, the project has definitely been given the green light but many folks are still wondering how exactly they will be offered to the public, as Disney has been very short on details…
Disney officials haven’t made much of the villas for years, and even now they aren’t willing to discuss their plans in any detail. The company sought and received permission from the South Florida Water Management District recently to tear down the villas and replace them. Disney World spokeswoman Andrea Finger said at least some of the new units would be available for use by resort visitors — the first time any of the Treehouse Villas have been open to the public in several years.
The central question is whether these will open as a new resort to any guest or if they are to become a DVC property, perhaps an extension to Saratoga Springs. (If you want to get an incredible detailed look at these possibilities, try DVCNews.com’s articles from last week. They have one on why it will be a DVC and one on why it will not.) So far, Disney has refused to answer this question and have been unusually tight-lipped in the rumor department.
I honestly would be surprised if this is a Vacation Club resort. It just doesn’t seem to make much sense to me. While these resorts certainly fit into the “home away from home” idea of the DVC, there are only 60 of them. In order to make money on the rooms, DVC needs to sell timeshare interests in amounts that correspond directly to the number of actual properties they have. 60 is such a small number, I just can’t see them investing the money for that.
Also keep in mind that the DVC has two very exciting properties they are going to focus on once Saratoga Springs sells out, the Animal Kingdom Lodge and the Contemporary. Will there really be a big market for the Treehouses with these two out there to buy instead? I’ve been wrong about this before, so I wouldn’t be shocked if the DVC takes it over, but right now it seems unlikely.