Case Study: The Same Epcot-Area Studio Week Costs 74 or 101 Points Depending on Which Resort You Pick

Five identical nights, four Epcot-adjacent and Disney Springs resorts, studios only. MyDVCPlanner priced every night: BoardWalk 74 points, Saratoga Springs 76, Riviera Tower 84, Beach Club 93, Riviera standard 101.

The question we tested

Members choosing an Epcot-area studio usually compare BoardWalk Villas and Beach Club Villas on walkability and pool, and treat the point cost as roughly equivalent. We wanted to know how far apart they actually are on a specific weekend-spanning date range.

We searched MyDVCPlanner for five nights — check-in Thursday 8 October 2026, check-out Tuesday 13 October 2026 — filtered to studios, across BoardWalk Villas, Beach Club Villas, Riviera Resort and Saratoga Springs, and read the per-night point costs the engine used.

Night-by-night results

BoardWalk Villas standard studio: 14, 16, 16, 14, 14 — 74 points.

Saratoga Springs standard studio: 14, 17, 17, 14, 14 — 76 points.

Riviera Tower Studio: 16, 18, 18, 16, 16 — 84 points.

Beach Club Villas studio: 17, 21, 21, 17, 17 — 93 points.

Riviera standard studio: 19, 22, 22, 19, 19 — 101 points.

Saratoga Springs preferred studio: 16, 19, 19, 16, 16 — 86 points.

BoardWalk Villas garden/pool-view studio: 18, 20, 20, 18, 18 — 94 points.

The 9 and 10 October nights are Friday and Saturday; every chart steps up on both.

The spread is 27 points, or 36%

Cheapest to most expensive across these studios is 74 points against 101 — a 27-point spread on a five-night trip, or 36% more points for the same five nights in the same corner of Walt Disney World.

The comparison members actually agonise over, BoardWalk against Beach Club, is 74 versus 93. That is 19 points, or 26%. Nineteen points is not a rounding error: at these rates it is close to a bonus weekend night later in the year.

Night-by-night switching would not have helped here

We also checked whether a split stay — moving resorts mid-trip to take the cheapest available studio each night — would beat staying put. It would not. BoardWalk's standard studio was the cheapest option on all five nights, so the optimal night-by-night itinerary is identical to simply booking BoardWalk for the whole stay: 74 points.

This is worth publishing precisely because it is a negative result. Split stays are widely presented as a points-saving technique. On this date range, in this resort set, the saving is zero, and you would have taken on a mid-trip move for nothing. Split stays earn their keep when charts cross — for example when a resort is cheap midweek and expensive at weekends relative to a neighbour — not as a blanket strategy.

Our search engine evaluates the split-stay combinations automatically, which is how we can say "no saving here" with confidence rather than assuming.

What you give up for the 19 points

Beach Club buys Stormalong Bay and the shortest walk to Epcot's International Gateway. BoardWalk buys the same International Gateway walk, a longer walk to Hollywood Studios, and a quieter pool. Saratoga Springs, at 76 points, buys Disney Springs walkability and no park walk at all.

Those are qualitative trades, and reasonable members weigh them differently. The value of pricing the nights is that you know the trade is "19 points for Stormalong Bay" rather than guessing it is free.

Caveats

Everything above is point cost from the charts loaded for the active vacation year, on one specific five-night window. Change the dates and the ranking can change — that is the argument for re-running the search rather than memorising a league table.

Point cost is also not availability. Studios in this area are among the hardest rooms to book at seven months. MyDVCPlanner does not guarantee any room is bookable, and availability at Disney can change within minutes of our last data refresh.