What were your concerns about becoming a DVC member

What were your concerns about becoming a DVC member?

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A lot of people (such as yours truly) bought DVC immediately after taking the DVC tour. Since it is a major purchase, others want to think about it. Some enlightened individuals come to the DISboards to research DVC. Now would be a good place for a shameless plug for my Comprehensive Introduction to DVC thread!

One of the things you hear a DVC member say is: “I wish I would have joined sooner”.

While some folks (like me) immediately join the Disney Vacation Club and become members, others need to think it over before purchasing.

In fact, some give considerable time to working through the pros and cons of buying DVC. Their thought process may take hours, days or even months.
Some people never get over potential concerns or worries they have, and decline the opportunity to become DVC members. Others finally get comfortable with the program and move forward with a decision to buy in.

I thought this thread would be a good place to discuss what your concerns were before you joined.

What were your concerns, and how long did these reservations about becoming a DVC member delay you signing on the dotted line?

For others who are right now facing the same decision of whether to join or not, how did you overcome your concerns?



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• A Comprehensive Introduction to DVC
• Does buying DVC make sense?
• Should I buy direct from DVC or buy resale?
• Choosing your home resort: what to consider?
• The DVC Annual Dues Information Thread
• Why buy DVC if I can keep on renting points?
• Adding on points and owning at more than one home resort
• History of DVC direct sales prices
• Purchasing a Guaranteed Week?
• Understanding Your Use Year
• A financial analysis of buying DVC
• Choices in deeding your DVC purchase
• What were your concerns about becoming a DVC member, and how did you overcome them?
• How familiar were you with your home resort when you first joined DVC?
• An explanation of renting points
• DVC Resort Information

http://i235.************************************************************* DVC Mike - *******.com

We did not have any initial concerns since we had rented twice before purchasing and did thorough homework on the workings of DVC. However, what I wish I would have considered much more seriously was purchasing direct or resale. We were so excited to finally join the club we bought our first contract direct. We figured it was quick, easy and little to no work on our part, just handed over the money. We added on later with a resale contract. The high price to buy in is/was a concern. If I were to do it again, I would go resale all the way and save a load of cash.

Hello,

For us, we knew we really wanted a DVC but it was about money. Five years ago, on our first trip to WDW we did the tour and had the sales pitch and seriously considered. I came home and found out about resale and have been watching since. We recently built a house so that put our plans on hold. We have been to WDW 8 times and have two more trips planned within the next 11 months. It seemed like we were getting less and less for rooms at Disney and paying more. Here are our concerns:

CONS:
1. Will we get tired of going to WDW?
2. Will our children always love Disney?
3. The maintenance fee cost, what if have a bad year? or several bad years?
4. We want to eventually vacation at other places.
5. Should the money be better spent elsewhere like saving for college?
6. We will be spending a lot more money for WDW trips: tickets, food, travel.
7. Having to plan far out in advance and have trouble getting into resorts/room types that we want.
8. We wanted VWL and there is a lot of uncertainty there right now and not as many years left in the contract.
9. Disney is making a lot of changes.
10. Will we be treated like second class citizens by Disney?

PROS:
1. We love Disney!
2. Taking our grand children some day.
3. Taking other family members and friends on trips they could not otherwise take.
4. Giving our children honeymoons.
5. We LOVE WL!
6. Disney is making a lot of changes.

We finally have the money and just signed our first contract that was sent to ROFR yesterday. It took two months of "active/obsessive looking" and 5 years of lurking. I wish we could have bought 3 years ago! It did take awhile to decide what resort and points we wanted.

pmaurer74 said:

Hello,

For us, we knew we really wanted a DVC but it was about money. Five years ago, on our first trip to WDW we did the tour and had the sales pitch and seriously considered. I came home and found out about resale and have been watching since. We recently built a house so that put our plans on hold. We have been to WDW 8 times and have two more trips planned within the next 11 months. It seemed like we were getting less and less for rooms at Disney and paying more. Here are our concerns:

CONS:
1. Will we get tired of going to WDW?
2. Will our children always love Disney?
3. The maintenance fee cost, what if have a bad year? or several bad years?
4. We want to eventually vacation at other places.
5. Should the money be better spent elsewhere like saving for college?
6. We will be spending a lot more money for WDW trips: tickets, food, travel.
7. Having to plan far out in advance and have trouble getting into resorts/room types that we want.
8. We wanted VWL and there is a lot of uncertainty there right now and not as many years left in the contract.
9. Disney is making a lot of changes.
10. Will we be treated like second class citizens by Disney?

PROS:
1. We love Disney!
2. Taking our grand children some day.
3. Taking other family members and friends on trips they could not otherwise take.
4. Giving our children honeymoons.
5. We LOVE WL!
6. Disney is making a lot of changes.

We finally have the money and just signed our first contract that was sent to ROFR yesterday. It took two months of "active/obsessive looking" and 5 years of lurking. I wish we could have bought 3 years ago! It did take awhile to decide what resort and points we wanted.

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Wow, thanks for the detailed response!

Our biggest concern was money based as well. It is just such a large initial expenditure, but after breaking down what we had spent on lodging over the years, it became an easier decision.

DVC Mike said:

In fact, some give considerable time to working through the pros and cons of buying DVC. Their thought process may take hours, days or even months.

What were your concerns, and how long did these reservations about becoming a DVC member delay you signing on the dotted line?

For others who are right now facing the same decision of whether to join or not, how did you overcome your concerns?

Click to expand...

Our timeline from "1st tour" to signing paperwork: Six years. LOL

Our concern, holding us back: Although we travel to WDW every year for business travel - paid by our employer, we really don't see WDW as a personal vacation destination. Indeed, we were into cruising the world, local stays in Western US, National Parks, and a local resort in the San Diego mountains with hot springs and horses (two of my favorite things). Instead of buying DVC, we looked more thoroughly into other timeshare options and purchased Worldmark (for the Western States), a local SoCal coastal resort (for Day Use access of pools and fitness center), a week in South Africa (for RCI trading) and the Hot Springs & Horses resort -- all before adding DVC.

How did we overcome the concern? Our employer quit paying for our travel. We figured that was sufficient motivation for buying into DVC. Sigh.

we love Disney and have been on the tour twice, but as we were staying off site the figures just didn't add up for us. We then started staying on site and it made sense to buy DVC so we're in the process of buying BWV.

We have been WDW fanatics for a couple decades now! And have always wanted to own DVC. However, our biggest hangup was the initial cost of ownership. DVC was just so expensive. My DW's parents bought into Wyndham Vacations a long time ago, and we enjoyed using their points for several years. Enjoyed them so much that we decided to get our own Wyndham contract. We searched specifically for a Wyndham resale that traded into II, since II was the exchange for DVC at the time. Timeshares were taking a dive at this time, and people were practically giving them away. We got a great contract on eBay for $235. We've made great use of our Wyndham/II points over the years and have traded into DVC numerous times.

We took the DVC tour a couple years ago and have come very close to buying on several occasions, but we could just never pull the trigger. Every time we compared the cost of DVC to what we paid for our Wyndham points, our desire to buy DVC would fall flat. Especially considering how well we were doing trading into DVC through II, and then eventually RCI once our exchange contract was converted.

All that changed with our current WDW trip we're planning for this upcoming Thanksgiving. We put in an OGS through RCI back in February. We booked a room at the Swolphin using Starwood points as our backup in case we couldn't get a match, but we were darn near certain we'd be getting our SPG points back after getting a match in RCI. Unfortunately, we have been waiting and keep waiting for a match to come through on RCI. But nothing ever does. Checking other RCI traders' posts on other forums, we've come to realize that the DVC deposits into RCI just aren't there as much as they used to be. We realized we HAD to buy DVC if we wanted to avoid this headache of waiting and not knowing if we'll get a match in the future.

So, we finally put in an offer on a DVC contract that we were just informed this morning was accepted. We are so excited! Now we just need to get through all the paperwork and past ROFR; hopefully in time to have our DVC member cards before our November trip so we can get discounted DVC APs. Fingers crossed for an expedited close.

Actually, we didn't have any concerns. After spending a week at Disney early this year, and my kids begging to go back, we booked a trip for March 2016. When the price came to $4000 (I am not the type to rent points only b/c my schedule is so tight I can only do certain days and has to be planned in advance), we realized that we could spend $12,000 on a contract and this would cover us for what we needed every year, it made sense to buy. Not for everyone, but works for us. However, I admit that I would rather spend somewhat more in order to have things settled in advance and less stressful i.e. renting points and panicking that the few days off I have will be thwarted by someone not paying their dues, etc.

When we bought in we had been burnt by a previous timeshare purchase. We knew as soon as we heard that Disney was creating a timeshare that we would buy in due to the trust in the name. We were staying onsite at DL-AB (now PO-RS), DVC used some of the monies we used for that vacation as part of our down-payment. As an added condition, we required them to set us up with a stay the next weekend (within the cancelation period), to ensure DVC was everything we had been told to expect, and we were so glad that OKW turned out to be as stated. We have had over 20+ years and 140+ plus vacations that we never would of paid OOP for.

I didn't have many concerns. Mine was that I would never get to stay club level at WL again which is my favorite location (we'll still splurge every once in a great while because I can't not go there again!) My husband had a few...
1. Annual dues cost
2. Is it truly as good of a "deal" as it sounded to him (the answer is yes for our family)
3. Will we get tired of Disney?
4. What happened when our daughter gets older? Will she not want to do WDW?
5. What about vacations at other destinations? What do we do with the points those years?
6. Expenses once we get there (tickets, food, cost of travel to get there - we live in WI)

The pros definitely outweighed the cons in our family...
1. Even with the TA discounts I receive, our vacations still cost us about $3000-$4000 per trip (typically without dining plan) because we prefer longer stays in deluxe resorts. The apples to apples cost of DVC to the TA discount couldn't even compare and I couldn't even access resorts like VGF.
2. We don't have to parks every time we visit WDW and we have additional vacation locations like Vero Beach and Hilton Head that are going to be great locations because they have the Disney touch
3. The resale contract I found was under $12,000 at SSR so a few extra years on the contract over the original DVC properties which made it more valuable to me so it will only take us about 6 years of vacations to "break even" even considering the cost of annual dues. I don't expect us to stop going to Disney in 6 years.
4. Aulani. Something that's probably completely out of reach for us outside of DVC, but something we're looking forward to when our daughter gets older, possibly for a milestone anniversary
5. Allowing extended family (my parents or my sister and her husband) to travel with us utilizing one space in a 2 bedroom villa which would be absolutely unattainable if paying out of pocket, especially somewhere convenient like BLT (or VWL whenever the construction is complete).
6. The ability to try new places and "upgrade" our experience without really feeling the sting of the cost (For example...our first DVC stay is booked at BWV. Based on points, I was able to book a 1 bedroom standard view for my husband and I to have a little fall get away). It's a trip we could never take if it was 100% cash/out of pocket cost since we were already in WDW once this year with our daughter.
7. Easily fits the future expansion of our family. Annual dues are more of a "set" cost vs. the variable cost as our family grows. If we decide to have a 2nd child, we're not going to see a large increase in overall cost of our stays outside of park tickets. I think this is a more invaluable thing for families of 5, but it holds true regardless! If we are blessed to have another child, having somewhere close to Disney parks is always helpful for nap time in my opinion, so I'm not going to break the bank to stay there!
8. Call me crazy, but not having to worry about mousekeeping throughout our stay. I like to leave my stuff out, I hate the corners of my sheets tucked in and having to untuck them every. single. night when coming home from the park. I think it will also encourage my hubby to be a little neater with his stuff instead of our room looking like a tornado since we are now responsible for the upkeep of our space.

I'm obviously a believer in Disney (even though they drive me crazy with technical issues and lack of foresight when it comes to bandwidth online), but they treat their guests well. Going from a traveling guest to TA and then seeing how amazing you are treated as a DVC member, it's quite a unique experience! We were waitlisted at BWV so we technically had 3 separate reservations until our waitlist came through. The reservations were seamlessly combined into a single reservation and I was emailed an update the same day. That's not something the the WDW central reservation office can or would do without being prompted. I feel like I'm part of a little elite club now. Can't wait for our first stay to see how the experience stacks up to previous stays!

I only had one concern going in, but I developed a second concern later.

My initial concern was whether I really wanted to commit my family to a 30-50 year financial commitment for a timeshare.

I went to my tour in a heavy Pixie Dust trance, but fortunately had the good sense not to buy. I came home and started researching. Almost immediately, I discovered the DIS, and that really changed everything for me. I researched thoroughly and purchased resale once I was comfortable. I didn't do a long, protracted investigation, but I researched enough that I was confident I understood DVC and the mechanics of how to use the account.

After a few months, I realized I had not purchased enough points (our timeshares are held in a family trust and used by three families), and I made the second purchase direct due to a good promotion.

The second concern arose a few years later, as DD got older and her interests changed somewhat. That issue was that I realized that, as good as DVC was for WDW visits, it was really limited once you left the confines of WDW.

At the time, there was only VB and HHI; now, of course, Aulani and VGC have been added. But frankly, none of those were places I especially wanted to go and after researching a bit I realized that there were other, better and less expensive options at each of the non-WDW destinations. Sure, there was II, and then RCI, but exchanges were not guaranteed and could go away at any time. Plus, they were another system to learn.

We solved the second concern by downsizing DVC and purchasing Wyndham for practically nothing on eBay -- but we took about a 30% hit in selling DVC (although that was expected).

I think both of those issues should really be considered carefully by any prospective DVC buyer. DVC is great for what it is.

My concern was just the whole timeshare thing. I avoided DVC kiosks the first couple of trips, figuring it was just something that would never interest me. When they built VWL, we looked into DVC because WL is our favorite resort. The DISBoards and all the wonderful people willing to share knowledge and opinions made the rest of the process pretty easy. That was 14 years ago and we've never regretted the decision.

My concerns is do I wait and buy DVC through resale and save money or go direct through disney and save the stress of if disney will accept an offer.

Jim Oakman said:

My concerns is do I wait and buy DVC through resale and save money or go direct through disney and save the stress of if disney will accept an offer.

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Disney takes back less than 2% of resale contracts. Depending on the size of the contract, resale could save you $8,000 or more. That's worth a couple months to me.

supersnoop said:

Disney takes back less than 2% of resale contracts. Depending on the size of the contract, resale could save you $8,000 or more. That's worth a couple months to me.

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thanks will consider that

Our concern was the large lump sum expenditure. Previously we couldn't afford to pay cash now we are in a better position to do so. Our last trip in September was our 3rd time renting points. We then started thinking why don't we at least look into owning DVC ourselves. We plan on more trips to Florida, Hawaii, and California. We researched since that last trip and just today our offer was accepted for AKV! The contract ends in 2057 and we are in our mid-40's so we figure we still are young enough to get good use out of it.

Resale is definitely the way to go! Saves a ton of money