Advice on membership for newbie

Mrspeaks

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jul 12, 2013
Hello,
We are a family of 4 with two young daughters. I anticipate having a Disney vacation for at least the next 8 years. We enjoy going on Disney World and on Disney Cruises. If we anticipate one Disney vacation a year, should I consider DVC membership? Would I save money? How does DVC work for cruises, are you limited to specific sail dates? We would possibly go to Hawaii once in that time frame and are not interested in the most expensive rooms or resorts while at WDW. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you
 
Hello,
We are a family of 4 with two young daughters. I anticipate having a Disney vacation for at least the next 8 years.

You would have to see if buying would make more financial sense for you than renting or just using cash reservations with the discounts Disney provides. The break-even point on many resales is 8 to 10 years, so you may find it's not worth the financial investment for you.

We enjoy going on Disney World and on Disney Cruises. If we anticipate one Disney vacation a year, should I consider DVC membership? Would I save money?

You'll save money if you usually stay at deluxe resorts at Disney. Breaking it down in a very simplified way, you basically get a DVC villa at a deluxe resort for around what people pay for a moderate.

How does DVC work for cruises, are you limited to specific sail dates? We would possibly go to Hawaii once in that time frame

You would have to purchase your points directly from Disney (instead of on the resale market) to be eligible to use them for Disney cruises. But many would caution you that cruising is a terrible value for your points because the point requirements are very high. You might be better off renting out your points and using that cash to book a cruise.

and are not interested in the most expensive rooms or resorts while at WDW. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you "aren't interested in the most expensive rooms or resorts." DVC is only at the deluxe resorts, there's no lower tier resorts at the DVC level. Some resorts' contracts cost less upfront, others have lower maintenance fees. But it's not like there's an option for a moderate DVC resort.
 
If you normally do not stay at Disney Deluxe Resorts, then DVC may not be for you. Keep in mind that you can only use DVC points to go on cruises if you buy directly from Disney as opposed to buying resale.
 
Hello,
We are a family of 4 with two young daughters. I anticipate having a Disney vacation for at least the next 8 years. We enjoy going on Disney World and on Disney Cruises. If we anticipate one Disney vacation a year, should I consider DVC membership? Would I save money? How does DVC work for cruises, are you limited to specific sail dates? We would possibly go to Hawaii once in that time frame and are not interested in the most expensive rooms or resorts while at WDW. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you

IMO, I don't think DVC is a good choice for you.
Because:
1.It requires a considerable investment in cash up front and you don't really see a break even point until about your 8th trip (generally speaking). A DVC membership (read timeshare contract) is anywhere from 30-40 years.

2. Arguably the use of your DVC points to use for a cruise is really a bad use of points in terms of value/return.

3.Would you save money? It depends on your perspective. DVC is not a discount club, any benefits or discounts a member receives is because they have made a considerable investment with Disney in both money and years. DVC resorts are some of the most expensive rooms on site and are considered Deluxe resorts.

Where the "savings" can be thought of with DVC is:
A member buys a contract at say Boardwalk for 100 points and pays $10,000 for it. The contract length is for 30 years, this means that every year for the next 30 years Disney will issue that DVC member 100 points to use towards some type of approved Disney accommodations. There are details about banking, borrowing and one time use points but you should get the idea.

Now when you go to book a room through DVC, depending on the time of the year and size/type of room, all DVC rooms (villa) will have a point value. Say you find available a 1 bedroom Boardwalk Villa for the cost of 100 points for a week, you then can go ahead and book that room; where as a 3 bedroom Villa may be 250 points and not having enough points you can't book this room.

A 1 bedroom Villa at Boardwalk booked directly through Disney (without DVC membership) would be roughly $500 a night, so a week would cost about $3000.

So some simple math shows that a DVC contract at $10,000 with the potential of 30 vacations works out to be muuuuch cheaper than booking a room direct over 30 years. That is where the savings is.
 


i would agree that DVC is probably not a good fit for you. you are considering cruises as a major component of your decision and, as others have stated, DVC is really only a good value for accommodations.

you might try renting a stay at OKW to try out whether DVC is worth it for accommodations alone...
 


I had looked into renting, but it makes me a little nervous.

I can understand, it's best to go through a third party company like David's for renting points. IMO renting directly with an owner, to me, is never a good idea.

I have rented through David's several times and never had a problem.

If you do choose to rent and see if DVC may be a good fit I would recommend trying Animal Kingdom Villas, either Jambo or Kidani. Great theming, great restaurants, great rooms, good pools. Plus the rooms here tend to be on the lower end for DVC points\pricing.
 
I tend to have a different outlook on DVC than most, but my analysis made sense for me so that's why I became a member. I will explain my thinking because it may encourage you to think "outside the mouse" so to speak.

I think anyone gets bored with a lifetime of vacations to the same or similar locations. That's why my view of the value of a timeshare has to do with the options it provides me to go elsewhere. Everything you indicated involves staying in the Disney system, and while I concur with everyone else that that provides you with the most bang for your buck, I think determining if DVC makes sense for you strictly on that criteria would result in many people not finding DVC to be the value that I truly believe it is. The value I see in DVC is that my investment is fixed and the value I receive becomes variable over time as accomodation costs increase. Since hotel prices tend to rise 8-12% annually, over the course of a DVC contract you can get quite a value 20 years down the road when you are using them for an RCI trade into a hot market and still spending the same points for a week away in Aspen for example. In the 10 years I have been a member I have already seen that value occur. Let me explain my entire process.

My initial valuation involved a lot of math, but to do it right, I think it needs to, and I knew I'd be using the number for 40 years, so I figured a little hard match up front with a 40 year payoff was worth it. Take your initial investment for your points and if you are financing obviously include all the interest in the loan. Take your maintenance costs and assume a 2-3% (you pick the level depending on how conservative you want to be) increase per year over the course of the contract and multiply by your points each year (so for me we bought 200 points, so over 40 years I get 8,000 points) and add all that together to get that number. Those are your true lifetime costs of DVC. Now you take that entire total and divide it my your lifetime points to get a cost per point. In my case it is $5.64. That is the magic number I use now for the rest of my life.

So if I want to book a Disney cruise on the Disney Magic in 2016, for a level 5 stateroom in the 1st quarter it will cost me 90 points per person, or 180 points is my wife and I want to go. I take those 180 points and multiply by $5.64 and get $1,015.20. If I can purchase that room for less than that, I am better off using cash. If it is more, than the points just saved me the difference. When I took my family on a trip to Williamsburg, VA a couple years ago, it required 260 points for a two bedroom for a week, or (punch into my calculator and watch the numbers whirr), $1,466.40. The going rate for rooms in hotels that we would stay in as an alternative at that time was $149/night at the best discount I could find and I would need two of them to accommodate 6 of us. Again, using math, I got $2,086 or $1,043 * 2, so having DVC saved me over $500 on that trip alone AND let my family stay together instead of in two hotel rooms and we had a living room and a balcony and access to a very nice pool on top of it. Is DVC worth the investment? It becomes very, very clear for us that yes it absolutely is. As hotel prices keep going up and my kids age and eventually it is just my wife and I and we go to Europe or on African safaris and I an using my $5.64 points to book a safari that is costing me a little over $3,000 per person when everyone else is paying $7,000 in cash, I'll just be smiling away.

Now if you are OK using Motel 6 or Johnny's Sugar Shack for $29/night DVC does not make a good investment, because even 30 years from now those places will be under $100/night and it will be less expensive, but if you prefer moderate to high level accomodations to feel pampered when you are on vacation then I encourage you to spend a little time on the math, find your number and use that to make your decision, because you will be surprised how many times you can save hundreds or thousands of dollars when staying outside of Disney as you will after the kids are gone. You are buying vacations for the next several decades at today's prices. Sure the points may go up to trade out as they are not locked in, and I have never found the trade to the specific hotels cost effective but if you do the RCI trips to some great places in Europe or the US, it is not just Disney vacations you are buying, but the world.

Hope that helped.
 
Here is a couple of thoughts, Disney offers direct buy point usage for destinations other than DVC resorts because it helps them with direct sales. That usage is not guaranteed and sometimes is limited by date or availability. Disney puts their cash customers first, if there are forecasted vacant rooms or cabins, they will allow DVC to book some of the inventory.

Renting is like anything else, the educated consumer shouldn't have any concerns, check references, DIS post count, talk to the DVC owner, only do business with someone that you feel good about who offers a written rental agreement.

:earsboy: Bill
 
I would consider ONLY actual DVC resort stays in whatever financial calculations you do.

Yes, you can use DVC points for Disney cruises but as noted above, the points costs for those are very high. More important, the ability to use points for cruises is NOT guaranteed and could go away, or be severely limited, at any time. In fact, twice in recent years DVC owners have been blocked out of using points for DCL for two periods of 10-11 months at a time! So the cruise option is a very expensive option for a cruise that is vastly overpriced even on a cash basis, and that can disappear overnight.

Yes, you can currently use DVC to exchange through RCI. Currently -- but there is nothing guaranteed about that either. DVC formerly exchanged through II, and then RCI before that. A few other points about using DVC points for RCI exchanges:
  • You will have to learn the RCI system, and it's not as simple as DVC
  • You will have availability mostly at off-season or shoulder-season, and many of the resorts will not be up to DVC standards. You will not get a "hot market" during peak season, and the points grid for exchanges will be subject to change...so the costs could, and likely will, go up.
  • You will not have a full RCI individual membership -- and that is a real disadvantage because you miss out on some RCI perks that are actually worthwhile.
  • If you want something to exchange with in RCI, go to eBay and buy an RCI-affiliated major hotel chain timeshare for $1. You'll get full RCI membership and probably a better exchange vehicle as well. Plus you'll get access to whatever resorts that system has -- which will be better than the RCI exchange benefit.
 
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I also would not use this thread like a poll, following the advice you receive from others who may know DVC well but don't know your personal family and financial situation. You really have to do your own assessment, based on your own situation.

And in that assessment, I would look long and hard at RESALE. Resale should save you 20% to 50%, your points use at DVC resorts will be exactly the same as everyone else's, and the only things you will give up are not worth having anyway.
 
I tend to have a different outlook on DVC than most, but my analysis made sense for me so that's why I became a member. I will explain my thinking because it may encourage you to think "outside the mouse" so to speak.

I think anyone gets bored with a lifetime of vacations to the same or similar locations. That's why my view of the value of a timeshare has to do with the options it provides me to go elsewhere. Everything you indicated involves staying in the Disney system, and while I concur with everyone else that that provides you with the most bang for your buck, I think determining if DVC makes sense for you strictly on that criteria would result in many people not finding DVC to be the value that I truly believe it is. The value I see in DVC is that my investment is fixed and the value I receive becomes variable over time as accomodation costs increase. Since hotel prices tend to rise 8-12% annually, over the course of a DVC contract you can get quite a value 20 years down the road when you are using them for an RCI trade into a hot market and still spending the same points for a week away in Aspen for example. In the 10 years I have been a member I have already seen that value occur. Let me explain my entire process.

My initial valuation involved a lot of math, but to do it right, I think it needs to, and I knew I'd be using the number for 40 years, so I figured a little hard match up front with a 40 year payoff was worth it. Take your initial investment for your points and if you are financing obviously include all the interest in the loan. Take your maintenance costs and assume a 2-3% (you pick the level depending on how conservative you want to be) increase per year over the course of the contract and multiply by your points each year (so for me we bought 200 points, so over 40 years I get 8,000 points) and add all that together to get that number. Those are your true lifetime costs of DVC. Now you take that entire total and divide it my your lifetime points to get a cost per point. In my case it is $5.64. That is the magic number I use now for the rest of my life.

So if I want to book a Disney cruise on the Disney Magic in 2016, for a level 5 stateroom in the 1st quarter it will cost me 90 points per person, or 180 points is my wife and I want to go. I take those 180 points and multiply by $5.64 and get $1,015.20. If I can purchase that room for less than that, I am better off using cash. If it is more, than the points just saved me the difference. When I took my family on a trip to Williamsburg, VA a couple years ago, it required 260 points for a two bedroom for a week, or (punch into my calculator and watch the numbers whirr), $1,466.40. The going rate for rooms in hotels that we would stay in as an alternative at that time was $149/night at the best discount I could find and I would need two of them to accommodate 6 of us. Again, using math, I got $2,086 or $1,043 * 2, so having DVC saved me over $500 on that trip alone AND let my family stay together instead of in two hotel rooms and we had a living room and a balcony and access to a very nice pool on top of it. Is DVC worth the investment? It becomes very, very clear for us that yes it absolutely is. As hotel prices keep going up and my kids age and eventually it is just my wife and I and we go to Europe or on African safaris and I an using my $5.64 points to book a safari that is costing me a little over $3,000 per person when everyone else is paying $7,000 in cash, I'll just be smiling away.

Now if you are OK using Motel 6 or Johnny's Sugar Shack for $29/night DVC does not make a good investment, because even 30 years from now those places will be under $100/night and it will be less expensive, but if you prefer moderate to high level accomodations to feel pampered when you are on vacation then I encourage you to spend a little time on the math, find your number and use that to make your decision, because you will be surprised how many times you can save hundreds or thousands of dollars when staying outside of Disney as you will after the kids are gone. You are buying vacations for the next several decades at today's prices. Sure the points may go up to trade out as they are not locked in, and I have never found the trade to the specific hotels cost effective but if you do the RCI trips to some great places in Europe or the US, it is not just Disney vacations you are buying, but the world.

Hope that helped.



I have figured my costs out similarly, however, I use the buy in cost only divided by the total lifetime points to get a per point cost of about 1.80 per point. Then add the annual maintenance per point to that to get a per point total cost. Actually it is more around 8.00 right now---

And I have to say that your 5.64 is on the low end for just maintenance fees, so your cost is probably higher than you are figuring.
 

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