DVC AP& large families?

[rjthkids]

So my family has owned DVC points for over a decade now. We have always just bought tickets when we went but this year I am debating whether or not Annual Passes will be worth it. I have been looking into the DVC discount and I notice that it says "up to 8 discounted passes".

My husband and I have 8 kids and they will all be over 3 (gasp! where has time gone!). That means we are two people over their supposed cap. I know in certain other promotions they have caveats exempting members of an immediate family (like the military discount, which says up to 6 people but they always allow to include an entire immediate family). I am trying to figure out before I try and call DVC if anyone else has been able to buy more than 8 DVC discounted AP passes if they are buying only for them and their children.

TIA

 

[wishicouldgomoreofte]

8 kids!! God love you. It is amazing you are able to afford DVC. You must need a Grand Villa every trip!
It is too bad you didn't just go ahead and purchase the 8 you knew you could. They are $47 more each as of today.
At this point, hopefully prices won't go up again for another 8 months, so you have time.
I don't know if you can get more than 8 at discounted price, but why not just call member services and ask?
Tomorrow might be better, if they need to check with a supervisor to get an override.
I don't know if you will need to "prove" that you have that many, but I would think not. (The discount is meant only for family members living in your household, your address, so 8 fits most circumstances.)
But when you pick them up or go to activate them, you will need your DVC member ID card, and everyone will need ID showing they live at your address.
(I am sure that would not apply to obviously young kids.)
Let us know what you find out.

 

[supersnoop]

It's 8 per use year, per member. Do you have just one login and use year? You might be able to buy some today and some after your use year rolls over, but activate them all at the same time.

 

[loveglobe]

Is the 8 per person limit per DVC member? If you and your husband are both named on the deed then perhaps you can each buy 5.

 

[wishicouldgomoreofte]

It's 8 per use year, per member. Do you have just one login and use year? You might be able to buy some today and some after your use year rolls over, but activate them all at the same time.

That is a good idea.

 

[erionm]

It's 8 per use year, per member.

From the member website:
Limit 8 purchases per household, per 12-month period.

 

[rjthkids]

I will definitely be calling them this week; I just figured I would see if anyone here had BTDT and gotten a definitive answer. I know that some things that Disney sets limits for they sometimes will wave if you can prove it is immediate family members only. If no one ends up replying that has actually done this I will update this thread with the answer we get!

And we are also just starting to approach the issue of having "outgrown" our current DVC points. My youngest will turn 3 in June. So in 4 months we will officially have to count all 10 of us in terms of occupancy and will no longer be able to stay in a two bedroom. We went last year when our youngest three were all under 3 (there are 14 months between the youngest and the twins, so the youngest trio were 1.5, 2.5 and 2.5) Lately we have done treehouse, which has been awesome. I don't know what we are going to do, as we don't have the points for a grand villa for the length we like to stay. We are discussing whether or not to try and get two one bedrooms, or a two bedroom and a studio....not really sure. Our kids are all still very young--- 13, 10, 8, 7, 5, 3, 3, and 2, so I don't know that I like the idea of having to split my husband and myself to monitor kids in separate rooms. One of the nice things is our downtime together after kids are in bed.

My husband likes to joke we should have thought of our DVC vacations before we ended up with so many kids, lol.

 

[DenLo]

You are in a pickle for both the APs and the villa type with the kids all being 3 and up. Doesn't a 2BR lockoff at VGF sleep 10? Perhaps that would be an option for your family. There are murphy beds in the studio and 1BR portions of the lockoff to give you beds for 10 and so do the connecting studios at the Poly--no kitchen, but you would have four bath/shower areas, that could be helpful for your family to get ready in the mornings. I hope the APs work out for you.

 

[lovemygrowingfamily]

I have been wondering this same question. We have 7 children but out youngest is still only 14 months old but the time will come when he will be 3 and we need to buy him a pass to and he will exceed out 8 per member.

 

[loveglobe]

If you can't find a way around it yourself I wouldn't be surprised if you could find someone on this board who'd be willing to help you purchase them as a favor to a nice family.

 

[erionm]

If you can't find a way around it yourself I wouldn't be surprised if you could find someone on this board who'd be willing to help you purchase them as a favor to a nice family.

That won't work either since you can only purchase for immediate family that resides in your household.

 

[Finally DVC]

And we are also just starting to approach the issue of having "outgrown" our current DVC points.

If you decide to add on, you could title the new contract differently than the old one. This would give you two separate memberships and I believe each membership would be entitled to buy 8 APs.

 

[n2mm]

That won't work either since you can only purchase for immediate family that resides in your household.

Not really, I just finished buying APs for myself, my daughter, her husband, and my granddaughter. They don't live in my home. My daughter is a member on my account, so is eligible along with all in her home too, but I had no problem actually purchasing them, however, the problem will be that the system now requires you to assign them upon purchase. Since my daughter's family are part of my friends and family I easily assigned each of their tickets. Now that would be the problem. Since my daughter is an owner on all of my contracts, but lives elsewhere, she gets everything I get via mail.

 

[theyoungs07]

Interesting topic, I was looking for info on whether DVC was reasonable for large families. Like the OP, I have 8 kids and the oldest is 13, youngest will be 6mo. We love WDW and right now go every other year. We are taking our first onsite adventure to see if it is worth it to us as we've stayed in rental homes up to this point. I love the idea of all of us staying together onsite and having it planned regularly. We are staying in 2 POP rooms and I'm not looking forward to that . I'm sorry for hijacking this post, but after our trip in a couple months I may be really looking into DVC.

Since they rent rooms that sleep 12, why wouldn't they allow you to buy 12 APs?

The Grand Villas seem to really jump compared to the 2Brs and I can only fit in a 2BR for about 2.5 more years.

Has anyone had luck with connecting 1BRs or 2BRs? Do they even do that?

 

[MAO]

A 2 bedroom, in most cases, is already a 1 bedroom and a studio connected together. There are some resorts with a few 2 bedrooms that were designed and built to be 2 bedrooms, but the majority of 2 bedrooms throughout the DVC system are 1 bedrooms with a connecting door to a studio. If you're talking about adjoining rooms, instead of connecting, it's always a possibility that you could get that. It's also a possibility that you'd get one room on the 4th floor and the second room on the 1st floor.

 

[erionm]

A 2 bedroom, in most cases, is already a 1 bedroom and a studio connected together. There are some resorts with a few 2 bedrooms that were designed and built to be 2 bedrooms, but the majority of 2 bedrooms throughout the DVC system are 1 bedrooms with a connecting door to a studio.

The split between lock-offs and dedicated 2-bedrooms is very close to 50/50.

DVC Resource Center

 

[MAO]

Well, the point remains. The only 'connected' rooms are for the lock-off 2 bedrooms, not for 2 bedrooms and 1 bedrooms. (And I own at Boardwalk, where there's 0 dedicated 2 bedrooms - I've never gotten one so the percentages are skewed in my experience! LOL)

 

[supersnoop]

Has anyone had luck with connecting 1BRs or 2BRs? Do they even do that?

Nope. There are no connecting rooms other than two bedroom lockoffs, and connecting studios at the Poly.

 

[Dean]

The bottom line is that DVC is a tough option for parties of 9 or more even when the majority are kids. Most of the 2 BR are not really set up for 9+1 or more (a few are) but none are set up for 10. As noted the 3 BR are a lot more points and difficult to get for many options. But it should be only a few year issue as the older one's start to have conflicts and then won't or can't go every trip. Also, as they kids age it should be workable to put some of them in their own studio at times.

 

[erionm]

(And I own at Boardwalk, where there's 0 dedicated 2 bedrooms - I've never gotten one so the percentages are skewed in my experience! LOL)

Per individual resort, the number of lock-offs & dedicated can vary greatly. When looking at all available 2-bedrooms across all DVC Resorts, it's roughly 50/50.