We were just introduced to DVC on a recent trip. We stumbled upon a DVC seminar and were interested in purchasing. We are a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 young children) living in Southern California with annual passes to DL which may or may not be an annual purchase. We live close enough to DL where we don't stay overnight so DVC would not be used primarily for that purpose. However, we are planning a special weekend trip this year and plan on staying on site for three nights (expected cost of standard hotel room being $2000-3000 for the weekend). If the kids really enjoy the experience compared to a standard day visit to DL and we had DVC points, we'd possibly consider doing this every other year or so. We do vacation in Hawaii yearly for a week at a time, renting a one bedroom condo for $2000-3000 each week and were therefore looking at the Aulani resort as our home resort.
Here now are my questions:
1. would DVC points make sense to use for our yearly visit to Hawaii?
2. we are not entirely familiar with Aulani (only stayed at Waikiki in Oahu), is it pretty isolated on the west side? do visitors just stay on the resort or are there things to do nearby? how far (distance/time) is it from Waikiki?
3. I believe there's a kids club at Aulani (that's what we loved most about our one and only cruise on DCL recently). Is it similar to the kids club on the cruise ships and is it an additional expense or included for resort visitors?
4. would you purchase direct from DVC or on the resale market?
5. could you use resale points for occasional/rare use at other DVC resorts such as at DL? (I've read conflicting information about whether resale points can be used for stays away from the home resort)
6. What is the current discount for annual passes for DVC point owners? and are resale point owners eligible for this? (I believe this is not a permanent benefit but just curious none the less)
7. I've looked into resale brokers (TSS) after reading a bit on DISboards and can't determine how many years remain on the deeds to the properties listed. It seems to me that you can't compare the resale market to DVC direct sales without this information. Is there anyway to determine this information?
8. we are planning a second cruise to the mediteranean in 2014 or 2015 and determined dvc points for cruising is not practical, any thoughts on this?
Thank you in advance.
Here now are my questions:
1. would DVC points make sense to use for our yearly visit to Hawaii?
2. we are not entirely familiar with Aulani (only stayed at Waikiki in Oahu), is it pretty isolated on the west side? do visitors just stay on the resort or are there things to do nearby? how far (distance/time) is it from Waikiki?
3. I believe there's a kids club at Aulani (that's what we loved most about our one and only cruise on DCL recently). Is it similar to the kids club on the cruise ships and is it an additional expense or included for resort visitors?
4. would you purchase direct from DVC or on the resale market?
5. could you use resale points for occasional/rare use at other DVC resorts such as at DL? (I've read conflicting information about whether resale points can be used for stays away from the home resort)
6. What is the current discount for annual passes for DVC point owners? and are resale point owners eligible for this? (I believe this is not a permanent benefit but just curious none the less)
7. I've looked into resale brokers (TSS) after reading a bit on DISboards and can't determine how many years remain on the deeds to the properties listed. It seems to me that you can't compare the resale market to DVC direct sales without this information. Is there anyway to determine this information?
8. we are planning a second cruise to the mediteranean in 2014 or 2015 and determined dvc points for cruising is not practical, any thoughts on this?
Thank you in advance.