.and for others, being able to take two vacations a year by staying DVC on the weekdays and paying cash (especially at a 25% members discount) makes it possible.
That explains our cash usage last year. Originally we purchased DVC with the intend of adding on our one week Marriott stays with 5 days at Disney. We didn't really care if we were in a studio or stayed a long time. We had been used to one week commando stays offsite. Getting just a few days onsite to have that experience was enough of a taste. Or so we thought.
Then circumstances contrived to give us our first weekend stay making it an 8 day stay in the warm and beautiful month of May. Of course, Disney seduced us (all those pretty flowers, the warm and accessible pools, long walks in the early morning or twilight, a quick ferry ride to a fancy dinner, and all those extra hours at the park to ride HM).
Suddenly a few days as an afterthought to our offsite stay just wasn't enough. We had to do a week. And oh, we have to bring the rest of the family so we'll ned the bigger rooms. And then we got invited to a New year's Eve date with fireworks, midnight runs through an amusement park, and Disney had us hook, line and sinker.
Two add-ons later, we don't have to pay cash unless we take the entire family down for a grand gathering. (We can't just abandon our May rendezvous or our NYE date for that, can we?)
All in all, I think we've paid about $1000 in extra weekend nights before our add-ons. It was worth it at the time until better deals came around and finances improved.
Oh and don't worry. We haven't ditched our first spouse Marriott. After all, he's taken us to London for 10 days and he's always there for the family. Now we're just happy bigamists with Disney as well.
).
