1st time DVC purchase: Polynesian or Copper Creek

[rubybutt]

I don't see how that's possible. They are written into the association rules and the fixed week is in the contract.

I thought Run Disney was just a numbered week anyway?

My understanding was the special weeks are wed/wed, but on resale they just transfer to the corresponding fixed week. I might be wrong about this. I haven't seen one come up for resale.

 

[Lorana]

What I hate is the special CCV fixed weeks (run disney) don't tranfer on resale. Just the week they are on. At least that is what I have read in the past.

I don't see how that's possible. They are written into the association rules and the fixed week is in the contract.

I thought Run Disney was just a numbered week anyway?

The runDisney special benefits (flexible week, early runDisney registration, etc) do NOT transfer if resold. It’s part of the contract you sign when you purchase a runDisney Guaranteed Week. Only the FW component - which is week 44 for Food & Wine run and the runDisney FW I have - transfers if the contract is resold.

 

[Lorana]

My understanding was the special weeks are wed/wed, but on resale they just transfer to the corresponding fixed week. I might be wrong about this. I haven't seen one come up for resale.

RunDisney FWs are actually any check-in day - I could do Mon to Mon, Tue to Tue, etc. Its one of the big reasons we decided to pick get one.

 

[RoseGold]

RunDisney FWs are actually any check-in day - I could do Mon to Mon, Tue to Tue, etc. Its one of the big reasons we decided to pick get one.

is it actually in the deed? This is really interesting.

 

[VandVsmama]

We are not a Run Disney household, so that won't be a deciding factor for us. But I had no idea that there were DVC contracts out there tied to Run Disney events!

 

[Lorana]

is it actually in the deed? This is really interesting.

It’s not in the deed but in the contract. It’s a special benefit, so it has its own section on what those benefits are, when and how you get them, and when and how you lose them (essentially if the runDisney events stop or if you resell the contract). You are required to sign it as part of closing.

here’s the text for those interested:


runDisney Pre-Registration Program
Acknowledgment and Disclosure Statement
By execution of the receipt set forth on the last page of this runDisney Pre-Registration Program Acknowledgment and Disclosure Statement (the “Statement”), the undersigned purchaser of a vacation ownership interest (an “Ownership Interest”) in a Disney Vacation Club® Resort (“DVC Resort”) acknowledges receipt of this Statement. This Statement serves as the acknowledgment and disclosure statement, as required pursuant to Section 721.075, Florida Statutes, for the incidental benefits program known as the runDisney Pre￾Registration Program (the “Program”) provided by Disney Vacation Development Inc. (“DVD”) to purchasers of Fixed Ownership Interests with a Special Event Right, as defined in the Public Offering Statement, and that include a select runDisney event date, or event dates (“Event Date”), as defined by DVD or runDisney or Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, U.S. Inc. (“WDPR”) in their sole discretion, so long as the event continues to exist, including the undersigned purchaser (“Purchasers”). This Statement contains information about the Program benefits (the “Benefits”) made available by DVD to Purchasers who become members in Disney Vacation Club® (the “Club”).
Any capitalized terms used in this Statement that are not defined in this Statement shall have the meaning provided in the Public Offering Statement provided to Purchaser in connection with the purchase of an Ownership Interest. “Member” as used in this Statement shall mean a Purchaser who has acquired an Ownership Interest directly from DVD and is a member of the Club in good standing pursuant to the terms and provisions of the Club, including compliance with all Club and DVC Resort rules and regulations and current payment of all annual dues and purchase-money financing.
This incidental benefit is subject to change or discontinuation, and requires the payment of a fee. Members who have not purchased the Ownership Interest directly from DVD may not have access to this incidental benefit.
Use of any Benefits and participation in the Program is completely voluntary and payment of any fees or other costs associated with the
Program or any Benefit is required only upon such use or participation. No costs of acquisition, operation, maintenance or repair of the Program or any Benefit are passed on to Purchasers as common expenses of a DVC Resort or the Club. None of the Benefits described in this Statement are a feature or component of a DVC Resort or an Ownership Interest, or of any rights or privileges which are appurtenant to that Ownership Interest, except that the Member’s Fixed Ownership Interest shall provide a guaranteed right to use a
specific type of Vacation Home during a specific week that includes the select Event Date, each year throughout the term of Membership so long as the event is still offered. The continued availability of the Program or any Benefit is not necessary in order for any accommodation or facility of a DVC Resort or the Club to be available for use by Purchasers in a manner identical in all material respects with the manner portrayed by any promotional material, advertising or the Public Offering Statement.
The Program and Benefits are intended for the personal use and enjoyment of the Member and their guests and Benefits obtained through the Program may not be resold. Certain of the Benefits described in this Statement are not provided by DVD and are instead provided by affiliate entities within the Walt Disney Family of Companies. In no event shall DVD or any of its affiliates be liable for any special or consequential damages arising out of or in connection with the use or operation of any Benefit.
A description of the Benefits in the Program currently available to Purchasers is as follows:
runDisney Event(s) and runDisney Pre-Registration
Member is eligible to receive five (5) Pre-Registration opportunities annually for the select Event Date(s) that correspond with the Fixed
Ownership Interest, as reflected on Purchaser’s Purchase Agreement, to be used according to the terms and conditions of the runDisney event registration and so long as the runDisney event continues to be offered.
1. Member is responsible for payment of all registration fees. Registration prices are determined by WDPR and may be adjusted
at any time without notice, in its discretion.
2. Pre-Registration opportunities consist of the ability of Member to enroll in run events during the Pre-Registration period only, which may occur up to 12 months prior to the Event Date. WDW and WDPR (collectively “Disney”) will notify Member of the Pre-Registration period for the applicable run events and facilitate Member’s enrollment. Should Member fail to enroll for run events during the Pre-Registration period, registration cannot be guaranteed.
3. Each of the five (5) Pre-Registration opportunities is valid for one (1) run event, including Challenges, Half Marathons, Full
Marathons, and 10K runs. Kid’s runs and 5K runs are excluded.
4. Members may use Pre-Registration opportunities for themselves and their guests. Pre-Registration opportunities are not redeemable for cash and neither Pre-Registration Opportunities nor completed registrations may be resold. Completed registrations are subject to all other runDisney terms and conditions.
5. Event names and themes are subject to change.
6. Subject to change, the following is the runDisney 2018/2019 Event Date schedule, which shall also serve as an example for
subsequent years:
 Disney® Wine & Dine Half Marathon Weekend - November 1st to 4th, 2018
 Walt Disney World® Marathon Weekend - January 9th to 13th, 2019
 Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend - February 21st to 24th, 2019
 Star Wars™ Half Marathon -- The Dark Side Weekend - April 4th to 7th, 2019
Due to the advance enrollment period required for run events, and depending on Purchaser’s purchase date and the Fixed Ownership Interest week purchased, it may not be possible for Member to receive Pre-Registration opportunities for run events scheduled to occur within the first 12 months of ownership.
Incidental benefits may not be hypothecated, bought, sold, exchanged, rented or otherwise transferred, or used for commercial
purposes. They are solely for your benefit.
In the event any incidental benefit described in this Statement becomes unavailable as a result of events beyond the control of the developer, the developer reserves the right to substitute a replacement incidental benefit of a type, quality, value, and term reasonably similar to the unavailable incidental benefit.
The incidental benefits described in this Statement are offered to prospective purchasers of the vacation ownership plan. These benefits are available for your use a period of 3 years or less after the first date that the vacation ownership plan is available for your use. The availability of the incidental benefits may or may not be renewed or extended. You should not purchase an interest in the vacation ownership plan in reliance upon the continued availability or renewal or extension of these benefits.

 

[RoseGold]

I actually read the VGF documents, and the fixed weeks are limited to a set percentage of any given week. I would imagine the CC version must have something special to account for the inventory changes at the expense of other owners. That's probably why they're only at CC as well. I thought they weren't even available at RIV.

 

[Cabius]

Poly DVC distance to ceremonial house - I hadn't thought of this. So I looked it up on a map. With stuff like this, I'm a visual person and need to see it in order to compare. And you guys are right...it's a bit of a hike. Then I look at the WL lodge map and from what I can tell, the CCV rooms are way closer to the middle of things than at Poly

I think the distance from Tokelau to the Great Ceremonial House compares favorably to the trek from the farther CCV rooms to the lobby -- and especially to Roaring Fork or Geyser Point. There are CCV rooms that are right off the lobby, but that wing of the building does go on for quite a while.

I own at the Poly and have stayed at CCV. Both have phenomenal theming and are among my favorite resorts at WDW. There's not a bad option.

I would choose the Poly if you will be happy staying in Studios, and prefer the convenience of being close to MK/Epcot, and the monorail resorts. If you want a 1BR or 2BR you'd need to book elsewhere at the 7-month window. (My family stayed in a 2-bedroom at CCV this summer, for not too much more than price of 2 studios at the Poly.)

I would choose CCV if you think you'll stay in more 1BR/2BR units, and prefer being slightly more secluded. Booking a studio at CCV can be difficult, even as an owner, so you may find yourself forced to splurge on a 1BR or booking elsewhere at 7 months. (You may even find yourself staying at the Poly, which has great studio availability!)

Or, just do what I did and go with what's in your heart.

 

[Stargazer65]

I recommend flipping a coin.

 

[DaveNan]

I recommend flipping a coin.

or just buy both..... eventually you will....

 

[Sandisw]

I actually read the VGF documents, and the fixed weeks are limited to a set percentage of any given week. I would imagine the CC version must have something special to account for the inventory changes at the expense of other owners. That's probably why they're only at CC as well. I thought they weren't even available at RIV.

If my memory serves me, each resort is no more than 35% of points for FW contracts. No day will have more than that assigned that way.

 

[RoseGold]

If my memory serves me, each resort is no more than 35% of points for FW contracts. No day will have more than that assigned that way.

If the Run Disney FW runs Weds to Weds or something, that's not like the other FWs, at least not the version in the VGF documents.

 

[Lorana]

I actually read the VGF documents, and the fixed weeks are limited to a set percentage of any given week. I would imagine the CC version must have something special to account for the inventory changes at the expense of other owners. That's probably why they're only at CC as well. I thought they weren't even available at RIV.

runDisney special weeks are only at CCV. Guaranteed weeks can be purchased at PVB, VGF, CCV, AUL, and RIV.
Interestly, the language in the contracts around Guaranteed Weeks implies that Disney could offer "Special Event weeks" outside of runDisney. While I already have a GW in the holidays (week 48), if they had offered a Special Event Week that gave me tickets to Candelight Processional and MVVCP each year, I'd be ALL OVER THAT. ;-)

 

[Lorana]

or just buy both..... eventually you will....

So. True. (At least in my case!)

 

[VandVsmama]

DH & I talked about this for quite awhile yesterday evening. He's still a bit on the fence about whether or not to proceed with buying ANY sort of DVC contract. He's most familiar with traditional timeshares, which do not retain their value.

For example, 16-17 years ago, my parents bought a boatload of points at a fancy Wyndham timeshare on Maui (Maui Ocean Resort Villas). Enough points where they could stay for 6 weeks in a studio if they wanted to. The contract was for a fixed time of year/fixed week situation. Well, after my mom passed away 11 years ago, my dad and his new wife (he got remarried pretty quickly, but that's a tale for another day) went a couple of times to that timeshare and a sister property on Kauai and decided that they now hated it and weren't going to go back.

He tried to convince my sister to buy it off of him at half of what he & my mom paid for it (which was ironic since our mom told us that we'd inherit the timeshare some day). He then tried to have other people he knew buy it from him. And looked into selling it through a timeshare reseller, but was dissatisfied with what he'd get for it. He eventually ended up 'selling' the points back to Wyndham a couple of years ago for the cost of the closing paperwork.

So that's what floats through my DH's head when we talk about DVC.

If this were an emotional decision, honestly, I'd buy it flat out today, no questions asked. But this is a joint decision and it's a lot of money to spend for something emotional.

Some of DH's 'complaints'/questions were:

1. What if I want to go to Hawaii instead? We can use the points at Aulani and not pay $700-900/night including tax.
2. What if I don't want to go to WDW every year? We don't have to go every year. We could bank our points into the next year. Honestly, since ODD was 6 (she's 15 now), we've gone on a Disney trip every year or every other year (between DL & WDW). That isn't going to end any time soon.
3. What if I want to go on a trip somewhere else? See answer to question 2.
4. But what if the value per point goes down 10-15 years from now? Based on the track record of steady price-per-point values increasing every year since DVC first started and because of ROFR, the odds of this occurring are low, especially if we purchase DVC at a Florida/WDW resort instead of HHI, Vero Beach, or Aulani.
5. So we basically have to pay these maintenance fees on years when we might not even use it? Yes. But if you factor in the maintenance fees + what you paid for the DVC contract, it still ends up cheaper per night than staying in a moderate resort on site. There's also the option of renting our points out, which would basically cover those maintenance fees.
6. But we could stay at a nicer place off site for cheaper. I've done some research on this. Short answer is - no. For example, Hilton Signia & the Hilton Waldorf Astoria both charge a $45/day resort fee on top of the room rate. Plus add on $30-$40/day at either of those places to park your car. Then add on $25/day to park in the WDW theme park lots. And now it's comparable to staying at a WDW deluxe hotel instead. Hilton Grand Vacations at Tuscany Village has a $25/day resort fee and doesn't appear to charge for parking, but even so, their rate + the resort fees & WDW parking fees basically make it the same as staying in a regular hotel room at WL. So no cost savings.
7. But we could stay at VRBO for cheaper. I'm not staying at a VRBO or AirBNB. There's not enough flexibility for me. I don't like all of the added & hidden fees that get tacked onto the advertised per-night room rate. And I don't want to be arguing with DH a few times a day about his whining of "But I want to go back to the room and take a break!" when none of the rest of us want a break yet.
8. But we stayed at Pop Century a couple of times and those rooms were fine. Yes, those rooms were great. But DH hated the food court after the first day or 2. He even complained to CMs to ask them how come WDW doesn't put a Riviera-quality QS restaurant at the value resort. The CMs were very polite, but you could tell that they had a good laugh in private over that question.

So I then found a "DVC-vs-Cash" spreadsheet on a DVC blog site somewhere (can't remember which site right now). You plug in some #s and it tells you what the present value of your DVC ownership payments are in comparison to the present value of booking hotels instead each year.

And guess what?

DVC ownership is cheaper. In our case, it would be about $21,000 cheaper over its lifetime.

 

[defrogger]

DH & I talked about this for quite awhile yesterday evening. He's still a bit on the fence about whether or not to proceed with buying ANY sort of DVC contract. He's most familiar with traditional timeshares, which do not retain their value.

For example, 16-17 years ago, my parents bought a boatload of points at a fancy Wyndham timeshare on Maui (Maui Ocean Resort Villas). Enough points where they could stay for 6 weeks in a studio if they wanted to. The contract was for a fixed time of year/fixed week situation. Well, after my mom passed away 11 years ago, my dad and his new wife (he got remarried pretty quickly, but that's a tale for another day) went a couple of times to that timeshare and a sister property on Kauai and decided that they now hated it and weren't going to go back.

He tried to convince my sister to buy it off of him at half of what he & my mom paid for it (which was ironic since our mom told us that we'd inherit the timeshare some day). He then tried to have other people he knew buy it from him. And looked into selling it through a timeshare reseller, but was dissatisfied with what he'd get for it. He eventually ended up 'selling' the points back to Wyndham a couple of years ago for the cost of the closing paperwork.

So that's what floats through my DH's head when we talk about DVC.

If this were an emotional decision, honestly, I'd buy it flat out today, no questions asked. But this is a joint decision and it's a lot of money to spend for something emotional.

Some of DH's 'complaints'/questions were:

1. What if I want to go to Hawaii instead? We can use the points at Aulani and not pay $700-900/night including tax.
2. What if I don't want to go to WDW every year? We don't have to go every year. We could bank our points into the next year. Honestly, since ODD was 6 (she's 15 now), we've gone on a Disney trip every year or every other year (between DL & WDW). That isn't going to end any time soon.
3. What if I want to go on a trip somewhere else? See answer to question 2.
4. But what if the value per point goes down 10-15 years from now? Based on the track record of steady price-per-point values increasing every year since DVC first started and because of ROFR, the odds of this occurring are low, especially if we purchase DVC at a Florida/WDW resort instead of HHI, Vero Beach, or Aulani.
5. So we basically have to pay these maintenance fees on years when we might not even use it? Yes. But if you factor in the maintenance fees + what you paid for the DVC contract, it still ends up cheaper per night than staying in a moderate resort on site. There's also the option of renting our points out, which would basically cover those maintenance fees.
6. But we could stay at a nicer place off site for cheaper. I've done some research on this. Short answer is - no. For example, Hilton Signia & the Hilton Waldorf Astoria both charge a $45/day resort fee on top of the room rate. Plus add on $30-$40/day at either of those places to park your car. Then add on $25/day to park in the WDW theme park lots. And now it's comparable to staying at a WDW deluxe hotel instead. Hilton Grand Vacations at Tuscany Village has a $25/day resort fee and doesn't appear to charge for parking, but even so, their rate + the resort fees & WDW parking fees basically make it the same as staying in a regular hotel room at WL. So no cost savings.
7. But we could stay at VRBO for cheaper. I'm not staying at a VRBO or AirBNB. There's not enough flexibility for me. I don't like all of the added & hidden fees that get tacked onto the advertised per-night room rate. And I don't want to be arguing with DH a few times a day about his whining of "But I want to go back to the room and take a break!" when none of the rest of us want a break yet.
8. But we stayed at Pop Century a couple of times and those rooms were fine. Yes, those rooms were great. But DH hated the food court after the first day or 2. He even complained to CMs to ask them how come WDW doesn't put a Riviera-quality QS restaurant at the value resort. The CMs were very polite, but you could tell that they had a good laugh in private over that question.

So I then found a "DVC-vs-Cash" spreadsheet on a DVC blog site somewhere (can't remember which site right now). You plug in some #s and it tells you what the present value of your DVC ownership payments are in comparison to the present value of booking hotels instead each year.

And guess what?

DVC ownership is cheaper. In our case, it would be about $21,000 cheaper over its lifetime.

Question 1: Yes you can goto Aulani, ide say at the 7 month Window Aulani is available atleast 6 months out of the year, but you might have to get the island view or pool view, standard views are usually not available. So as long as you arent to picky about when you travel you can definitly use your points at Aulani Hawaii
2. Yes you can Bank into next year, also you can rent your points out from $14 - $16 per point pretty easily as long as its planned ahead of time
3. You can rent your points and use the money to go somewhere else, There is the RCI stuff as well, I havent looked myself, but im told its not a good value for your points
4. Agreed with what you said, chances are for Poly or Copper Creek, Point value will not go down, probably will go up, probably when there is only 20 - 15 years left it will start going down. So unless you were to sell with only 8 years left on your contract, theres a good chance you will get a nice chunk of what you paid back, if you sell in 20 years you might event make a little bit of money, just my opinion on that
5. You can always rent half your points to pay for maintenance fees if you know in advance you arent going
6. This one depends on your point of view, if you compare allot of Resorts outside of Disney it will probably be cheaper to stay offsite, I look at DVC as saving me money compared to paying Cash to stay at Disney
8. I like the Economy resorts like Pop Century, but once we had a kid the room was to small, plus we dont spend 12 hours a day in the parks anymore, so we are at the resort more then we use to, so smaller rooms were gettting to us. When i do the math, DVC is like getting Deluxe rooms for less then Moderate Room pricing. Sometimes very close to Economy room pricing as well

Theres lots of ways to make the math look one way or the other, but i think you are right, when you say you will save about $21,000 over its lifetime compared to paying cash to a moderate resort. Easily saving between $400 - $800 per trip

As far as which resort, I dont think you can wrong with Poly or Copper. As other people have said, just be aware Copper can be hard to get Studios at the 11 month window. I bought at Bay Lake and Boarldwalk knowing Standard Studios would be hard to get but preffered studios would be easy, but even though i knew, i still get fustrated at the 11 month window if i cant get the Standard Studio

But if you go Copper and studios arent available, its very easy to stay at OKW, Saratoga and Animal Kingdom at the 7 month window as a backup plan. Poly actually has allot of availability at 7 months as well.

 

[crisi]

I love the Wilderness Lodge theming, its my favorite resort (home is BWV for me and we almost always stay there). Its easy (currently) to get studios at the Poly or at VAKL at seven months - the same cannot be said for CCV. Poly being on the monorail is great - until it isn't because the monorail is down - and it seems like there is a lot of monorail maintenance - then monorail resorts become bus resorts that aren't used to being bus resorts.

 

[Cabius]

Poly being on the monorail is great - until it isn't because the monorail is down - and it seems like there is a lot of monorail maintenance - then monorail resorts become bus resorts that aren't used to being bus resorts.

No way -- real ones take to boats to MK, even when the monorail IS running.

 

[crisi]

DH & I talked about this for quite awhile yesterday evening. He's still a bit on the fence about whether or not to proceed with buying ANY sort of DVC contract. He's most familiar with traditional timeshares, which do not retain their value.

For example, 16-17 years ago, my parents bought a boatload of points at a fancy Wyndham timeshare on Maui (Maui Ocean Resort Villas). Enough points where they could stay for 6 weeks in a studio if they wanted to. The contract was for a fixed time of year/fixed week situation. Well, after my mom passed away 11 years ago, my dad and his new wife (he got remarried pretty quickly, but that's a tale for another day) went a couple of times to that timeshare and a sister property on Kauai and decided that they now hated it and weren't going to go back.

He tried to convince my sister to buy it off of him at half of what he & my mom paid for it (which was ironic since our mom told us that we'd inherit the timeshare some day). He then tried to have other people he knew buy it from him. And looked into selling it through a timeshare reseller, but was dissatisfied with what he'd get for it. He eventually ended up 'selling' the points back to Wyndham a couple of years ago for the cost of the closing paperwork.

So that's what floats through my DH's head when we talk about DVC.

If this were an emotional decision, honestly, I'd buy it flat out today, no questions asked. But this is a joint decision and it's a lot of money to spend for something emotional.

Some of DH's 'complaints'/questions were:

1. What if I want to go to Hawaii instead? We can use the points at Aulani and not pay $700-900/night including tax.
2. What if I don't want to go to WDW every year? We don't have to go every year. We could bank our points into the next year. Honestly, since ODD was 6 (she's 15 now), we've gone on a Disney trip every year or every other year (between DL & WDW). That isn't going to end any time soon.
3. What if I want to go on a trip somewhere else? See answer to question 2.
4. But what if the value per point goes down 10-15 years from now? Based on the track record of steady price-per-point values increasing every year since DVC first started and because of ROFR, the odds of this occurring are low, especially if we purchase DVC at a Florida/WDW resort instead of HHI, Vero Beach, or Aulani.
5. So we basically have to pay these maintenance fees on years when we might not even use it? Yes. But if you factor in the maintenance fees + what you paid for the DVC contract, it still ends up cheaper per night than staying in a moderate resort on site. There's also the option of renting our points out, which would basically cover those maintenance fees.
6. But we could stay at a nicer place off site for cheaper. I've done some research on this. Short answer is - no. For example, Hilton Signia & the Hilton Waldorf Astoria both charge a $45/day resort fee on top of the room rate. Plus add on $30-$40/day at either of those places to park your car. Then add on $25/day to park in the WDW theme park lots. And now it's comparable to staying at a WDW deluxe hotel instead. Hilton Grand Vacations at Tuscany Village has a $25/day resort fee and doesn't appear to charge for parking, but even so, their rate + the resort fees & WDW parking fees basically make it the same as staying in a regular hotel room at WL. So no cost savings.
7. But we could stay at VRBO for cheaper. I'm not staying at a VRBO or AirBNB. There's not enough flexibility for me. I don't like all of the added & hidden fees that get tacked onto the advertised per-night room rate. And I don't want to be arguing with DH a few times a day about his whining of "But I want to go back to the room and take a break!" when none of the rest of us want a break yet.
8. But we stayed at Pop Century a couple of times and those rooms were fine. Yes, those rooms were great. But DH hated the food court after the first day or 2. He even complained to CMs to ask them how come WDW doesn't put a Riviera-quality QS restaurant at the value resort. The CMs were very polite, but you could tell that they had a good laugh in private over that question.

So I then found a "DVC-vs-Cash" spreadsheet on a DVC blog site somewhere (can't remember which site right now). You plug in some #s and it tells you what the present value of your DVC ownership payments are in comparison to the present value of booking hotels instead each year.

And guess what?

DVC ownership is cheaper. In our case, it would be about $21,000 cheaper over its lifetime.

1. Hawaii is pretty easy to book most of the year if you aren't picky about view. We have reservations for January.
2. We never have. We own enough points for an every other year trip. We haven't been to WDW in five years - we've been using points at HHI and now Hawaii. Our non Disney years we took the kids to Europe, Mexico, on cruises, to Washington DC, San Francisco, Boston......(sometimes those were Disney years, we usually take two trips per year, but at MOST its every other year at WDW)
3. If you don't do what I did (and just buy enough points for the every other year plan), you can easily rent out your points to pay for a cash vacation.
4. It might. I look at buy in as sunk costs - am I going to break even on the hotel costs - if I resell my contract and make any money, that's a bonus.
5. Yep, but if you don't use your points, you can rent them for at least twice the maintenance costs. Through a broker this is almost no work.
6. Yep. And that is completely a worthwhile consideration. But with teenagers, we liked that they could get back to the resort by themsleves
7. Yep.
8. If they were, don't buty DVC.

Finally, to your last point, DVC has saved us NO MONEY over our ownership - we have certainly given far more to the Mouse with DVC than we would without it. SOME people have the discipline to save money - I suspect most of us don't. It becomes easy to take guests (and maybe end up buying a few more points). No hotel bill makes it easy to spend a little more money here and there. It becomes seductive to sneak in an extra weekend. For us, even with every other year - we've simple take more WDW vacations than we would of (instead of other vacations), we've treated friends and relatives, and we've stayed in two bedroom units. My take - if you NEED to save money for DVC to be worthwhile, then don't do it, there is too much risk.

On a similar note, personally I'd never buy DVC to stay in studios. The whole reason we bought was so my husband (who sounds a little like yours) could have some space to himself on vacation. Or ourselves. We call it the nookie tax. The kitchen and washer dryer has also been really useful. But just making CRO reservations and staying in hotels - especially if you are happy with Values or Offsite, is SO MUCH more flexible and carries less risk.

Finally, your kids are nearing college age - in DVC terms - quickly. That changes a lot. They won't have time or schedules that allow you to travel easily (we haven't travelled much with our kids since high school, slipping in a trip here and there). And you may wish you had the capital you put into DVC to pay the tuition bill. DVC needs to be a mid term decision - over the next ten years. Not short term (one to three) and no one's crystal ball is good enough to see past ten. Your next ten years have a lot of change.

 

[DonMacGregor]

No hotel bill makes it easy to spend a little more money here and there. It becomes seductive to sneak in an extra weekend.

Yup, this right here. For us, it started as an extra weekend for F&W because we live in So Cal, and there are exactly zero other reasons to visit Central Florida in the summer. Our "full" vacations tend to be in late winter or early spring. As I said, it started there...