Hello, all ... I rarely post to your boards, but have enjoyed reading your comments for months now. Thought I'd weigh in on this because ... well not sure why it pushed my buttons, other than that it becomes increasingly obvious that many DVC members want way more than they are paying for.
When my family bought at BCV it was purely for the savings on lodging - we understand that all the other perks (park discounts, dining discounts, occasional DVC merch. freebies) are not entitlements, only ... well, perks. We also understand that The Walt Disney Company, through its development subsidiary of its attractions subsidiary, made a boatload of money off us and our fellow BCV owners by selling us a resort for much more that it cost to build (and then repossessing it 40 years later.) That's fine with us (and other DVC members, hopefully) as a fair exhange for the value delivered - 70% off the cost of lodging for those 40 years.
My point is this: where do so many of my fellow members get the idea that Disney owes us anything more? Their obligation to us (and ours to them) is clearly spelled out in the contracts between us. While Disney would probably prefer that no one (member or not) every spend a dime off its property, they also know that the total of Orlando's tourism potential is greater than sum of its parts - in other words, Universal, et al., help bring more tourist dollars into the area than they siphon off from Disney coffers. In the long run, they know, we're all going to spend more money with Disney as members than not, and even if we didn't buy a single burger from them again, they've already made a healthy profit from us. You'll recall from your macro-economics courses in college that discounts are a significant cost to be weighed against the increased revenue to be gained - and Disney, as always, has high ROI demands from its revenue producing assets. In short, will you buy 50% more burgers in exchange for a 50% discount? Probably not ...
So on behalf of Disney (to whom my loyalty is perhaps overly high,) spend your money at WDW, don't spend it at WDW ... whatever. But don't delude yourself into thinking we're more important to the mouse than we are - we're customers whose loyalty is rewarded with significant savings already.
(Oh, and on the subject of Florida resident discounts - we own three rental town houses in Central Florida just off Disney property, but because we spend most of the year at home in Virginia, even we don't get residency breaks. Unless you're going to spend six months of the year in your DVC villa AND get a Florida driver's license, you might as well quit beating that drum.)
Thus endeth the lecture (I feel strangely liberated ...)
