Actual DVC Benefits

[colten.c]

A new baby Congrats !
And hope you will soon Celebrate DVC .
Keep us posted.
Of course my first thought is traveling on plane with new baby makes trip travel so much more fun ! Can you drive ?

Can’t drive but it’s a short flight from Texas and baby was on a plane at 4 weeks already!

 

[4luv2cdisney]

Another great thing about DVC is you come home to almost no CC bill. Yes, for food, tickets (we even buy the tickets well in advance) and random stuff you buy, but not for the room. MFs are paid in January and forgotten about by the time we travel.

THIS is one of my favorite parts. I always had a hard time enjoying myself because I really felt every dollar being spent.

We pay our dues monthly and it just becomes one of the monthly expenses we don't think about.
We accumulate a lot of miles / cc rewards thanks to business expenses, so our flights are free as is most of our food (unless we are doing a TS heavy trip). So, our total vacation is almost equal to our park ticket cost (or so it feels). We sometimes had APs and my DD was just working there for 7 months (free tickets), both of which are very nice.

I find the whole experience 100x more enjoyable when I don't feel like I'm bleeding money.

Side note: I hadn't run numbers in a long time, but I went to WDW 5 times this year (because my 20 yo was there) and stayed off-site once and also on her CM discount once (50% off a moderate). Using what my points cost me per point (dues plus fraction of buy-in), my DVC stays were slightly cheaper and we haven't even owned for that long. (My DVC points weren't that cheap.)

 

[🍀TwinsMom]

I think bringing extended family or friends is a big deal. We brought my sister, BIL, and niece in a Riviera two-bedroom last year, and it was glorious! So much space. So fun to vacation together -- but they had their own half of the villa to do their own thing, and we spent time in the middle living section. There's no way we could afford to do that without DVC.

We don't have involved grandparents, but MAN, if we could bring them and have them on hand for an additional set of hands with the kids, or even to just hang out in the room so we could get out for a bit as a couple, life changing on vacation! Plus, if you get along, wonderful memories.

I do quick meals and snacks/breakfast/coffee in the room, and that definitely saves money and is nice when we wanted to have popcorn and all were pigpiled on the Murphy bed and club chairs watching Jungle Cruise that visit. So fun!

The relaxed mindset of getting to the next park/ride/restaurant/ADR next time because you'll come back is awesome. My husband and kids appreciate I am no longer a park commando rope dropper, hustling everyone out of bed at 6:30 a.m.

The safety of the resorts IS nice. We can now leave the kids in the room and go upstairs for drinks and a meal at Topolinos since they're a bit older. I mobile order Mickey waffles for them sometimes when I don’t want to cook, and they’re totally fine fetching the food and finding their way back to us since the resort is compact (Riviera.)

Laundry I do every night since everything is gross and sweaty or has melted/dripped food stains on it. Having a baby/toddler, laundry will be life changing!

We only pack carryons and have become much more streamlined in our packing. So nice to come home at night and just unpack the packing cubes and go to bed knowing everything is done.

Having a room with a door for privacy, adult time, and naps is awesome! The baby can sleep in the Pack n' Play in the bathroom vestibule in the master (in one or two-bedrooms,) and the kids enjoy the living room as “their” space. When they’re teenagers and bring friends — or stay up all night long, we’ll get the two-bedrooms for them to be slobs/noisy/sleep until noon and we can enjoy the living room/kitchen for ourselves.

Forced vacations are a good thing for us. We’d never make it happen if we didn’t HAVE to use points, and we love it. We won’t always do WDW, but right now it’s the easiest option for me, mom, the planner. Renting beach houses can be a crapshoot if you are going in cold to a new area/home. Many times you have to bring linens and towels and still cook and clean — for thousands of dollars! WDW and Orlando have tons to do, and I like using it as a base of operations. We go to Universal from DVC and have loved resort-only stays. I would say that’s a benefit.

 

[bakerworld]

We looked into DVC 3 times before we actually joined, our youngest was in college when we finally 'caved'. We tended to live pay check to pay check - or at least it felt that way - and when college hit we were previewing timeshares as vacations. Kudos to you that you can consider DVC with small children because that says you planned better than us. Oh wait, we didn't plan anything so....

We purchased at a point when we were already hopping off to Disney for long weekends about 3 or 4 times annually and choosing to stay at the Yacht Club to be in walking distance (the WS as close as we want to experience Europe now). The cost of the YC hotel room compared with the DVC membership was an immediate savings, even though we financed the membership. I think you can still say this today. I fully admit that we didn't eat meals or do laundry in the villa so for us it was totally about the room cost at a walk-able location.

We have experienced some additional perks and savings like the cost of the AP, the college kid using SSR for spring breaks, gifting rooms to relatives in trade for favors and hosting family vacations in large villas. We do not own many points but the banking and borrowing system works. And we had the best mom/daughters trip all smashed into a BC studio villa.

 

[peabody58]

Actual DVC Benefit: Forced Cost Efficient Stress-Free Vacations that literally saved my sanity, health and marriage. We even retired from IL to GA to be closer to our happy place.