Analyzing Whether DVC Makes Sense to Me - Advice??

[Bill From PA]

I'd appreciate your thoughts concerning our Disney Vacation situation. We get to Disney yearly during our Spring break, March 1 - 12 this year, and stay 7 to 10 days, favoring the 10 day trip. This will probably continue for a long time, with the probability of shorter, spur of the moment trips in the future. We've come to expect to stay in the Epcot area having stayed at Swan or Dolphin 5 times on the Teacher's Discount, paying as little as $139 and as much as $175 per night. I don't expect these rates to stay as low or to be offered as much forever. This last trip, our Swan tab came to just under $2000 for 10 days, so that's the benchmark set in my mind. We're looking to rent points for a BWV Studio Standard view for '07, but that's another story.

Having looked into the BWV and BCV, I'm wondering if it makes sense to sign on to the DVC. We'd only be interested in our 'home' resort being in the Epcot area, we'd certainly want 10 consecutive at WDW per year, possibly more, and we'd be willing to resort hop to a Mod. for Fri. & Sat. and rent those points out if necessary. What else do I need to consider? What drove your decision to go with DVC? How much of a 'hard sell' would we get if we inquired at the DVC office ar BW. Thanks for any insights offered.

Bill From PA

 

[rinkwide]

...we'd be willing to resort hop to a Mod. for Fri. & Sat. and rent those points out if necessary...

If that's the case then DVC will almost certainly be a smart move financially.

As for the sales pitch; You won't get a hard-sell but they will be pushing SSR on you. In my opinion, your purchase there would be a mistake. Make sure and buy an Epcot area resort since that's where you love to stay..

 

[Bill From PA]

rinkwide,

Thanks for the advice and the More Cowbell.

Bill From PA

 

[CarolMN]

Bill - Thought you were already a member, LOL.

Just some random thoughts for you to think about -

If you won't be happy staying anywhere besides the EPCOT resort area, you might want to consider buying only enough points for your 10 day March trips as you can plan those in advance and will be able to get SV or BW view when you do.

You are likely tgoing to have trouble getting BWV or BCV for your "spur of the moment" trips. So maybe you'll want to keep paying cash for those. However, being a DVC member will definitely "spoil" you some. Maybe SSR or OKW won't seem so bad for the "spur of the moment" trips - especially since you say you'd still be willing to hop to a mod to avoid the more expensive Friday and Saturday nights. A 1 bedroom at OKW or SSR is so much nicer than a mod. (We stayed in a mod one night on our last trip - BWV was full and I was very, very glad to get to BWV. We gladly pay the points to stay weekends rather than move).

You'll have to do your own number crunching, but based on your description of your vacation habits, at a minimum, you'll spend about the same and get much nicer accomodations.

Best wishes -

 

[browniemtb]

After reading your post I would definitely consider buying DVC. BWV is available through Disney and both BWV and BCV are available through resale. I was in the same situation. We go every March and stayed at the deluxe resorts, not at teacher rates though. So after crunching numbers of rack rate vs DVC we will eventually come out a head. Our first trip home, BWV, was last week and my family loved the Epcot area. My DW has never been there and we bought BWV sight unseen....though I have stayed at both the Swan and Dolphin so I was familiar with the area.

Sounds like DVC may be a good fit for you. Look into the points required for your March stays and base the purchase off that....but remember standard views are tough to get. From what I've read 90% of BWV is prefferred.

Brownie

 

[las3888]

It took us a couple of years to take the plunge. We were sort of like you, but we travelled 2x a year usually for 4-5 nights each trip. Going on a Sunday through Thursday works out very nicely for us. DVC might not seem as appealling to us if we were to have to have to switch resorts. We also love the EPCOT area too. We were able to go to WDW in the past on some great discount codes, but they no longer offer many to the general public. We bought a resale at BWV because we thought we would just start with 100 points (plus we really wanted BWV). That was enough for us to go 2x a year and stay in a standard view room. We really love it and now that we have DS we have bought more points in order to book a 1 BR for our trips. My husband is very much a numbers-cruncher and he thought that with the codes we could do just as well on our own without DVC, but as I said the codes aren't what they used to be, plus part of our purchase was purely for pleasure too. We are very happy--it sure is nice not having to fork over a ton of money on our trips. We now just have to pay for passes and food etc.

Good luck with your decision!

 

[boatboatboat]

Sounds to me like your needs jive with what dvc bcv/bwv have to offer.

unless you need/want SAB, I would suggest a BWV re-sale.

Your overall cost (lost income on investment)may be more then the Dolphin? But IMO the fact you will get the perks of staying at a WDW resort (ME,DINE PLAN, EMH) will more then off set this cost.

Also IMO, you can buy BWV today, and prolly sell it 10 years from now, for what you paid for it?

Seeing that you already go every year, and already stay in the boardwalk area, why not take advantage of the DVC concept?

Those standard view rooms are quite the value for sure......

 

[Groucho]

You'll probably want to use the point calculator to get an idea of how many points you want.

Since you want an Epcot-area resort, you may want to consider one of the resellers. I've heard good things about the Timeshare Store (as seen in the banner above!) and there are some others... I think they usually list online what they have available so you could get an idea of how many points you want and see if they have a contract that's about the size you're after.

 

[rinkwide]

...you can buy BWV today, and prolly sell it 10 years from now, for what you paid for it...

I feel like a proud papa.

 

[Bill From PA]

Thanks, guys and gals. I started swapping e-mails with The TimeShare Store in conjunction with starting this thread. I suppose they'll answer all my questions in a straightforward manner, I was just confused with the on-going mechanics of this concept. I see on their site that they have a For Sale listing, for example, of 150 pts for BWV at $82 pt, totalling $12,300.00. How is it that, when renting pts., they're offered in the $9 - $12 range? Is this an apples-to-apples relationship? What does the $12.300.00, in this example buy you? Going forward, what would the yearly cost to me be? I'd just like to get your take as members before hearing from The TimeShare Store. Thanks, again, for your advice.

Bill From PA

 

[boatboatboat]

for your 12,300 you will get 150 pts each year.

Dues are in the $4.5 per point EVERY YEAR.

From a mathamatical perspective, assuming you can rent points each year at 10 dollars per point, you could make a case that you are better off to invest your 12,300 and use the income from that investment to rent points. Keep in mind when doing this you don't have to pay the dues, which will increase each year.

At 8% your 12,300 will earn 980 dollars, which will rent 100 points.

IMO as long as rental prices for points are lower then 12 bucks, you can argue that renting cost less.

Now on the flip side, OWNING sure makes things alot easier. you can book 11 mths out with no worries, and you can play the bank/borrow game for a super blow out vacation.

 

[mydogdrew]

for your 12,300 you will get 150 pts each year.

Dues are in the $4.5 per point EVERY YEAR.

From a mathamatical perspective, assuming you can rent points each year at 10 dollars per point, you could make a case that you are better off to invest your 12,300 and use the income from that investment to rent points. Keep in mind when doing this you don't have to pay the dues, which will increase each year.

At 8% your 12,300 will earn 980 dollars, which will rent 100 points.

IMO as long as rental prices for points are lower then 12 bucks, you can argue that renting cost less.

Now on the flip side, OWNING sure makes things alot easier. you can book 11 mths out with no worries, and you can play the bank/borrow game for a super blow out vacation.

I agree will this with one comment. Since you are likely to be paying your vacations out of short-term cash savings, I think it makes more sense to me to utilize a shorter-term, less speculative rate assumption (I would suggest 5%). I know I don't sell mutual fund shares to book a hotel room. This would reduce this to about 60 points annually.

On the plus side, DVC eliminates the inflation risk associated with the actual accomodations. Also BWV is the easiest resort to rent out at $12 per point (combination of location demand and SV option). Having 150 points at BWV is like having 180-200 at SSR, if you use the SV's consistently.

On the negative side, you can't eliminate the inflation risk associated with the upkeep and we hope that underlying cash rates (and rental rates) move in concert with the dues inflation. Unfortunately, this has not been the case in recent years (this is our biggest risk as owners). What Disney does outside of DVC will impact this greatly - at least Disney has the same goal of maximizing room rate return in the future.

 

[bongo59]

DVC was made for folks like you...............be prepared for the these two reactions..............We need more points and Why did not we do this sooner...............it is pretty universal.

 

[Blue&Gold]

Bill---I don't have the full math at my fingertips, but we believe we have "recouped" about 50% of our initial purchase investment and annual fees in about 3 years worth of trips. That was based on paying current "rack rates" and taxes. (Lots of folks forget the 11-12% taxes in their calculations.) Most projections I've read on these boards predict "crossover" in 5-7 years. Everone uses different assumptions... I did not compare to renting points because I never considered that option---I don't like renting anything! It's also pretty hard to calculate the effect of the DVC "perks." We have bought annual passes the last two years for 2 kids and 2 adults at the DVC rates, saving hundreds of dollars.

That said, we are really enamored with the intangibles of DVC ownership---for one thing I've taken more vacations in the past 3 years than I did in the 5 previous to that (of course, I'm not at sea or in the desert this tour). I grew up in Scranton, and love the "Jersey Shore" feel of the BoardWalk---Sure, it's not the same, but Wildwood doesn't have Space Mountain, either.

Good luck with your purchase decision.

 

[Groucho]

Thanks, guys and gals. I started swapping e-mails with The TimeShare Store in conjunction with starting this thread. I suppose they'll answer all my questions in a straightforward manner, I was just confused with the on-going mechanics of this concept. I see on their site that they have a For Sale listing, for example, of 150 pts for BWV at $82 pt, totalling $12,300.00. How is it that, when renting pts., they're offered in the $9 - $12 range? Is this an apples-to-apples relationship? What does the $12.300.00, in this example buy you? Going forward, what would the yearly cost to me be? I'd just like to get your take as members before hearing from The TimeShare Store. Thanks, again, for your advice.

Bill From PA

One thing you'll notice when you start crunching numbers is that "Disney Math" is very complicated! The "new math" they were teaching back in the '70s ain't got nothing on it.

My observations are that if you talk to ten different people on the DIS, you'll get ten different formulas for calculating points costs over the length of the contract. Most people seem to come up with a number in the $5-6 range, some go as high as $11.50. You kind of have to find a formula that is the most sensible to you and crunch some numbers.

Owning does give you some DVC-related discounts that renting won't, but IMHO the discounted annual pass is the big one; the rest aren't sizable and you can get similar or larger discounts with the Disney Visa. You may have an easier time getting the hard-to-get rooms as you don't have to worry about having someone with points trying to rent the rooms for you at the 11-window time, you can do it yourself. This also gives you more freedom to cancel in the 10 months before the 30-day window, which will be much more complicated if you're renting the points.

The annual pass discount might really help you though, if you're looking at 10-day stays and especially if you might take multiple trips during the year.

The danger is that you'll love it so much that you'll have to buy more points, for more visits and/or staying in one-bedrooms instead of studios...! I'm not sure that anyone has dared put the "slippery slope" factor into the point cost calculation.

Good luck!

 

[Dean]

DVC will make sense if you go light on the weekends. For 10 days with 2 weekend, it's never make sense.

 

[NJOYURLIFE]

Bill,
Good luck with your decision. Jerry at the Timeshare Store has been wonderfull working with us. Even when he is not available, everyone there is great.

The weekend points are the killer plus you want to stay in a prime location.

Be carefull though, from what I read here, it usually doesn't stop at one purchase-lol.

PS Thanks for showing me how to delete those cookies.