Are you surprised by the actual cost of your DVC vacations?

[Tiger926]

We started off with 175 points at Saratoga, for a total of 10 nights in studios with 1 daughter. Our dues added to our buy-in was still a relatively good and manageable total at approx. $1100.00 USD We did multiple trips for the first 2 years, which cost us more money in food and transportation though, so we put a stop to that.

Fast forward to over 2 years after that, and we were gifted with our son (we were told we couldn't have another child), so we added on 125 points at AKV for a combination of studios and 1 bedrooms for approx. 10-11 nights (our add-in was pretty much at-par for CDN exchange). After doing a studio with the 4 of us, we knew that wasn't going to work out, and since we come from Canada, we didn't have the option of shortening our trips as travelling is a big deal to how far away we are. We stopped going multiple trips, and decided just 1 trip per year each summer. Of course now, our dues and buy-in cost had increased.

Fast forward to last month and we did another add-on at AKV for 60 more points in order to stay exclusively in 1 beds for 13 nights per year. Now of course, at 360 points our dues plus buy-in costs have more than doubled in price from original purchase, and I'm having trouble with that as I'm a frugal girl. Now, we are at $1750.00 USD for dues, and our buy-in is now up to $750.00 for a total of $2400.00 USD for 2 weeks. Yikes!

I totally know that we've gone from 10 nights in a studio, to 13 nights in a 1 bed, but those totals are starting to scare me! I know that those same rooms are like $600-$700/night, but we would never have stayed in them, so owing DVC has allowed us to upgrade in a big way. I also know that pricing out a moderate room (this is where we stayed and would stay each summer, unless a great deal on AKV or SSR) is pretty much the same price, or actually a bit more than our cost with the 1 bed, plus, we'd only be going for 9 nights, in order to keep costs down. Once I break it down per night, it's only $223.00/night for a deluxe room, which is great, but that is today with dues as they are, and our CDN exchange is at a very good rate.

I totally don't regret our decision at all to become members, it's just once you break stuff down, and analyze it differently, the numbers are hard to swallow at times on a large-scale perspective. Anyone else feel this way?

Tiger

 

[SLM]

Well, if this makes you feel a little better-you would easily spend that much a week for an oceanfront condo in Maryland-that probably wouldn't be as nice. Restaurant prices are higher than most of the WDW places and a soda purchased on the boardwalk is 2.50. And if it rains, you spend more money finding something for the kids to do. But I certainly understand what you're saying-looking at the numbers it makes you a little stressed, doesn't it?

 

[DisDaydreamer]

You've been assimilated.... resistance if futile.

The cost of good family times is hard to place a value on.

 

[Disneypirate85]

I understand Your concerns as well. We too have noticed we spend as much or more since our buy in. HOWEVER we also understood that we were upgrading in a HUGE way from our Value (Pop) or moderate rooms (POR). I consider myself fruegal as well but I look at the road around the bend, It will be paid off in 3 years and then its just the dues, which are MUCH less then what we were spending annually. My last cash trip with my 2 girls and Wife at Pop with dining plan, tickets was $3,900 that was Our Straw! That was for 6 days at parks 6 nights at Resort left on 7 day. AGAIN looking around the bend in the road and counting down to the payoff! Shawn

 

[Chellymouse]

I'm with you Disneypirate85! Our last trip before we bought DVC was DH and I went for 10 days, 9 nights, a 9 day park hopper with water park, dining plan and we stayed at POR. Our trip, including airfare was $4000 and that was before any extras. DVC has saved us quite a bit of money already and we are looking at an add on hopefully, this spring. I would much rather spend $1750 in annual dues to stay in a 1BR vacation home than $2500 to stay in a cramped hotel room for 10 days! Furthermore, because we have PAP, we are also saving quite a bit on our tickets and now with a full kitchen and gardengrocer.com (we LOVE them!) We save a fortune on food, snacks and beverages!

 

[crisi]

I suspect that its the rare bird who saves money buying DVC. That we go more often, stay nicer, and spend more than we would without it - and that those who are happiest with the purchase did not have "saving money" as an actual top priority.

We elected to keep our WDW trips to every other year (we are in Minnesota and travel is a big deal for us as well). That keeps our dues bill smaller.

 

[christa112]

YES!!! We are spending close to $3,000 on plane tickets, park tickets and DDP.

 

[AirGoofy]

I suspect that its the rare bird who saves money buying DVC. That we go more often, stay nicer, and spend more than we would without it - and that those who are happiest with the purchase did not have "saving money" as an actual top priority.

I agree with you completely. DVC is not about trying to calculate saving money. It is the fun of planning, re-planning, and going on vacations. Since DDs are 7,5, we still spend money on character dining and theme park tickets when we travel to WDW. We did it because DW and I plan on vacationing there for the next 40 years together.

 

[Tiger926]

Interesting responses...

For me, I look at saving in 2 ways - there is saving money on your total vacation budget AND saving money on accommodations. I agree that we don't save any money on our total vacation budget, as we go longer now, and therefore, we need a higher food budget, so this budget is higher. When we were doing multiple trips each year, this cost was really high as compared to what we normally paid before DVC as we had double transportation and food costs, so after a few trips, we went to 1 trip per year, as this was what our normal pattern was. We did have 1 big vacation each year, and before exclusively travelling to Disney it was: Hawaii, Las Vegas, Caribbean and Cruise. Our buy-in cost is really high on a large-scale though since we have 360 points, so with our CDN exchange rate factored in, we are at like $37,000.00 CDN. That seems astronomical as we know people who have purchased condos for a little bit more than that price (not in Orlando though), but again, hubby reminds me of lots of maintenance fees, upkeep, etc. and that cost would go way up, but I know for some it's worth it as it's a vacation home that you own.

The other savings factor for accommodations is a savings as far as we are concerned as moderate prices are pretty close or just a bit more of what our rooms cost with our buy-in and dues. In some cases, they are less as we've secured some great deals on AKL in the past, but you can't count on Disney discounts or promos, so for pretty much the same price, we are staying in 1 bedroom villas. We would never be able to afford those, so that is a huge upgrade for us.

For me, I look at our initial buy-in, and we thought we would stay with that for years. Little did we know that our baby boy would come our way, and then we had to look at upgrading as we have opposite gender children, who are 4 years apart. This then brought our costs up all around: food, accommdations and tickets. It's just that when I look at the costs, they have more than doubled, and that is where I have trouble sometimes. I honestly never thought that our vacations would cost over $5,000.00 with DVC, but they do, as we go for 2 weeks at a time. I guess if we only went for 7-8 days, like most people, our cost would probably be around $3,000.00 as we would have much less points, less food, etc. Variables such as tickets and transportation would be the same regardless though, as we would get APs as we like to schedule 2 vacations on each AP within 365 days apart. As we get older though, our food budget will go down as we'll cook in our villa more often, I'm sure. You can't do that in any other rooms besides DVC!

Like I said, I don't regret it at all, but when I look at the high exchange rate we paid at buy-in, and the increasing costs of food, transportation (if we flew, this would be even higher) and tickets, our vacations keep creeping up. But hubby keeps reminding me that we essentially do 2 vacations in one each summer at WDW as we go for 2 weeks at at time. Now that I think about it, we cut out weekend getaways as they were getting outrageous too as we were spending sometimes $800.00 on 2 days away for shopping and recreation getaways. Disney seems like a bargain now - LOL!

Family memories are the most important thing for us, which is why we bought DVC in the first place! Life is good with DVC and we feel very fortunate, but it's not cheap, that's for sure!

Tiger

 

[disneynutz]

What costs and what most people don't think about is going on vacation every year or two to use up your points and not forfeit them. Transportation, food, and extras all add up.

Before DVC, most folks probably didn't vacation every year. If money was tight, you could stay around the house and save some money. Now you have to vacation, rent out your points or forfeit them.

Bill

 

[culli]

It is staggering when you review the buy in. However, I looked around for the most cost effective way to go at least once a year and stay on-site. There is a convenience factor too that I have with DVC. Also for a soon to be family of 6 (7 with Mom) hotel rooms don't cut it. We stayed at a moderate and lucked out to get adjoining rooms.........we had a great time but not how I wanted to experience Disney on a regular basis. Now staying in a 2 br with kitchen....that is how I WANT to experience Disney. Without DVC I probably wouldn't be able to go every year much less twice and definitely wouldn't be able to afford the experience we have now.

 

[Sandisw]

We started off with 175 points at Saratoga, for a total of 10 nights in studios with 1 daughter. Our dues added to our buy-in was still a relatively good and manageable total at approx. $1100.00 USD We did multiple trips for the first 2 years, which cost us more money in food and transportation though, so we put a stop to that.

Fast forward to over 2 years after that, and we were gifted with our son (we were told we couldn't have another child), so we added on 125 points at AKV for a combination of studios and 1 bedrooms for approx. 10-11 nights (our add-in was pretty much at-par for CDN exchange). After doing a studio with the 4 of us, we knew that wasn't going to work out, and since we come from Canada, we didn't have the option of shortening our trips as travelling is a big deal to how far away we are. We stopped going multiple trips, and decided just 1 trip per year each summer. Of course now, our dues and buy-in cost had increased.

Fast forward to last month and we did another add-on at AKV for 60 more points in order to stay exclusively in 1 beds for 13 nights per year. Now of course, at 360 points our dues plus buy-in costs have more than doubled in price from original purchase, and I'm having trouble with that as I'm a frugal girl. Now, we are at $1750.00 USD for dues, and our buy-in is now up to $750.00 for a total of $2400.00 USD for 2 weeks. Yikes!

I totally know that we've gone from 10 nights in a studio, to 13 nights in a 1 bed, but those totals are starting to scare me! I know that those same rooms are like $600-$700/night, but we would never have stayed in them, so owing DVC has allowed us to upgrade in a big way. I also know that pricing out a moderate room (this is where we stayed and would stay each summer, unless a great deal on AKV or SSR) is pretty much the same price, or actually a bit more than our cost with the 1 bed, plus, we'd only be going for 9 nights, in order to keep costs down. Once I break it down per night, it's only $223.00/night for a deluxe room, which is great, but that is today with dues as they are, and our CDN exchange is at a very good rate.

I totally don't regret our decision at all to become members, it's just once you break stuff down, and analyze it differently, the numbers are hard to swallow at times on a large-scale perspective. Anyone else feel this way?

Tiger

Well, before we bought DVC, we were paying around $2000 a year for 6 - 7 nights in a hotel room at CR. So, your $2400 isn't really that much when you compare it to what it costs to visit the onsite hotels.

Now, I own 180 BLT points. It gets me 6 nights a year--2 in a SV studio and 4 in a SV 1 - bedroom. My dues run around $660/yr. My buy in (if you do it over the 50 years) is $360/yr so I am at $1000.00, which seems like such a bargin!!

Wait....oh no...I think I feel a case of addonitis coming on!!!!!

 

[kristenrice]

I was very surprised at how much I need for our 9-night spring break/Easter 2010 trip....about $800!

Here's the breakdown...

6 people (4 adults, 2 children), my family and my parents
We're all driving together and dad has offered to split the gas cost 50/50. Assuming gas will be $3.50/gal, our half will come to about $350.

First hotel night on the road: $12.50 (that's what it cost to top off my Marriott Rewards and cash them in for a "free" night!)
Second hotel night on the road: $13.00 (Actual cost of $88 but I redeemed MyPoints for a $75 Marriott Gift card!)
Arrival night in Orlando: FREE (Our half of a 1BR at Buena Vista Suites comes to $79 but I have AMEX rewards that will cover it...)

5 DVC nights: FREE! (OK, the "actual" cost that I figured out came to about $1200....2 nights in 2 standard studios and 3 nights in a standard 2BR at AKV)
I have a $600 food budget at WDW....$100 in Landry's GC's from MyPoints, $150 in Disney Visa Rewards, $100 in Sunshine Rewards and $50 in Discover card rewards will cover 2/3 of that.
We bought AP's last June so we do not need park tickets for this trip.
One hotel night on the way home: FREE (Don't know where yet, but I will still have over $100 in AMEX rewards to cover it)
Food on the road: About $200, but that is if we do not bring a cooler from home and pack our own groceries.

So, altogether, I need to pay for gas ($350), 1/3 of the dining ($200) and food on the road ($200). I also budgeted about $50 for tips and gratuities for mousekeeping, bell services and valet. That totals out to $800. I have accumulated almost half of our trip cost by participating in rewards programs which makes it a lot easier to stomach. I cashed out $600 in AMEX rewards last year to cover 1/2 of our AP's so that was a great bonus too.

Only 86 more days.............

 

[cj9200]

In less than two weeks, I will be in a Grand Villa with DD and some of her friends to celebrate her 16th birthday. Spending a lot of points but there is no way I could justify handing over the credit card to pay rack rate. Without DVC, this trip would not happen or would be much different. So yes, what I spend on DVC dues and out of pocket expenses when at WDW are worth it to me.

 

[DisneyDudet]

We could all stay in cheaper resorts/rooms and go less often, but being able to have space and go as often/long as we do is priceless. Plus you are locked into a price and in 15 years, can you imagine what a moderate room would cost?

We bought this past June and banked quite a bit of points into our 2010 amount. That gave us a 4 night trip this past December at OKW, 4 nights this march at OKW, 9 nights in June at BLT, and hopefully a few nights in October somewhere. I added rack rate for those rooms up, and, including my yearly dues, I came out $100 bucks on top. My monthly payment (even if you divided up my dues into 12 months) would cost less than one night in a BLT studio.

You just cannot put a price on a good quality family vacation.

 

[Tiger926]

I am noticing something within the discussion about how others are calculating costs:

I am looking at total costs here, as I'm a bottom line gal! So, even though points are paid for, and our APs were paid for this year, so no tickets for next trip, I still put these into my totals as I like to see exactly how much the actual vacation cost, but I'm noticing not all of you do that. Why is that? Although our vacation doesn't actually cost $5,000.00 out of this year's budget, the total cost is over $5,000.00 - the fact that it's spread out doesn't matter to me. So, my buy-in totals will always be the same as I know the CDN exchange rate, and the small bit of interest we paid (DH is a banker so we only paid like 1-2% interest until his bonus cheque came in), but my tickets, food, transportation and dues will change each year, so the actual total costs will vary each year.

Just something I noticed...Tiger

 

[supersuperwendy]

I suspect that its the rare bird who saves money buying DVC. That we go more often, stay nicer, and spend more than we would without it - and that those who are happiest with the purchase did not have "saving money" as an actual top priority.

We elected to keep our WDW trips to every other year (we are in Minnesota and travel is a big deal for us as well). That keeps our dues bill smaller.

You are sooo right!!! We joined DVC so we could stay in the 2 bedroom villas that we desired so much! We also decided to have another baby since we didn't have to worry about cramming into POR!! I don't think about how much we've paid DVC so far or the plane tickets..passes...I just know when I check into AKV on May 16 on points my 2 bedroom goes for $850/night through Disney so I'm a happy camper!!!! If we were still booking packages that would never happen!

 

[alldiz]

You've been assimilated.... resistance if futile.
The cost of good family times is hard to place a value on.

That cracked me up
I hear ya OP......Now the cost of your vacation after u buy DVC is the "best kept secret"....LOL....
If you get a annual pass.....can u get 2 trips out of it....Say Aug 2010 then July 2011?.
The park passes are a killa.....even if u can get cheap flights. And lets face it.....most people are not cooking everyday....so it does add up.
I do love WDW tho
Kerri

 

[alldiz]

I am noticing something within the discussion about how others are calculating costs:

I am looking at total costs here, as I'm a bottom line gal! So, even though points are paid for, and our APs were paid for this year, so no tickets for next trip, I still put these into my totals as I like to see exactly how much the actual vacation cost, but I'm noticing not all of you do that. Why is that? Although our vacation doesn't actually cost $5,000.00 out of this year's budget, the total cost is over $5,000.00 - the fact that it's spread out doesn't matter to me. So, my buy-in totals will always be the same as I know the CDN exchange rate, and the small bit of interest we paid (DH is a banker so we only paid like 1-2% interest until his bonus cheque came in), but my tickets, food, transportation and dues will change each year, so the actual total costs will vary each year.

Just something I noticed...Tiger

you must be one of those people who pay all your bills everymonth
Totals....smotels.....we're in disney
K
Kerri

 

[FindTheMickeys]

I bought DVC for the sole purpose of having 'paid for lodging' once my contract was paid off (which it is) . So even though I paid $15000 for my contract, since it is now paid off, my vacations going forward cost me my monthy MF's, tranportation and food but no lodging. (I am still working on 2 - 10 day ultimate park hoppers with no expiration that I bought back in 2006 so I have no ticket costs for at least another year). THAT is the glory of the DVC!! I paid for 50 years worth of lodging expenses in today's dollars so that in 20 years, I'm not paying whatever the going rack rate is for Disney. AND I get to stay in a 1 or 2 br villa or a THV and not a cramped hotel room..