I definitely get scared over the idea of something happening to the reservation. It's a lot of money. It's high on our list, but I'm also keeping my eyes open for a solid suite in the Disney Springs area that also has the kitchen, because some of those may end up being a better price.
Do you happen to know, if we're buying our tickets thru our travel host, and we book DVC, can we still do the dining plan? When I tried to "book" rack room it said it required a package. I don't remember needing that before.
What do you mean, buying tickets through a travel host? I've never done that. We buy our tickets through
Undercover Tourist.
Because most DVC owners have APs and don't book packages, they can book the dining plan anytime. Just let the owner know you would like to buy one.
Yes, it is a lot of money though to be honest, we have only rented stays of 1-3 nights, pre-cruise. Well, we also added a 2 night rental onto a regular Beach Club stay. So, I have never booked a week or something like that where it's several thousand dollars. I think the most we spent was $1200.
I was so nervous the first time, I had the poor guy on the phone for like an hour. He was a math teacher from upstate NY. He also gave me a math tip on creating passwords that will never repeat themselves.
Of course, Disney-loving people are so easy to talk to. One night I called when he was out tutoring for upcoming tests, I talked to his wife for quite a while too.
Some owners use a contract, some don't. After a few times, I felt a lot more secure, maybe too secure, where I rented just after texting the guy from San Diego.
These were all people posting on the rental section of the disboards or a similar site call ***********.com which is geared to DVC owners. (It no longer has a rental board.) Most have a high post count. Some let me pay a deposit initially and gave a schedule of when payments were due; some wanted 100% payment at the time of booking.
ALL of them gave me the confirmation # and allowed me to add it to my Disney account so I could
see all the details and make sure it's all correct before I paid them. So it doesn't mean a DVC owner will not screw anyone over, but at least I could see that this person was capable of booking a DVC reservation with access to points and not some nut job impersonating an owner.
When I told a coworker who was taking her grandchildren to WDW, she used David's and still felt like it was a huge savings vs. booking directly. She was happy to have a 2 BR unit so her daughter/son-in-law, and the kids could share the space with her instead of being in separate hotel rooms that may not even be on the same floor. Not that I like to do laundry or cook on vacation, it's nice to have the facilities if needed. We really like a full size fridge and freezer, even if we only eat breakfast in the room. Dh likes a big greasy breakfast like sausage, egg and cheese on an English muffin or bagel. Good thing he likes to cook. If you have a W/D that you don't have to share with strangers, it's easy to throw in a load every now and then so you don't have to pack a lot.
There are probably other brokers besides David's, but he used to be a sponsor of the Disboards before covid. Also he's based in Canada so check if your cc charges a foreign transaction fee if you use him. That could be a substantial amount.
I highly recommend it; just find a way to do it safely.
The best thing to do probably would have been to pay down the card but keep it open. Of course, that doesn't work if you can't keep from using the card. It's really disappointing to work hard to do better just to have something out of your control derail things.
