Did what I said I would never do...

[BamaGuy44]

Bought 175 direct points at RIV

I was a resale for life guy, but the restrictions worked perfectly on us. Stupid Disney FOMO.

Reasons:

• Decent price after incentives. Not as good as last summer, but I figure the best we'll see on RIV for a while. Even if they come out with better incentives, likely the price will have gone up by then so . I know the smart thing would be to wait until right before the summer incentives start to see, but we have a November trip we wanted to book before the 7 month window opened.
• Magical Beginnings. Don't need the first year points, so $3500 coming back is not too shabby. We had April Use year but went with June for this so we could get 2023 points to use for MB. I don't think the juggling will be bad, we will rarely need to combine the points.
• We love RIV. I wish we didn't so we could stay resale, but we do. Love the Skyliner, the pools, the dining, the rooms, the compact footprint, and the vibe.
• Poly 2 being same association. (I consider it a done deal) We were fired up about Poly 2 but no interest in competing with millions of existing points at 11 months on day 1. If it turns out not to be an issue, can always get resale, or just take our chances at 7 months.

Man the direct process is super easy. TOO easy if you ask me. We should be good on points for at least a few years though. (Famous last words)

 

[InabinettheCabinet]

Bought 175 direct points at RIV

I was a resale for life guy, but the restrictions worked perfectly on us. Stupid Disney FOMO.

Reasons:

• Decent price after incentives. Not as good as last summer, but I figure the best we'll see on RIV for a while. Even if they come out with better incentives, likely the price will have gone up by then so . I know the smart thing would be to wait until right before the summer incentives start to see, but we have a November trip we wanted to book before the 7 month window opened.
• Magical Beginnings. Don't need the first year points, so $3500 coming back is not too shabby. We had April Use year but went with June for this so we could get 2023 points to use for MB. I don't think the juggling will be bad, we will rarely need to combine the points.
• We love RIV. I wish we didn't so we could stay resale, but we do. Love the Skyliner, the pools, the dining, the rooms, the compact footprint, and the vibe.
• Poly 2 being same association. (I consider it a done deal) We were fired up about Poly 2 but no interest in competing with millions of existing points at 11 months on day 1. If it turns out not to be an issue, can always get resale, or just take our chances at 7 months.

Man the direct process is super easy. TOO easy if you ask me. We should be good on points for at least a few years though. (Famous last words)

Yes way to easy haha. Obviously like that by design.

 

[intamin]

One of us! One of us! welcome home neighbor

 

[Wedgeout]

Welcome to the hybrid vacation club member lifestyle!

 

[MarkNC2Disney]

Congrats and Welcome Home, neighbor!

 

[DougEMG]

Man the direct process is super easy. TOO easy if you ask me. We should be good on points for at least a few years though. (Famous last words)

Just live outside the US, then you will be save from buying direct

 

[kboo]

Welcome home neighbor!

You held out longer than I did - I was planning to get some resale RIV "just for Riviera" and ended up buying direct months before the resort even opened... We paid more than you can get for resale Riviera, but we have had several stays since December 2019.

 

[Sandisw]

Congratulations! I think now that we are 5 years in, and they continue to offer some decent incentives, people are able to “soften” their resale restrictions stance to end up with a nice contract!

We love the resort and so will you!

 

[DVC_Eeyore_Fan]

Welcome Home (again) and congrats! We love Riviera and are going to add on there this incentive cycle too.

 

[hokiekkghl]

You're in great company! We bought our first 2 resale contracts in early fall and said we were done for a while and wouldn't buy direct. Went on a last minute adults only 2-day trip for New Years and decided to "just tour". It's so much easier without 3 little ones in tow plus we'd have an idea for down the road. Walked out an hour later as a direct RIV owners

Welcome home!!

 

[BamaGuy44]

Congratulations! I think now that we are 5 years in, and they continue to offer some decent incentives, people are able to “soften” their resale restrictions stance to end up with a nice contract!

We love the resort and so will you!

I'm like you, don't plan on selling and would consider any money I got back out of the contract beyond my stays as a bonus.

 

[tx911]

Congrats!

I'm close to joining you as well

 

[vdangelo239]

Welcome fellow hybrid member! We just did the same last week but 150 pts...all for the exact same reasons...swore I'd never do it...but Disney always wins...

Bought 175 direct points at RIV

I was a resale for life guy, but the restrictions worked perfectly on us. Stupid Disney FOMO.

Reasons:

• Decent price after incentives. Not as good as last summer, but I figure the best we'll see on RIV for a while. Even if they come out with better incentives, likely the price will have gone up by then so . I know the smart thing would be to wait until right before the summer incentives start to see, but we have a November trip we wanted to book before the 7 month window opened.
• Magical Beginnings. Don't need the first year points, so $3500 coming back is not too shabby. We had April Use year but went with June for this so we could get 2023 points to use for MB. I don't think the juggling will be bad, we will rarely need to combine the points.
• We love RIV. I wish we didn't so we could stay resale, but we do. Love the Skyliner, the pools, the dining, the rooms, the compact footprint, and the vibe.
• Poly 2 being same association. (I consider it a done deal) We were fired up about Poly 2 but no interest in competing with millions of existing points at 11 months on day 1. If it turns out not to be an issue, can always get resale, or just take our chances at 7 months.

Man the direct process is super easy. TOO easy if you ask me. We should be good on points for at least a few years though. (Famous last words)

 

[intamin]

Congrats!

I'm close to joining you as well

 

[AstroBlasters]

Bought 175 direct points at RIV

I was a resale for life guy, but the restrictions worked perfectly on us. Stupid Disney FOMO.

Reasons:

• Decent price after incentives. Not as good as last summer, but I figure the best we'll see on RIV for a while. Even if they come out with better incentives, likely the price will have gone up by then so . I know the smart thing would be to wait until right before the summer incentives start to see, but we have a November trip we wanted to book before the 7 month window opened.
• Magical Beginnings. Don't need the first year points, so $3500 coming back is not too shabby. We had April Use year but went with June for this so we could get 2023 points to use for MB. I don't think the juggling will be bad, we will rarely need to combine the points.
• We love RIV. I wish we didn't so we could stay resale, but we do. Love the Skyliner, the pools, the dining, the rooms, the compact footprint, and the vibe.
• Poly 2 being same association. (I consider it a done deal) We were fired up about Poly 2 but no interest in competing with millions of existing points at 11 months on day 1. If it turns out not to be an issue, can always get resale, or just take our chances at 7 months.

Man the direct process is super easy. TOO easy if you ask me. We should be good on points for at least a few years though. (Famous last words)

Welcome to Team Hybrid. Where you can smile because you’ve saved bundles of money & enjoy all of the magical perks of being DVC-Y.

 

[Tatebeck]

Nice! We may join you, but will wait until at least the end of this incentive cycle since our use year is September and we don't need the points right away. I also am curious if they will end up allowing combining different resorts for incentive levels. That's the only way buying a few points into VDH may make sense for us vs just staying off property since there are so many hotels right next to Disneyland

 

[intamin]

Nice! We may join you, but will wait until at least the end of this incentive cycle since our use year is September and we don't need the points right away. I also am curious if they will end up allowing combining different resorts for incentive levels. That's the only way buying a few points into VDH may make sense for us vs just staying off property since there are so many hotels right next to Disneyland

Same, I don't have a need for 150 VDH points, I would be tempted if I could pair it with another resort and do like 50-100 at VDH and 200 at Poly 2 down the line and get incentives for 300.

 

[zachatak]

Glad to see there’s other addicts here. We were resale for life… til we stayed at Riviera. Wife loved the place so that was our first direct contract. Yes, way too easy. Points magically appeared in our account before we even completed the docusign. Just this week we added at VDH. Same scenario where once my family stayed there, we suddenly had to own there. Now I just need to sell some OKW or AKV to offset…. That’s what we told ourselves. Congrats on “giving in”. Hahaha

 

[Tatebeck]

Same, I don't have a need for 150 VDH points, I would be tempted if I could pair it with another resort and do like 50-100 at VDH and 200 at Poly 2 down the line and get incentives for 300.

Yeah, but we are looking at just adding a few onto a direct RIV purchase. We figure it's better to have direct RIV points then add Resale Poly later if tower is same association vs having Direct Poly and then getting Resale RIV with heavier restrictions or buying both direct when we already would have member benefits

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

We bought AUL direct on a DCL cruise on impulse and then discovered the DVC boards and I was like "oh wow, haha, oops, guess I'll never do that again" and then we bought two resale contracts but it was less than a full year before we ended up buying more direct VGF points to stave off future just-in-case FOMO.

We still haven't stayed at RIV but we did get off the Skyliner on our last trip and my kids were very wowed by it and really want to stay there, plus I read somewhere that they have a Pascal themed scavenger hunt that sounds like fun... so obviously I really needed the direct points afterall.