Disney is brilliant or I am just not

[crisi]

Well said!!!! Especially the comment re small contracts. But also consider this....

Yes, the children grow up and want to do other vacations or the obligatory choir, sports, event vacations (ooh I've been there too!). In those high school years, I rented my points to family! Then off to college. Adios!!! And off hubby and I go to Disney again. LOL. Actually after all years we love the resorts more than the parks and also spend a lot of time at Vero and Hilton Head. All our contracts have been paid for by this time and it's and easy jump on a plane to a beach. So great for the children while they are young and nice for the adults when the children are gone.

Yep, which is why we haven't gotten rid of ours, but we never had a ton of points to dispose of either (we rent ours through David - most of our friends and family either can't afford a Disney trip, aren't Disney people or have their own membership ). Its just really easy to take your first or second DVC trip and catch a bad case of addonitis - and then three or four years later end up with one contract too many. So you need to be careful and not let the emotions of those early DVC days get the best of you - make an analytical decision - what will we do if we get Disney'd out? What will we do if the dues on this are too much? What will we do if the kids can't travel as teens because of sports schedules?

Renting out is a fine option - but if that is what you are going to end up doing - maybe it makes more sense to rent points for a few years during the early stages of ownership - particularly if you are buying a new resort direct and paying the premium.

 

[scottashackleton]

This is good advice (especially for young families).

Unfortunately, our experience has been the opposite. Our kids are older (two in college and one in high school). We have been going to Disney for 16+ years. Over the past 3-4 years are trips have increased. We used to go every other year and lately we have been going twice a year. We typically travel twice per year. My work used to provide one of those trips.

We have done lots of other trips (all over the world). For our family, Disney is just so easy and nice and fits our needs for a relaxing vacation. It is a quick 2 hour flight from our home.

After you have been to just about every beach in Florida, California, and the Caribbean, you start to realize a "beach vacation" is pretty much the same no matter where you go and you get tired of it (for me, it becomes boring - this is the trip work provided). We are not "city people" that love the lively city vacations (too much stress getting around for us on vacation). Our historic trips were interesting (Getty's, DC, etc.) but not something you feel compelled to go over and over. We do not ski. Europe was a very long flight and I am not a great flyer. It was interesting but the flight penalty is very high for just "interesting". Again, it cuts down how much you really want to do it. Hawaii was great, but again, a very long flight for us and it basically becomes a "beach vacation" once you get there which we have done numerous times in other deluxe resorts (Mexico - multiple locations, St Kitts, St Thomas, Puerto Rico, Nevis, Bahamas, all over Florida, etc.). Ok, we like our vacations!

So, Disney is winning against a lot of other experiences we had. I guess it just fits our requirements for what a vacation is for us the best. I want it to be very simple logistically, easy flight, nice accommodations with room to spread out, and lots of entertainment and eating options we can choose to do (or not do) once we get there that are very easy to access. I want safety to be a non-issue (like traveling off resort in some of our Caribbean / Mexico vacations - not something I want to do again!).

I think our next "lull" will be when all the kids graduate college and before grandkids. Of course once grand kids start showing up I think we are off to the races once again.

All in all, we are going to stick to one trip a year with points and see what happens.

Could not have said it better myself. My wife and I always get ragged on for vacationing exclusively at Disney 3X each year. But hey, if it ain't broken, why fix it? We know we'll be taking our kids once we manufacture them, but for now, we enjoy the Disney experience all to ourselves.

 

[bonrea]

Many people do add on and never regret it.

We have been owners since January 2008. Purchased direct from Disney at AKL, 160 points at $92 per point.

I think the important thing to remember when buying points is to set yourself up with the ability to sell some of them (break large point purchases into smaller contracts) even if you think you never will never want or need to sell.

We did this and it is working out well for us. We have the AKL 160, then on a DCL cruise in April 2011 we purchased 200 at VWL for $100 per point. We then purchased 260 at OKW resale for $52 per point. We use all our points each year and rent sometimes and have transferred to RCI and DCL. Doing the transfer sometimes isn't the best value. DVC Dave rents the points quickly and easily for us when we need to and that pays for dues and more some years. When we get tired of it we can just keep renting and putting money back in the hopper and if need be sell one of the contracts, we will.

The sales guys said that the VWL was sold out but they would check for points availability, it didn't take them long to find the 200 we wanted. Don't let them fool you, there are points Disney has taken back on Right of Refusal for just about all resorts.