Disney Vaction Club

[GailT]

I am looking into Disney Vacation Club does someone have it and please let me know what you think of it.

 

[Califgirl]

I love DVC and I have 2 other time shares. DVC is by far the most flexible and easiest to use.

The DISboards has 4 boards dedicated to different aspects of DVC. Check in there and you will get all your questions answered, and opinions of DVC galore!

http://www.disboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=7 The DISboards DVC forums

 

[JESW]

We bought August 2007 and LOVE it!! Wish we had done it sooner. We have stayed in 2-bedroom units at The Wilderness Lodge, Saratoga Springs and Old Key West and have loved them all. In April we get to go "home" for the first time to The Animal Kingdom Lodge.

Check out the DVC boards here on the DIS and you will get TONS of information. Of course it all may be a bit biased...

Jill

 

[eliza61]

Check out the DVC boards here on the DIS and you will get TONS of information. Of course it all may be a bit biased...

Jill

Biased indeed! I'm afraid I'm guilty as charged. We've own 10 years now and never, ever regretted it. Many wonderful vacations under our belt.

Op, feel free to pm with as specific questions.

 

[rascalmom]

We purchased a few years ago (2005 I think?) at Saratoga Springs. We've stayed several times there and at OKW.

While we love the concept and really love the properties that DVC offers, the timing may have not been the best for our family - we wish we had done it when the kids were younger.

Our dd's are now 20 and 16 - their school schedules and other activities are making family vacations tougher. We are hanging onto the DVC because we still do enjoy getting to WDW when we can. In the next few years though, I see us trading out to some of the other options. It is not the best use of our points, but we mostly need to make shorter trips now anyway.

This year for Spring Break, we are using our points at the Grand Californian and visiting Disneyland. After that, we would like to try to trade out for a stay in Hawaii for our 25th anniversary. After that, school schedules will be less of an issue for our younger dd & older dd may be at an age where she will be starting a family of her own.

I can see us giving our girls DVC points to use for their honeymoons and taking our grandchildren to WDW years in the future , so yes, I like my DVC.

 

[Disney Doll]

We have owned DVC since 1997 and it is some of the best $$ we have ever spent.

I would give you these thoughts:
~ It is a luxury item. By that I mean that you should not be foregoing something necessary in order to afford DVC.
~ It is a timeshare, despite what Disney wants you to think it is. That being said, their way of using points vs. buying a week gives owners more flexibility.
~ You need to realize that you will be a bit more self-sufficient in a DVC unit. There is not a daily maid service unless you are willing to pay extra for it.
~ One bedroom or larger units have full kitchens and laundry. Some folks don't like that...they want no reminders of "home" or the drudgery of cooking or laundry while on vacation. We do not cook any meals when we are there...we use the kitchen for making light breakfast (ie-cereal or maybe an egg sandwich) and storing our munchies and chilling our beverages. I actually like to have the laundry in the unit because for me, I feel like I can cut down my packing if I can throw in a couple of loads of wash.

I would recommend you very carefully look at the financial aspects, consider how you will like to vacation. DH & I enjoy going to WDW at least once or twice per year, so for us it has been a home run.

 

[Buckalew11]

It took me about 6 years to of looking into it to be able to buy outright because it was not something I felt good about fianancing. However, people do finance it. We bought resale at BCV and I have never regretted it either.
We've done BCV, BWV, OKW, VB and I have loved each of them.

 

[GailT]

We have owned DVC since 1997 and it is some of the best $$ we have ever spent.

I would give you these thoughts:
~ It is a luxury item. By that I mean that you should not be foregoing something necessary in order to afford DVC.
~ It is a timeshare, despite what Disney wants you to think it is. That being said, their way of using points vs. buying a week gives owners more flexibility.
~ You need to realize that you will be a bit more self-sufficient in a DVC unit. There is not a daily maid service unless you are willing to pay extra for it.
~ One bedroom or larger units have full kitchens and laundry. Some folks don't like that...they want no reminders of "home" or the drudgery of cooking or laundry while on vacation. We do not cook any meals when we are there...we use the kitchen for making light breakfast (ie-cereal or maybe an egg sandwich) and storing our munchies and chilling our beverages. I actually like to have the laundry in the unit because for me, I feel like I can cut down my packing if I can throw in a couple of loads of wash.

I would recommend you very carefully look at the financial aspects, consider how you will like to vacation. DH & I enjoy going to WDW at least once or twice per year, so for us it has been a home run.

I usually go to DL or DW at least once a year if not twice. I wouldnt cook any meals there, I still wanna be on vacation. the laundry might be nice. Even if I went for qa week or two bed don't have to be changed Iwill pay the extra few bucks for clean towels to shower everyday. I still want this to be my vacationbut I still think it is better then paying big $$$ for a room at Christmas time I can't wait tio get the packette, I'll will be able to soak it all in theat way. I was looking for a sturdio or one bedroom condo to buy but I think this is just want I might want

 

[ericamanda01]

We joined in 06 and on our first trip home we loved it so much we added 115 more points. We haven't regretted it for a second.

 

[r3ngels]

We love it... can't wait to go home again!

 

[DisneyMomOK]

We purchased in July 1992 (August Use Year). It was an excellent decision for us. We paid it off in a couple of years and when we sold our original Old Key West points in 2005, we made money. We still own add-on points at Boardwalk and Animal Kingdom. You have a wonderful choice of options for accommodations (as noted above) and the banking and borrowing options are very user-friendly compared to the other timeshare we own. I would only buy resale. I am sure there are some great deals out there, even with Disney having the right of first refusal (they will not let you get the points too cheap, unfortunately). Good luck!

 

[DebbieB]

Best vacation decision I ever made. I've used my points at both WDW and DL.

 

[bavaria]

I think that you need to consider your vacation habits. For me, I don't book far in advance and I often cancel at the last minute. This does not work well for DVC as it may result in lost or 'wasted' points.

If you book far in advance and don't do a lot of cancelling or changing of plans, it can work very well.

I did however buy knowing very well that it didn't fit my lifestyle and am thus not disappointed with my purchase. But this is what I always caution people because not every does book so far in advance!

Best of luck with the decision.

 

[ROIE01581]

We have had almost 6 years and have two contracts, one for Beachclub and Saratoga Springs. We got them for the grandkids. We use the points to take the entire family. We are doing the parks every two years and cruises every three years. Husband and I have used the points to go on vacation outside of the parks as well.

Good value and easy to plan a trip.

 

[mickeysgal]

We've owned for at least 10 years, if not more...wish we got more points when the prices were that cheap. We paid for it in full, I didn't want to finance. We love it and for right now, it continues to be the best option for our family for the kind of vacationing we like to do. We do have one large point contract and three smaller contracts. I do wish we would have broken the big contract into smaller chunks for later resale purposes (if we ever get to that point).

That said, DVC works best when you want to vacation at Disney each vacation. Disney is very expensive and if you're looking to trade out a lot, perhaps another company such as Marriott would be better suited and a less expensive option. As our kids have gotten older, we've found that we're visiting Disney less and less due to their schedules and their growing a bit tired of it.

For awhile, we lived close enough to Disney that we would go down for a lot of three day weekends. Using Disney points was not the best use for these weekends since weekend points chew up your points incredibly fast. Look at the way you vacation carefully to see if your vacation habits will work well with the Disney point structure.

The DIS has it's own Disney Vacation Club section. Know however, that the group is naturally biased toward Disney ownership of course!

I can't recommend TUG - Timeshare User's Board - enough. There is a small membership fee, but if there is anything you want to know about timeshares - Disney included - this is the place you want to read and ask questions. tug2.net is the website name. I'm NOT affiliated with them, but the knowledge base is so great there, that I have yet to find any other site that compares.

 

[slk537]

We absolutely love it - have owned since 2004 and have enjoyed many maginificent trips. Our home resorts are SSR and VWL.

One of our best decisions!

 

[Goofyzgurl]

We absolutely love DVC! The only thing that I regret about it is that I didn't buy more points and we didn't buy sooner. We've stayed at Wilderness Lodge, OKW, BCV....I love it! It has "forced" us to take vacations.

 

[Mr Man]

Lots of good advice already.

Read the DVC threads a lot as well as the other Time Share Boards mentioned.

We bought DVC a few years ago and love it. We mainly use it for the kids Spring Break vacation.........and end up taking a bunch of friends/family with us. We are looking forward to the Treehouse Grand Villas at SSR (our home resort) for Spring Break 2010.

DVC suits our vacationing style to a T. We like being close to all the amenities that you get at a resort but also like to make our own Bloody Mary's and cook for the boys now and then.......

We thought about adding on at the new DVC resort (can't member the name but it is at the Contemporary)........but that won't happen until the market corrects.......(not a fan of financing our fun-but that's another thread)

Take your time researching options and I hope you find what works for you.

 

[Denine]

We have been members since 1995 and LOVE it!

 

[starwood]

We feel the same. We wish we had bought sooner. I would suggest looking into resales as they are a lot cheaper.

Also the fact that swayed DH into buying was the fact that if we ever wanted to sell it (yeah right!) we would get most of what we put out for it back.