Do you think DVC knew how big they would get?

[drakethib]

When they built OKW, do you think Disney had any idea DVC would grow?

I wonder if they ever thought the would see as many memebers as they have now.

 

[candizfan]

I am sure they knew it would be successful. A company as smart as Disney would not set out to do something without the research to back it up.

As for how big? I don't think anyone knew. I remember looking into it my 1st time to Disney (1995). But we were young and had a baby on the way. A big vacation once a year wasn't in the stars. The internet wasn't very big yet and I didn't have a way of renting the points if we weren't able to go. It just didn't work but I loved the idea. Ten years later we finally bought. (just this past fall) A lot has changed in those years to help the program fit for more families. Can you imagine owning 2000 points if you didn't have the DIS around?

Now my kids have been to Disney only 1 time less than I have. When we were growing up we were never able to have a vacation like Disney. I am blessed to be able to change that for my children.

A lot of things have changed since it first started that has effected Disney's ability to make it work for more families.

 

[rocketriter]

Disney hoped it would do well and had market research to support this, but they did not expect it to be this big. How can I say that? I base it on the fact that there originally was no Old Key West resort. Those buildings were called the Disney Vacation Club. It was only after the timeshare concept outgrew the land that they changed the resort name so the club could include additional properties. Name changes are expensive and they confuse the public; you only do one if you have to. If Disney expected the DVC to grow so much when they founded it, they would not have given that name to the original group of villas.

 

[PamOKW]

The original documents, when they were still finishing the original Disney Vacation Club aka Old Key West, included wording about how people at other resorts if there were ever any other resort to be built could use the resort at Walt Disney World. All the other resorts were just a glimmer in someone's mind somewhere behind the scenes. My guess is that they expected "the other" resorts would primarily be off-site. I'm guessing that the success of BWV following OKW is what led them to continue to expand at WDW itself.

 

[lovewdwdvc]

We looked at DVC in the very beginning. They would not assure us that all of OKW would be built as a DVC only that there were going to be some buildings(cannot remember how many) , a pool and another building to register in. The rest might be used as resort rooms or might not be built at all.

Who would believe it.

And I wish that we would have bought then.

 

[DisneyBill]

Speaking of "big" has anyone heard if DVC hit the 90,000 member mark yet? Additionally, any clue to the number of members there will be, at the average size contract, when SSR sells out? I would think Disney had to know with little doubt they could make the concept work. I also would have to suspect they have been pleased with the staying power of new member growth. It is nice to be associated with an entity that hits homerun after homerun. As always, I wish we would have bought at $52, but our buy-in price of $65 looks pretty good now as well.

 

[CharlesTD]

Our buy in for our initial contract in 01 with incentives worked out to be 59 dollars a point. We looked at it in 98 and fell in love with the idea but like Candisfan we were in school and had a 2 year old at the time and had just gotten married we were at WDW for 3 weeks for our honeymoon and in 98 magical beginnings used your money spent on WDW accomodations as your downpayment. So it would have saved us over 3K on the original contract and only cost us 4K all through Disney put on our MC. Ahhh hindsight I tell you hindsight.