Does DVC Make Sense for Me?

[smileyanna]

Hi,
I've been reading these threads for a few years, and seen many very helpful posts like mine asking "Should I Purchase?" Here is my particular situation, and looking for any thoughts or advise about buying a small (sub 100 pt) DVC resale. Thank you in advance for considering and sharing your knowledge!

Who's traveling:
- Family of four, kids are 10 and 7.

How we travel to WDW:
- About 2 trips to WDW each year for the past 11 years, for three days (2 nights) each.
- We've stayed at most of the resorts, but recently we stay exclusively at Monorail and Crescent Lake resorts. Mostly Swolphin, but have rented DVC points for studios at BLT, BWV, BCV and PVB when it made sense. We have found it to be increasingly difficult to find a good value proposition renting points compared to a hotel room at Swolphin.
- We don't cook, but do order groceries and use the hotel room fridge.
- We take Lyft from the airport.

Expectations for the future:
- We expect to continue our two-night trips, but expect to be more constrained regarding schedules as the kids get older. That would mean traveling on busy holidays. We may space trips out a bit more, to average three trips every 2 years. And... who knows once the kids head to college?

Financing:
- We would pay upfront and can afford it. Money would otherwise be put in index fund.

Miscellaneous:
- We like flexibility (uh oh!) - so we generally don't plan the trips more than five months out. But! Given the expectation that we will travel over non-summer school breaks, we will probably begin planning earlier regardless of DVC purchase.
- We are open to any resort with "good" transportation options. In years past, renting was a very viable option with this constraint but availability has declined/disappeared for reservations in the 3-5 month out period.
- We travel as a family a lot, exclusively in a single hotel room to save money. I'm sure we would prefer more space, like in a 1-br, but outside of WDW we will continue to make do staying in a single room. (I traveled with my parents and 2 siblings this way through college.) The upshot is that being able to upgrade to more space is a plus, but not a high priority.
- We stay for 2 nights/3days to save money and time - fly in on 6am flight on day one and fly out on 10:30pm flight on day 3. Upgrading to a slightly longer trip would be a definite plus.
- I don't love waiting on hold for Disney, and I am aware that DVC MS has been a nightmare lately.
- WDW is a family vacation, habit and hobby for us. Planning, hacking and discussing our trips is half the fun.

Happy to provide more info if it is helpful. We are clear eyed that DVC will not be a boondoggle no-brainer for us given our style of traveling. However, it is hard to look at resale prices over the past decade without some regret!

Thanks very much!
Robin

 

[redboat45]

I would say yes except for the planning under 5 months thing. You could end up with only SSR. Which is a wonderful resort but not where you want to be.

I'd add up how much the Swan/Dolphin has been costing you for your 2 trips a year and then look at the cost of maintenance fees plus the buy in price to see if it would be worth it for you.

 

[smileyanna]

I would say yes except for the planning under 5 months thing. You could end up with only SSR. Which is a wonderful resort but not where you want to be.

I'd add up how much the Swan/Dolphin has been costing you for your 2 trips a year and then look at the cost of maintenance fees plus the buy in price to see if it would be worth it for you.

Thanks - maintenance fees are slightly less than half the price compared to Swan/Dolphin! But I need to do some adjustment for cancellation flexibility and Marriott points.

When I do the math, the DVC savings add up slowly because we are talking about relatively few nights/year. Its a big upfront payment for a relatively small but steady saving, so not sure how to consider those moving parts.

Thanks!

 

[redboat45]

Thanks - maintenance fees are slightly less than half the price compared to Swan/Dolphin! But I need to do some adjustment for cancellation flexibility and Marriott points.

When I do the math, the DVC savings add up slowly because we are talking about relatively few nights/year. Its a big upfront payment for a relatively small but steady saving, so not sure how to consider those moving parts.

Thanks!

yeah. We started off with 25 points to try it out. That was a few years ago when we got BWV for $2500 including closing costs. At the time my kids were about the ages of your kids now and the studios worked well. They are now both adult size (15 and 11) and we're appreciating one bedrooms for more space. We ended up buying AKL points in like 2019 and then SSR in summer of 2020. We are big planners though and usually count down to when we can book at 11 months out. We now are keeping out 25 point BWV contract purely because it's our blue card membership since we like one bedrooms and BWV 1 beds only sleep 4 (we need separate beds for out kids b/g).

 

[Wendysofftoneverland]

With the number of nights you spend per year, you may find resale makes sense for you but not direct, with its 150 point minimum. If you are definitely going every year, you may find DVC saves money over Swan and Dolphin. FWIW, I actually really like SSR, and the only bad part about being "stuck" there, to me (if that is all that is available at 5 months), is that I still have stroller-aged kids, so the bus is more challenging. They just redid the 1 bedrooms there so the rooms are nice and it seemed like the buses were pretty prompt.

 

[RoseGold]

DVC is not a good product if you are planning 5 months out in peak times. You are setting yourself up to fail. It also doesn't play well with cancellations for the sports event or camp or whatever. As your kids get older, those things go in the school breaks as well.

An option would be to buy sleep around points -- I'd say BLT/Poly/SSR right now -- and plan to book a 1BR at 5 months or be flexible with what you book. But once you do that, you might be wiping out the "savings" because of the high point cost, and you might be stuck at SSR. Getting a studio at DVC is going to require more planning.

A <100 point contract also complicates this for me. The closing costs alone hike up the price on this. That's a tough pill to swallow if you're only holding a few years for four nights a year. This is a lot of hassle for four nights a year, period.

It sounds like Swan has a lot of features for you -- booking last minute, location, flexibility. In normal times, I doubt DVC beats Swan at all. I haven't done the math against peak times, maybe Swan gets crazy? Maybe you can book Swan that far out too? You'll have to decide whether a possibly slim financial margin is worth this much cash dropped and whether you think you can commit to the kind of scheduling DVC requires.

Also, maybe worth considering the park that shall not be named. Locking into DVC limits your choices in a lot of ways. And there is a park targeted at older kids not far away.

Edit: I just priced this out Christmas and Thanksgiving 2022, and Dolphin is $270s/night. Heck, the flexible, cancel 5 days before rate is $300. There's no way monorail/crescent DVC can match that. You'd have to stay AKL or OKW value to even touch it. Even then, it's probably still mathematically Dolphin. You should do your own math, but I doubt you save much, if anything.

 

[Bo1203]

I think dvc direct makes sense if your going to be spending $2,800+ (and that increases with inflation) per year for the next 10 years on hotel/resort fees/parking/travel insurance at Disney. You start adding in the potentials (they could go away) like savings on food, souvenirs, and resale of the contract in the future, makes even more sense.

Going resale could save some money, but your giving up potential blue card perks.

Id add when contemplating swan and dolphin make sure to account for parking, resort fees and taxes. We've stayed there, thought it was nice and had a great time. I would rank it below though most of the dvc resorts we've visited.

 

[smileyanna]

I think dvc direct makes sense if your going to be spending $2,800+

Aha - I do not spend $2800/year... Thanks for this. Is this because of closing costs or reasonable time to breakeven?

You'll have to decide whether a possibly slim financial margin is worth this much cash dropped and whether you think you can commit to the kind of scheduling DVC requires.

Also, maybe worth considering the park that shall not be named. Locking into DVC limits your choices in a lot of ways. And there is a park targeted at older kids not far away.

RoseGold, this is an excellent point. There is a lot of hassle in thinking about all the iterations... we have been very happy with Swan/Dolphin and the occasional point rental. I have the coulda/shoulda/woulda's about the increase in resale price, but I would likely not be up or down very much either way.

(As to your last point - we spent our last Orlando trip at Universal's Royal Pacific. Enjoyed it, will go back... and missed Disney.)

 

[Bo1203]

Cash hotel room at $2,800 a year rising 5% a year would take approx 12 years to breakeven vs buying 150p RR or GF direct and paying dues. And you still have a contract worth something at resale.

This mousesavers article was pointed out to me, I think has a similar conclusion.
https://www.mousesavers.com/other-disney-vacations/disney-vacation-club/#comparison

 

[RamblinWreck]

I think it could make some sense for you.

Your tendency to plan 5 months out shouldn't really be that big of a problem, especially since you are limited to just a few different potential travel weeks in the year to choose from.

What I would recommend is getting a Use Year that corresponds to your favorite holiday travel week (say you have a break in February and that's your favorite time to go to Disney, get a Feb UY). That way you can book the room 11 months in advance, and if you end up deciding not to go on that trip, then you can cancel it and start targeting other breaks in the year (or even bank the points and just do it the next year). You also have the benefit of only needing 2 consecutive nights for these trips, so any weeklong school holidays you have 2 different weekends to choose from to find a resort you like. And you only need to be able to string together 2 available days! This should be pretty doable.

But, if you don't want to have to stay on top of it that much, if you will be bothered by having to settle for a different resort if your plans change and your favorites just aren't available on your new dates, etc, then it might not be a great idea for you.

Given that you plan to travel twice per year, you may also benefit from the Florida Resident / DVC AP's (assuming they come back sometime!)

 

[nuhusky123]

Buying dvc makes sense only if you want to move your stays to a Disney deluxe hotel vs swolphin

I was a swan then a reserve loyalist for all my stays. If I continued staying there buying dvc would never make sense financially. The rates there are just too low as usually had in the $300 range

if however you want to upgrade to a Disney deluxe resort and look at the $600+ a night rates, now dvc starts to make sense

but the thing you have to accept is that dvc needs to be more than a financial investment. I truly believe there has to be an emotional aspect otherwise financially it’s impossible in my view to rationalize comparing cash rates at a deluxe resort vs the reserve. Even arguing location is a loser as swolphin is just as good location wise as bcv or bwv

i will say I chose not to invest my money into a robo investor and instead bought Disney. Covid taught me you only get to live once and now is the time to enjoy the family.

I don’t regret dvc one bit and loved my first home stay

 

[DisWeaver]

Planning 2-4 night stays is not a problem at 5 months or less. Just monitor the portal and make changes as they are available.

 

[smileyanna]

Thanks for all the replies. Really good food for thought. Your comments crystalize for me the key issue, which for me is how much do I value flexibility (favoring Swan/Dolphin) vs the Beach Club, Boardwalk and Poly.

I think I'm still in the camp of "DVC doesn't make sense for me" given our style of travel. But I will still read the posts here as part of my WDW hobby

 

[theMoreDisneytheBetter]

One other question (slightly off topic)…but why do 2 separate trips instead of one longer one given all of the steps that you take to save money? Airfare is insane now, park tickets are cheaper the longer you stay, and a more leisurely trip might lessen the need to pack everything in (via genie+ and ILLs). Without magical express the extra airport transfers also add up.

Just something to consider.

 

[smileyanna]

One other question (slightly off topic)…but why do 2 separate trips instead of one longer one given all of the steps that you take to save money? Airfare is insane now, park tickets are cheaper the longer you stay, and a more leisurely trip might lessen the need to pack everything in (via genie+ and ILLs). Without magical express the extra airport transfers also add up.

Just something to consider.

Great question, with an easy answer for me.

Preference! We are willing to pay more money for two shorter trips. I have massively diminishing marginal returns to any vacation by day four along with a tougher work hole that I have to dig out of for longer vacays. We prefer - and are willing to pay for - shorter, more expensive/day trips. I also love knowing that another trip to WDW is around the corner at all times.

This is definitely a personal preference thing, helped by living a quick flight away with lots of discount airlines serving our region.

 

[BamaGuy44]

Great question, with an easy answer for me.

Preference! We are willing to pay more money for two shorter trips. I have massively diminishing marginal returns to any vacation by day four along with a tougher work hole that I have to dig out of for longer vacays. We prefer - and are willing to pay for - shorter, more expensive/day trips. I also love knowing that another trip to WDW is around the corner at all times.

This is definitely a personal preference thing, helped by living a quick flight away with lots of discount airlines serving our region.

I was wondering about the shorter tips too, especially since you're flying, but that makes perfect sense. We all make trade offs with money vs our preferred way to vacation

 

[Robbie Cottam]

I tell most of my renters that DVC other than SSR tends to book up at about 6 months out.

I believe that. I recently booked a BLT trip at the 11 month window and it was hard to get a standard studio… I was able to get the lake view … so more points

If you like OKW and SSR you should be ok..

BLT POLY GF BCV BWV. Will be difficult but not impossible in the slower seasons …

Just my two scene and you got them for free…. Take it for what I worth

 

[McCrae]

Disney rooms tend to go up much more than inflation. We bought 500 points at BLT. Typically we visit every 2 years and stay in a 2br for atleast 14 nights. If we were to try and do that via a cash booking we are looking at a cost of over $20k a trip. Our pay back period was around 6-7 years.