DVC Chit Chat Thread

[sndral]

… For the Timeshare Store, they'd have a lot to gain by marketing here.

The Timeshare store https://www.dvcstore.com/ was the sponsor here for years & I also recall David’s https://dvcrequest.com/ was once a sponsor as well. Don’t recall when it switched. I purchased two of my resale contracts through the Timeshare store & although my who do I buy from filter is set to who has the contract I want at the most reasonable price it was a relief for me when it was the Timeshare store that had the listings I wanted especially on the international one because they’ve been in business a long time & I was more comfortable w/ their way of doing business .

 

[VGCgroupie]

We are going 3 times with our new annual Sorcerer passes and it's a good savings. You normally go at least twice to WDW right?

We usually do yes. We will be at the park on our pass expire date. Then we have semi solid plans for September, would be a short trip for MM and MNSSHP so I wouldn't be too sad to not visit the park during the day. Then we have no plans to be back until February 2027. So it might be better to get an AP again in February.

 

[juliebee]

We usually do yes. We will be at the park on our pass expire date. Then we have semi solid plans for September, would be a short trip for MM and MNSSHP so I wouldn't be too sad to not visit the park during the day. Then we have no plans to be back until February 2027. So it might be better to get an AP again in February.

My plan is to let the pass expire and then buy new just before we go again since our trips average 6 months apart.

 

[VGCgroupie]

My plan is to let the pass expire and then buy new just before we go again since our trips average 6 months apart.

Is there a grace period for renewal? I just know I will let it expire and then boom I end up trying to again right after.

 

[juliebee]

Is there a grace period for renewal? I just know I will let it expire and then boom I end up trying to again right after.

30 days is what I've heard for the grace period after expiration. But they don't change your expiration date, so if your expiration date was 5/1/26 and you renew on 5/29/26, your next expiration is still 5/1/27- they don't extend it.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

We only go once a year, but it’s a two week trip. We buy our tickets off the Uk attraction tickets site (we’re American) and they’re significantly cheaper than anywhere else and they’re park hoppers and include memory maker. Just fyi. I think they’re 7 day and 14 day ones only though.

 

[AstroBlasters]

Give me a real Disneyland DVC MK discount….

 

[thanxfornoticin]

30 days is what I've heard for the grace period after expiration. But they don't change your expiration date, so if your expiration date was 5/1/26 and you renew on 5/29/26, your next expiration is still 5/1/27- they don't extend it.

That's exactly correct. You can renew 60 days prior or 30 days after the expiration date. Whenever renewing, the new pass expires exactly 12 months from the expiration date of the previous pass.

 

[VGCgroupie]

Give me a real Disneyland DVC MK discount….

Yes still impatiently waiting for that. Bizarre how the WDW AP was an incredible deal for me being a 4-5 hour flight away and DLR is not with under a 2 hour flight. And if I want the $20 bone they threw us I have to get it IN PERSON. Crazy.

 

[VGCgroupie]

30 days is what I've heard for the grace period after expiration. But they don't change your expiration date, so if your expiration date was 5/1/26 and you renew on 5/29/26, your next expiration is still 5/1/27- they don't extend it.

That's exactly correct. You can renew 60 days prior or 30 days after the expiration date. Whenever renewing, the new pass expires exactly 12 months from the expiration date of the previous pass.

Thanks! Glad I have at least a month to ponder my decision.

 

[Cfabar1]

The Timeshare store https://www.dvcstore.com/ was the sponsor here for years & I also recall David’s https://dvcrequest.com/ was once a sponsor as well. Don’t recall when it switched. I purchased two of my resale contracts through the Timeshare store & although my who do I buy from filter is set to who has the contract I want at the most reasonable price it was a relief for me when it was the Timeshare store that had the listings I wanted especially on the international one because they’ve been in business a long time & I was more comfortable w/ their way of doing business .

I have yet to do a deal with them, but have had many terrific conversations with them. The team is prompt, professional, and supportive. My hope is as my membership evolves, I’m able to purchase from them soon.

I’m also a fan of http://www.****************.com Haven’t done a deal with them, but have had positive interactions as well.

 

[cheryl.UK]

On a very different topic, I wish that they would open a DVC at Disneyland Paris. The points to stay at a hotel are outrageous and the cost makes it prohibitive, 4 nights in a moderate is $2000 in August. Add in the travel costs from the UK and tickets and that's $3500. I can't justify that when, staying at DVC in WDW for 3 weeks including tickets and travel is only $4000. Yes the money we spend whilst there will be far more but TBH, the last time we went to DLP for 3 nights, it cost us more for food etc than a week in WDW.

 

[mkatsy]

Whomp whomp whomp!
View attachment 1061491

I loved having my very first AP. Without DVC I never would’ve had one. I don’t think I’m renewing. I need to do the math and see if it makes sense for the next year, but I don’t think it does.

I think I’m going to drop down from sorcerer to pirate at my next renewal. We have so much fun at the resorts, I don’t care if I have more block out dates, I’ll survive.

 

[VGCgroupie]

I think I’m going to drop down from sorcerer to pirate at my next renewal. We have so much fun at the resorts, I don’t care if I have more block out dates, I’ll survive.

I'll have to check the blockout dates. I like to self punish and travel during the busiest times.

 

[PolyRob]

I'll have to check the blockout dates. I like to self punish and trial during the busiest times.

Lots of good poitns mentioned. Just note when APs went back on sale at WDW post COVID they were not guaranteed. You can say you want to buy a new one for February, but WDW could stop selling them at any time and only allow renewals. It happened a lot here post COVID with new DVC members. Disney did say they would try and be more flexible with DVC, but if I wanted an AP I would personally buy a new voucher now before the price increase and wait to activate it until February. You'll lock in the price today (APs usually increase summer/fall) and you have a full year to activate it before it expires and turns into a credit towards a new AP.

 

[PolyRob]

I'll have to check the blockout dates. I like to self punish and trial during the busiest times.

Also, you can't get a Pirate Pass as a DVC Member. That's FL-residents only. DVC only gets the Sorcerer Pass or the Incredi-Pass (which is available to anyone).

 

[VGCgroupie]

Lots of good poitns mentioned. Just note when APs went back on sale at WDW post COVID they were not guaranteed. You can say you want to buy a new one for February, but WDW could stop selling them at any time and only allow renewals. It happened a lot here post COVID with new DVC members. Disney did say they would try and be more flexible with DVC, but if I wanted an AP I would personally buy a new voucher now before the price increase and wait to activate it until February. You'll lock in the price today (APs usually increase summer/fall) and you have a full year to activate it before it expires and turns into a credit towards a new AP.

This is a great idea actually. Thank you!

 

[Road_Dog]

Alright everyone, because I don't want to clog up the boards with a dedicated thread, and because this will include a lot of rambling and manic explanations of how my brain thinks about things, I figured I'd post it here.

We bought 150 points Oct UY at Poly in Oct '24 (direct purchase). We immediately banked those points forward to Oct '25. We just took a trip with our kids to Poly in March '26, 140 points for 5-nights in a Deluxe Preferred View studio. Before our trip was even over, my wife was talking about how we need to come back in October and bring her parents. Meaning we need TWO studios.

Ok, sounds good, we banked our 2024 points forward to pay for this March '26 trip, so we have plenty to spare, right? Well... not exactly. Because it's our 5-year anniversary this year, and we were planning a return to Hawaii. So we went all out decided to bring our 2 kids on a trip to Aulani. And not wanting to be the sole caretakers of our kids on our anniversary trip, we decided to invite my in-laws. So we spent exactly our remaining balance of points, 310 (the remaining 10 points from '24, our entire '25 balance, and our entire '26 balance), on a Pool Garden 2-bedroom room for 5-nights in May (coming up soon here!).

This means UY '24, UY '25, and UY '26 are depleted. And my wife is eager to head back to Poly in October. Ok, no biggie, we can just borrow '27 UY. This grinds my gears a bit, as I never wanted to get into an "always borrowing" situation, but here we are. Sadly, I need 220 points to get 2 Resort View studios for 5-nights in October '26. Which means I'm 70 points short if I borrow the entirety of my Oct '27 points.

I ended up finding someone in the Rental/Transfer board selling 64 points via transfer. So I decided to buy the full allotment of OTU points for '26 and then buy these 64 transfer points. Boom, I've now booked the 220 point reservation and have 18 points remaining for Oct '27 UY.

This means we are still in the hole. We for sure can't take a trip for the remainder of our Oct '26 UY. We would have to wait until Oct '27 in order to be able to borrow our Oct '28 points. And even then, we're STILL in the always borrow situation. Ahhhh!

So I started digging more, and despite having received a transfer for the '26 UY, I hadn't had one for my '25 UY yet. I thought if I could find someone selling a Dec '25 UY transfer points, that could help me get a March '27 stay taken care of and hold us over. So, without even really thinking twice about it, I ended up buying 147 points off someone selling.

Rather immediately, I started getting some buyer's remorse. I just spent roughly $4k on 211 points--I could have used that $4k towards adding on 25 points direct, which would have given me immediate access to 75 points. Not to mention more points in the future for the length of the contract. Hell, I could have probably found a cheap SSR contract if I really wanted (despite me not really wanting to own at separate resorts).

I realized I was perhaps a little short-sighted in buying transfer points--I don't regret it, I'll definitely use them, but perhaps the money could have been better spent towards another contract. For some odd reason, I was trying to avoid committing to more annual dues, but now that I've had some time to reflect, I really don't think it's that bad.

So I start gameplanning--realistically, I think we have found ourselves in a situation where we want to make 2 trips a year. The trip in March was for our daughters birthday, and the trip in October will be near our son's birthday. So while we MAYBE could do this October '26 trip with my in-laws and call it quits for a year, I feel we're going to be itching for more (damn add-on-itis!!!). So maybe we need to start thinking about how we can actually accomplish two trips a year. This was the primary motivation for buying the 147 transfer points, as I now have enough to book a March '27 stay. But it still doesn't change the fact that if we wanted to do an October '27 stay, we'd still be borrowing from '28, and we'd still be rather depleted come March '28.

Being in Wisconsin, we want to justify the flight expenses down, and we both agree that 5-nights is a nice sweet spot for each visit, although perhaps having an option to do 6 would be nice. I think 4-nights would be the absolute minimum we'd need. By my math, if a 5-night studio stay at Poly in October cost 110 points, and it would cost 125 points in March, I'm looking at roughly 235 points each year. But I'd want to allow some buffer in the event we want an elevated view type (as we loved the Preferred View we just did, and would likely be doing it again if we weren't trying to increase our odds of getting connecting rooms with my in-laws, hence why we chose resort view), or if we need/want to add on an extra night.

250 total points could probably work, and 300 points may be a bit more than needed, but at least 300 points would prevent me from being in a constantly borrowing situation.

I looked and found some 150 Poly resale contracts for roughly $24k. I'm seriously considering it. The cost of direct would be roughly $34k, so it's a $10k difference for the ability to combine all 300 points for a big stay at LSL or Riveria at the 7-month mark--unsure if it's worth it since I'm already DVC-Y. The more I think about it, the more I realize that if our travel habits will truly be twice a year, we'll pretty much always have to be a Studio family, so I'm leaning more towards "we'll probably never need 300 points at LSL or Riveria and 150 would be fine in the event we ever decided to stay there".

I will say, I want the points to be at Poly and not a cheaper resort, just so I can use all 300 at once in the event we end up in another situation where I need to book two rooms (or even something in the Tower, which seems to be selling out before the 7-month window opens). I'm picky like that, otherwise yeah I'd just buy sleep-around-points at SSR or something.

That being said, this entire ramble is me just thinking out loud. The $4k I spent on transfer points is gone, but they'll be used wisely. But it made me realize that I'm probably in the thick of it with DVC now and realizing 150 points likely just won't cut it long-term, unless we are comfortable scaling back to 1-trip a year. And if anyone wonders, I can say with a high level of confidence that my wife likely has zero interest in exclusively staying at OKW or SSR to make our points go further--she's become addicted to the monorail convenience, especially with kids in strollers. In case you were thinking "Why don't you guys just go to Saratoga in September and Old Key West in January? Then you get two trips on 150 points!"

Damn, DVC has really made me bougie...

 

[VGCgroupie]

Alright everyone, because I don't want to clog up the boards with a dedicated thread, and because this will include a lot of rambling and manic explanations of how my brain thinks about things, I figured I'd post it here.

We bought 150 points Oct UY at Poly in Oct '24 (direct purchase). We immediately banked those points forward to Oct '25. We just took a trip with our kids to Poly in March '26, 140 points for 5-nights in a Deluxe Preferred View studio. Before our trip was even over, my wife was talking about how we need to come back in October and bring her parents. Meaning we need TWO studios.

Ok, sounds good, we banked our 2024 points forward to pay for this March '26 trip, so we have plenty to spare, right? Well... not exactly. Because it's our 5-year anniversary this year, and we were planning a return to Hawaii. So we went all out decided to bring our 2 kids on a trip to Aulani. And not wanting to be the sole caretakers of our kids on our anniversary trip, we decided to invite my in-laws. So we spent exactly our remaining balance of points, 310 (the remaining 10 points from '24, our entire '25 balance, and our entire '26 balance), on a Pool Garden 2-bedroom room for 5-nights in May (coming up soon here!).

This means UY '24, UY '25, and UY '26 are depleted. And my wife is eager to head back to Poly in October. Ok, no biggie, we can just borrow '27 UY. This grinds my gears a bit, as I never wanted to get into an "always borrowing" situation, but here we are. Sadly, I need 220 points to get 2 Resort View studios for 5-nights in October '26. Which means I'm 70 points short if I borrow the entirety of my Oct '27 points.

I ended up finding someone in the Rental/Transfer board selling 64 points via transfer. So I decided to buy the full allotment of OTU points for '26 and then buy these 64 transfer points. Boom, I've now booked the 220 point reservation and have 18 points remaining for Oct '27 UY.

This means we are still in the hole. We for sure can't take a trip for the remainder of our Oct '26 UY. We would have to wait until Oct '27 in order to be able to borrow our Oct '28 points. And even then, we're STILL in the always borrow situation. Ahhhh!

So I started digging more, and despite having received a transfer for the '26 UY, I hadn't had one for my '25 UY yet. I thought if I could find someone selling a Dec '25 UY transfer points, that could help me get a March '27 stay taken care of and hold us over. So, without even really thinking twice about it, I ended up buying 147 points off someone selling.

Rather immediately, I started getting some buyer's remorse. I just spent roughly $4k on 211 points--I could have used that $4k towards adding on 25 points direct, which would have given me immediate access to 75 points. Not to mention more points in the future for the length of the contract. Hell, I could have probably found a cheap SSR contract if I really wanted (despite me not really wanting to own at separate resorts).

I realized I was perhaps a little short-sighted in buying transfer points--I don't regret it, I'll definitely use them, but perhaps the money could have been better spent towards another contract. For some odd reason, I was trying to avoid committing to more annual dues, but now that I've had some time to reflect, I really don't think it's that bad.

So I start gameplanning--realistically, I think we have found ourselves in a situation where we want to make 2 trips a year. The trip in March was for our daughters birthday, and the trip in October will be near our son's birthday. So while we MAYBE could do this October '26 trip with my in-laws and call it quits for a year, I feel we're going to be itching for more (damn add-on-itis!!!). So maybe we need to start thinking about how we can actually accomplish two trips a year. This was the primary motivation for buying the 147 transfer points, as I now have enough to book a March '27 stay. But it still doesn't change the fact that if we wanted to do an October '27 stay, we'd still be borrowing from '28, and we'd still be rather depleted come March '28.

Being in Wisconsin, we want to justify the flight expenses down, and we both agree that 5-nights is a nice sweet spot for each visit, although perhaps having an option to do 6 would be nice. I think 4-nights would be the absolute minimum we'd need. By my math, if a 5-night studio stay at Poly in October cost 110 points, and it would cost 125 points in March, I'm looking at roughly 235 points each year. But I'd want to allow some buffer in the event we want an elevated view type (as we loved the Preferred View we just did, and would likely be doing it again if we weren't trying to increase our odds of getting connecting rooms with my in-laws, hence why we chose resort view), or if we need/want to add on an extra night.

250 total points could probably work, and 300 points may be a bit more than needed, but at least 300 points would prevent me from being in a constantly borrowing situation.

I looked and found some 150 Poly resale contracts for roughly $24k. I'm seriously considering it. The cost of direct would be roughly $34k, so it's a $10k difference for the ability to combine all 300 points for a big stay at LSL or Riveria at the 7-month mark--unsure if it's worth it since I'm already DVC-Y. The more I think about it, the more I realize that if our travel habits will truly be twice a year, we'll pretty much always have to be a Studio family, so I'm leaning more towards "we'll probably never need 300 points at LSL or Riveria and 150 would be fine in the event we ever decided to stay there".

I will say, I want the points to be at Poly and not a cheaper resort, just so I can use all 300 at once in the event we end up in another situation where I need to book two rooms (or even something in the Tower, which seems to be selling out before the 7-month window opens). I'm picky like that, otherwise yeah I'd just buy sleep-around-points at SSR or something.

That being said, this entire ramble is me just thinking out loud. The $4k I spent on transfer points is gone, but they'll be used wisely. But it made me realize that I'm probably in the thick of it with DVC now and realizing 150 points likely just won't cut it long-term, unless we are comfortable scaling back to 1-trip a year. And if anyone wonders, I can say with a high level of confidence that my wife likely has zero interest in exclusively staying at OKW or SSR to make our points go further--she's become addicted to the monorail convenience, especially with kids in strollers. In case you were thinking "Why don't you guys just go to Saratoga in September and Old Key West in January? Then you get two trips on 150 points!"

Damn, DVC has really made me bougie...

I’m always in the camp of take that money spent on cash stays or renting points or buying transfer points and put it towards a new contract.

If you are going to spend money on vacationing do it the way it makes you happy and no shame if that’s at a monorail resort.

 

[PolyRob]

Alright everyone, because I don't want to clog up the boards with a dedicated thread, and because this will include a lot of rambling and manic explanations of how my brain thinks about things, I figured I'd post it here.

We bought 150 points Oct UY at Poly in Oct '24 (direct purchase). We immediately banked those points forward to Oct '25. We just took a trip with our kids to Poly in March '26, 140 points for 5-nights in a Deluxe Preferred View studio. Before our trip was even over, my wife was talking about how we need to come back in October and bring her parents. Meaning we need TWO studios.

Ok, sounds good, we banked our 2024 points forward to pay for this March '26 trip, so we have plenty to spare, right? Well... not exactly. Because it's our 5-year anniversary this year, and we were planning a return to Hawaii. So we went all out decided to bring our 2 kids on a trip to Aulani. And not wanting to be the sole caretakers of our kids on our anniversary trip, we decided to invite my in-laws. So we spent exactly our remaining balance of points, 310 (the remaining 10 points from '24, our entire '25 balance, and our entire '26 balance), on a Pool Garden 2-bedroom room for 5-nights in May (coming up soon here!).

This means UY '24, UY '25, and UY '26 are depleted. And my wife is eager to head back to Poly in October. Ok, no biggie, we can just borrow '27 UY. This grinds my gears a bit, as I never wanted to get into an "always borrowing" situation, but here we are. Sadly, I need 220 points to get 2 Resort View studios for 5-nights in October '26. Which means I'm 70 points short if I borrow the entirety of my Oct '27 points.

I ended up finding someone in the Rental/Transfer board selling 64 points via transfer. So I decided to buy the full allotment of OTU points for '26 and then buy these 64 transfer points. Boom, I've now booked the 220 point reservation and have 18 points remaining for Oct '27 UY.

This means we are still in the hole. We for sure can't take a trip for the remainder of our Oct '26 UY. We would have to wait until Oct '27 in order to be able to borrow our Oct '28 points. And even then, we're STILL in the always borrow situation. Ahhhh!

So I started digging more, and despite having received a transfer for the '26 UY, I hadn't had one for my '25 UY yet. I thought if I could find someone selling a Dec '25 UY transfer points, that could help me get a March '27 stay taken care of and hold us over. So, without even really thinking twice about it, I ended up buying 147 points off someone selling.

Rather immediately, I started getting some buyer's remorse. I just spent roughly $4k on 211 points--I could have used that $4k towards adding on 25 points direct, which would have given me immediate access to 75 points. Not to mention more points in the future for the length of the contract. Hell, I could have probably found a cheap SSR contract if I really wanted (despite me not really wanting to own at separate resorts).

I realized I was perhaps a little short-sighted in buying transfer points--I don't regret it, I'll definitely use them, but perhaps the money could have been better spent towards another contract. For some odd reason, I was trying to avoid committing to more annual dues, but now that I've had some time to reflect, I really don't think it's that bad.

So I start gameplanning--realistically, I think we have found ourselves in a situation where we want to make 2 trips a year. The trip in March was for our daughters birthday, and the trip in October will be near our son's birthday. So while we MAYBE could do this October '26 trip with my in-laws and call it quits for a year, I feel we're going to be itching for more (damn add-on-itis!!!). So maybe we need to start thinking about how we can actually accomplish two trips a year. This was the primary motivation for buying the 147 transfer points, as I now have enough to book a March '27 stay. But it still doesn't change the fact that if we wanted to do an October '27 stay, we'd still be borrowing from '28, and we'd still be rather depleted come March '28.

Being in Wisconsin, we want to justify the flight expenses down, and we both agree that 5-nights is a nice sweet spot for each visit, although perhaps having an option to do 6 would be nice. I think 4-nights would be the absolute minimum we'd need. By my math, if a 5-night studio stay at Poly in October cost 110 points, and it would cost 125 points in March, I'm looking at roughly 235 points each year. But I'd want to allow some buffer in the event we want an elevated view type (as we loved the Preferred View we just did, and would likely be doing it again if we weren't trying to increase our odds of getting connecting rooms with my in-laws, hence why we chose resort view), or if we need/want to add on an extra night.

250 total points could probably work, and 300 points may be a bit more than needed, but at least 300 points would prevent me from being in a constantly borrowing situation.

I looked and found some 150 Poly resale contracts for roughly $24k. I'm seriously considering it. The cost of direct would be roughly $34k, so it's a $10k difference for the ability to combine all 300 points for a big stay at LSL or Riveria at the 7-month mark--unsure if it's worth it since I'm already DVC-Y. The more I think about it, the more I realize that if our travel habits will truly be twice a year, we'll pretty much always have to be a Studio family, so I'm leaning more towards "we'll probably never need 300 points at LSL or Riveria and 150 would be fine in the event we ever decided to stay there".

I will say, I want the points to be at Poly and not a cheaper resort, just so I can use all 300 at once in the event we end up in another situation where I need to book two rooms (or even something in the Tower, which seems to be selling out before the 7-month window opens). I'm picky like that, otherwise yeah I'd just buy sleep-around-points at SSR or something.

That being said, this entire ramble is me just thinking out loud. The $4k I spent on transfer points is gone, but they'll be used wisely. But it made me realize that I'm probably in the thick of it with DVC now and realizing 150 points likely just won't cut it long-term, unless we are comfortable scaling back to 1-trip a year. And if anyone wonders, I can say with a high level of confidence that my wife likely has zero interest in exclusively staying at OKW or SSR to make our points go further--she's become addicted to the monorail convenience, especially with kids in strollers. In case you were thinking "Why don't you guys just go to Saratoga in September and Old Key West in January? Then you get two trips on 150 points!"

Damn, DVC has really made me bougie...

This is perfectly fine! If you truly want the two trips 300 points could even be tight depending on the season so they won't go to waste. If you ever wanted less trips in future years you could also upgrade one trip annually to a one-bedroom.

If you do add on before your Oct UY I personally wouldn't take MB so you can bank those 2025 UY points forward and have more to play with. DVC will unborrow for you since you purchased a new direct contract and replace those borrowed points on a reservation with the banked points. You can also buy past the May banking deadline with an October UY and DVC will bank for the new purchase.

Don't kick yourself over the transfer. I am considering the same thing for a VGC stay. A transfer would easily cost me 5k so I look for resale contracts at desired resorts and it's significantly more. It's a slippery slope