DVC Customer Loyalty

[808blessing]

I do see millennials like the affordability of DVC (smart way to Disney), ease of Disney (somewhat) and nostalgia! I also think boomer partnerships have made it fun to travel as a multigenerational group.

 

[MomOTwins]

I'm another millennial with small kids (surprised how many of us there are) who bought DVC mainly because it is an easy and fun vacation with kids. Do I miss the kind of world travel we did before I had children? Absolutely. But our few attempts at mildly "interesting" travel with the kids have been utter disasters with our children fighting us and melting down from exhaustion and boredom every step of the way. We also have a son with special needs, and Disney is so accommodating--it's the only place I can really relax when I travel with him, knowing he's happy and safe.

It was disappointing when Disney announced no more magical express. That really did make it so easy with kids--we were "on vacation" from the moment we arrived at the MDE check in.

Even once the kids are older, international travel for a family of 5 is SO expensive. The flights alone come close to the total cost of a Disney trip, particularly since as our kids get older, school are more restrictive about pulling them out during the school year. If we didn't have DVC, we'd probably be limited to one vacation a year, whereas DVC gives us a relatively cheap getaway to take each year in addition to something more adventurous. If the kids tire of WDW, we'll stay fewer days in a bigger suite and do something else in the area, or visit one of the beach resorts or Aulani. And I'm not sure we'll even need to. I see so many happy families with teen and college age kids spending quality time together at WDW--everyone having a good time rather than buried in their phones. I'd love for our family to maintain that kind of togetherness.

Plus... I find myself FEELING less and less like a millennial post-kids. My sister who is two years older than I am just sent me a photo of going hiking/camping with her boyfriend in cold rainy weather to see a beautiful mountaintop lake, and while the photos were indeed beautiful, and I just felt relieved not to be doing that kind of stuff any more! Who has the energy for that kind of travel when you are burnt out from work and kids nonstop? Give me a nice resort with a gorgeous pool and some food and wine at Epcot, please!

 

[emmymac17]

Millennials of DVC unite! We can relive our pre-kiddo international experiences walking the world showcase in Epcot with our screaming toddlers

 

[CSLucas]

Plus... I find myself FEELING less and less like a millennial post-kids.

Millennials of DVC unite! We can relive our pre-kiddo international experiences walking the world showcase in Epcot with our screaming toddlers

100% agree with this! We took the boat out with the kids this weekend, and while blasting "It's Raining Tacos" for my 5-yr-old I had to laugh at how different my life is from other people I went to college with who have yet to have children. Disney does a good job of filling the gap until the kids are a little older and able to go to (and appreciate) all the places we want to take them.

I will also say that I just finished 2 years as a chapter advisor for my sorority and that next generation lives and breathes Disney World.

 

[mickey10171]

Millennials of DVC unite! We can relive our pre-kiddo international experiences walking the world showcase in Epcot with our screaming toddlers

I'll drink to that!

 

[808blessing]

Lol! I started my marriage and family when I was almost 40, so most of my mommy friends, because of my daughter’s age are millennials. So I also know the feeling of meltdown day 1 at California Adventure Park as I’m diligently following my carefully laid out Touring Plans and another at Epcot because I didn’t want to buy yet another doe-eyed plushie. I feel like I’m somewhat of a bridge of generations. DH is a super young Xr and mom/ grandma (98 years) are still very active.

 

[VdoesDisney]

I'll drink to that!

Love reading all the posts from Millenials! Now that we have a toddler I can’t even think about traveling anywhere longer than a 3 hour flight, once we all have teenagers we can start planning international adventures again, though if I am being honest I don’t think I’ll ever stop “drinking around the world” once a year.

 

[808blessing]

Haha! We took our daughter to Japan before kindergarten and Paris (screaming hot deal) by 3rd grade. Once you get them potty trained the world is your oyster again. As long as you have time for naps...Hint: Check out Water Wow.

this topic has officially branched off

 

[MomOTwins]

Millennials of DVC unite! We can relive our pre-kiddo international experiences walking the world showcase in Epcot with our screaming toddlers

I'll drink to that!

Heck yes! We can have a contest to see who spills the least grand marnier slushy while drinking with one hand and pushing a stroller with the other hand. Cheers!

 

[Yinn]

Millennials of DVC unite! We can relive our pre-kiddo international experiences walking the world showcase in Epcot with our screaming toddlers

I've got a better idea....which boomer from disboards can we convince to babysit?

 

[dez1978]

I'm a Gen X, but a younger one comparatively. Born in 78. I waited until I was in my 30s tho to get pregnant and have kids. So at 42, my kids are 10 and 7. I always wanted to go to Disney as a kid, but never could. So our 1st trip was in 2019. Dh was not a fan lol. But agreed to a 2nd trip. In the time between, he realized how easy Disney made it with the luggage service and DME and that I would want to go back and so would the kids. So trip # 2 we bought DVC with his sister and her family (fingers crossed it doesn't backfire lol). I 100% do all of the planning. For all trips regardless where we go. We made a trip in March and I think we are going to rent out our points next year and go somewhere else.
I personally don't think Disney really cares about customer loyalty at all any more. They know if we decide to sell, someone else is jumping to buy it. They know for each of us that says we are priced out, there are 5 more who will go. They know for all the people who are complaining about the Boo Bash being over priced, tho it's the same as other after hours events, those will still sell out. They don't have to court us or keep our loyalty. Will that eventually catch up with them? Yeah probably. Am I still gonna go? yeah. Most of us still will continue to go while we complain here and on FB. And Disney knows it.

 

[sethschroeder]

Multiple trips each year.

I do know people though who you would never think of that go back to Disney a bunch that are my age or younger professionals.

I know people think Disney is tons of planning but its very easy to plan if you go yearly. So in reality only having to plan some bigger trip once instead of twice a year is a win.

 

[Pens Fan]

This is an interesting discussion. I'm not so sure we are loyal to Disney, and I'm very sure Disney isn't loyal to us. And that's OK in my book.

Admittedly I don't care enough to keep up with the endless aged based labels applied to generations, so I'll just start with saying I'm 58, my husband is 62 and our son is 23. That makes us, whatever it makes us!!

We just recently bought into DVC - back in 2019. We had thought about it earlier many times, but it really never made sense for us. We loved Disney and visited every 3 or 4 years, but with limited vacation time we tried to focus on giving our son a more varied vacation experience. Mixed in with Disney, there were beach trips, lots of national parks, international travel, etc. We also live about 11 hours from our families, so we always needed to set aside vacation time to visit them. Now, I'll admit that having only one pretty easy kid is a lot different than having multiple ones. The work required in raising multiple kids is not linear, it's exponential . We very well might have made different decisions had we had more children, but that wasn't in God's plan for us. So we went with our small family and traveled, traveled, traveled ... as much as we could, as varied as we could. Had we had more vacation time, we definitely would have sprinkled in more Disney, and DVC would have made a lot of sense. But with other trips a priority we always decided to pass.

Flash forward to 2019. Our son is in college and is still a full fledged Disney nerd (in the best sense of the word). His dream is to be an Imagineer. I'm now a full time homemaker and my husband gets five weeks of vacation and has retirement looming over the horizon. The joints don't always move as easily as they once did, DH has developed a pretty serious health condition and suddenly easy travel becomes more and more attractive. So we circled back around to our old friend, Disney. Our son is an adult at this point (at least in the eyes of the law), and the idea of putting him on the contract so that he and his future family could use it for years to come was very attractive for us. So we took the plunge and bought 2 Copper Creek contracts totalling 300 points. We were happy. Then last summer, addonitis hit - yeah in the middle of pandemic and the parks were closed. We added on 200 more points thinking we'd take the next step and buy a Gold AP when they resumed sales for multiple trips a year - oops . After a trip to HHI in Sep we fall in love and decide to pick up a 210 point resale contract mainly just to use there. Still happy, but getting a little antsy about those 500 CC points and no AP.

That's where the loyalty thing kicks in. At the end of the day, I don't think Disney has any real loyalty to DVC members. Why would they? They have our money. If we get ticked off enough to sell, so what? They get a different member to pay the dues and no longer have to give any direct perks to them as it's now a resale contract. What do they care? What they do care about are NEW DVC sales. That's why they offer perks and it's why I (maybe naively) think DVC AP discounts will return. It will kill direct sales if they don't. As for the rest of the perks, they are nice and we enjoy them but know that they aren't being given out of loyalty to us. They are given to drive direct sales. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy them, though!

This is a long winded way of saying:
No - we aren't loyal to Disney in the true sense of the word. When it made sense to buy, we bought. If at some point in the future it no longer makes sense, we will sell. DVC is unique in that we have that option vs most other timeshares and for that I am very grateful.

And no, Disney isn't loyal to us, nor do I expect them to be. I do, however, expect them to offer some level of perks for us. Not because they are so thankful for us, but because they want more us!

 

[RoseGold]

I'm a millennial with very small children.

Interestingly, I never even thought about any kind of loyalty to Disney. If I don't go this year, I don't go. At this point, I kind of expect Disney to extract whatever money they can. Magic Bands, tickets, the ridiculous halloween party pricing, I expect paid FastPass...

I was a laptop warrior before Covid, and I had thought about a vacation home to spend a couple weeks over the summer. This sounded like a lot of work and risk, and my boomer dad was listening to Dave Ramsey. He was shilling some timeshare seller service and he said the only timeshare that was worth anything was Disney. This made me start scheming. We could never afford to go to Disney as a kid, and I knew my dream was to go for a long time in the summer. When I looked more into DVC, I knew I wanted to be a baller and take our families and do the thing. I was pretty stunned at what you could get for $1,000/night with some planning. We paid $415/night for AoA, and I was sold.

I never intended to hold. I anticipate we will age out in less than 10 years. It never really occurred to me to be as attached as everyone seems to be to this product. It really seems like everyone plans to hold this thing for life and their kids' lives. But then I never sat through the actual pitch. I tried to get it at Poly in 2018 and they blew me off, and no one ever called when I put myself on the CCV interest list. My guide for the RIV tour said he just got called back and could answer nothing. I'm not sure I'll ever get it at this rate, because I'm not trekking back to RIV. Maybe when they start selling VGF hard.

I can tell you this. I'm not paying taxes on selling a silly timeshare, so maybe after we age out, I'll be renting points for a while to get to even at this rate.

 

[808blessing]

I’m stuck on the loyalty thing because a recent leadership presentation put on by Disney for my office (not Disney) claimed this is part of the Disney values and their logic model to profit.
If not, then fine. If it is, then how does it show up in their action steps? That’s what I want to know...and I want to hear all of your stories!

 

[RoseGold]

I’m stuck on the loyalty thing because a recent leadership presentation put on by Disney for my office (not Disney) claimed this is part of the Disney values and their logic model to profit.
If not, then fine. If it is, then how does it show up? That’s what I want to know...and I want to hear all of your stories!

I did a stupid corporate leadership training based on Lee Cockerell's Creating Magic, and I can tell you that three hours on the phone to get a reservation changes does not meet any of the standards that book claims. The more I learn about Disney, the less I believe about that book. They used to have a whole academy and conference and all kinds of stuff for this training.

I've read a lot of stories about upgrades and cupcakes and stickers and surprise character appearances, and I've never experienced any of that at Disney. Closest I came was an extra FastPass that didn't work when they accidentally canceled our dining reservation after we checked in and waited 45 mintues. I've stayed at Poly three times and never gotten a lei. I often feel like a barcode, and that's OK with me, I accept it. Maybe old school Disney was special service?

I do believe there is fierce loyalty to the Disney IP, and I do believe Disney enforces standards where is it measurable, like their hotel build quality and cleanliness.

 

[Skicks35]

Older Millennial here (born in '85). We don't have children yet, but hope to soon and our reasoning for buying into DVC was to plan for future vacations (compared to paying the ever growing cash prices). Wife and I both grew up in Disney households and we even got engaged at our eventual home resort (VGF).

My parents instilled the fandom on me (they honeymooned at WDW and continue to go) and I hope to pass that same enthusiasm to my children. The power of nostalgia is real and I don't see that changing soon. Sure, travel habits can eb and flow, but the big advantage that Disney Parks have is the returnability. What I mean by this is someone that visits the Eiffel Tower or Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon today probably had a very similar experience to someone that visited 20 years ago. Disney Parks are famously "unfinished" and DVC makes it easy to return to experience new things.

The other point is that if anything, children are more easily connected to Disney experiences nowadays. We grew up on the snap-open VHS movies (and I'm sure it was even more difficult before that), but now, you can just turn on Disney+. They can easily grow up with and fall in love with their favorite characters and then want to experience them in person.

I may not agree with everything the company does (and sometimes I think they take OUR loyalty for granted), but I've subconsciously used the word "experience" four times in this post, and that just goes to show how good of a marketing job Disney does and will continue to do.

 

[npatellye]

Not a millennial but not an Xer here; I’m part of that odd very early 1980s group of people who are stuck in between the two. I went to Disney once as a child, once as a teen, and once in my 20s. That was it.

My husband went every 2-3 years until he was in college.

We married in our very early 30s because I wanted to be near the end of my doc program before thinking of getting married and having a family. So, while I am now 40, our kids are only 8 and soon to be 6.

We planned to take our children to Disney 2-3 times, tops. We looked casually at DVC on our first trip with the kids but didn’t look back because we figured two more trips and we would be done. Well, we finally decided that, when the kids were 6 and 3, no way was a regular hotel room working for the four of us. We looked at DVC again and said we would come back to it later since we were still paying for preschool and I was just back to working and we weren’t totally sure if I was going to continue working part-time, if I was going to go back to staying at home, or if I was going to choose to look at full-time work. Ten months later, we opted to buy in to DVC. We knew that it met our needs and that, while we don’t love Disney, our kids love Disney and it makes for a fun trip for all of us.

I don’t know that we would be considered loyal to Disney. For now, Disney and DVC meet our needs. Pre-Covid, we also took our kids to Bermuda, Aruba, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Curaçao, Guadeloupe, the Cayman Islands, England, Ireland, France, and Portugal in between Disney trips. Those trips, while fun for us and while our kids still talk about the ones they can remember, took a lot of planning to make them manageable with kids. Pre-children, we traveled a lot because I grew up traveling the world as a child while my husband did not but he wanted to travel. We fully expect to resume international travel at some point and to continue with Disney trips as before.

When the kids are tired of Disney, we will rent our points out or gift DVC stays to family and close friends. Or maybe we will use it for resort only trips just for us. We’ll take that as it comes and figure it out.

 

[mgarbowski]

I'm an extremely late boomer who identifies as Gen-X. I can say that the generalizations of the different generations ring true with of course tons of individual variants and exceptions. So it's no surprise on a Disney forum to read a lot of Millennials represent the exceptions of those who plan to return to Disney more than the probable norm.
But I mostly agree with @robinb 's analysis of how Disney attitude towards repeat customers has changed. I believe it is a result of an increased B-school approach to the business, combined the the vastly improved data mining they have been able to do over the last decade or so.
They seem mostly to care about revenue per visit/customer over everything else, and that means anyone who prepays is less valued. You can argue all you want about the value of repeat customers, and I'm sure Disney puts a number on it, but on any product where you prepay -- DVC, DDP, APs -- their attitude seems to be we have your money and now you're a liability. They have obligations to us, but relatively less ongoing revenue coming from us compared to the pay-as-you-go crowds. It's no coincidence that there is a general consensus that the expansion of the DDP was followed by a reduction in dining quality at WDW.

A further issue with DVC is they keep expanding it. They stopped building cash hotels years ago even as they have built new DVC resorts and converted cash rooms to DVC. They do this because building DVC allows them to accelerate the return on investment for a new resort. When you build a hotel it can take 20-30 years to recoup the cost of construction. Build a DVC resort and the customers pay for a substantial portion of that initial outlay upfront. This partly explains why they would keep creating more customers of the type they value less (as just explained).

But the expansion also creates a bigger issue with respect to perks: way way back DVC members got free park tickets. That went away not just because Disney became more stingy, but because you could afford to be more generous when the recipients were a tiny percentage of total park visitors. Now DVC just keeps growing not just in raw numbers but as as a percentage of all WDW visitors. They simply cannot offer the same perks to that many people, which means not just the free tickets which disappeared decades ago, but will probably mean some of the discounts we had a few years ago might not come back or will be scaled down. The barely there discount for the just announced Boo Bash is one example. It compares very poorly to the DVC discount for the Halloween Party from just a couple of years ago.

To close, and circle back to the original question, I do think Disney will have to recalibrate its DVC offerings for Millennials and younger generations in order to maintain the brand and the system. But frankly, I've been surprised to date with the extent to which they have been able to dilute the experience and benefits while raising prices and continually sell new properties. I don't know how they've done that (or why people keep buying - I would probably not become a member today though I have no regrets having done so 10 years ago). But the fact they've succeeded so far means I have only so-so confidence in my expectation Disney won't just keep going along the same path and somehow they will make it work for themselves.

 

[RoseGold]

They simply cannot offer the same perks to that many people, which means not just the free tickets which disappeared decades ago, but will probably mean some of the discounts we had a few years ago might not come back or will be scaled down. The barely there discount for the just announced Boo Bash is one example. It compares very poorly to the DVC discount for the Halloween Party from just a couple of years ago.

Yea, that joke of a discount -- $10 in August and September! If that wasn't another kick in the jewels to Blue Card, I don't know what is. I can see how early buyers would feel sour about this much change in approach. Dead on, @mgarbowski. There are too many of us, and lots of us are in the cheap seats, like me. That's the problem with selling a 50 year product. You are competing against yourself, so where does the loyalty lie?

If they keep up this $10 discount trash, their old self is going to be fierce competition for their new, bloated point self.