DVC for DCL

[Mrspeaks]

My family is taking a disney vacation every year. We have two young daughters and love both wdw and taking disney cruises. We are thinking we might look into DVC and if it is worth it for us. I've often heard it is a bad use of points to use them for a cruise. Can someone explain this theory to me? At what, if any, point level is it a good idea to use? The years we cruise, we might only do one or two days at wdw, but would do a week long trip the next year. Thanks for any insight and suggestions.

 

[Geomom]

DVC is really best for stays at the Disney vacation club resorts, and for people who can plan out their stays 7-11 mths in advance.

Here is my example on why it is a bad value to use DVC pts for a cruise:
We went on a 1 week August 2016 Alaskan cruise in a category 9C--2 adults, 2 children (16, 12). The cruise cost us $6300 in cash. If I had used pts, it would have been close to 1000 pts (almost 3 yrs worth of our pts.) plus the $95 fee to use the pts for a cruise. We can get so many more vacations at Disney for that amount of pts. That same year, we had used 373 pts at Bay Lake Tower for one week in a 2 bedroom lakeview--we had 8 people stay there. Rack rate for that week was $11,500--and that is for about 1/3 the pts the cruise would have cost us. Those 3 yrs worth of pts costs us $2100/yr in DUES...so $6300 for 3 years...same cost as the cruise...but I would have only had 1 vacation from 3 years of pts instead of 3-4 vacations.

I feel the only time it's worth it to use pts is if you bought a 'loaded' contract that has pts expiring soon that you wouldn't be able to use.

 

[Lisa F]

What a lot of people do who want to cruise is they rent their points out for the year they want to cruise and pay cash. That is a much better way to use your points. There are brokers who will rent your points for you so you don't have to deal with people/nonsense but also there are people who rent out using the boards on this site... you will get more for your points but also more hassle for you.

But as pointed out above, the best use of your points is always going to be at a DVC resort. using them at anything else is a convenient... not an economical way to go. I bought in 1999 at $55 a point with the promo they were running and have never regretted it... I can get 8 nights in a studio for dues that would pay for 2 nights if I paid cash. Any time we don't use the points we rent them.

 

[Quellman]

Mainly - you can rent your points. In @Geomom 's example above, 1000 points at today's market rate of $14 per point is $14,000. The actual cruise cost was $6,300. So you 'lost' $7,700 in value.

If you follow the math, you could rent 450 points and earn $6,300 the cost of the cruise and still have 550 points to use on Disney vacations or something else.

Is it easy to use your points for a cruise? Sure! But it does have a sometimes large opportunity cost. You could also rent you Disney points and then take the cash and go to Europe, Tahiti, or anywhere else you want to go on vacation, not tied to the mouse at all.

Full disclosure: we have used points to partial pay 2 cruises. Last minute didn't want to hassle renting them out with short use.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Some people will jump in and talk about how for them points were a good use. I like to ask them when they bought. If someone bought OKW in 1995, they paid less than $50pp and paid it off long since. Even with current dues, it's possible for them to get value on a trade. If you buy today, you're paying $165-220 per point, plus dues, which means your annual sunk cost per point is a LOT higher than theirs was.

In addition, the cancellation policies on points traded for cruises or other non-DVC uses are a nuisance. Once traded, the points are traded forever, and they sometimes end up with Use By dates that can be an issue if you have to cancel. You cannot easily move cruise dates on a points booking.

Typical return on a points trade for a cruise is between $6-8 per point. If you rent those points, you can make $14.50 per point. Even with taxes, once you also factor in things like opening day bookings and OBC offers, you will get a much better use of resources renting and buying the cruise via other means.

 

[ludari]

As a DVC owner I calculated that using my DVC points for cruises doesn't have the same value as using them at a Disney resort and I do visit both WDW and DLR often. I have met other DVC owners who actually became DVC members just to use their points for cruises and that's fine but personally I believe they are losing money.

 

[bumbershoot]

Chiming in with another mention that the points cost for a cruise is just SO high. At some point a few years back the points were nowhere near as high for cruises, but now it is. And the points cost so much more now to buy into Dvc.

If you already owned Dvc and has expiring points with absolutely nothing else to use them on, then ok, the occasional cruise isn’t going to be a financial loss. But buying Dvc specifically to cruise routinely isn’t a good financial idea.

You can bank Dvc points until the following year, so your two days one year, longer trip the next can still work without losing points.

 

[bamacbat]

*********** is another great place to investigate DVC membership. Buying resale made the numbers work lots better for our family. I love to cruise DCL but I would never use my points for that. I would rent my points out and pay cash. Especially since cruises can be purchased with discounted gift cards. It's pretty easy to get that $6300 cash cruise above for $5600 using discounted gift cards. Even bigger discount if you cruise regularly enough to make use of the on board booking discount too.

 

[bamacbat]

Oops! I got filtered. If you need the source deleted above just pm me.