DVC Owners Live in Florida?

[Hunclemarco]

Hello.
I'm curious if there are any DVC Owners that live in Florida.
I ask because the idea of moving to Florida has been kicked around a bit at the household, as well as our love for Disney and buying a resale contract. Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.

 

[DisneyNut22]

I bough DVC in the 90's when I lived in Upstate NY. Now I live in Orlando. Just 25 minutes to Disney. I use my DVC all the time for small getaways. It's great to go during the low season when there are less visitors. You will not be sorry if you buy in.

You will LOVE IT!!!

 

[pnyltwk]

We live in the Florida Panhandle about 15 miles from Alabama. We are about 350 miles from Orlando. It is pretty much a full day of driving when you stop and eat a meal. We normally drive over the day before we plan to begin our vacation. Florida residents get discounts on tickets year round.

 

[hitman007]

We live in a small town about 1.5 hrs from Orlando and we love DVC. We go on short weekend trips using two or three nights at a time and we love it! It allows us to be extremely flexible on our plans and when we went Labor Day the parks were very quiet. The longest we waited for an attraction was 10 minutes. Most were just walk on! Also not having to buy airfare to go to Orlando saves us many $$$$'s.

 

[dizkneedoll]

We are originally from the Washington, DC area and have been members for 11 years. When my husband and I retired 3 years ago we moved 23 miles from WDW. As others have said, we use our points for short stays but also use them for Vero Beach and Hilton Head. Would never part with our points. It's so nice to stay late into the evening and not have to drive the loooong 40 minute drive home

 

[allshookup]

I look forward to the day when DH & I retire to Florida in about 9 1/2 years & we are able to hop over to WDW whenever we feel like it. I'm thinking 2 or 3 day trips mid-week maybe every 6 weeks or so and maybe hitting Vero in the summer.

 

[ilovecoasters]

We live 45 minutes from WDW and have owned DVC since '07. Love it!

 

[twinklebug]

My goal is to get out of New England and move to Florida. DVC is part of who I am, I'll always be a member in heart, so why not keep the points?

Even if you're a 20 minute drive away, WDW is another world and they have all the outside of WDW locations to make travel fun.

Good luck with the decision! Have you looked into any areas of FL you'd be interested in? My problem with most of FL that I've seen (Orlando area) is that everything is so flat and open to the sky. I love to drive on roads that are lined with natural growing woods and have some ups and downs. The schools are of major concern to me too - it's scary to move kids.

 

[SCDizneyDawn]

We live in Kissimmee, moved here last January and have been members for 10 years. We are keeping DVC for weekend getaways (have one coming in Oct for F&W) and cruising. For mainance fees only cruising on points is not a bad deal! We will also be happy spending a week on grounds with friends or family! We had planned to cruise next April with friends on points but with the fact that cruising on points is very limited availability now for 2010 we are planning a week at AKV instead.
We have no plans to sell even though we live about 16 miles from WDW!

 

[dvcterry]

when we became members we had a map that showed where members were from around the United States, and all over the World. i remember there were many from Florida, and our guide commented many members from the United Kingdom. This August I spoke with a DVC member that enjoyed her membership being from Florida, she had her daughter staying with her and she absolutely loves staying onsite.

 

[DVC-Don]

Funny you should ask. We leave Monday to house hunt in the Orlando area, well south and west of Orlando (20 miles they say). House prices are soooo cheap now. Anyway, if we should purchase we'll sell 2 of our 4 DVC contracts. We need to keep 2 to pass on to our kids in 5 - 10 years from now. If we find something we plan just using it for vacation/winter for now with the long range plan to sell our house here and buy a condo up here. We own a small business here, but can run it via laptop and cell phone for long periods. We'd just travel up here winters sporatically to keep an eye on the employees.

 

[VBSunGoddess]

We plan on retiring in Florida and have no intention of selling our DVC points. I am looking forward to driving to WDW & Vero for our vacations.

 

[FindTheMickeys]

I plan on retiring to Florida and would NEVER think of selling my points. Long weekends and get-aways with the family will be the order of the day...

 

[CruznLexi]

We too live in Florida. We live in Panama City which is about a 6 hour drive. We now have SW at our new airport and a round trip ticket is $150. I can drive but why when I get there in 65 min. FLR tickets are great. We are going in 36 days to Kidani for 4 nights then a Carnival Dream cruise.

 

[com_op_2000]

Have lived my whole life in Fla except for time I was in college. A third generation native, been here long before WDW came. Been DVC members since '93 and live one hour from WDW. Love taking short get aways/mini vacations. Have gone for the day to DTD, decided to call OKW to stay that night (Was a Sunday before MS was open at that time), and checked in 15 minutes later. Can go during the off periods when the parks are not as busy, get APs to any park (including non-Disney), you will have your vehicle with you, and go do whatever you like.

 

[Hunclemarco]

Thank you for all of your responses...We were members, but had to sell, but considering getting a small contract. We have also been contemplating a move there due to health concerns. Thanks again!

 

[jodifla]

It's FABULOUS to be a DVC member in Florida. You can do really economical vacations that way. No plane tickets, you can bring all your food and gear, and they offer Fla. resident seasonal tickets that our cheaper even than the DVC annual pass!!!

 

[BEASLYBOO]

It's FABULOUS to be a DVC member in Florida. You can do really economical vacations that way. No plane tickets, you can bring all your food and gear, and they offer Fla. resident seasonal tickets that our cheaper even than the DVC annual pass!!!

We're only 2 1/2 hours away, and I love my DVC. I love Disney but I also really like the Orlando area. The beauty of driving in, in addition to Jodifla's comments are that we also get to enjoy some of Orlando's wonderful restaurants, I'm tired if Disney food! We purchase the week-day annual passes, what a savings! We visit the oultlet malls, we're closer to Busch Gardens, we really enjoy just getting away, not so much for the parks now but for the resorts and their amenities. Earlier this year I was almost to the point of having to sell, the thought of it really upset my son, a friend stepped in and thankfully I was able to keep it! We've owned DVC for 10 years no, my son's grown up with it! Life would go on without DVC it but I'd sure miss it!

 

[TifffanyD]

We bought a 100 point resale contract at BWV back in early 08 when we lived up north. Bought it to use for our honeymoon and then future trips.

In August of 08 I ended up getting a transfer to Tampa. We now live about an hour from the mouse house!!

We loooove our DVC still. We use it a lot for short weekday trips (less points!) or maybe a weekend night here or there.

We just spent the friday of labor day weekend at BLT. In november we are heading to BWV for food & wine for 2 nights (sat and sun) and in dec heading to VWL for 2 nights (sat and sun)!

Even though we only have 100 points we get good value out of it booking in studios (just 2 of us) and lots of off-season/weekdays.

It's great too cause if we can't get availability on a certain date, it's super easy to reschedule. We don't have to worry about if we have airfare or how much the airfare costs, etc. We can also stay on waitlists much longer for this reason.

Let me know if you have any questions

 

[JimC]

First joined when we lived in PA. Now we live 15 minutes from Orlando International Airport. Since moving to Florida we have added more points. We enjoy being able to do morning or evening trips as well longer DVC stays.