DVC points for a cruise

[keaster]

We bought into DVC on a cruise, and our guide was very clear and honest with us...he said DVC is NOT a good value if you plan on using points for cruising all the time.

We plan to alternate, and use points for cruising maybe every couple of years. Or a combination of points/cash like we are doing on the Fantasy in March (we used points for me/DH and cash for DD).

 

[LSROD]

how it worked for us: in may 2009 we bought 200 points as new dvc members: banked those points for 2010. so in 2010 we had 400 points. booked a cruise on the disney wonder (3 night cruise) for 2 adults and 2 kids: paid $95 and 253 vacation points. plus booked one night in a one bedroom at boardwalk villa garden view for 24 points. we banked the remainder points and went to disney in july of 2011 booked a 2 room villa at saratoga springs and took 3 friends with us. we had 95 points left and banked those to 2012 use year and are now stuck trying to sell them as they expire in jan. we have 400 points for 2013 and plan on taking a bigger cruise and skipping port adventures plus we will be living near the port. So i think using points for the cruise works out nicely. we got a inside deluxe stateroom cat.10 and went to atlantis. the atlantis trip cost alittle over 600.00 there is no way we could have paid cash for a cruise, afford airfare and hotel w/o the use of our points. Be advised that if you do stay at the disney hotels transportation from the hotel to the port will cost you about 35.00 per person and there is a fee for kids as well. being military we can't always take a vacation so banking them into one big trip works for us so we can take advantage of the times we do actually get to take a vacation. 200 points a year is more than enough for our family of 4. there a lot of options that you can use with dvc membership.

 

[Tinkerbell55]

We did not purchase our DVC points for Cruising, however it turned out to be a very worthwhile method for our entire family to Cruise together on the Disney Dream. We are a family of eleven, three separate families. We contacted Member Services to determine if there were options for such a trip with the limited number of points we had. In reading these treads no one has mentioned this scenario for cruising with Disney.

Once Member Services gave us our options it was pretty clear that we all could accomplish this trip by using the points we had purchased several years before. Yes, we had to sacrifice a little and were required to use all of our annual points and borrow most to the points from the next year to accomplish this trip. Member Services suggested that we use our points for the adults in our three cabin accomodations and pay cash for the five children, since the cruise rates for children is less than adults. This allowed our family to cruise on the Disney Dream for four nights to the Bahamas, with the least amount of out of pocket cash and points that were available to us. Without the use of our points our young families would not have been able to afford and experience such a great cruise.

As we read more and understand the numbers game of economics, we may forget our reasons for purchasing DVC. Value is important, which turned our heads to invest in a vacation club in the first place, but this is not necessarily always the most important factor. It is more then just numbers, it is about "Memories", when our family can vacation together and have a fabulous time on this magnificent ship that provided a trip of a life time that will never be forgotten by all family members including the youngest three year old. We can truly say we received the total value of our DVC Vacation Points.