First DVC Year in Review

[Song of the South]

We purchased our first contract in the fall of 2011 and the 2nd in the spring of 2012. We took our first DVC vacation in January 2012. In total we took 6 (oh my goodness!) DVC vacations of varying lengths between January 2012 and January 2013.

Here’s the breakdown:

Studio: 13 nights
1 bedroom: 4 nights
2 bedroom: 14 nights
TOTAL: 31 nights in DVC accommodations

If we paid $200 per night for a studio, $225 per night for a 1 bedroom, and $250 per night for a 2 bedroom (I like to get a “good deal” when I travel. Although we stayed at the Contemporary for our honeymoon in 2008 I normally would not pay the $300+ Disney wants per night for a “deluxe” hotel room. *That* is crazy! Although my one night in a value this year at $125 was not my idea of a good time either.) our total outlay for lodging for the year would have been about $7,000. Obviously, this is some fairly fanciful math but the point is made here frequently regarding comparing DVC costs to what you’d be *willing* to pay not what Disney charges.

Using the $7,000 figure is a little low as we used around 819 points for these stays. At $10 per point for rental that is obviously $8,190 (obviously, using $11 or $12 per point increases that figure respectively). Also, we do not own 819 points per year so these stays resulted from buying loaded contracts and taking full advantage of extra points plus borrowing a few from 2013. I am not going to mess with adding in dues for this year because I’m trying to figure out the breakeven point on the initial purchases and adding back in dues seems to overly complicate that.

So, the way I figured it out we “depreciated” our initial outlay by about 26% this year. Next year won’t be nearly as impressive as we only have 2 stays planned- 6 studio nights, 3 1 bedroom nights, and 9 2 bedroom nights.

All in all DVC is allowing us to vacation how we like to vacation with the price tag for lodging we are comfortable with.

Please feel free to offer other ways to look at this or how you figure this out. I'd love to hear about your year as well!



SotS

 

[disneynutz]

If you are vacationing the way that you normally would, staying where you normally would and you can afford the extra costs like travel, food, admission tickets, dues, and Disney extras, then you are golden.

DVC makes Disney money 2 different ways. The direct sale and causing people to vacation at Disney more than they would if they didn't own a DVC contract. My guess is that a good percentage of owners vacation at Disney more after buying a DVC contract.

Bill

 

[Song of the South]

Oh, yes! No doubt we vacationed AT Disney *WAY* more this year then we would have had we not bought DVC. But we didn't vacation more than we would have had we gone to other locations. We try to take a trip or so a quarter even if it is just local.

Thanks for the feedback!

SotS