First time buyer - needing 2bdr always…

[DVCanadian]

How many points do you think you will need? A 2 bedroom for one week is 250-500 depending on where you’d like to stay and the view.

We love 2 bedrooms and that is our default room to book.
Booking 1 or 2 bedrooms keeps you out of the studio booking bloodbath and everyone is the same space with home like kitchen and laundry, that is worth it to us.

 

[Nabas]

1. Sept and first half of Dec is usually amazing for us for both flights and timing, and we have usually gone first half of Dec, end of Jan/earl Feb, April/May. We are trying early Sept this time to see if the heat is too much or not!

2. Can I plan 11 months out? Yes, and I likely would for DVC so I can best utilize our points. That being said, I’m also a huge fan of last minute trips and we aren’t super picky about resorts. Right now we have WDW APs and are working our way around trying out the DVC options there to see what we like. I’d likely buy resale for WDW.

I should add, DH can work remotely and we homeschool so it allows us to go whenever. I generally jump on good flights and sort out accommodations after. I do travel hacking so we can always use points to fill in dates that we can’t get DVC even if we book early.

As others have written, the first half of December is possibly the single most difficult time to book DVC. September, particularly the first half, is much easier.

Conversely, since you need a 2-bedroom, these are noticeably easier to book than a Studio.

Either way, you’re going to need a lot of points to book a 2-bedroom for a week.

We’ve been DVC members for a while and have tried many onsite and offsite options.

When we have a larger group and not enough points to cover a trip, our go-to is booking a 2 or 3 bedroom at Wyndham Bonnet Creek using eBay. It’s certainly not as fun as being at an onsite hotel but it usually is much less than half the price of a comparable onsite room.

September is the least expensive DVC month or the year, a standard view 2-bedroom at the Riviera costs 284 points for a week.

In early December, that same room is 341 points.

Are you ready to buy that many points?

 

[RoseGold]

Grand Californian 2BR is over 50 points in early December. Ouch. I would expect DLT to match or even exceed this.

Of course you can book a 2BR, even at peak times. But it’s going to take a whole lot of points. Maybe AKL is a good compromise? Excellent rooms and hotel, fairly low retro chart, and decently priced points. Downside is transportation, and IMO that’s a big one.

 

[Dreams&wishes]

We are also in the same situation as the original poster with a family of 6 kids aged from 4 to 11yrs.
We love to stay Deluxe, but this is becoming too expensive for us, as we now have to book two rooms.

We come from Australia so our trips are never less than 2/3weeks.
So we are thinking to buy either the new GFV or the upcoming poly2.

We would only be able to go every 2/3 years as airplane tickets alone cost us $15000. I'm under the impression you can borrow from the previous and following year so we would need 461 points @207 that would be a $95,500 investment plus the $2000 per year dues.
So if we plan to go four times in the next 12years that would be a total investment of $119,500 or $29,875 per trip.
To book two deluxe rooms now, it would cost us around $28,000, although this price will certainly go up in the next 12years.

But will the quantity of points needed to stay at a particular resort also increase yearly?Therefore requiring to always buy additional points? Making it then like the price increase of booking a normal Disney room?

Do you think this is the right choice or Dvc is not for us?

Thank you for the suggestions.

 

[DVChris]

I'm under the impression you can borrow from the previous and following year so we would need 461 points @207 that would be a $95,500 investment plus the $2000 per year dues.
So if we plan to go four times in the next 12years that would be a total investment of $119,500 or $29,875 per trip.
To book two deluxe rooms now, it would cost us around $28,000, although this price will certainly go up in the next 12years.

If your plan is to buy all of your points direct at once, then your cost per point is less than $207 due to incentives. You may want to consider a mix of direct for perks (minimum of 150 points for perks) and resale for savings, it works for us.

Here's the latest direct pricing and incentives: https://www.dvcnews.com/dvc-program/financial/pricing-a-promotions

 

[DVCBeachBum]

This is a bit unusual among DVC folks, but I did not get into timesharing to stay in studios. We really like having a living room to be able to stretch out and relax in, where the night owls and/or early birds can do their thing without disturbing anyone who might be sleeping—and that means the sofa bed isn’t being used as a sleeping surface by anyone. We don’t do a lot of “cooking” but it is nice to be able to have a decent breakfast without having to leave the room. In-room laundry means you can throw a load on your way out to the park/dinner/what-have-you without having to worry about hogging a shared machine.

It is so nice to hear someone else say this. One of our biggest reasons for waiting so long to join DVC was that offsite 2 bedrooms were our default. We are very particular about space. When I told our guide we are a family that will mostly be 3 of us and on a very rare occasion 4 and we only were interested in 2 bedrooms I thought he was like ”um, ok, weirdos” LOL

 

[DVCBeachBum]

We are also in the same situation as the original poster with a family of 6 kids aged from 4 to 11yrs.
We love to stay Deluxe, but this is becoming too expensive for us, as we now have to book two rooms.

We come from Australia so our trips are never less than 2/3weeks.
So we are thinking to buy either the new GFV or the upcoming poly2.

We would only be able to go every 2/3 years as airplane tickets alone cost us $15000. I'm under the impression you can borrow from the previous and following year so we would need 461 points @207 that would be a $95,500 investment plus the $2000 per year dues.
So if we plan to go four times in the next 12years that would be a total investment of $119,500 or $29,875 per trip.
To book two deluxe rooms now, it would cost us around $28,000, although this price will certainly go up in the next 12years.

But will the quantity of points needed to stay at a particular resort also increase yearly?Therefore requiring to always buy additional points? Making it then like the price increase of booking a normal Disney room?

Do you think this is the right choice or Dvc is not for us?

Thank you for the suggestions.

My husband was very wary of the ‘will they just raise points needed‘ question as well and I believe I understand this right in saying YES and NO.

There are only so many points allotted per hotel. So to make it easy for me to understand lets pretend RIV has 100 total. To stay in Sept in a 1 bed is currently 5 points. They CAN raise that either 10 or 20% (someone help me there) each year HOWEVER they cannot exceed the 100 points total so they would have to lower something else in the point chart. Thats why everyone cautions not to buy points for the smallest room in the lowest point season because that can certainly move around and does.

 

[Minniesgal]

With four kids, I'd rather stay a night or two less, and keep the 2 bedroom if only for washer/dryer and kitchen.

And the king master surely. We always found the king master a valuable retreat with little kids

 

[Brian Noble]

We would only be able to go every 2/3 years

If you are going every three years you are probably better off renting. Otherwise point management is tough.

We always found the king master a valuable retreat with little kids

The king master…with a door that locks!

 

[Nabas]

My husband was very wary of the ‘will they just raise points needed‘ question as well and I believe I understand this right in saying YES and NO.

There are only so many points allotted per hotel. So to make it easy for me to understand lets pretend RIV has 100 total. To stay in Sept in a 1 bed is currently 5 points. They CAN raise that either 10 or 20% (someone help me there) each year HOWEVER they cannot exceed the 100 points total so they would have to lower something else in the point chart. Thats why everyone cautions not to buy points for the smallest room in the lowest point season because that can certainly move around and does.

Yes, the total number of points at a DVC resort is fixed.

If Disney increases the number of points in one area of the points chart, they must balance this by decreasing it in another area.

 

[🍀TwinsMom]

On the other hand, if it is within what you can imagine affording, then why not? For my family, a 2BR is pretty much the smallest unit that I will consider when the four of us (me, DW, DD23 and DS21) are all traveling together, and that’s pretty much been true since the kids were in grade school. If it is just three of us, I will cram into a 1BR if I have to, but only if I have to. For me, ”have a reasonable amount of space” is the one of the three that is non-negotiable.

This is a bit unusual among DVC folks, but I did not get into timesharing to stay in studios. We really like having a living room to be able to stretch out and relax in, where the night owls and/or early birds can do their thing without disturbing anyone who might be sleeping—and that means the sofa bed isn’t being used as a sleeping surface by anyone. We don’t do a lot of “cooking” but it is nice to be able to have a decent breakfast without having to leave the room. In-room laundry means you can throw a load on your way out to the park/dinner/what-have-you without having to worry about hogging a shared machine.

The longer the stay, the more important the “home away from home” conveniences are to me. I cannot imagine being in a studio or two for a couple of weeks.

All of this. We only do one-bedrooms, even though they’re supposedly such a bad points value, and in another year or two, when our boy/girl hit puberty and are 6’ giants wanting to sleep in until noon and this early bird mom loses her mind seeing unmade beds and crap all over when she’s trying to get her java on for the balcony and surfing the iPad in peace — we’ll be moving onto 2-bedrooms after that. We got a taste of the Riviera two-bedroom last September and LOVED it.

We bought in at Riviera twice, so got the bonus years’ points each time, so that justified going twice a year with pandemic cheap airfare. Now that we’ve run ourselves silly around the parks and got that out of our system and airfare costs a mint, we’d rather stay longer, nicer, and truly relax. 10-day trips is now my goal with maybe a split stay to try new things. We’re officially 2nd shift park goers now, too. R&R!

 

[Dreams&wishes]

Yes, the total number of points at a DVC resort is fixed.

If Disney increases the number of points in one area of the points chart, they must balance this by decreasing it in another area.

So does this mean that I'm freezing my "holiday Money" to this point in time and that despite inflation etc the cost of spending two weeks at the Dvc Deluxe won't change by increasing the amount of points needed for it but always remain to whatever I have paid now? If this makes sense?

 

[Dreams&wishes]

If you are going every three years you are probably better off renting. Otherwise point management is tough.

The king master…with a door that locks!

Is this because I can only borrow from the following year?Rather than previous current and future?

 

[Nabas]

So does this mean that I'm freezing my "holiday Money" to this point in time and that despite inflation etc the cost of spending two weeks at the Dvc Deluxe won't change by increasing the amount of points needed for it but always remain to whatever I have paid now? If this makes sense?

No. The cost of the annual Maintenance Fee that is charged per point increases every year.

Depending on which DVC resort you buy at, this has averaged around 3% to 4% each year.

 

[Sandisw]

So does this mean that I'm freezing my "holiday Money" to this point in time and that despite inflation etc the cost of spending two weeks at the Dvc Deluxe won't change by increasing the amount of points needed for it but always remain to whatever I have paid now? If this makes sense?

The exact same two weeks each year could increase or decrease if they balance things differently.

However, you will always be able to find some time in the year that would get you the same number of nights.

We bought in when we did only summer trips..I was teaching…so it was the highest point time outside of premium around Xmas and Easter.

With the adjustments the past few years, summer is now less and my points go farther when I travel then. But, because summer takes fewer points, fall was raised because it was more popular and created unequal demand compared to the rest of the year.

 

[Brian Noble]

Is this because I can only borrow from the following year?Rather than previous current and future?

It’s because you only have three years’ points available at any one time. The prior year banked, the current year, and the next year borrowed. If you only go once every three years, you have to use 3x your annual allocation exactly or you will end up wasting points.

Additionally, the banking/borrowing rules can change. For example during the “pandemic bulge” an owner could only borrow half of the next year’s allocation.

IMO, one needs to commit to going at least every other year for owning to work b

 

[NVDISFamily]

I’m glad to see that we aren’t the only family who is giving priority to 2BR units even though there is only 4 of us. We just love the idea of extra space and not having to use the living room beds and being able to keep it as a social gathering place is our goal for most trips. We will use them on trips where we invite other families to join us for a reunion or something like that.

As the OP mentioned that they were considering waiting for VDH (new Disneyland tower DVC) I just have to see if there was any thought to VGC (DVC at Grand Californian). VGC is very expensive, but a lot of us on the board are concerned with the location of the VDH tower (half of the views being a residential area of apartments and such), most villas being studios and even most of the “premium” villas not having balconies. Plus VGC will have more dedicated 2BR units than VDH despite being significantly smaller in number of units. Many, our family included, think that in the long run VGC will net more value due to the location of the property and the great theming/amenities at the Grand Californian. Likely resale restrictions at VDH are also a concern.

If you are like us and really do want to buy DVC and are close to Disneyland Resort and expect to use DVC points in California, I’ll repeat the advice of others and say that you really need to own at the California properties as it can get all booked up at 7 months.

We are going for a split strategy of VGC points and some at WDW to use there or for Aulani at 7 months.

Best of luck to you on your purchase

 

[Her Dotness]

The exact same two weeks each year could increase or decrease if they balance things differently.

Which is precisely what led to our buying 25 VGF points direct after buying the minimum 100 direct a couple years prior.

We stupidly blew the prior year's bonus points we got with the 100 on a 1br first stay. Spoiled! Very badly spoiled.

With 125/yr, we were fine for a few years in a studio for 5 nights or banking and borrowing to get a 1br.

Then, DVD reallocated points and put us out of even a studio every year.

Juggling to do a 1br every other year became difficult, too. Since our mid-November week was the easiest for DH to get vacation and cooler weather, we didn't have much flexibility.

Sometimes, addonitis becomes necessary due to points increases. This is one reason why people advise buying 10-20% more points than you know you'll currently need for the resort and villa type you think will work for your family.

 

[DSLRuser]

You should probably buy 10-20% more points than you think you need.

If not more. Not being able to borrow the full amount of points has really put a dent in how we were using DVC.

 

[Her Dotness]

If not more. Not being able to borrow the full amount of points has really put a dent in how we were using DVC.

Yup. If we hadn't been able to add 200 pts. in resales after the covid reopening, we'd have been in serious hurt dealing with the borrowing limit going forward.

Beware the multi-room stay! That's what ruined us for being satisfied with studios.

Yeah, with only two of us, we don't actually NEED a 1br. However, I'm a night owl, and DH isn't. He also likes to nap in the afternoon, whereas I'm pinballing around the villa or going out to roam about places that don't interest him.

It's markedly easier to have the separate bedroom, washer-dryer and full kitchen. Besides, we're on vacation at "The Dreams Place" and deserve the stay of our dreams (well, DVC dreams, that is ), not just the make-do one.