How did DVC ownership change your trips?

[melissa70]

Since I’m usually on here asking a million contract questions , I wanted to switch gears.
Instead of points/ROFR/prices, I’d love to hear from long-time DVC owners:
How did your Disney vacations actually change once you owned points?
Did you go more often? Stay in bigger rooms? Become more relaxed planners?
Or did ownership not change much at all?
We have always been park people morning til night but I want to stop all that
No echo chamber… I’m just looking for real, honest experiences. Thank you!

 

[MyDogTink]

We’ve moved up to 2 BRs and enjoy the resort itself more. We’re 3 people so I know a 2 BR sounds ridiculous but I think if we were in studios we would be miserable. We don’t do all-inclusive beachy vacations so we mimic that with DVC. More time at the pool, hanging out on the balcony, visiting the community hall and game room and maybe going to parks only in the evening.

 

[RuntheMouse]

How did your Disney vacations actually change once you owned points?
Did you go more often? Stay in bigger rooms? Become more relaxed planners?
Or did ownership not change much at all?

Yes, yes and yes!

We bought enough points for the trips we routinely took. Sometime though, there are points leftover that we may use to sneak in an extra trip because we have APs.

We have started staying in 1 beds more often and see continuing that going forward. It ties in with being more relaxed planners. We like spending more time at the resort and not being so park crazy. We know we’re coming back so we don’t have to hit everything every time. It’s been really nice to actually relax on vacation!

 

[OKW Lover]

We've been DVC members for 30 years now. When I lived in MA and was still working we used our points to make frequent but shorter trips. We would think nothing of a spur of the moment 3-night trip if we could find a cheap air fare. Having annual passes made the trip very inexpensive. We would also at that time do a longer trip of 6+ nights each year.

Now that we live practically next to the parks, we still use points there occasionally for a staycation. But now we mostly save our points for a long stay at Aulani.

 

[tidefan]

The long answer is that it will change a lot, and multiple times over your membership.

We've been owners for 18 years, and our stay patterns have varied greatly over each say 1/3 of our ownership. During the first 5-6 years, while DD was in elementary school, we could take her out, and being that we were 8ish hours by car away, we got APs and went all of the time. We would go for long weekends, summer weeks, spring break, and always labor day for MNSSHP, etc, the zenith of this being in 2012 when they offered members the $399 Premium Annual Pass (think Incredipass+Water Parks+Mini-golf+Oak Trail Golf).

The middle 1/3, mainly when DD was in middle/high school, visits were perhaps fewer, but longer, and beholden to the school calendar. We also probably took more friends during this period than others. Also, as others have mentioned, you start to gravitate towards larger villa sizes. Also at that time, newer properties started opening, most prominently, Aulani. We went the first year it opened and have been back 5 times since. We have now decided that Aulani is a once every at least 3 year visit.

Then the pandemic hit, parks closed and points started to back up. Also, Disney stopped selling APs at the time, which really changed at least our visit pattern. Prior to that, we always had APs, which made you want to maximize your visits. Well, with no AP, we branched out. We visited Aulani 3 straight years 2021-2023 and loved every visit (sans the COVID testing we had to do at the airport once we arrived back in 2021, but that was a different time... ). We also hit Vero for two weeks during the shutdown and Hilton Head the next year and really enjoyed them as well.

Fast forward to the last couple of years and DD is now out of college, so there are many more couples trips for DW and I. We have really come to love the Cabins at Fort Wilderness, and our last 3 stays have been there. We can just go down and enjoy the Fort ecosystem with the golf carts, scavenger hunts, great community, etc., and we feel that we don't even need to visit the parks. Plus, you can bring your dog, which we've really enjoyed. That said, we do usually make one day for Epcot for Guardians We've also increased things like trips to Europe, etc, branching outside the Disney bubble, so that makes less time for park trips.

I am sure that our visits will change over the next 18 years as well. Our first part of our ownership was add-on-itis as we wanted more points to do more and more. However, now that our visiting patterns have changed, for the first time, we have actually thought about downsizing a contract or two, especially since we don't really use the 11 month window that much.

The short answer however is that everyone is different and your experience could well be very different than ours. We are only a sample of size 1, so I wouldn't take our experience as gospel (what did @Brian Noble say about turning anecdotes into data??? )

 

[CraigInPA]

Before DVC, we'd stay 8-10 nights at the Poly overlooking the marina every year. After DVC, we'd stay 10-12 nights at BLT overlooking the Lake every year. Recently, we started to stay 8-10 nights again, but in a 1 bedroom overlooking the Lake, every year.

 

[melissa70]

What do you all like to do besides the parks? Monorail crawl? I can’t believe I’ve been going to Disney since 1999 and have never done anything like that!

 

[davidhr]

Now most of the time we do 1BRs. We also take it much easier, with less hours at the parks during the day and even some days with no parks at all. We’re also more likely to take shorter trips more frequently, like flying wed/thu night and spending a few days and coming back Sunday. Those are great because we don’t have to burn vacation days.

Our trips are much more enjoyable now because we don’t feel the need to do everything as we know we’ll back soon. It’s so nice to say “hey, wanna grab a bite at Epcot” and just walk there to get it.

 

[byurick]

Way more relaxed trips now, we don't buy LLs and rarely make ADRs. We just go with the flow and enjoy being there.

 

[RuntheMouse]

What do you all like to do besides the parks? Monorail crawl? I can’t believe I’ve been going to Disney since 1999 and have never done anything like that!

We love doing tours at AK, while technically at the park, we’ll go over there just to do that and grab a cocktail at Nomad Lounge. Have done Sangria University at CSR. We have the sports & water park add on with our APs so we take advantage of that too! Go see the horses at FW. I love running at WDW so my mornings start off that way quite often. SO many things to do!

Never done a monorail crawl…… might have to sneak that in next trip!

 

[intamin]

Never stayed in deluxe prior to DVC. Not that we didn't want to but the cash prices for deluxe were absurdly high so we were always booking moderate. Now we go on significantly more trips to WDW and AUL both of which my partner and I love anyways. I feel like WDW and AUL have become the backbone of our vacations but we still want to go on trips to other countries maybe once a year. We absolutely fell in love with Japan last year and can see ourselves going regularly but we still want to go to European countries and etc. as well so we'll probably alternate Asian/European countries once a year. But anyways back to DVC we find ourselves doing more trips with our friends and staying in larger accommodations as well. I'm looking forward to having kids and booking 1BRs at BWV and BCV in the summer.

 

[Genie+]

We have always been park people morning til night but I want to stop all that

This was us!

Although we’ve only owned DVC for 4 years, our DVC rental habit started over 10yrs ago. Over the last decade we went from park commandos to resort happy slackers

Ownership itself pushed us to quickly outgrow studios due to a few things.

- It’s easier to spend points that already exist in our account. The expense of points is much more apparent when buying them individually on the marketplace. We got ‘em now let’s use ‘em!

- It’s much less risky booking high point reservations because as an owner I can control how much flexibility we leave to reschedule, cancel, bank, etc. Renting is more costly and complicated in that regard, so lower point ressies were more comfortable to hold.

- Getting spoiled! Those ‘one time’ splurges turn out so great they become habit. It’s hard to go back after trying things like 1BR or Lakeview Poly. Years of 4 people in a studio no problem, turned into: we need a BLT 1BR TPV for our next 2 person trip. Lol! Kidding/not kidding

DVC brought us into the world of resorts outside the park. We’ve really enjoyed upping our non-park game. It’s going to sound counter-intuitive, but that is why we now have such a strong preference for near park resorts. Logistically it makes these trips much smoother. We break up our days doing stuff in either the MK or EP resort areas, and it’s much more efficient when you can easily pop into your room when coming or going.

 

[MICKIMINI]

30 years ago we bought OKW during a stay at a Value. We had made trips before and stayed at whatever place looked good on or off property. My first trip was in 1973 when Day's Inn was the rage and my brother and I didn't know the difference. Watching that monorail go around and around and through The Contemporary was mesmerizing!

In that 30 years our son grew from an 8 yo well traveled youngster to a late 30 something married professional. The journey has been interesting, starting with extended family and friends 3BRGV trips to 1 and 2 BR trips with DH, our son and me. Prep school, college and grad school meant empty nester trips for a decade, but we typically went during F & W and had a great time. I think DH and I have only stayed in a studio a few times and he is adamant about having a WD and so am I as it makes the trip so much easier. We don't cook much but stock lots of drinks, fruit, salads and always a frozen pizza for that rainy night.

We are off and on AP holders (on right now) as we try to use it over two longer trips in a year (10-14 days each) so it makes sense. Perks are helpful when our foodie kids are with us.

Until recently we almost always had a rental car, but this next trip in May will be 9 nights at BWV in a 1BR so there is no need for a car. We will be at EPCOT most of the time and will bus to other parks if we need to. We plan to take the Minnie Van to/from the airport as we are saving a ton on the rental car. Now that SWA announced it will deliver luggage from your home airport to your WDW resort I am thrilled! That was the biggest convenience and losing that perk was a PIA for DH as I use a WC at MCO. If there isn't an attendant (often) and sometimes not even a WC, rolling 2 bags and dealing with me is a challenge.

We always invite our son and DIL as they live 3000 miles from us now and have given them many solo trips as well. We love it when they go and we give them a studio at the same or different resort. Lately they have been going to Europe and will be there in March so we won't see them in May. We're planning October and our son may have a medical conference in Orlando so we're hoping they can join us.

We've gone from 230 points in 1996 to 650 or so post covid to 225 now with direct and resale. I often use the OTU points option and can get 48 between direct and resale. Better than buying a bunch of points. I've transferred in points but now that is not so easy as it is one time per year. I'll be smarter about transferring in a larger amount if necessary in the future for bigger trips. Disney is expensive and we are more about getting what we want and save by not eating out much at home the rest of the year, using SWA points for flights, using cash back credit cards and buying discounted Disney gift cards when possible (even to pay for dues). It all counts.

I hope you pick up a tip or two and enjoy your trips!