How did DVC ownership change your trips?

[Chili327]

We are doing London to Hawaii in August! Fun! Fortunately we have enough Avios to avoid economy. We are breaking the trip up on the way home with a 3 day stay at VGC.

This is the way!

 

[DoubleBaconBLT]

Joining 11 years ago, I feel like we are in Phase II of ownership. We started staying off-site using hotel points. My MIL decided to take us for a trip and we stayed at BLT in a 1 BR since she has mobility issues. We were hooked. Purchased a year later. We are long-weekend warriors in general since but when you have DVC and go for multiple short-trips, APs make sense and suddenly APs make you want more trips. More trips = more points. More trips, more trying different experiences (and spending more money since the room is already paid for). Daddy daughter trips. Mommy daughter trips. Mom and friend trips. More trips to see more off property resorts. We have been to all the offsites and really wanted to hate Aulani as east coasters. We loved it and even went back for Christmas. That said, we have been taking our DD to more non-disney places and overseas while she is old enough and still not in college. We mistakenly booked our first Disney cruise (other than the COVID one that got cancelled) to Europe. That hooked us on DCL. On the plane now flying to our second DCL of this year (Alaska DCL this summer) and a few days at the world. Like others, bigger rooms and more relaxed. You asked for honest - we aren’t saving any money… ha ha ha. We are sucked in. I am sure once DD graduates HS we will enter Phase III of ownership. Incredibly grateful for all of it.

I feel this. We did two stays offsite before staying at AOA, then Poly. We now own at Poly and BLT and have five trips planned over the next year (APs gonna AP). We've borrowed a lot of our points, so we may get hit with addonitis in a few months.

We also went on two DCL cruises, but for a variety of reasons (illness, toddler challenges, etc) we decided to pause those for a while.

Right now though, we haven't used any of our points or our APs yet, so tons to look forward to.

 

[beccasmom]

We usually either visit more often or stay longer. Now that we’re retired, that’s a lot easier to do. We recently had a 10-day trip planned for this month that we had to cancel due to other family priorities.

We rarely stay in studios anymore or if we do it is usually only for one night. We especially enjoy the one-bedroom units for the two of us, but the two-bedrooms are great with a larger group. We have only stayed in a GV twice.

We do visit the parks (back in our early DVC days we had free tickets that made that a no-brainer), but tend not to stay all day or visit every day now unless the grandkids are with us. We do enjoy relaxing at our resort and I like shopping at DS.

 

[Brob2132]

There has been an aspect of having already paid for accommodations that is a big value for me. It’s really easy to forgo a vacation to save money, etc. But we already bought it and there’s always another trip to look forward to.

 

[epski]

Everything changed....

We used to do primarily short trips - everywhere - not just Disney. Longest trip we ever did would be 5 nights - and that was because Marriott has "5th night free" on points.

Now, we do 6 nights whenever we can, and 5 nights are the "short trips" - with the exception of 3 night cruises when we do those. I can tell that 7 night trips (or more) are on the horizon - though we're not there yet.

We used to seek out hotels that were "fancy" - now we look for villa-style accommodations - with the kids nothing less than a 1 BR will do for a longer trip. The Washer and Dryer are so convenient and nice. Though I feel the full kitchen is underutilized by us, it is so nice to have it - and I love so many necessities like cutlery, plates, are there. It is also such a special treat to have plentiful favorite snacks waiting for us to enjoy throughout the day, and know we can reheat leftovers - especially nice with the kids food.

It has caused some weird situations - we are hoarding a bunch of hotel rewards points - and I'm not quite sure what to do with them - because I love the Villas!

It has also made us reassess what family time looks like - having the Beach resorts, and resorts that allow for that relaxed feel have made us realize we don't want our vacations to be filled with nonstop activities.

We are FL based... as time goes on I would love to use our points at AUL, but for now the commute over there is too difficult with the kids.

It's interesting you bring up hotel rewards points. We accumulate member rewards and ultimate rewards (and recently some thank you points that I used to book airfare to Paris and Disneyland Paris next August). There are still plenty of opportunities for us to use points on airfare, and if that's a bad redemption, or the cash fare is too cheap to waste points, then we can use those to stay on Disney Property when we don't have enough points for all the visits.

We thought when we bought into DVC that alternating years at Poly and VGC would be enough. Then we visited. We are new members as of this spring and have already been 3 times: April for 6 nights on rented points (BCV studio), June 6 more nights at Pop Century (bounceback, and vacation points were already spoken for, as this was as spontaneous trip after having so much fun in April, and then another time earlier this month, just to stay on BOGO MMB points at OKW (1BD) the night of our son's birthday, before our first cruise (the Wish). We stayed at Pop another couple nights after the cruise. After that trip, I decided I wanted to go again with my son next summer, especially since my wife and I were discussing getting the Sorcerers Pass, which is cheaper than paying for park passes for our February and likely November trips.

We do not have nearly enough vacation points yet to do DVC stays for as often and as long as we have ended up going (3 WDW this year, plus our Welcome Home stay at Aulani coming up for 3 nights next month; 3 WDW trips and DL/DCA next year, minimum, and so on), so we end up filling in with value stays, because Pop is actually kinda fun and the Skyliner is convenient enough when it's working. I haven't felt like spending the extra few hundred bucks to stay at a moderate, since none of them appeal to me enough to do so, especially since we are still primarily parks people (assuming that will change over time). However, I've started eyeing hotels like the Dolphin for points redemptions, especially since member rewards transfer to Marriott 1:1.3 and we are starting to stockpile some MR.

We have a 4 night stay at Poly coming up in February, finally using the points we have left over from our Welcome Home stay at Aulani, and a 4 night stay in a 2BD at VGC in June (which will definitely be a biannual trip with family). Assuming we get the Sorcerers Pass in February like I want, we will add on another summer trip for my son and I this year, so we'll have to go non-DVC yet again, since I'm not springing for a DVC rental to visit when it's just the two of us. With an annual pass and airfare on points, I can get us a week at WDW pretty cheap, so of course I'm considering Pop as a bounce back again, but I'm also toying with trying the Dolphin if we have the member rewards saved up and don't want to use them for another WDW visit in November.

Then I don't see how we're going to go from early November to spring break the following year without another Disney stay, but we'll see. We're banking and borrowing our poly points for a 2BD at BLT with our son's cousins in April of 2027.

I'm really looking forward to having enough points not to have to fill in with value or points-purchased hotels like Dolphin, though. I do prefer staying in the Disney bubble, and we have already talked about buying more resale at WDW over the next 2-3 years. Hard to wait that long, much less how long we'd have to wait to actually use them. But hopefully while our son is still young we will be able to have our 3-4 Disney stays per year all be DVC!

 

[Cfabar1]

I personally don't feel the Swan and Dolphin are outside the Disney bubble... Yes, the theming/environment is different than a Disney hotel, but they still feel very much "on property" to me.

 

[epski]

I personally don't feel the Swan and Dolphin are outside the Disney bubble... Yes, the theming/environment is different than a Disney hotel, but they still feel very much "on property" to me.

Haven't stayed there myself, but theming and environment are part of the bubble for me so far. Proximity to DHS and EPCOT is great, though.