How do you DVC?

[JABEAR]

What do you do differently for your Disney vacations now that you are a proud DVC owner? What do you do or bring with you that you wouldn't in the past? Where do you chose to do most of your dining? In the parks, in the room, or at the restaurant in the resort?

Anyone have any tips for a DVC novice?

 

[Mary Anne]

We always eat breakfast in the room, usually a quite large one. Our main meal 60% of the time is eaten out as the latest lunch we can get, and then sandwiches in the room again at night. We always get a onebedroom so we have the full kitchen. I have no problem cooking on days we decide to eat in.

 

[nono]

Absolutely -- making breakfast in the room! For us, it is so much easier being able to eat and get ready for the day in the privacy of our villa. It makes our day start much smoother -- sets the tone, no insanity.

 

[Cinderelli]

For us it's "No Parks!". I know, blasphemy!. Since we live so close, we just love going for a couple days and not doing any parks. We enjoy the pool, maybe have a nice breakfast at the Poly, have fun at the community hall at BWV or SSR, checkout the Boardwalk at night for entertainment and ice cream cones, etc. We just came back from such a visit and it left us with such a nice feeling. We truly enjoyed our "Disney Fix", and look forward to our next extended trip where we will do the parks.

It's nice to take a break and enjoy the non-park aspects our our DVC membership.

Enjoy!
Lissa

 

[Mary Anne]

That is exactly what I would do if I lived in Florida.

I have to mention that we spent a week in California seeing "Mickey" out there and what we missed most was our DVC. The villa type room, being able to relax and not have to do parks, I hated feeling like I was on the go all the time. I can't wait till next year when we get to go "home" again.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Oh boy, it's been a long time since we were NOT DVC members, but we definitely tour at a slower pace than we did before, and we go for more days at a time. We too tend to eat breakfast and light suppers in the villa and usually have a big meal at one of the sit down restaurants either in the parks or the resorts in the middle of the day. We usually make 1-2 main meals in the villa over the course of our stay too.

 

[bongo59]

we lalso dont do the parks at lightspeed either............there is alot more to Orlando than the theme parks..............

 

[WDWLVR]

Since we got into DVC here are the things we've done different:

We now go every year - in the past it was every other year in a deluxe

We grocery shop and have breakfast foods, snacks and drinks.

Breakfast is in the room and works great for us since I'm more of a morning person than DH. I can get up early, fix myself something to eat, and spend some morning time reading or people watching out on the balcony.

We don't do the parks all day and into the night. We hit the parks in the morning, do a few must do things and head back to the room early afternoon. Then we relax back in the villa and head out for dinner and back to one of the parks.

 

[DVCLiz]

Now that I'm a DVC member, I'm starting to do some things at WDW that I would normally do on a vacation. For me, that always means bringing along a book or two and some needlepoint. I don't have to kill myself on each trip to get to each and every park, so I might spend a morning sleeping in, eating lunch in the room, and reading or stitching on the balcony in the afternoon. I find a half or full day of relaxation comes in handy after a few days tramping around the parks.

Also, and I know this seems pretty shallow, but since I know I'm going to be coming back again and again, I occasionally stay in to watch a breaking news story on TV. We were at WDW when Reagan was buried, and since we were all kind of tired we just watched TV and had meals in the room. I was also at WDW when the Pope and Terri Schiavo were big news, so I spent some time keeping up on those major stories. I'm pretty addicted to my news in real life, and while I wouldn't pass up Test Track to watch a normal CNN crawl, it's nice to know I can occasionally spend some time in the room watching TV!!!!

 

[marathonmommy]

I am a new DVC member and am going for the first time at the end of
August. I have already made changes! I am now an annual pass holder with a DDE card!

 

[Lesli54]

Relax a bit more. We don't feel the push to see everything in one day. Also, we are now able to spend more days on property for basically the same amount of $ or less as the shorter trips.

We take fewer clothes since we can do laundry in the villas. Breakfast is always in the room unless we are doing a character breakfast. Then we have a late lunch/early supper back in the room if we are not eating out.

And yes, we enjoy some days without parks.

 

[NJOYURLIFE]

Less packing and more eating in to save money to do more expensive special meals. Also, no commando and more time enjoying the non park elements of Disney.

 

[magicmouse2]

Breakfast in the room will be our big change. I enjoyed this even though I had to cook and do dishes when we stayed at OKW. And being able to do laundry in the room is fantastic.

 

[gilld]

We take the parks at a much more relaxed pace but cooking/making meals - absolutely not!

 

[Miffy2003]

We take the parks at a much more relaxed pace but cooking/making meals - absolutely not!

I'm with Gill 100% here

 

[mrsdon]

We too make breakfast in the room.
It allows us to wake up and saves a ton of money too.
I dont mind cooking even dinner, if it means Im able to be in Disney.
Somedays we dont do parks either.
its nice just to relax.
Our lives are so chaotic , that we use DVC to unwind

 

[RealMickey]

We always bring groceries and have a couple of meals in the room. We do breakfast in the room on most mornings.

We now eat more table service meals at nicer restaurants on property. Since the room is "pre-payed", we do not mind spending more on meals. We love to resort hop, having meals at the many resort restaurants.

We also are more likely to park hop. Hit a park early in the morning, take a break, then go to epcot just for dinner.

We relax more (a lot more). We only commando if traveling with someone.

 

[kathyseb]

Two big changes for us.
One is we are still at the park every day we are there. We will be the ones dragging our feet as we do not want to leave when the park closes. But we take our time getting there in the morning.

Before DVC, we ate breakfast out. So that meant we had to get up and get dressed. Once we got back to the room after breakfast, we would head over to the park. So we take the parks at a slower pace. Still there everyday until it closes but not going at break neck pace.

The other big change is we eat breakfast in the room. There is just DH and myself so a studio is fine for us. We take an electric griddle and use it to cook up breakfast meats. So maybe have some bacon with our muffin or a slice of ham.
It is so nice to be able to eat breakfast at your own pace. Out on the balcony if you want.

In fact, we leave in 25 days for two weeks at OKW!!!!!!!!!!

 

[JABEAR]

We take an electric griddle.....

Great Idea!! Maybe even some pancake mix or a waffle iron.

 

[kathyseb]

Funny you should mention panckae mix. Last trip we had made panckaes at home the morning we left. We had a few left over, so we thought, what the heck.
We took them and warmed them in the mircowave. They were pretty good. Only thing we forgot was the syrup. You guessed, it, when we got home I went to the store and bought a small bottle of syrup. We will be taking it with us on our next trip.