So far we have done "something Disney" ever since we bought in 2006. Whether it's HHI or a combo of WDW & Vero or WDW &
DCL combined. We fall somewhere in-between some of you with 250 points and I also don't feel we have enough points to squander on a cruise. This year we're doing a DCL Med cruise combo with some time in Europe. Paying cash. We DID find someone to take a transfer of 1/2 of our point allotment for this year & we're using that money toward our time in Paris. Visiting DLP for 1 night / 2 days - but paying cash there too then moving into the city for 3 nights. If you think points to cruise are bad try "pricing" a resort in a different country!!
We got almost enough $ from the transfer to cover 4 nights in Paris along with our park tix (if the darned euro would stop going up it would HELP!).
Unless we can figure out a way to afford a quick long weekend trip to FL sometime in the next year we're banking the remainder of our points to use for Aulani & DL in 2012. That will be a very point intensive trip (almost worse at DL than at Aulani) so we figure we can use up what we bank no problem. We had 30-some odd points left this year that were banked from last year that we couldn't use so we gave them to my BIL & SIL for 3 nights at AKV in May. There's always a way to use up points. While we're in Hawaii we'll also go to Maui and just book something over there on cash for a few nights. Maybe thru Costco. We're perfectly happy figuring out all the different ways to get around the world AND use our DVC too. There will probably come a day when we attempt to trade out thru RCI - but probably not before 2014 as I'm sure after this summer and next we'll be ready to "just go to FL" in 2013.
Sounds great! We loved our Hawaiian honeymoon 12 years ago, but it is very expensive to fly there for the 4 of us. Just priced it out, and it's close to $4,000 just for airfare.
We hope to have our house paid off within about 8 years - knocked a lot of years off by paying double payments - and then we'll go back. I hope you have a great trip!
Every family has its own priorities for spending money. We have spent a lot on DVC (1150 points) and we do other vacations as well (just returned from Hawaii). But we are just middle class folks so that means we don't live in a fancy house nor in a fancy neighborhood. We rarely eat at fancy neighborhoods and we don't wear fancy clothes. It works for us but I'm sure some people question our choices.
OP, it sounds like you are a thinking person and as long as you are making conscious decisions then you are wise. As the years pass your circumstances may change and so may your choices. In the meantime, enjoy every Disney moment! Even if my only vacations were Disney I would still be a very happy lady!
Thanks. I am too much of a thinker at times though, but when it came to DVC, I don't think I thought enough, as you need to plan out 50 years of vacations, and that's hard to do, when you have only been married a few years, with a new home and new baby. What you think you might want to do at that point, is different than later on...Hubby and I are still talking about it though!
Even after living near Detroit for 8 years, I still can't wrap my head around the Canadian cash exchange thing, so forgive me.
I thought there was a way to use DVC points + cash for the DCL. We have not done the cruise yet, so I have not spent much time trying to figure this out.
You could also get larger accommodations (i.e. grand villa) and invite some close friends or family. Maybe you could get them to pay you MF's as their contribution. Or, you could do a concierge level stay and enjoy that level of services.
We have owned a small vacation home in Michigan for over 10 years, and we have finally come to terms with not spending a week at the cottage every summer. There are so many other things to do, and so we are going to be happy with having fun summer weekends at the lake and then use our precious vacation time for a
REAL vacation. As a PP stated, life is short, so we DVC owners should all try not to feel bogged down by our membership.
Over 50 years, if you lose a few points here and there to do something else that interests you. . . so be it. DVC ownership is probably not much different than buying a new car every 5-8 years, and most of us do this without thinking about how much we just spent. Who knows. . . in another 5 years I may be whistling another tune!
Cash plus cruise still seems expensive. 360 points doesn't go far with DCL at all. We'd have to skip Disney for several years and we still wouldn't have enough for a 7 night cruise in the summer. We would have enough for a 4 night cruise, but I can pay cash with Carnival or
Royal Caribbean, as it's way, and I mean way cheaper. We enjoyed our
Disney cruise, but they have become so expensive...Not interested in inviting family or friends. Been there with friends, and both of our families don't travel well, so DVC is ours alone at this point in time.
I agree, rather than spending our money on cars, clothes, a more expensive house, etc. we prefer to spend our money taking vacations. In the end I think they are much more fulfilling than "stuff".
For me, its not a question of justifying taking non-DVC/
disney vacations. As much as I love Disney, if was looking back on my life and the only place I ever went was Disney, I would be very disappointed in my life. There is too much out there to see, do and experience other than another ride on Space Mountain or getting another Mickey Mouse autograph. I don't think Walt would have wanted people to exlusively travel to WDW/DL either (Disney shareholders on the other hand...), he thought the world was a wonderous place that should be explored.
We don't have fancy cars either - both vans are paid in full. We also have the extra money to spend on vacations, but I just can't justify the extra expense. If we didn't own DVC it would be different, but not that much different, as spending $10,000/year on vacations is just not a great usage of finances when my mortgage can be down even quicker. I totally get what you're saying about looking back on your life, but if I have years of Disney vacations to look back on, I know that is one lucky lady! Honestly, hubby and I have spent a week on this, and there aren't that many places on our list that we can go with our young kids. We just aren't interested in spending a week at the beach - 3 of us burn. After 2 days at Vero, we were done, and ready for something else. All inclusive resorts don't do it for us, as we don't drink. Love Hawaii, but airfare is killer from here. We are still talking about it though, and tonight, I will show hubby this thread. Thanks.
We made a conscious decision not to overbuy and we bought resale. We are much closer to WDW than you, though. We can go down for 5-6 nights, it does not have to be a two week vacation to be worth the trip. Sometimes I would love more than 150 points, and maybe we will add on in the future, but I like knowing we will probably never be looking for ways to get rid of our points. We like to have other adventures besides Disney.
Have you considered trading into RCI? I would do that if I wanted to take a break from Disney but still use my points.
Just looked at RCI last night, but I was tired. It seems that there are lots of resorts where you just kind of lay around, and we aren't interested in this. I will look much more closely tonight after kids are in bed. Thanks for the suggestion.
Good question and I am sure it's related to the Regrets Thread. As we have gotten older, our entire family, us, kids, grandparents, we are now not as interested in Disney park vacations and since Disney ruined the dining on property, we are struggling with spending extra money on nonDisney trips.
If we had Brian's Crytal Ball,
we would have bought about half the points we have and taken Disney trips every 3 years and gone other places on the off years.
But we were blinded by pixie dust and at the time just could not imagine this day ever coming. But it did.
I wish about 5 years ago I had sold some points.
Even though things have happened we could not forsee, health issues, deaths etc. I am however disappointed that DVC dropped the II collection in favor of RCI.
We had really hoped to trade out and we don't feel RCI gives us what we personally wanted but II did.
Also there was no way to know the economy would tank and there would be so many bargains available to get by paying cash.
I mean DVC members have to be questioning the many discounts Disney is currently offering, especially at DVC resorts and free dining, or the Main Man would have not have addressed those very questions in that fabulous publication called Disney Piles, excuse me typo, Disney Files.
I think for the near future, renting our points out and paying cash for other trips is going to be a major consideration.
I'm still waiting for Brian's crystal ball.
I find you and I think so much alike...
Like I said, we really thought that we would be content with taking Disney vacations for 50 years. And because of that, we've done too much, too fast. We've stayed at pretty much every resort on property, both Disney and DVC, except for a couple. We've also eaten pretty much everywhere too. So, maybe we are burned out? Can't sell our points though, as we would take a massive hit, and I don't know that that is necessarily the answer. Although owning at Saratoga is kind of a pain, as the points cost more than staying at OKW, and we truly love it at OKW. The kids aren't tired of Disney though, and want to go back all of the time. We also drive from Canada, as we prefer our car, and that takes its toll after awhile too, but it necessitates longer trips as we come a long way.
The biggest thing is our disenchantment with Disney - changes and decline in areas that we never thought we'd see. Those take a toll too...
And, lastly, we are starting to want to take the kids to other places, and since vacationing is expensive, we can't justify the expense, as we've spent a mint on Disney. When you add up our buy in, dues, and all associated vacation costs, we've spent close to $70,000 in almost 7 years.
Based on the responses on this thread, I don't think any of you would have a problem with that, as most of the vacations mentioned here are quite costly, but for us, that's a huge amount of money. And, even as I stated, we are considered high income earners in our area, and have available cash, yet it's still a large amount of money for us.
Our trip 2 weeks ago went well, but it tuckered us out, so no more March trips for us, as it's too much for a short amount of time. We are going back to 1 trip per year, and maybe we'll start looking at other options. The thing is, I am always considering tickets, as right now, we plan trips 51 weeks apart, so APs are reasonable, but if we go on other vacations, the ticket options then become much more expensive. And, we have no interest in going to WDW without going into the parks - if that were the case, we wouldn't have purchased DVC in the first place.
As always, all of you have been so helpful. The amount of positive energy that I find on this board is amazing to me! I thank all of you for your awesome tips and opinions. Very helpful!
Happy travels to all, Tiger
. If we just did Disney for multiple weeks during the year, I think the boys would revolt. We love Disney, but 2 weeks in a year would be way too much.
