How do you plan your DVC vacation?

[cwnhokie]

I am trying to decide how many points we need. When you vacation at your DVC, when do you go? How do you work around the fact that the weekends are so much more? Do you just go Sunday through Thrusday or do you go on Sunday and stay somewhere else Friday and Saturday? Do you mainly take short trips or long trips? Just trying to get an idea of what combinations DVCers do?

 

[gilld]

As we live in the UK, we tend to go for 2-3 weeks and just pay the points - I certainly wouldn't move out just for the weeknd nights to save points. Sometimes we spend a few days at one of the De Luxe hotels though - on points.

We book at the 11 month mark and usually travel in September now.

 

[dianeschlicht]

When we purchased, we assumed we would stay for a week during the lowest point season in a 2 bedroom. That is how we determined how many points to buy. We started out with 230 points, but DVC vacationing is addictive, so after a year, we added another 150, since we quickly learned 1 week in a 2 bedroom was not enough. Now we have 380 points, and it seems just about right for us. We get creative with using a 1 bedroom occationally to offset the occations when we want a 3 bedroom. Our only regret is that we didn't do it when we first thought about it! We do use points for the weekend nights, but usually only one weekend in a 10-13 day stay.

 

[robinb]

We are a 3 person family and we own 230 points at OKW and 200 points at BWV. We take long trips, usually 7-12 days in a studio. We'll usually stay over the weekends on our New Year's Eve trips, but not over our summer trips. I plan the NYE trip at the 11 month mark so I can get a Boardwalk View or a Standard View. I plan the summer trip at the 5-6 month mark and we usually stay at BCV or VWL with no problems.

 

[MdmMim]

I usually take 3 vacations a year, 13 nights in Oct. (13 is appropriate for Halloween IMHO ), 10 nights in early Dec , and a month in the winter (Jan/Feb).

My stays include the weekends, as I calculate points by the week , not by the day.

I book at the 11-month mark to get a standard view at the BWV to conserve points.

 

[TinkGirl]

Originally we bought enough points for a week in a 1 BR during any season. This year we chose to make two Sunday through Friday trips. Other years we may stay the whole week or get a bigger place. Who knows! That's the great thing about the point system--flexibility!

 

[DVCLiz]

I own at HH and BCV. We have enjoyed our summer trips to HH so much that they have quickly become an annual (after two years!) tradition. I bought enough points to stay five nights in a 2BR at HH in the summer, or high, season. That's 165 points. I knew that if we ever wanted to stay a full week, we could use our BCV points (I also have 165 of them) as the two weekend nights cost the same pointswise as the five weekday nights. Five days seems to work best for us at the beach, though - we arrive on Sunday, get our fill of sun and fun, then leave on Friday. If we want to extend our vaction, we spend the weekend in Savannah or Charleston. If we wanted to have more beach time, I still think I'd pay cash for the HH unit or move to another hotel - that weekend point cost is so high!!!! I do book this trip 11 months in advance, or as soon as I know what my children's schedules are likely to be, since HH is in high demand in summer.

My BCV points are used in all sorts of ways. This year, I'm taking DD12 to BCV for spring break, and we'll stay the full week in a studio for 134 points. Usually, we really prefer a 1 BR, so we're "testing" ourselves this time to see how we like the studio. I'm one who really can't bring myself to use points for those high weekend nights, so we usually stay Sunday-Friday at a DVC unit, then move for the weekend. This gives us a chance to stay at some of the resorts we like. For example, once we arrived on a Friday, stayed Friday and Saturday nights at the Grand Floridian, moved to the VWL for Sunday-Thursday, then moved again to the Animal Kingdom Lodge for Friday and Saturday, before driving home on Sunday. With the points I "saved" by moving on the weekends, I had another trip and stayed at POR using the Disney Collection option.

There are tons of ways to use points, and tons of opinions about how to do it!! How you feel about moving resorts on a vacation will determine some of your use. Some love it (like me!), others hate it. Which are you???

 

[shellbelle1971]

I'm a point-hoarding, compulsively over-planning, work-the-sytem-to-the nth-degree-type person. I would probably spend all my days in an OKW studio in January, moving off-site on the weekends, if it were all up to me...

Fortunately, DH sees vacation as a time to relax. Period. Don't worry about how many points or how to maximize their usage. Just chill out, go, and have a good time. He would never allow us to move rooms or stay offsite. After all, his reasoning would be, there are plenty of cheaper places to stay. We bought DVC to have a certain experience, and we won't be having it if we have to move around or stay an a place where we feel cramped, etc.

DVC is so great! I get to satsify my compulsive side by participating in the dialing derby day-by-day at exactly eleven (or sometimes seven) months out, and again with making ressies at six months out. He gets to have a relaxing, uninterrupted week (give or take a couple of days depending on how many points we have and what type of unit makes sense for the trip) of WDW magic.

A marriage made in heaven

 

[pbharris4]

We use our pts in all different ways. 90% of the time we go in summer because I have a 10 yr old in school and her younger sister will be going to school in 2 years. We have gone In Jan and Feb before and will again once every few years (my favorite time to go..no crowds..no heat waves!). We stay in studios, 1 bdrms and have stayed in a 2 bdrm once. Have also used pts for the 3 days cruise and 4 nts at WDW. Most of the time we go for 6 nts. Arriving Sun. and leaving on Saturday so we pay for 1 weekend night in pts. We drive down and 5 nights is just not enough. This year we are staying for 10 nights. It'll be our first split stay. S-Sat in a studio at BCV and Sat-Wed in a 1BDRM at OKW. Studios are ok when your kids are younger, but when the get bigger we will mostly stay in 1 BDRMS. What I like about DVC is the flexibility of it to suit our needs.

 

[DrTomorrow]

I'm a point-hoarding, compulsively over-planning, work-the-sytem-to-the nth-degree-type person. I would probably spend all my days in an OKW studio in January, moving off-site on the weekends, if it were all up to me...[...]

DW and I are now totally the opposite of shellbelle1971 (not that we didn't have our compulsive-planning commando stage). We don't want to have to pack up & move to shave off a few points here and there - it's a VACATION! We also didn't want to have to worry about not being able to stay as long as we wanted to, what season a certain date fell on or if visitors would be sleeping on the sofa-bed. We bought 300 points at SSR - more than enough for two empty-nesters and occaisional friends/family guests - so that points won't be an issue.

Of course, financial limitations exist, but since the OP asked: Buy MORE points than you think you'll need - you'll end up using them....

IMHO - YMMV

 

[WOW]

During each phase of your life you will experience new ways to do many things, one of which is that you must become flexable. Family members grow up, go to college, get married, move out, have children, etc etc. We bought when our children were in high school....this changed our previous vacation times.....then they went to college.....changed again....son moved to Florida.....changed again.....daughter moved out then back again.....changed again. I used to be a big planner, but I have had to change with the changes!!!! So what is good for you now, may change many times in the future. That is just the way life goes!!!!

 

[jdvm]

We REALLY don't like to pack and move around so sometimes we'll switch from points to cash on Friday and Saturday nights---particularly if it's during a high point period. When we do use cash, we try to get a member discount. This in effect doubles the amount of time you can stay. Hope this helps.

 

[JimC]

We try to view it as a week's cost and stay a week at one resort. If we split resorts we stay longer than a week and stay say 4 nights at each (sometimes we do that with a mix of cash and points (four nigths at AKL followed by 4 nights at a DVC). We don't like to move for the weekends.

We take two week long trips and one five night short trip each year at DVC plus anything we do with cash or our week at Cypress Harbour.

When we bought points we replicated what we were doing for cash stays prior to joining DVC.

Our typical DVC stays now are January, October and December. However there are only two months we have not visited Disney -- February and September.

 

[Cruelladeville]

We also pay cash on the weekends, staying in the same type of room that we have rented on pts. Since we are AP holders, we try to get the AP rate on the weekends, which is usually much cheaper than Member Discount. Then I rent out pts to cover the cost. Recently, we have begun to stay 2-3 days at one of the hotels such as Poly, at either the beginning or end of our stay. We spend about 30 days a year in Florida, usually at Spring Break and Christmas. We usually have our children and their families with us--as our family has grown, we have aquired more pts so they can always stay with us. When we retire, we may buy a few more pts so we can spend winter there.

 

[jdvm]

Wow, the annual pass discount can be cheaper than the member discount? I guess I assumed that members would be given the best deal?!

 

[iankh]

Time is more precious to me than points. Not that I don't wish I had more points but, let's face it, due to something called work, there's only so much time I get for vacation. So stretching points is not a priority. I'd be lucky if I can get down there twice in a year and it would be unrealistic to consider that I wouldn't have to rely on weekend time as part of the stay.

We plan our stays to include the weekend, yes the points are higher, but I can't drive myself crazy schlepping all over place. Pack. Schlepp. Pack. Sclepp.

We plan around what we want to do.

We went down this past NYE and I did think about the high points, but then I thought, "Whatever happened to just having a good time? Why not just enjoy something different?"

So, yes, we spend a hideous amount of points for NYE, which was also a Saturday night and we had a great and fabulous time! It was totally worth doing it.

For our trip in December, we are staying 8 nights after a cruise and considering splitting between two resorts for the first time, but the number of points has absolutely nothing to do with it. We just thought it might be nice to sort of get 2 different kinds of vacations out of the stay.

Besides, I also look at it as, what if I get hit by a bus, fat lot of good the points will do me, so I might as well enjoy them.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I like your attitude, iankh!

 

[murcor]

We like to go for 10 - 14 days at a time. When we arrive on day one we like to stay put and relax for the entire vacation. No changing resorts or switching rooms for us.

 

[WDWLVR]

When we bought our points we bought enough that we could go for a week in a one bedroom at any time of the year. That included weekends. We probably use more weekends than most people because some of our trips are long weekends - they work better for us work-wise. For us it is about quality of the vacation not always quantity. So we are staying in a one bedroom Friday and Saturday before the Member Cruise, using points for one of us for the cruise, and then staying Thursday and Friday nights in a one bedroom after the cruise. Some might not think it is a good use of points but we know that we are going to be in for a great vaction.

 

[shellbelle1971]

Aaahhhh...iankh...maybe with time & practice I, too, can reach the zen-like attitude you describe. My DH is already there...