How many times did you stay in DVC/related deluxe before buying in?

[sndral]

AKL 1x in a cash room & 1x in 1 br. cash booking at Jambo
Poly 1x in cash rooms before they converted them to villas
GF 1x in cash outer building room
YC 2, maybe 3 cash reservations.
Before that we typically stayed in moderate resorts, in fact, in one of those earlier visits to WDW we stayed in one of the Barbados Buildings later demolished to make way for Riviera - so I should count that as a DVC ‘related’ stay .
At DL I stayed for a week at the DLH every year growing up & beyond into my young adult years - so 20+ times - & then at the GC after it was built a couple of times, but I didn’t count those stays in my totals because I only own Florida DVC points.

 

[Judique]

Our first Disney visit was in 1988, before I was divorced. Fast forward to after the divorce and I could choose where 'I' wanted to stay. That led to many short vacations at the Poly. Our first DVC stay was at DVC Hilton Head. I bought my first contract in 2000 at Boardwalk, and developed 'addonitis' for a few years adding HH, Vero and BC.

Meanwhile, I wanted to go to Disney and had an annual pass. As resorts were created I had to stay at all of them, including values and moderates, plus DVC, and Swan Dolphin. I still 'sleep around' despite and because of my DVC points. Variety is the spice of life.

 

[JackosinDIS]

Zero! I always stayed in moderates. I absolutely wanted to stay deluxe though, but wasn’t willing to pay the cash prices. So only one thing for it!

 

[buzzrelly]

We stayed at The Contemporary in 2010 and 2013. Purchased BLT in 2014. There was no where else I would have even considered purchasing at the time but we've since added BCV resale.

 

[GGGT]

Dozens of times. For us, these stays were almost all before there was a DVC. We bought OKW day one and own 5 resorts with 1000s of points. (We still sometimes add on days with cash)

 

[Tumnus]

We did annual splurge trips: Contemporary twice, Poly, Beach Club, Yacht Club. Besides that, lots of Swan and Dolphin, Aft of Animation a few times, and the Sheraton Vistana was our go to!

 

[Skywalker3]

Zero. Had never stayed in any DVC before buying in.

 

[JMOR80]

We used to drive from Texas and stay off site, one year I booked a vacation package at all star music. My wife really enjoyed being on property and using Disney transportation to get around vs the long walks through parking lots and just being In the Disney bubble. Our next trip was the first time we flew and took the ME and I rented points for a studio at OKW and we were hooked.
If we could only go back to the days of studios that would make our points go so much further.

 

[Joroc0801]

I've charted out all of my life's trips in my signature but it starts with my sole childhood trip staying at a Holiday Inn. Then a band trip in high school to Pop Century. My sister was in the college program in 2016 working housekeeping at Beach Club, we stayed at Pop to visit. Then came a wedding and our first kid. We took our first (new)family trip and stayed at Pop Century. After getting into Bekah Hart's youtube videos about WDW with a toddler we researched more about renting points. We booked what we thought would be a once in a lifetime trip at a deluxe resort staying at Copper Creek for my daughter's 3rd birthday (free until 3). That trip cemented our desire to keep coming back. We constantly scoured the rental sites for the best deal and came to the conclusion having our own points made a lot more sense. We've now had 4 trips in the past year and another coming in December. Contract number 2 closes in January.

 

[AstroBlasters]

Cash countless times at Disneyland Hotel and Grand Cal & once at Aulani…

 

[CraigInPA]

We rented points to see if we'd like specific resorts, BCV and BLT. We were planning on purchasing, but were torn about which resort was best for us.

 

[DonnerB]

Probably should be 0 since we were staying on my parents' points before my sister and I bought our own contract (and added on three times ), but I answered 3.

The "deluxe" aspect of the resorts themselves is certainly nice. However, the practical conveniences of the villas (kitchen/laundry) and the "prepaid" nature of the system are what make us so happy we got swept up in the magic in 2018. Our third sister is expecting our first niece or nephew in November. She and her husband aren't huge Disney people, but it's nice to know we can pretty easily entice them to join us by saying the room is taken care of.

 

[bakerworld]

We stayed twice in DVC before joining. The 2nd stay is when we actually joined.