How Much Does It Cost For Ddv?

[crabbie1]

Hi all
I am new to all this and whilst away last year we were asked to so to a time share thing in disney.The guy said it would cost approx £9000 for this vaccation for life deal. .Now is this for a year or for life?How many years does it last for and what extras are there to pay for?.My husband and my dd4 go most years and pay around £3-4000 for a stay onsite for accomadation.
What are the advantages of being in the dvc?Do you get discounts etc.I just cannot get my head around how it works and if we would still have to pay out every time we go(apart from the flight of course).
I have looked at the site but need a bit of help.Whats all this about points?
thanks :

 

[crux]

I'll have a stab at trying to explain it.

As you've said, it's a point based timeshare, each type of room (studio, one bedroom, two bedroom and three bedroom) have a different points value per day and these point values change throughout the year (low season, med season, high season and holidays) - points for the weekend days are roughly twice the weekday value.

As there are only two of us (me and DW) we can use a studio (one double bed and a 'bed-settee', except for at Old Key West which does have two double beds) which has the lowest points value, we also tend to go in September (low season) or October (med season). We own 222 points, which is enough to go every year and stay for 14 nights in a studio - the cost of this was roughly £10,000. On top of the purchase price there are annual fees (called dues) that are paid in January/February and are currently approx $4 per point - this year we paid approx £550 for the dues on 222 points. If we wanted to stay in a one bedroom unit every year we'd have to have double the points we currently have, i.e. up front cost of approx £20K and £1K per year.

You don't have to use all your points for a year, you can bank and borrow points, so for example if me and DW had been happy to go to WDW every three years we'd only have had to buy 74 points at a cost of approx £3.5K and £200 per year for dues.

The 'rule of thumb' is, if you go to WDW every one or two years and stay on-site in either a moderate or deluxe WDW resort then DVC is worth looking at. There is an argument as to whether DVC saves you money, as a DVC member you do get some discounts - the best of which is $100 off the cost of an annual pass into the parks, we buy this and this is why we go in October one year and September the next so one annual pass covers two trips. We do spend less on the cost of our trips now we're in DVC, but we now travel on TCD Sunshine First instead of Virgin Economy so the savings are not as big as they could be.

Any other questions, just ask.

Ian

 

[paulh]

We have 200 points using borrowing this means we have 2 weeks in a studio(little biger than a standard romm at disney but with a fridge,microwave,sink and a sofa bed with a queen)
The nights are a per point so you can stay 1 night to as many night as you have points available.Sun to Thurs cheaper than fri and sat ie might be 11 points compaired to 20.A week for us in may at ssr is 112 there abouts.You can get bigger rooms but they are more points.As we use room just to sleap in a studio suits us fine.
If you stay mod hotels the cost would be paid of after 6 hoilidays,like most people we took acouple of years to decide we bought in 1999 cost us £7000 for out 200 poins as you can see the sooner you sign up the more money you will save.
There are dues to pay for our 200 its was just short of £500 this year(some resorts slightly more some slightly less)
This means as we have been to dvc at least 6 times since we bought it, now costs us just our dues to stay in a delux every year
Have not yet come across anyone who was disapointed buying into dvc.
If you are planning going every year well worth it
Paulh

 

[jjpenguin]

It's not for life but for the life of the contract, which at Saratoga Springs and Animal Kingdom Lodge is 50 years I believe

 

[stal]

So if, for some reason, you were not able to make it to WDW for a couple of years for whatever reason, you could rent your points out to others? Would this mean you lose out on money or 'make' money?

I know DVC isn't about making money, i'm just thinking about possible occurances.

Thanks

 

[Hilary]

So if, for some reason, you were not able to make it to WDW for a couple of years for whatever reason, you could rent your points out to others?

I think the short answer is "yes", but there are factors that make it a slightly cautious "yes".

It used to be quite straightforward to rent out points (on both the renter and rentee's sides), and some owners did seem to view it as a business venture rather than a vacation programme. Points were rented in the region of $10 per point, making it usually profitable when weighed against the annual maintenance costs paid by the owner, whilst at the same time being a bargain way to stay in DVC resorts for the rentee

Recently, however, Disney has imposed some restrictions that make the process less open to the business venture kind of renting, whilst still allowing the occasional renter the flexibility to do this. I'm really not up to speed on how this all works now but, hopefully, someone else will be able explain!

 

[sz9144]

we just recently bought and then sold our DVC points- and the best thing we did was sell them- it was such a mistake for us to buy dvc. we really do not travel to disney often, and when we do it's to value resorts only, so for us the dvc just did not work, and we really took a bath financially. I would encourage those interested in dvc to perhaps rent first and see how the villas and costs work for them before jumping in.

 

[Pootle]

we just recently bought and then sold our DVC points- and the best thing we did was sell them- it was such a mistake for us to buy dvc. we really do not travel to disney often, and when we do it's to value resorts only, so for us the dvc just did not work, and we really took a bath financially. I would encourage those interested in dvc to perhaps rent first and see how the villas and costs work for them before jumping in.

An interesting post with some good advice.

DVC is definitely NOT for everyone and can be an expensive mistake if you don't do the research first. Sorry you lost out financially.

I love my DVC membership though and for us, it has been worth every penny

 

[Richard Bruvofetc]

we just recently bought and then sold our DVC points- and the best thing we did was sell them- it was such a mistake for us to buy dvc. we really do not travel to disney often, and when we do it's to value resorts only, so for us the dvc just did not work, and we really took a bath financially. I would encourage those interested in dvc to perhaps rent first and see how the villas and costs work for them before jumping in.

Ah! Research, Research, Research.

We first looked in 2001 having stayed in All Star Movies. We did the tour and after countless spreadsheets decided at the time it was not for us - financing upfront costs, exchange rate was only $1.40, first time at WDW (would we ever go again ).

We've been to WDW twice since then and in March bought into DVC - no financing of upfront costs (my severance pay covered that), exchange rate of $1.95, and the trend is we go every two years.

With the change in exchange rate it actually worked out £800 cheaper than in 2001 (even though the price per point was $73 in 2001 as opposed to the $91 per point this year ).

Remember, you can use your points all over Europe as well. We are also going to use our points next year for 3 nights at DLP (Tesco is covering the cost of the Eurostar).

We are also keeping our fingers crossed for DVC in California.

 

[Hilary]

With the change in exchange rate it actually worked out £800 cheaper than in 2001 (even though the price per point was $73 in 2001 as opposed to the $91 per point this year ).

We bought in 2001 when the exchange rate was at pretty much it's lowest point for years - if only we'd had a crystal ball! (... and isn't hindsight a wonderful thing! )

 

[brightspark]

We bought DVC last september and went back to WDW in January to use our points! We would never have gone back so quickly if we hadn't had DVC. We are also taking my sister at the end of November. I cannot believe that we are visiting WDW again - it's something I never dreamed we could do.

We have 200 points, we bought 3 contracts - 1 for 150 points and 2 for 25 points each. You can only sell a whole contract, so we bought 2 small contracts so that we could sell part of our dvc if we needed to in the future.

We bought 200 so that we could have a 1 bedroom place for 2 weeks every couple of years, and holiday somewhere else in the alternate years.

We have quite a number of friends who would like to go in the future, and felt that we could let them have our points one year (if we didn't want to go) at a price that would cover our costs, but still be cheeper than what they would pay otherwise (or at the same price - but for nicer accomodation).

We have only stayed at SSR so far. We loved it!