I am sure this has been posted alot of times.

[Gross101]

Me, Wife and our 5yr old daughter are thinking about getting into the disney Vacton Club. I notice that it says they start out at 16,000 or so plus closing and all that. My question is what is the total price after all that and what do I get for my 16,000. Would it be worthin it to get someting a little better or is this going to be what is right for me. On a side note we have been to disney world 3 times in four years.

 

[dianeschlicht]

First of all, you need to familiarize yourself with the program and the resorts and make some decisions on what is important for you. DVC has 8 resorts available at WDW and two current properties off site with two others coming soon in California's Disney Land and Hawaii Ko'Olina. You would need to decide which home resort works best for you and buy your points at that location. Don't look at it as $16000, since that is about what the fewest points would cost at AKV. You need to look at how many nights you are likely to want to stay a year and in what size unit.

For example:
We like to go 2-3 times a year and will usually stay in a 1 bedroom if it's the two of us, but will do a 2 bedroom if we have our adult kids or other guests with us. We originally purchased 230 points at OKW knowing that it would get us at least a 2 bedroom in most of the seasons we would travel. After the first year, it was apparent that we needed more points, so we added on another 150 also at OKW. Our vacation habits did change after owning DVC, because we found we didn't have to worry about where the $3-5000 was coming from for on site accommodations each trip. Instead, we "pre-paid" for about 45 years of vacation accommodations in Deluxe Disney resorts at 1997 prices. Sure we have to pay maintenance fees just like we would have to pay for maintenance on a vacation home, but it's significantly less than what we would spend paying out of pocket for those deluxe accommodations every year. Plus...it MAKES us take those vacations! We look forward to them, and we KNOW we are going to love each one!

Now, all that being said....If you don't have the ready funds to "buy" your 50 years of vacations now, you CAN finance it just like you would a car or vacation home, but many feel that it is not fiscally responsible to finance luxury items. You need to know how you feel about that. Farnkly, I'm not so sure in this changing world that vacations are a luxury. I think they are a necessity.

So, your homework now is to study up on all the DVC resorts and see what appeals to you most. Disney CAN still sell ALL the resorts, even the "sold out" ones, because they are constantly getting back points from ROFR. Resales can cost significantly less though, in some cases.

Read as much as you can on these boards, and then come ask some specific questions of us.

 

[dianeschlicht]

OOPS! Forgot to mention that the $16,000 will be for about 160 points.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Me, Wife and our 5yr old daughter are thinking about getting into the disney Vacton Club. I notice that it says they start out at 16,000 or so plus closing and all that. My question is what is the total price after all that and what do I get for my 16,000. Would it be worthin it to get someting a little better or is this going to be what is right for me. On a side note we have been to disney world 3 times in four years.

The $16,000 is only the initial buy-in. This is a timeshare and you are purchasing real estate with an expiration in about 50+ years. This does not include the annual dues (currently anywhere from $3.50 to $5.50 a point per year) which increase each year. The purchase price does not include ticket media, food or transportation to WDW.

You could always go to the dvc website on the Disney website and request DVC information. You need to educate yourself on the workings of DVC before you spend anything.

 

[Mickey'sApprentice]

You can purchase as few as 100 points from Disney at AKV, and as few as 25 points on the resale market. You can also bank and borrow points if you don't go to Disney every year.

My husband and I own 100 points. We tend to stay in studios in January or February on weeknights, and really have enough points for us. We do get add-on-itis from time to time. We've taken family, gone twice in the same year, used weekend points, and have also go to HH at Thanksgiving.

According to the resort...you could easily vacation every year (6 days/5 nts.)with 50 points, pay less than $5000 to get in the system and have MFs of $250/yr.

Keep in mind that with a 6 year old, you will have several years that you have to go when school is out, and you really can't take advantage of the trades with small contracts.

The number of points you buy really depends on your vacation needs only.
Good Luck!

 

[nunzia]

...of course if you are like us you figure it's ok to take your children out of school occasionally for these kinds of things..we did and they are all successful happy adults so no damage done.