Is DVC really a better deal? Depends. When DH & I were buying, he looked at it every which way he could, and determined that if you were going to go to WDW at least every other year, it was a good deal. Good deal is dependent on a lot of things...how much disposable income you have, what other financial repsonsibilites you have and so on. PS-He is a realtor, so was quite familiar with other timeshare companies etc.
Is there anything I wish I knew before I bought? No, because they explained it pretty thoroughly, and DH reserached it further, so we were quite well-schooled in the program & its rules & regs. I would urge you to make sure you read and understand everything they give you.
Going through Disney vs. buying resale ("used")? Again, depends. In general, you will get a better "per point" price through a resale. However, you have to carefully look at what they are offering. Some of the contracts are "stripped"...in other words, all this Use Year's points are gone, so you'd have no points available until the next Use Year. There are closing costs involved, and Disney has the Right of First Refusal (ROFR) for all resale contracts, meaning they get to look at it before the seller gives you the final OK, and if they want to buy it back, they can, and effectively cut you out of the deal. Financing a resale is another issue...you need to have it, because many of the resalers don't provide it. And there are closing costs. It is, effectively, a real estate transaction. That isn't to say it's bad, but all the planets have to aligned. DH & I bought an OKW contract about 4 years ago through The Timeshare Store (TTS) and had a wonderful experience. They were efficient, professional...the whole thing took about 6-8 weeks from start to finish and was pretty seamless. We saw a contract size that appealed to us, got in touch with TTS, made a "bottom-line" offer...ie "we'll give you X amount out the door"...included in X were the closing costs etc. I have known folks who have bought DVC with their Disney VISA to get the Rewards points, and then the next month paid it off with a home equity loan to get the tax benefits. I have known people who have paid cash. I have know people who have refinanced their homes and pulled some equity out that way to get the $$ to pay for it.
We purchased our first contract in 1997 through Disney. We did so to take advantage of their loan program. At the time, they offered 1,3,5 &10 year loans. We took a 10 year loan because it had the lowest monthly payment, with the intention that we would pay more each month to pay it off faster, but if there was a month when money was a bit "tight", all we
had to pay was the low monthly payment. We did pay it off in about 4 years, rather than 10. Purchasing through Disney was also pretty easy. Currently there are some incentives with Disney. They are "pushing" SSR, but they usually have other properties available, you just have to really sort of "lean" on them to get info about the other properties available.
Buying into Saratoga Springs (SSR)? It is true that you can own points at a resort as your home resort and never stay there, but you'd have to be pretty lucky. I will give you a word of advice...buy where you like to stay. By that, I mean that if it will ruin your enjoyment of your vacation if you are not able to stay within walking distance of Epcot and MGM, then buy at either the BCVs or the BWVs. If it will ruin your vacation if you can't breathe the air near the Magic Kingdom, then buy at VWL. If you like to get a bit away from all the activity once in a while, then OKW would probably work for you. If you are a fan of the DTD/PI/Marketplace area, then SSR is quite close by. Yes, you
may always be able to get a reservation exactly where you want to stay, but if you can't, will it break your heart to stay at SSR? If so, then don't buy there. When DH & I were first buying, they only had OKW & BWV to offer. The others hadn't been built. We like the BW area, certainly, for it's location. But we also liked the room size and laid back feel of OKW. We basically asked ourselves this question: "If the rules changed, and we could
only stay at OKW for the rest of the time we owned our contract, could we always be happy being there?" The answer was yes, the overall cost was cheaper than BWV, we liked the large size of the units, so we bought OKW. We have never had a major problem staying where we wanted when we wanted, but I am generally ecstatic to be at WDW, so am a bit more low key than some folks about location, views etc.
Adding points after the fact? After the fact of what? After you have already bought some points? They love to do add-ons, and resalers often have smaller size contracts too. The purchase process itself is the same. It's a real estate transaction.
Hidden rules or tricks? I have not found any. Their paperwork and info is pretty complete. Again, I suggest you read and make sure you understand it, or question those things that you don't understand.
Vacations outside of Disney? I have done this once. It was nice but not the best use of points, since the point values for anything outside the DVC resorts is high. That includes other WDW resorts that are not DVC, such as the Poly or the Grand Floridian. The best use of points is to stay at a DVC resort.
Why did we choose Disney? We like Disney. We like the quality. We like the fact that we are on-site...we like to be on-site for ease of getting around without the hassles of parking, paying etc. We like that the DVC offers members some "perks". We figure that Disney would do pretty well in the upkeep area, so the resorts wouldn't get too "shabby" looking, which is a problem with other timeshares I have heard of. We were a bit young when we bought to think about buying a second home (35 & 39 at the time of purchase). We like the fact that we can stay in a nice place and when we leave, it's not our responsibility to find someone to watch it, worry about it, manage the property...we did not want to be long-distance landlords or have a property that would be vacant much of the time.
Comments- We have had nothing but positive experiences with the DVC. We have enjoyed owning a piece of the magic. We have enjoyed sharing it with friends and family, and look forward to many more years of the same. We like the more relaxed "feel" we have on our vacations now, because we know that since we own DVC, we will be back, so we have no need to "commando" tour...we enjoy the resorts, the nightlife, the "other" things there are to do at WDW (boating, golfing, mini-golf, water parks, poolside), rather than spending our time slogging around the parks for 12 hours because "who knows when we'll be back?" I would sacrifice a lot of other things in my life (heck...I could stand to lose a few pounds by not eating and saving money on food!
) before I would sacrifice my DVC.
