Is this right for me? Please Help!!

[Pats1fan]

I have been driving myself crazy over the past couple of months on whether or not joining DVC. My biggest issue is that my wife is a school teacher and we would likely be doing most of our traveling during busy seasons. I love Disney but she likes it only enough to take our little ones 4-5 times over the next ten years or so. My biggest concern is that I have been hearing that booking outside of Disney is a Head Ache! I hear that especially the world Pass collection is a nightmare. Is this true? Is DVC not worth it if you are going to travel outside the Disney Resorts? Can someone please give me some information regarding this matter? Thank you , I will be looking forward to hearing from you all!!

 

[CarolMN]

The best economic value of DVC is using it to stay at one of the DVC resorts.

If you won't go to WDW, (or one of the two beach resorts, Hilton Head and Vero Beach) at least every other year and stay in deluxe accommodations when you do, DVC will probably not be a good value for you.

DVC is one of the more expensive timeshares to own - if you want to trade out more than occasionally, there are less expensive options that trade as well as (or better than) DVC.

Consider renting points from a DVC owner for your WDW trips if you want/need larger accommodations. That's only a one trip commitment and may change your wife's mind about the frequency of trips to WDW.

Good luck - there's a lot of "homework" to do before most understand enough to make a good decision.

 

[spiceycat]

take your wife to WDW during spring break - if you can manage it.

that will probably change her mind.

 

[Pats1fan]

I think that will be the key. Her last memory of Disney was bad! It was in 2001, she was pregnant with our first child and didn't know it! Needless to say, she didn't feel up to being on rides and being on the go.
How about booking outside of Disney? Any thought? I hear that it's not cost effective and it's difficult to book?

 

[Pats1fan]

??????? Please help!

 

[hakepb]

There are many users that have had many "outside" trips.
It sounds like, if you are flexible about the location/hotel and date, your chances of trading out are much greater. If you expect to get an exact location and date, you may wind up very, very disapointed.
From what I've heard, Many of the outside locations are only available via a timeshare trading system II Those openings happen because another timeshare owner wants to trade out of their "other location", and then that availability goes into the system, but DVC may not have first crack at the II system because other timeshares may give greater priority to their own users, or other higher priority systems first.
In other words, you would not want to think that you can jump on a "hot" flight deal and immediately expect to use DVC there. Also the list of available locations changes from time to time, so do not count on one specific place to be available when you travel after this year.
If you want to go to a general area, and are willing to put in your request, wait for any possible availability, then actually plan the trip when you get your availability, you may have a better result.

 

[bookwormde]

To put it bluntly do not buy DVC points to stay at non-DVC resorts. You can buy all the time-shares you want for next to nothing on ebay to exchange with Interval or RCI. DVC points are expensive to buy and maintain but are a bargain if you use them DVC resorts, especially if you use them on weekdays.

You will likely not need the minimum points that are required by DVC for an initial purchase with only going every 2 years or less, so resale would be worth looking at if you are not in a hurry. Plus at many resorts you can save a lot of money on your purchase.

bookwormde

 

[solgent]

My opinion is that before you buy DVC, you take another Disney vacation. Either rent points and stay at a DVC resort or at least take the tour. Your last visit was 7 years ago. Things have changed at WDW and certainly within your family. Your wife may enjoy it much more with your children. Or you may feel that you're happy with value accommodations.

Please note that we bought without ever having stayed on property or doing the tour and we hadn't visited WDW in 6 years-- we'd moved and were doing other travel closer to our new region. It was the right decision for us. BUT we both loved WDW and knew we wanted to return regularly.

 

[Pats1fan]

Thank You, I appreciate all the feed back that I can get.

 

[Golden Rose]

We decided to buy when we realized we were planning our 3rd trip in a year and a half. I've always been a big fan of WDW. DH had never been until I dragged him there about 4 years ago, and he surprised himself by having a really good time.

DVC was worth it for us because we always stay in deluxe resorts and now that our son is three, we seem to be going at least once a year and sometimes twice. We also like the ability to have the larger rooms (2 bedroom villas and grand villas) because we love to travel with friends and family. Over the years we've done cruises and WDW trips with both friends and family, and we're looking forward to doing many years of trips with those we love. We've already had several friends and family members volunteer to help us use our points ;-)

We started out with 165 points at AKV. We're planning to always stay in either Savannah View or Concierge accommodations when we're there, and we knew from the start that we wanted an additional, smaller contract at either BCV or BWV because all of us except the 3 year old love Epcot. (Our son only loves the Living Seas with Nemo... and 5 hours there last trip was enough for me! But that's another story.) We do want to go during Food & Wine sometimes, so we thought owning a handful of points at an Epcot resort was definitely the way to go.

We bought our AKV points from Disney. We got December UY, so we get this years points and the same number of developer points to spend at SSR in the next year. We're looking at getting between 100 and 150 BWV points resale. We were going to get fewer points and plan on banking and borrowing to get enough to get every couple of years, but the deals are enough better resale that we decided to go ahead and go a little higher on the points purchase.

As long as you're only going to go every couple of years, buying a smaller resale contract is a good way to start. If your wife comes to love it and you all decide you want to go more often, you can then purchase more points.

 

[Dean]

Buying DVC with the plans to use for exchange options is simply a bad and expensive choice that generates headaches when none are needed. Buy what you think you'll use at DVC or slightly more and plan for EOY. The other qualifiers are that you don't go heavy on weekends and can plan 11 months out for the busier times.

 

[TeensMom]

I am also a teacher - you don't have to use your points in whole weeks - which was a big part of why we went with Disney rather than some of the other time shares where it is "Sunday through Saturday". We just don't vacation that way! There are plenty of long weekends, holidays, breaks.

Everyone has their own point of view. We bought into DVC more than 10 years ago and I don't think we have been back to the park since then, maybe once on the back end of a cruise. So, what do we do with our points? We often stay at Hilton Head or Vero Beach (husband & son go to baseball spring training every spring, daughter and I sometimes go down for long winter weekend to thaw out). We have done 3 cruises and would love to do another.

We have traded out a number of times - twice to Hawaii, the first time we tried to get tradeouts in Honolulu, on Maui and on Hawaii. Only 2 of them came through so we stayed in a hotel on Hawaii. They were beautiful. The second time, just hubby and I, we went to Maui and stayed at gorgeous Grand Wailea Resort. We have also stayed at $600/night (if we had been paying) hotel in New York for a long weekend. We've stayed in the Smokey Mountains, etc. You just have to get your request in early and hope it works.

My "screen name" is outdated now as older child is in grad school and younger a junior in college. One thing I'm looking forward to in the future is to be able to, when our kids are planning their weddings, to say "you can have 500 points to use wherever you want to go on your honeymoon". We have enough points that we hope someday to be able to host kids, spouses, grandkids on periodic vacations. Plus, we figure in another 20-25 years, we'll just split the points and give them to the kids.

We like the flexibility.