justification?

[PTKeil]

Just started looking into DVC. I have a few questions for some economically-minded DISers. I'm having a hard time justifying a move like this, especially considering the money involved. If you can, please use some concrete examples (amount monthly, etc). I know some of this may be personal but I'm trying to do this math in my head, and it doesn't fit (not to mention the fact that I'm not a human calculator or a banker ).
OK, say you buy 300 points (approx $75/point) which is about $22,500 (and probably $30,000 after financing):
How long does this timeshare last? (I think I've somewhere around 30 years.)
Do the number of points per room inflate every year?
What about at the other locations (Australia, cruise, etc) where you can use them? Do they increase yearly, and what are the points for these types of rooms, trips, etc outside of Disney?
What kind of discounts are they talking for the theme park tickets?
I know these are a lot of questions, but , like I said, I'm trying to justify this monetarily, but I haven't been able to find all of the answers.
Any other info and/or reasons why you chose to do this (other than the obvious flexibility, and "hey, it's Disney!") would be appreciated as well.
Thanks so much!

 

[TnRobin]

Hi PTKeil

Welcome to the DVC Board. I will try to help with some of your questions. First off DVC is not right for everyone, but if you see yourself spending at least every other year in a Disney resort, you should definitely consider it.

The arrangement between DVC and WDW last until 2042, that mean there will be 41 years left to use DVC.

Once you pay for your points, the only other expense is annual maint fees. Currently these are between $3 to $4 per point. They can increase, but they are limited by law as to how much they can increase in one year. Recently the maint fees have actuall gone down at some resorts.

Does the point price of a room increase. DVC can adjust the points required to book a specific room, but the total points in a resort can not change. If the point price of one room size goes up, then another must come down to make up the difference. DVC has done this once.

The point value for other vacations, ie WDW resorts, Cruise, II exchanges can and often do change each year. The cruise has gone up and down during the time I have been reading the DVC info. Recently it has been going up in price. As for II exchanges, you typically trade a week for a week, thus as long as a week in an accomadation doesn't change, then there shouldn't be too much change in the II exchanges. (Maybe a change in seasons on the II end)

Be sure to look at your vacation habit before you decide on how many points you want.
Why did we choose DVC - Flexibility mostly, but when we decided that the payments on 180 points was less than we were already paying each year to stay at WDW hotels on cahs, it was a no-brainer. The payments will be gone in 3 more years, then we will only have maint fees.

Hope this helps]

 

[HeatherPage]

I probably won't be able to answer all your questions, but I'll give you some of the details of our owning. We bought in last year at BW (200 points) we financed this at about 9.5-10% for 10 years and we have it deducted automatically every month from our checking the actual payment comes out to be $169/month and dues are $59/month. DVC is good until the year 2042 (so if you buy soon you'll get a good 40 years out of it) The reason it is good for me is that I grew up going to Disney and know that it is a place I will want to vacation quite frequently. I look at it as prepaying for our vacations, I figure we're going to vacation once a year anyway-this way the room is taken care of before we go. Point values can be adjusted from year to year (as in if point value goes up during the winter it has to come down say in the summer). Room rates at Disney keep going up and up and up (rates at the Poly in 1986 started at $149/night - they now start at about $289/night - buying into DVC helps hedge that inflation. Your accomodations are first rate all the time as opposed to where can I afford to stay this year on cash? You can also use points for cruises, staying at other Disney Park hotels (read: Paris, DisneyLand, etc.) and you can trade it in to visit places all over the world. And once it is paid off at the end of your financing terms or if you're lucky enough to buy cash outright all you owe are the dues from then on out. I'm sure other people can put it much more eloquantly than I just did, but that at least is a starting point.

 

[normr]

You can't compare the accomodations like the one-bedroom and larger accomodations to any hotel room inside Disney, the studio is comparable but the DVC studios, you also get a larger room and a microwave and refrigerator, but the one-bedroom and larger with it's full kitchen, washer and dryer, jacuuzi tub, large bathroom and shower is like being at home.

We hated the all day Disney assault and you then come back to the room and if one person wanted to go to sleep, then EVERYONE had to go to sleep.

With DVC, (we are now doing 2 bedroom units) the kids have their own place (studio) they can stay up late, have friends come over with no bother to us and we are in the one bedroom unit, we can lounge out in the living room, if anyone wants to go to sleep, it doesn't bother anyone else.

Once you experience it, you CANNOT ever go back to staying in a hotel room.

 

[mikesmom]

We did it because it made good economic sense for us. Hubby is an economist and took a VERY sharp pencil to it.

We bought 300 pts at $67/pt at BWV. In addition, the dues right now are about $95/mo for us. In simple math we took the $67 x300 = $20100 and divided by 42 years which equals $478.57 per year. Add that to the dues of roughly $1200/year = $1679/year.

This year we did 3 nights in Jan.(BWV, 1 bdr), 2 nites at Vero and 5 nites at BWV (1 bdr) in May and 3 nites at BWV (studio) for November. By my math, that $1679 for the year divided by those 13 nites is around $129 a night! We were spending that much offsite by the time you added tax, etc. (by the way, you don't have room tax with DVC).

That's pretty simplistic math and doesn't take into account the interest we might be making on an investment, but we'd spend that money on vacation, anyway.

The dues can go up a bit each year, but it historically hasn't come anywhere near to inflation. We figure we're way ahead of the game from the get go.

We don't think we'll get tired of DVC because it's so many different vacations. Our trip in November is just DH and me to go to the Food & Wine Fest. The trip in the summer is the whole family for beach and then parks. DVC has wonderful resorts - you don't have to be a Disney fanatic to get a great vacation.

For us it just made good sense.

 

[Geyser Gazer]

PTKeil,

If you haven't already done so, the FAQ at the top of this forum is worthwhile.

I am an artist at rationalizing things that I think I need (like dvc). May latest incarnation is as follows:

In general, If you stay in deluxe lodging in WDW, after 4-5 trips you will have spent as much as it would have cost you to purchace the amount of points necessary for similar if not more luxurious dvc accomodations. This includes resort inflation as well as dues inflation (traditionally less than half of resort inflation). This means that after 4 or 5 trips, your next 35 vacations
will cost you only your annual dues. From here on out its like getting 4 nights of lodging free for every one night purchased at the equivilant cash price.

If you traditionally stay at moderate or value resorts, it will take longer for this investment to pay off but on the other hand you will be enjoying deluxe accomodations along the way. Also if you were planning to stay mostly on weekends, over holidays, or at non dvc resorts the value of dvc membership is less apparent.

This is a big chunk of money but if you anticipate eventually spending a similar amount on WDW cash accomodations over the years to come, dvc does make sense.

Hope this helps.

 

[BobH]

I bought 240 points for $14800. I am taking vacations this year that would have cost about $3500 including room taxes. At this rate I figure my initial expenditure is recovered in 4.2 years. Then I have 37 more years to take vacations for just the annual cost of my dues. Granted I have annual maintenance charges for 41 years, but I figure at least $250 per year in room taxes that I would have paid if I was not a member make my effective out of pocket cost about $500 per year for dues. Given that I can get at least 2 weeks in a studio every year for my dues of approximately $500 - I feel that is very cheap. All this is based on paying for the points with cash. Financing extends your break even time.This also does not consider interest not made had you invested your money - I would not be investing these funds - they would be spent for vacations. The whole plan is a great way to stabilize vacation costs providing you like the Disney experience. I figure my wife and I can go to Vero Beach or Hilton Head if we tire of WDW.
I have kids that are older that I can send to OLd Key West (my home), and someday I figure there will be grandchildren they will take to Disney and the process starts all over again. So faR no one in my family has complained about being given a free week at Disney.
Good Luck with your decision. Your numbers will be different but the principle is the same.

 

[PTKeil]

Thanks so much for all of your replies and the time you took to write them. They were very informative, and answered everything , including questions I thought of after I left home this morning!

 

[prncssjas]

At the risk of repeating of what everyone here has said (and said very well, I might add!), buying into DVC is great--IF you plan on visiting often enough to make sense financially. When I first heard of DVC, I immediately thought--"NO WAY"--it's too much $$$ to justify spending...then, DH and I went on our honeymoon at the GF last year. Our room ALONE cost $3,000 for one week. While we were more than willing to pay that, I realized that going everyone would be kinda hard. So when I kept reading this board, I started to realize that simply 4 trips (ie, 4 years!) would pay off for 40 more years of vacations! It was then that we knew that DVC was for us.

I guess my point is--we were going to spend the money at a disney resort ANYWAY. So why not finance and protect ourselves against rising prices as well? So for us, it works and works well. Now are planning trips for at least once a year--and does this make us happy? HECK YEAH!!!

Once we got over our initial fear, it made much more sense...wish we would have done so sooner and spent two weeks for our honeymoon instead of the one.

Hope this helps!!!

Rima