New owner needs help!

[dez1978]

Hello all! We recently bought our 1st contract at Riviera. I know there are lots of haters of Riviera, but we really liked it and it fits our needs (and we took the resale restrictions into consideration). I'd done quite a bit of research prior to our "tour" during our stay last week. I say "tour" because we were never shown any rooms. Our guide was not the most helpful. We were staying at the Riviera already so I guess he figured he didn't need to show us any other rooms. We were staying in a studio. Part of it was a time issue. We had our kids with us. But we were there 3.5 hours. This is how it went. We got there at 130 as scheduled. It was me, my husband, my sister in law and her husband and 4 kids. We talked and I already knew kind of what we were looking at and about how many points we needed and such. So we'd decided all of that in less than an hour. Then it took him an hour to get paperwork done sitting in the room. Then he disappeared for 45 mins. Then he came back with another guy who had ipads but couldn't get the documents to load properly. At this point we'd been there about 3 hours with 4 boys 10 to 5. They were done being good. So the moms took them swimming, while dads signed paperwork, then parents switched. None of this is necessarily his fault, but for crying out loud.... So no one got walked through how to do anything as far as making a reservation or anything because by the time everyone had signed it was 530 and we had dinner reservations at 630. So I need like, a DVC for Dummies guide or something. Are we stuck with this guy forever as a guide? I thought about just doing it all later, but really there wasn't another time left to do it, which also isn't his fault. I don't know how to make a reservation, or bank points. Or when do I need to bank my Dec 2019 use year points? What other things do I need to know from a real persons point of view, not what the guide will tell me?

 

[_auroraborealis_]

It is really hard to get assigned a new guide.

Frankly, the stuff you want to know is not stuff the guides teach anyone. They aren't day-to-day. They are salespeople, hard stop. Getting a 'new guide' won't help you.

You should be offered an orientation call via Member Services. This is the time when you'll be able to ask all those questions.

 

[disneynutz]

Now is the time for you to decide if you want to keep the resort you purchased. You have 10 days from the date of signing to rescind the contract. You should have been given access to the member website and your contract and points should be loaded by now. The sales people really don't want to take time teaching about what you bought or how to use it, they get paid to make sales. Member services is who you need to contact for more info and you can learn a lot by just playing with the website. If and when we buy direct we do it from home, they send you the documents, the phone call takes 5 minutes.

Have you visited other DVC resorts, checked out the resale prices? Buying direct is very expensive.

Bill

 

[Sandisw]

First, you have to bank your 2019 points by July 31, 2020 If you wont be using them in your 2019 UY for a trip.

You will get a welcome home call from MS who will give you more information about booking and such. Basically, you can book online or call MS.

 

[karen4546]

PLEASE DO NOT MAKE YOUR FIRST RESERVATION YOURSELF. If you are wanting a "welcome home" booking then you must go through your guide and member services. They will make "magic" happen. If you book a reservation then your "welcome home" is not going to happen.

We purchased in May of 2019 AKV direct. We knew we would be back in September for Foo & Wine. I kindly asked if we bought could we get two studios at Beach Club Villas for the third week in September. There was ABSOLUTELY no availability via the DVC website. I guess they pulled from the cash side and booked us two studios for the week I wanted. I would not have known about the "welcome home" booking if not for this site.

congratulations and welcome home.

 

[dez1978]

Now is the time for you to decide if you want to keep the resort you purchased. You have 10 days from the date of signing to rescind the contract. You should have been given access to the member website and your contract and points should be loaded by now. The sales people really don't want to take time teaching about what you bought or how to use it, they get paid to make sales. Member services is who you need to contact for more info and you can learn a lot by just playing with the website. If and when we buy direct we do it from home, they send you the documents, the phone call takes 5 minutes.

Have you visited other DVC resorts, checked out the resale prices? Buying direct is very expensive.

Bill

We did visit other resorts and looked at resale. We are happy with what we purchased.

 

[Frederic Civish]

The Welcome Home stay that people talked about above is where you ask one of the cast members at the DVC members service line to schedule a stay for you at a particular resort or place that is usually hard to get. Disney has a small amount of inventory in reserve that does not show up on the booking software and they can often get you a reservation for this 'Welcone Home' stay that is special place, now or next yea, but you should do this through the member services. And you will be using your points to do it.

You can request a new guide / salesperson anytime you want. They don't generally try to sell you more, some of them do try to be helpful. They can be a good resource. But most of what you will be doing will be making your own schedules online.

You need to get access to the DVCMembers.Com website. If you call member services at 800-800-9800 then they can help you with that. When you call they will ask you if you want to connect to your own personal guide. I never do. I haven't talked to my guide since two weeks after my first purchase. And I've done three more purchases since then.

Once you get an account set up go online to DVCMembers.Com and sign in, and go to your account information by clicking on the buttons at the far right. Look at your Dashboard. Then go to the second button from the right or is it the third button from the right and look at booking. Go through the booking process many times including searching for different properties, dates, and units. And putting in the name of one or more guests. And do everything except click the last step to finalize it.

Do this multiple times until you are comfortable with the whole process. if you have more questions then coming on this board and asking them is often a better resource than going through DVC member services. Though DVC member services should be able to give you the definitive answer for lots of questions, sometimes, depending on which guide you talk to, you will get different answers

 

[Dizzydizney]

As others have said, don’t make your first reservation yourself. Also as soon as you get a member I.d., create your account on the member website. They should at least give you instructions on how to do that when you get your member I.d. Number. There is a tab on the website called “explore membership”. That gives you some bare bones insight. Then on paper make yourself a list of questions you have and things you don’t understand. Then call member services. Explain that you are a new member and need to talk to someone knowledgeable about using your membership. Then go through your list. If the person does not seem knowledgeable you can always ask politely to speak to someone else.

The most important thing right now is how to decipher your “dashboard”. That is where you find the important stuff like how many points you have, when to bank, etc. Don’t do anything with banking until you fully understand it. I have a December use year and I have until July to bank, so don’t panic.

Lots of posters here, me included, are so used to using the member website that it’s like second nature to us. I am awful st explaining things. And I’m also the type of person that does better with instructions written on paper that I can follow, so I totally understand your frustration.

Most importantly, congratulations on becoming a member. We added on at Riviera and are very happy we did so.

 

[CarolMN]

Not sure if this will work w/o logging in, but you will find it to be a good reference:

RULES & REGULATIONS

If it doesn't, once you get access to the Members Website, you'll find it under the "My DVC" tab (Membership Documents).

Congratulations & welcome home!

 

[WhitneyMB]

Welcome! We just purchased at RIV too. You may have already got this resolved but when I logged on for the first time to my DVC account it showed me that I should schedule a time for an orientation phone call. That sounds like a great thing to do, as others have mentioned.

We also jumped on the "Welcome Home" booking as others suggested. We called and did this by phone. We figured that we would be able to stay at RIV whenever, so we asked to stay at Beach Club or BLT only 4 months from now--when the website shows no DVC properties available and they made it happen I believe they ask for 3 options of where you want to stay. We're excited to have our first DVC vacation set up at the Beach Club and are looking forward to years to come!

 

[Karlrob]

Welcome to DVC. As other have said, the best thing to do is to establish your dvcmember account. There you will find many screens and menus, but after you go through it a few times, it will be come familiar and easy. I used to call Member Services to book a stay but lately have been doing through that website as they do make it easy to do. Also, at times, you do spend lots of time on hold waiting for a person to help you. Glad you decided to join, we have never regretted the decision, but do pause each year when the dues are due!

 

[Minniesgal]

Guides are essentially sales people they don't walk you through reservations, banking and borrowing etc. Call member services if you really need help but it's pretty user friendly.

 

[WhitneyMB]

FYI- To book an initial “welcome home” booking that is unavailable online you will need to call, even if you won’t usually call to book in the future. If you search these boards, there is a lot of information available on it