One thing that made you take the plunge?

[Paging Tom Morrow]

My wife and I have basically gone down to WDW every year since our honeymoon. It's "our thing" and something we look forward to every year.

In 2006, we had three destination weddings to attend in a span of about five weeks, which we thought would mean we couldn't go to WDW. Then, we found these boards and saw how easy it was to rent someone's DVC points to secure a reservation at a Deluxe resort much cheaper than through CRO. We found a member willing to rent at terms that were acceptable to us and booked a stay. Because I don't like to be surprised by anything, I did a lot of reading on what to expect from our accomodations which wound up being my intro to DVC.

When I saw how the breadth and level of accomodations that were available and how well the contracts were holding their values, it was a no-brainer for us to buy in. We closed on a resale before that BWV vacation had even started and while staying there we did our first add-on at BCV.

We've since added on again, now at BLT as the "our" in our thing has grown and now includes my adorable daughter.

My regrets: Same as everyone. Didn't buy in soon enough and should have bought more points intially.

 

[Golden Rose]

We considered it for about 2 years before buying in. I researched it here on the boards and on a few other sites before coming to the conclusion that DVC was definitely right for us, but the time was not. (Infertility solutions and adoption are very expensive, and we thought we needed to spend our funds on trying to have a second child.)

When we started planning our third trip in a year and a half, we decided we were being "penny wise and pound foolish." We kept going back, and we kept spending a lot of money on our room every single time. Really, we were perfect DVC candidates; we always stayed at deluxes, plus we got two rooms or a suite more than half the time so that my DM could go with us. We ran the numbers and figured out we could make it work, so we bought two contracts (one from Disney, one resale) and postponed our trip four months.

We're about to take our third trip using our DVC. We calculate that in the first year, because of developer points and banked points on the resale contract we purchased, we have gotten about 1/3 of our initial investment back. Now, we don't think we'll break even at 3 years... we had double points this year. We think it will be more like year 7. It's that fast for us because we paid cash, so no interest charges, and we made full use of those double points and the various perks. Disney would have gotten that money from us anyway... well, now that I think about it, one of those trips might have been a cruise instead of a WDW trip, but we would have spent that money on vacations in this last year, regardless.

We do somewhat regret not buying sooner... we don't wish we'd started with more points. Having double points the first year was more than we could use, and we banked a fair number into next year. (We used a lot - by the end of the year, we will have done 2 6 night stays in a 2 bedroom, plus a night in a studio and 5 nights in a 1 bedroom - but that is really all the vacation we can do in a year right now.) I think our perfect point number might eventually be a few more than we have right now, but for now we're very happy with what we have.

 

[Louiepipbgeeco]

We have been visiting the World at least once a year for several years. We have roller coastered and researched DVC for about 4 years I finally bought through Disney this Summer and I cannot wait to have our first DVC trip.
I just decided it was right, makes us happy and I know I want to continue making many happy memories at WDW with my familly. The final decision was based on the fact that life is too short and I do not want to have any regrets. My mid life crisis ROCKS!!

 

[ToddyLu]

Love this thread! My first trip was with DH in 2002 for our 8th anniversary. We have been every year since and book alomost a year in advance each time. The first I heard of DVC was from a lady on a bus who was talking, I was eveasdropping, she had just paid $10,000 for her buy in. I thought, that is not too bad for a timeshare at Disney. Worked with a physician at a hospital who always wore a Disney pin on his lapel. I asked him about his pin and he told me how important Disney was to him and his family. They almost had their DVC paid off. Then I worked with a nurse who was always going to Disney and staying for "points". So since 2004 DH and I have tossed it around with me being the DVCer. We do not have children and have always stayed value......except from this year forward, 210 points at AKV in June of this year.

I too work very hard and at 40 staying in a nice place with the "resort" feel appeals to me. We have all been several times now and so 'commando'isn't necessary anymore.

The clincher that sealed the deal.....happened to find DVCNews thanks to the Dis. Realized that the referral could save us lots of money....and remembered my nurse friend. The incentives were great, to us, in June....and yes she contacted me after she received her referral gift card.....she is staying at BWV the week of Thanskgiving.......and the circle of life continues....it's a small world after all.

 

[A.Mickey]

Well, my husband and I were looking into DVC back in 2006. We had the tour at Saratoga Springs. Back then we still had car payments, and a week later I found out I was pregnant.

Fast Forward, 3 years and 5 Disney vacations taken...and our cars paid off.

We have been meeting a lot of people from the Disboards, through meets and the Podcast cruise. Many of the meets have been held at the Doorway to Dreams store here in IL but we always had a car payment. Until today!
It was the 2 year anniversary of the D2D store and Mickey and Minnie came and there was a dance party. We brought our son Aaron Mickey to the meet and he was very shy at first of Mickey and Minnie but soon he opened up and we had tons of one on one time with the characters it was awesome! Soon it was time for the characters to leave and while we were saying bye to them...I told Aaron that they have to go back to Walt Disney World....and this is the face he was giving while they were walking away.....this right here is why I bought DVC. This face will get to go to Disney until he is 50 years old!

 

[Coach81]

Coach81, thanks, but please don't be jealous. We are all members and Disney fans so it's all good. Really I would stay in the All Stars if it meant spending time in my favorite place. I forgot to add about what Disney did for us "old timers". We received park passes until 2000. If I remember correctly it was 2 for a studio and 1 bedroom, 4 for a 2 bedroom and 6 (or 8) for a grand villa. They were not annual passes, they were issued each time you stayed on points for the length of stay that you were there. This was great marketing on Disney's part, IMHO, because it made us buy APS once the "free" passes were gone. Also, in the early days Disney would always leave a little present in our room. I remember getting a small photo album, a DVC coin, etc. Also, as many of you may remember there used to be three mountains on the DVC logo (could never figure why they took one away, probably some $$ issue) so we still have some old stuff. Every time my husband wears his "3 mountain" shirt he gets stopped at Disney. Kinda funny! Anyway, thanks for taking me down memory lane. When we first bought our kids were very little and they are now older and still love coming with us, which is another great thing I love about owning DVC. Our kids grew up with it and they have always felt that Disney was their second home, and the characters were their relatives! I am looking forward to sharing the magic with our grandbabies, hopefully someday. This is the real reason I think I love Disney so much. Making memories and getting away from the real world!!

Enjoy The Magic!! And to all members, and soon to be members, have a magical week-end!

You hit it right on the head... both of our boys are growing up with Disney, it is something that I was not able to do when I was a child. When I think of all the wonderful memories that we have made - and are going to make - it makes me very happy, and thankful of our decision.

 

[eporter66]

We love WDW! Joining DVC allowed us to stay in deluxe accomodations and we felt WDW would offer great vacations year after year for our family.

 

[DizGirl20]

I saw this thread and just had to respond as we just put in an offer for resale about an hour ago! I have been researching DVC for about a year now. I am currently a nursing student (thus, I have lots of studying to do) but I think about DVC morning, noon and night. I spend hours browsing resale websites. I felt the need to move on and just do it! It was occupying waaaay too much space in my brain!

 

[michelleiada]

Like many of you, I am enjoying this thread. I am not YET a DVC owner. I did the tour two years ago and this past may we rented points and stayed in a two bedroom at Beach Club. I am absolutely in love with the Beach Club Resort and know that is where I want to own. My decision is made but my husband is not in agreement. He is an accountant and doesn't think it makes financial sense. I think it does. So I am stashing some money away and plan to save until I can purchase it on my own. Even if it is a few more years...I will absolutely be a DVC owner some day!

 

[ILuvMulan]

Here's our story... I'll try to keep it concise!! In 2007 we went to Disney with our daughter's dance school for a performance. For the months prior to the trip we kept telling our kids... "This is a once in a lifetime trip, we may never get to do this again, so let's make the best of it." Well, by the second day of the trip both DH and I kept saying... "the next time we come..." So when we arrived home we began planning our 2008 trip, but this time just as a family. We reserved a room for 5 at POR. When we arrived we found that because our son is disabled Disney had upgraded us, free of charge, to 2 rooms instead of a room with a trundle bed. Well, of course we were spoiled, both by the thoughtfulness and magic of the disney staff and the extra space. Somewhere along the way during that trip I first heard or read about DVC. When we returned from that trip I ordered the DVD. We soon realized that our kids would all be "adults" for our next trip and that since we have three that would mean paying for 2 rooms every trip or staying deluxe. We spent about 4-5 months crunching the numbers and it just made sense. We call our DVC purchase our "mid-life crisis", but tell our friends "at least we had it together!!!" Seriously though, the magic of Disney is something that we want to experience with our children, and then Grandchildren for as long as we are able!!! We had our first stay in June (and were able to take four other family members with us) and it was just fantastic!! We can not wait for our first stay in our home resort next spring!!!!

 

[Harlemgirl720]

It took me 2 years to decide. Money was a little tight but it was something I knew I wanted to do. My mom and I just bought AKV at the end of August. We were staying at AKL and mom wanted to do a tour. She fell in love with the unit and layout and we decided now was the time to do it.

So we are awaiting to sign the contract and send the papers back. I know why so long? At first we were going to finance but Mom decided to pay in full. Now Mom, my brother and sister, my two children and my grandson can enjoy the House of the Mouse. In fact, son and I, along with my GF and her son, will be going down in February during winter recess. It really is worth it.

 

[PKWallaby]

I am interested in hearing from various people why they finally took the plunge and bought DVC. Also, how long did it take you to finally buy after starting to look into it?

The "one thing" for me was that I spent enough renting points over 2 years to pay for a nice contract...

When I sat down and thought about it it did not make sense to keep renting points when I could buy my own contract, have control of my points and still keep returning to stays that my family had now become accustomed to.
Sooo, once I decided enough was enough, I think it took about 2 months to find the right contract and make an offer (resale, that is).

Good luck with your decision. No regrets here (other than I wish I had "taken the plunge" sooner )

 

[Vickis3js]

I am interested in hearing from various people why they finally took the plunge and bought DVC. Also, how long did it take you to finally buy after starting to look into it?

Well I can say we did not look for long. I did not know too much about DVC before we went last Dec. Matter of fact I knew nothing didn't really even know it existed until I started planning the trip and found the Dis. Talked to DH about it and he said NO WAY!!!!!! At the time we thought our WDW trip would be just a one time thing. Soon as we got to WDW we knew we were hooked though. We had 2 rooms at the Pop for the 5 of us and we were not happy. Not like there is anything wrong with the Pop its just not us. So after day 2 and seeing all the DVC booths DH stopped to talk to someone. He then scheduled the tour. As we were walking away from scheduling it he again said NO WAY are we buying, atleast not while we are here. I am just doing this to make you happy. So we take the tour the next day and he is still saying we are not buying as we are on the way over. Well after we met with the guide looked at the numbers and she walked out so we could discuss it. I said to him I'll call her back to tell her we will take it home and look at it. Much to my surprise he said no call her back and tell her we are ready to sign. I almost fainted.

So I guess our reasoning is we knew we wanted to be able to stay Delux and we knew that we were addicted to WDW on just one trip. We haven't even stayed in WDW using DVC yet and we are already talking about an add on. We are very happy to own!

 

[WendyinNC]

The one thing that made us take the plunge was the birth of our 4th child. There are really not many options for a family of 6 other than a 2BR DVC unit. We were already staying at the Deluxe Resorts and I wasn't going to give that up. But, booking two rooms or paying cash for a 2BR DVC unit was just too much money. I never wanted to rent points so we bought, loved it, added on, added on again, and added on again. I had briefly looked into DVC when we were a family of 5; but this was before the addition of the sleeper chair at some of the resorts. It was also when my kids were young and a 2BR seemed like too much at that time. Now we are definately filling up the 2BR.

 

[DisOwl]

I am on the fence about buying, and these posts have been very helpful in thinking through some issues. Thanks for starting the thread!

 

[monkeyknuckler]

I thought DVC was a good idea because my wife said she'd pay for it. I didn't even want to go to meet the guide and only did so after being told that we'd get some fastpasses. That was May of this year. Now I'm excited that SSR, BLT and AK concierge are booked for future trips. If you want the best accomodations and you go to WDW a lot, the savings can be pretty good.

 

[majortom1981]

What made me buy was my fiances parents. I have gone with them 3 times with their dvc points. 2 times to ssr and one to okw. This past trip i took the tour and was offered a 100 point begginer package and with mentioning her parents i got $1300 off . I couldnt resist.

My first use of the points will be a savana view studio for our honeymoon in may.

I love disney and love being able to go every year.

 

[nll007]

My Wife and I just bought BLT this month and is already planning our next two trips. This was a relatively quick decision though we first heard of DVC in 2004 on our honeymoon. We didn't think we would come to WDW often enough because we are from California. Well we have have gone to Disney every year since [2 trips were to Disneyland]. After our last trip was when we realized this fact and kicked ourselves for missing out on staying at a nicer place the last few years. So I created a massive spreadsheet to evaluate the worth of this purchase. We were comfortable with the numbers so we bought in.

 

[nightshaderose]

My DBF took about 2 days to make the decision to buy. I had known (and abstractly dreamed about) DVC for 4 years, but always just assumed that I was "too poor" to afford it. I brought BF with me on a trip to Disney in Jan. '08, a few months after we'd moved from Texas to Seattle for his cushy new job. He's not a big Disney fan, but the idea was just to get away from the gloom for a while so I could recharge my batteries (I'm solar-powered), and he could take a break. He saw a DVC kiosk fairly early on, and asked me about it. I gave him the short version, and he said that if I was going to be coming back every year for a sun break, it wouldn't hurt to look into it. He set up a tour time for us, and we were absolutely floored with the model units (particularly what he referred to as the "12-butt shower" in AKV). He spent started running numbers and checking resale values (on his PDA-phone), but we didn't talk about it a whole lot after that. One night a couple of days later, I called to remind him of our ADR at Boma (We'd head an "apart" day since we'd wanted to do different things), and he said he might be a little late since he was signing the DVC paperwork!!
I've since had my job evaporate out from under me and gone back to school, but I still go every winter and DBF says the cost of DVC is well worth keeping me sane through the winters here. I've been to both DL and WDW on points, and we're also looking at banking/borrowing enough one year to get a grand villa and have all our closest friends join us for a week at WDW.

Elizabeth

 

[ritaread]

hi trying to make it to ten post