Please help answer some of my questions? Before I purchase

[poppabear2011]

I am new to this site & I am seeking all the feedback I can get in regarding Dvc at getting into the disney timeshare group.
Into buying Disney Vacation Club. I am interested in and have been looking for while.
I am looking to use disney itself over the years , and in fact the idea is to be able to buy it for my kids , and their kids to enjoy.
My kids are 6 & 13 so the idea that if I buy ssr or blt it wont expire till 2057.
My oldest will be older than me now and in his late 50's!

Ok couple questions if possible? ok so I get the idea of staying in disney etc.
But what if I am interested in exchanging with plans to use the rci in caribbean that are on the lists of places to go.Anyone have any luck with that ? or feedback problems etc? The book says a week in that network is 160 pts.

Heres some things I made a list of what Id like to do with it and where to go . I'd appreciate any help? I wanna see if this is for me and will work?
My list of places to try n use and or go to from having ownership in dvc.
1) Of course family trips to Disneyworld both small family of 4 trips and week stays with anywhere from 6 to 10 of us over the years.
2) Disney Caribbean cruises & alaska cruise for family (4)
3)I'd like to be able to go places in the network like Arizona, wyoming,etc.
4)Caribbean network Rci Jamaica Sandals Ocho Grande listed, interest in Aruba,Bahamas, and Rivera Maya

Also does disney allocate only so many open spaces for dvc rooms? are they hard to get etc? Or is it like getting the hoop dee do, or backyard bbq ?
You plan ahead and get on phone exactly so many months ahead to be able to reserve asap. I dont mind staying all over the disney property area. not only my home resort.

I am as much interested into the other things listed above as the staying on disney property. My plan is to buy like 70-100 points in cash and to add on points till I get to around 300. I hope to add about 50 to 80 points a year till I reach my goal.
I see points are way cheaper as resale etc. But I can't use them for the above mentioned places. I get that I have the presentation book. But I m wondering does the system really work and thus should i buy the 100./pt direct so I am able to trade into the other things I wanna do?
Casue if it doesnt work, than theres no reason for me to buy anywhere but resale and I am fine with knowing my kids and hopefully their kids will have great disney trips in the years to come.
Just wanna know from real people how it works or doesnt?
Thanks
Joe

 

[lilkitty819]

Hi Joe

When you buy into DVC thru Disney your first purchase has to be for at least 160 points after that you can purchase whatever amount you want.

As far as rci trades I don't know much about them.

As far as doing cruises, you would do better to sell your points and pay cash for the cruise. It takes a pretty high number of points to cruise with and you also have to pay I think now it's a $95.00 exchange fee! You also would be able to go on different cruiselines too if you sell your points.
I have done a Disney cruise with points, it cost 270 points way back in 04 for 2 people and we stayed in the inside cabin...now if I would have sold my points back then I would have sold those points for $10 each ...so I basicly payed $2700 hundred $ for a cruise that would have cost me about $1800 in cash..that was a lesson learned.

But I can honestly say buying into DVC was the best investment for me.

Good luck with what you chose!

Eileen

 

[cvjw]

We bought DVC points for stays at Disney, and nothing else. Keep in mind that if you intend to trade into a Sandals resort, the RCI trade will get you the room only, the all-inclusive part has to be paid for separately. We might consider using our points for Disney cruises at some point, but not for RCI trades - doesn't seem like a good use of DVC points to us.

 

[drusba]

Purchasing resale now gives up the Disney Collections (the cruises and other non-DVC Disney hotels and adventure trips). That is currently the only difference between direct purchase and resale and many owners do not believe the Disney Collection is either a big deal or worth the use of the points. Resale does not affect RCI which you can still use. There are a lot of places you can get with RCI but cannot speak to how easy for ones you mention.

In any event, best if you purchase DVC is usually using it for DVC.

Reserving DVC: owners of a resort can start reserving 11 months out and other resort owners at 7 months out. Difficulty of getting reservations varies according to time of year, type of room, and resort. You should generally reserve home resort 11 months out for any holiday periods (particularly Christmas time) because there can be nothing left come 9 months out. You should generally try to reserve Grand Villas, AKL concierge, BLT standard and MK views, BWV boardwalk and standard views, and SSR's Treehouse Villas 11 months out to safely assure getting one of those. BCV and VWL, as smaller resorts can be difficult at 7 months out many times of year that other resorts are not. SSR, OKW, BWV preferred non-boardwalk view, and AKV savanna view are generally easy to get at 7 months out almost any non-holiday time of year and SSR can often be gotten even two months out.

Your end date for SSR is not 2057, it is 2054; AKV is 2057 and BLT is 2060

 

[juncker]

My opinion of DVC is that it is great if your primary use is intended for staying onsite at a DVC property. It is possible to use your points for RCI stays, and from what I've read (I've never done it), DVC makes it very easy.

The primary reason for not using your DVC points for RCI or DCL is value. I think that the decision to use your points as one of these methods is going to be your decision based upon how simple you want the transaction to be vs. how much value you want to get out of it. There is a large group of people that will tell you to rent out your points and then take that cash and purchase the cruise or rental. You will usually save more money, or get more for your cash if you go that route. For me, if it is only costing me a couple of hundred, I'll just make my reservations through Disney and not be bothered with renting points. If we're talking a lot of money (like a thousand), then I would probably go through the effort.

Contract end for SSR is 2054 (not 2057). I'd consider resale prices to start. You can get in for less than 160 points as well. You won't be able to use the points for DCL if you go re-sale, but can still do RCI (if they don't make additional changes to rules). Take the money you save on your re-sale and take a DCL cruise. (just my opinion).

I also am very happy with joining DVC. I wouldn't recommend it though for anyone that wasn't primarily interested in using Disney DVC properties as the main purpose. Occasional use for non-Disney would be OK, but as an exception rather than the rule.

Good Luck!

 

[chalee94]

But what if I am interested in exchanging with plans to use the rci in caribbean that are on the lists of places to go...
2) Disney Caribbean cruises & alaska cruise for family (4)
3)I'd like to be able to go places in the network like Arizona, wyoming,etc.
4)Caribbean network Rci Jamaica Sandals Ocho Grande listed, interest in Aruba,Bahamas, and Rivera Maya

I am as much interested into the other things listed above as the staying on disney property.

i agree with the other posters that this is a poor idea financially. buy DVC for DVC resort stays and pay cash elsewhere, you'll save money and potential headaches.

Also does disney allocate only so many open spaces for dvc rooms? are they hard to get etc?

there are theoretically enough DVC rooms for every DVC owner to have enough pts to stay at the resorts (with banking/borrowing, trading out for cruises/RCI, and the points that disney still owns making things more complicated).

but assume there is only 1 DVC room and 50 DVC owners, each with enough pts for 1 week...(DVC keeps the other 2 weeks worth of pts themselves to hold the room out for routine maintenance). what happens if none of the 50 owners wants to go in jan/feb and virtually all of them want to go in the summer or december? those who don't book as early as possible wind up with pts going to waste or else using the pts in their 2nd or 3rd choice scenario.

there is sometimes last minute availability (especially at the larger resorts like OKW, SSR and AKV), but it's not something to count on. in a points system, you are not guaranteed a stay if you wait too long and nothing is available.

 

[Deb & Bill]

While DVC likes to make potential buyers think that this is a worldwide system, it really works best to stay at a Disney DVC resort. None of the other possibilities are fixed for the term of your ownership. They can change at any time. Buy DVC to do Disney. Buy a different time share to do the world.

 

[disneynutz]

Here my answer short and to the point. Only buy a membership for your stays every year or two at WDW.

Forget about trades and passing the membership on to your children. Buy the time they get older, who knows if you or they will still enjoy going to Disney every couple of years.

Bill

 

[JimMIA]

But what if I am interested in exchanging with plans to use the rci in caribbean that are on the lists of places to go.

Heres some things I made a list of what Id like to do with it and where to go . I'd appreciate any help? I wanna see if this is for me and will work?
My list of places to try n use and or go to from having ownership in dvc.
2) Disney Caribbean cruises & alaska cruise for family (4)
3)I'd like to be able to go places in the network like Arizona, wyoming,etc.
4)Caribbean network Rci Jamaica Sandals Ocho Grande listed, interest in Aruba,Bahamas, and Rivera Maya

I would NOT buy DVC with the idea of using DVC points for the above types of vacations...for several reasone. In fact, I would not buy any timeshare with the idea of using it for cruises, or for RCI exchanges in anything but a last resort situation.

First of all, the cost of those non-DVC vacations is much higher than using your points at a DVC resort.

Second, availability is severely limited. RCI has 6,500+ resorts in their system; DVC only has access to about 600 of those. Also understand that DVC may not exchange through RCI at some point in the future. They started out with RCI, changed to II, then switched back to RCI recently. In fact, they could eliminate the exchange program altogether.

For timeshare vacations outside of Disney World, your best bet is to purchase a different timeshare for pennies on the dollar. Many of the better companies have extensive offerings within their own systems and offer FULL memberships in RCI, with full access to all 6,500+ RCI resorts. Some of those timeshare contracts - in very good systems - can be purchased for $1 on eBay.

For DISNEY cruises, you would do far better paying cash and possibly renting some of your points to offset the cash outlay. The DVC points cost for DCL is VERY high.

For cruises generally -- especially Caribbean and Alaska -- there are many less expensvie cruises, and undoubtedly some of them are better cruises than what Disney offers.

 

[calypso*a*go-go]

Pretty much agree with what everyone else has stated -- the best value for your membership is to use it for WDW stays.

 

[ADP]

Pretty much agree with what everyone else has stated -- the best value for your membership is to use it for WDW stays.

Hi Lisa!

 

[poppabear2011]

Thanks for the feedback so far! i cant believe not one person has anything good to say about the rci group that you can supposedly exchange for ?
Why would I ever buy at 99/point then if not a resale?
Thanks Joe

 

[crisi]

I'll add another "ummmmmm...."

The thought of passing this to your kids. While its possible that you will instill a lifelong love of Disney in your children AND they will want to take regular Disney vacations AND they will be able to afford to take regular Disney vacations AND Disney will still be a destination worth visiting in 30 years - planning for your kids has been known to backfire. Some of us find that our kids don't share our love of Disney. Some find that our kids can't afford it. Some have gotten progressively disenchanted with Disney itself - and DVC doesn't last in their possesion for that long.

Plan for about TEN years of use and decide if its a good deal for you based on that. If it works out that you pass it to your kids, that's great. Past ten years, and planning for other people, it gets really fuzzy.

 

[JimMIA]

Thanks for the feedback so far! i cant believe not one person has anything good to say about the rci group that you can supposedly exchange for ?

Joe, I don't think that's a negative about DVC specifically. In ANY timeshare system, exchanges are usually the least attractive, least valuable use of the timeshare. ALL timeshares give the best value when they are used within that timeshare's internal system.

It's not that DVC owners can't get RCI exchanges they are happy with -- they can and do. But exchanges with any system are usually going to be downgrades either in terms of the resort, the accommodations or the season.

Why would I ever buy at 99/point then if not a resale?

Not sure what you're referring to here. Disney-direct prices vary from about $89 to $140, if I'm not mistaken. Resale prices vary from around $40 to $100, depending on resort.

The answer to your question, though, is that you should pay $X if the use of those points at DVC resorts was worth $X to you. If the best value for your points is not worth the price to your family, no frills are going to make it worthwhile.

The reason for the negativity is that prospective buyers often grasp onto the RCI exchanges, cruises, etc to justify their purchase...which most seasoned DVC owners think is a fundamental error.

 

[JimMIA]

I'll add another "ummmmmm...."

The thought of passing this to your kids. While its possible that you will instill a lifelong love of Disney in your children AND they will want to take regular Disney vacations AND they will be able to afford to take regular Disney vacations AND Disney will still be a destination worth visiting in 30 years - planning for your kids has been known to backfire. Some of us find that our kids don't share our love of Disney. Some find that our kids can't afford it. Some have gotten progressively disenchanted with Disney itself - and DVC doesn't last in their possesion for that long.

Plan for about TEN years of use and decide if its a good deal for you based on that. If it works out that you pass it to your kids, that's great. Past ten years, and planning for other people, it gets really fuzzy.

This is a very sound perspective. It's not what prospective buyers want to hear, but it's real-world.

If I were buying now, I would assume 10 year ownership, and little if any recovery of the purchase price when I eventually sold. Anything better than that is gravy.

 

[Pakey]

I'll add another "ummmmmm...."

The thought of passing this to your kids. While its possible that you will instill a lifelong love of Disney in your children AND they will want to take regular Disney vacations AND they will be able to afford to take regular Disney vacations AND Disney will still be a destination worth visiting in 30 years - planning for your kids has been known to backfire. Some of us find that our kids don't share our love of Disney. Some find that our kids can't afford it. Some have gotten progressively disenchanted with Disney itself - and DVC doesn't last in their possesion for that long.

Plan for about TEN years of use and decide if its a good deal for you based on that. If it works out that you pass it to your kids, that's great. Past ten years, and planning for other people, it gets really fuzzy.

I completely agree with this. We have owned for about 14 years and have 3 contracts totalling about 500 points. We have 3 children who are all adults now and not one of the 3 is interesting in being given these contracts. They will only go to WDW if we pay for the vacation; if they are paying, they want to go to Hawaii or Jamaica, etc. Even though 2 of them have children now, they have made it known that they will not pay the annual dues, they do not want these contracts.

So my husband and I try desperately to use these 500 points a year because I'm just not up for the hassle of selling yet. However, the time is getting close. We are doing our last big family trip this year and after that, we will probaby sell at least 2 of the 3 contracts. My husband and I are not interested in going that often.

 

[Sandisw]

As others have said, buy DVC to stay at WDW or any of the other DVC properties as this is where you will get your best value.

With this in mind, you will save a lot of money going resale and if you are really not concerned about what resort you get, SSR is a great choice--lower buy in, lower MF's, and longer contract (2054)--although more, BLT goes until 2060 and AKV until 2057.

As far as availability, it depends. Calling right at 11 months to book your home resort, will usually yield you what you want. However, there are a few times of the year (December) that even then can be difficult as it is a low points time but popular for DVC members.

In addition, there are certain room types/views that are harder to get as a non-owner at the 7 month mark. For example, SV and MK view rooms at BLT are hard to come by then. So are SV and BW view rooms at BWV, concierge and value rooms at AKV and the treehouses.

DVC takes a lot of planning and the farther ahead you book, the better chance you have to get what you want.

Good luck!

 

[disneydenisel]

Definitely buy DVC to stay at DVC resorts!

There are many RCI members who love RCI because they have recently been able to get some awesome trades into DVC. So if you really want RCI trades, buy a cheap or find a free "tiger trader" in RCI that will get you to the places you want to travel. An added plus would be that you could probably trade into DVC! Note that this RCI/DVC relationship is fairly new, and could change at any time, so don't count on this exchange company in the future. It used to be Interval a few years ago.

I hear a lot of things about trading into DVC, but not a lot of trading out. You could do some private exchanges, like finding an owner at a resort you want to travel to, and asking them if they want to stay at DVC. That would be a bit of work, but private exchanges are also done occasionally.

The best advice is to buy where you want to go most of the time. We love Disney, so we bought Disney. We love Maui, so we bought Starwood Maui. We love Tahoe and Carmel in California, so we bought Hyatt (with resorts in both places). Trading is too nerve-wracking for us when I have to worry about airfare prices and school vacations.

As far as giving kids the deeds, I agree that my kids probably won't want ours. Just gave away a very nice Myrtle Beach timeshare because I don't want to worry about it anymore. It was renting out fine and a good Interval trader, but I had doubts my kids would want it and I wanted another DVC . I told my DH that I didn't want to burden my kids with these annual fees and booking headaches.

 

[disfanforlife]

We had the same ideas when we bought in as you. We love Disney but liked the idea of being able to trade for something else if we wanted to. To be honest, ever since we bought in 2008 I have had more fun planning and enjoying our WDW trips that I haven't even thought about trading into RCI. I know someday we probably will but for now we are loving DVC for going to WDW! We did buy direct from Disney. I did not feel comfortable buying resale although now I probably would. But at the time we got a $10/point discount, no dues on our first year, plus an extra set of developer points to sweeten the deal. We stayed at SSR our first trip was part of the deal. The next two years we booked at our home resort at 11 months and then switched at 7 months. This year we booked at our home resort at 11 months and I tried to switch at 7 months but where we wanted to stay was not available. So, we are staying at our home resort for the first time this year!