Pre DVC purchase concerns

[tink6137130]

Just wondering if anyone else has had pre DVC purchase concerns about committing to travel expenses, park tickets, food, etc? We live in Tennessee which is within a reasonable driving distance but we usually choose to fly. Disney World is my favorite destination…

 

[luvindisneyworld]

It looks like that you go every year.I live in NC and if anything else we go alot more and the drive is really not that bad at all.We love the spur of the moment trips that you plan and go within a week or 2 and be able to just drive. Just buy Annual passes and you can get alot of use out of them and I love APs you dont feel bad if you just go into a park and eat dinner like Epcot and thats all.We dont have to worry that we have just wasted a day to go in and at dinner.

 

[claire_ont]

I live in Ottawa Canada, and yes, I thought about it a lot. It costs a lot just to get there. When I first looked at DVC and calculated the maintenance fees, I figured I could stay in a hotel for that cost alone, never mind the initial purchase price.
I guess what sold me is that I love Disney, and yes I could do Disney cheaper, but I could not do Disney the way I do now. (Did I mention I am staying at AKV Concierge for a week in March? ) If you like to stay in the deluxe resorts then in the end, DVC will probably work for you. If the deluxe resorts are not important to you, or you travel there once every few years, then maybe DVC is not the right answer.
Do I regret my decision to buy DVC - NO! I love my DVC. The only other scary part of owning DVC is the dreaded disease - Add-On-itis. It strikes almost immediately after the initial shock of the purchase price passes and you realize you need more points. I am soooo there right now.

Claire

 

[msabol01]

I agree with Claire, your bigger concern should be the addiction to DVC not buyers remorse. If the frequency of visits concern you, you can always go every two years banking the points from the 'off' years. This will give you the ability to do more with less. Certainly start low as you can always add on later.

 

[AKV707]

No concerns. We were already doing all of that for years. Which is what, along with AKV coming along, compelled us to buy. With so many trips in mods and deluxe, it was no brainer. We knew there was no end in sight to our WDW trips

 

[tink6137130]

Thanks for everyone’s replies..I guess I just needed some reassurance! I’m still debating on which property to buy and whether to go with resale or direct through Disney….

 

[AKV707]

Good luck with your decision!

 

[tomandrobin]

No concerns. We figure that if one year we could not go, we would either bank the points or rent out that years points.

 

[tjkraz]

IMHO, it depends upon whether or not the DVC purchase will change your vacation habits. If you have an established pattern of visiting WDW 1-2 weeks per year and DVC is being used as a vehicle for either saving money on accommodations or upgrading quality for similar cost, then I think that concern is easily overcome.

However, if you currently visit every couple of years or have only been once or twice in your live, a little more introspection is in order. If you'll forgive the pop culture reference, Alec Baldwin's character on the TV series "30 Rock" had a great line about timeshares:

"Every great getaway has a moment when you want to pack it up and stay. That's how I ended up with a timeshare in Port Arthur, Texas."

Few of us can look 40+ years into the future, but know that the breakeven point on a DVC purchase is anywhere from 7-15 years depending upon whether you will be financing or not. Are you willing to make the full commitment to Disney (including the ever-escalating park tickets, food prices, souvenirs, transportation, etc.) for at least the next decade? Will the purchase lead to financial hardship? Will the purchase force you to compromise in other--perhaps more important--aspects of your budget?

 

[chalee94]

it wouldn't kill me to go for a week and skip the parks if it came to that. and part of the reason i go is for the food (unless the quality completely falls apart.)

(but i do like that if i get tired of disney and decide to take a year off, i can bank my points to use the next year.)

 

[Mtnman44]

If those types of expenses are not already part of your "lifestyle", you should think carefully about a DVC purchase. Unless you know you would be going to WDW often even without DVC, it may not make any sense to commit.

 

[DeeCee735]

I was sure I wanted to own in first time I saw it in 96 - DH took a few years to finally commit. Our only regret was not purchasing sooner (hate to say I told ya so, but that's exactly what I tell him when he says he wishes we bought sooner! )

Of course it is a big decision, financially as well as a commitment to vacationing mostly there. I have been to WDW a few times before I went with DH & our kids, but when we went together for the first time (stayed at the Polynesian), we all fell in love with it. I'll fly, but husband won't, so having a vacation destination we both love so much that we can drive to made it a no brainer decision for us. Again....DH took some time to commit, he's a bit of a workaholic (one HUGE reason why I wanted it, it forces the man to take a break and enjoy the good things he works so hard for). We love it more now than we did before we bought it. We go together once a year, and I get it in a long weekend with my friends as well. It's a commitment to the expense of vacationing but so is any place else we'd go if we travelled once a year. I try to buy more tickets than I need with a no expire on them so they last two or three trips, this way we don't really feel the expense of them with every trip.

Good luck with your decision and have fun planning.

 

[hellerjw]

I think most people have some reservations on any big purchase or long-term commitment, at least they should. As long as you do your due diligence and reseach how DVC works, all the costs involved, and know you can be flexible with your travel plans you can at least go into it knowing what to expect.

It is a learning process and these boards are excellent for getting advice and questions answered by many long time DVCers.

We straddled the fence for 10 years before buying for a variety of reasons. When the time was right for us we did our research, knew we could afford it and pulled the trigger. We haven't looked back.

One of my main goals in joining DVC was to vacation more as a family. I think that's one of the secondary benefits of DVC in that it somewhat forces you to think about taking time off and spending it with the family. If you are like us we barely have time to breath at the end of the day and probably wouldn't find the time to vacation frequently were it not for the commitment to DVC.

 

[toocherie]

DH took some time to commit, he's a bit of a workaholic (one HUGE reason why I wanted it, it forces the man to take a break and enjoy the good things he works so hard for).

Yep--that's why I bought even though I haven't been to WDW since there was only a Magic Kingdom and I HATE flying--it will force me to get out of the office and get away!

 

[buckeyebill1995]

I was sure I wanted to own in first time I saw it in 96 - DH took a few years to finally commit. Our only regret was not purchasing sooner (hate to say I told ya so, but that's exactly what I tell him when he says he wishes we bought sooner! )

Of course it is a big decision, financially as well as a commitment to vacationing mostly there. I have been to WDW a few times before I went with DH & our kids, but when we went together for the first time (stayed at the Polynesian), we all fell in love with it. I'll fly, but husband won't, so having a vacation destination we both love so much that we can drive to made it a no brainer decision for us. Again....DH took some time to commit, he's a bit of a workaholic (one HUGE reason why I wanted it, it forces the man to take a break and enjoy the good things he works so hard for). We love it more now than we did before we bought it. We go together once a year, and I get it in a long weekend with my friends as well. It's a commitment to the expense of vacationing but so is any place else we'd go if we travelled once a year. I try to buy more tickets than I need with a no expire on them so they last two or three trips, this way we don't really feel the expense of them with every trip.

Good luck with your decision and have fun planning.

I have to agree -- we finally purchased our DVC in December (first trip home scheduled for June) after years of debate. We had gone to WDW in 1992 when they first introduced DVC and they would have credited our entire room charge for that trip towards our purchase if we had done it then! And it was half the price we ended up paying! If only we'd have done it back then! BTW -- hello to a fellow Long Islander!

 

[Buckeye Fan]

We live in central OH, and considered the expense portion of DVC many times. Though we didn't tour, we tossed around looking into it a few years ago and decided the time wasn't right. They were selling VWL at the time. In the few years that followed, we ended up going almost every year. We were pretty content staying in the All Star resorts until we stayed in a 1-BR at OKW. BIG mistake!!!

For us, I wished we had purchased sooner. We were spending the $$$ anyway, so at least the money spent on the room could have gone into an ownership interest. The more we looked at it, the more it just made sense.

It's a big decision and good luck with it. It sure wasn't an impulse buy for us or a decision we made lightly.

 

[crisi]

If those types of expenses are not already part of your "lifestyle", you should think carefully about a DVC purchase. Unless you know you would be going to WDW often even without DVC, it may not make any sense to commit.

I'll add that you should expect to continue to have disposable income for those expenses. Tickets, airfare, and food have all gone up a lot since we joined DVC - each trip gets more expensive. Plan on inflation - will your income keep up? - and do a little consideration of upcoming expenses (i.e. if you have kids about to start college, or are planning on adding a baby to the family that will create changes to your budget.)

Yes, we had those same concerns we we purchased. But our kids were leaving full time daycare (or at least the end was in sight), our mortgage was nearly paid off (once again, the end was in sight), and we felt like we'd continue to have disposable income to vacation. We also figured if we couldn't afford to go, we could rent our points to friends or family, or here on the DIS.