blueant315
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2018
- Messages
- 108
We definitely plan to split stay at an EPCOT resort and a MK resort - we enjoy travelling that way. We typically travel in this manner whether at Disney or not and like the convenience - I know this is definitely not the norm for most. Not sure if adding a 3rd resort to the mix will work out well for us or not, so definitely open to keeping it limited to 2. Since we will be traveling during peak times for the most part and starting our in studios, home resort seems like a pretty important feature.My advice isn't going to fit your thoughts all that well. Once you get up to around every 36 months, IMO, DVC no longer makes sense. So the question is how likely would it be to go over 36 months and how soon would you get there. Personally I disagree with the idea of buying smaller contracts to have resale options, rarely it makes sense for home priority options. It has has cost, roughly $2500 on 150 points for 3 contracts and since I don't feel buying to sell is reasonable, it's cost that's unnecessary. I also am not convinced they'll be worth more long term, they may be but they may not, I give it 50/50.
I doubt you'll be priced out, I don't see the escalation of the last couple of years carrying forward but who knows. Personally I'd go with one or, at max, 2 contracts given the size you're looking at. I would not plan for split stays routinely. I would plan to avoid banked/borrowed points as much as possible. I'm not a big fan of buying to rent but I would prefer that to the 50/50/50 plan plus I suspect you'll need significantly more than you think anyway.
It seems like ultimate value is your goal, IMO DVC rarely, if ever, saves one money. It's OK to do some trips on points and others some other way, possibly transferring points in or a private rental. Given your posted info I'd likely look at around 150 at BLT and forego the Poly. I suspect you can get in there at 7 months out most of the time but you might have to waitlist at times. As a minimum I wouldn't buy everything all up front as you've posted. Another consideration is you might want to wait on Riviera to compare to BWV and have qualified points at the same time. Obviously lots of variables but I get the sense you're all emotionally tied to this right now and if so, IMO, that alone is reason enough to wait.
Riviera holds no appeal to me at this point. I desperately want to be able to walk to parks and not have to wait on transportation, so the gondola solution isn't ideal to me. Otherwise I would be much more excited about buying into a new resort with 50 years of use ahead instead of 23.
I don't think we'd ever go more than 36 months between visits, just that family vacations will be harder to plan once our kids advance in age and have extracurricular activities to plan around. Even if we have a hard time planning regular family vacations once our kids are teens, my husband and I will be within a couple hours from Disney every summer for work and might swing by for a few nights.
I really hope your projections on price are correct. It's really skyrocketed lately and I would love to see a downturn. Thanks for your input!