Surprised at Dvc value

[Cyberc1978]

That's an obscene amount of money. I would like to go on a Disney cruise but not at that price, I would need to sell a kidney

 

[Dean]

Rack rate is a starting point for comparison IMO.
The best deal for deluxes I have personally seen is 30% off rack with AP.
So, if I'm trying to figure the actual cost of a room I start with rack and figure 30% less. Most times actual will be within that window. That said, it's a pretty big window.

MG

Rack rates, even discounted are almost irrelevant other than for fun unless one would go that route not owning DVC or unless that amount is close to or below a reasonable private rental option.

I'm not comparing rack rates. I'm pricing other trips we consider taking. They invariably cost way too much.

Trips priced include cruise to the Baltic, Disney land, western Canada, Quebec City and Eastern Quebec. Once I book air and pay hotel, the price is high, high, high. Travelling with five is an expensive proposition. Dvc allows us to get away affordably. I've been complaining about ticket prices but even figuring them into the equation, I come out ahead.

Apples to oranges if I'm understanding you correctly. For example, some try to erroneously compare a DVC stay using points to a DCL cruise or ABD using points. They are not comparable in that way because they are entirely different. What is comparable in those situations is what the cash price would be compared to how many points to figure out the value per point. For cruises booked in advance, using $7.75 per point as a general reference will get you close. Certainly looking at the cost of a given trip no matter how it's paid for is appropriate. Some trips are just inherently more expensive than others for a given situation. Years ago I planned an AK trip (cruise tour) for the 4 of us and it was somewhere in the range of $21-25K. Part of this was because it was AK and part because it was 4 for, esp for AK since a lot of the child discounts go away once you hit 4 people (at least the land portion). So I put it off until the kids were out. WDW is pretty expensive even with DVC or other timeshares though.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

Rack rates, even discounted are almost irrelevant other than for fun unless one would go that route not owning DVC or unless that amount is close to or below a reasonable private rental option

Huh??

MG

 

[Madame]

Just being curious but how can it cost you 40k CAD to go to Europe? Are you staying several months? I understand that airfare can be crazy expensive during school breaks.

The 10 day Med would have cost $16,500 USD x 1.35 = $22,275 CAD. We are doing a back to back 5 night Med & 7 night Western instead for about $1,000 USD more, or $23,625 CAD.

These are the cheapest inside connecting rooms. 1 room for five on the classic ships are more expensive & would be $20,000 USD.

$5,000 + for flights. We're already at $29,000 CAD. Excursions for 5 - DD will be 10 so 3 adults & 2 kids = $350-$500 USD a pop.

Hotel in Toronto & parking; hotel in Barcelona; hotel & a few days in London - don't forget that we probably have to double the hotel costs because we are 5 & will need 2 rooms - food; over $700 USD in cruise gratuities.... It all adds up.

When you compare CAD against USD or the Euro it hurts. We are not rolling in it, but I am more than willing to go without other "luxuries" to go on a great vacation.

We live in *the* cheapest part if Canada & live frugally on good salaries. Kids' education funds are topped up & I have a pension. We are using savings tagged for vacations & will incur no debt. I'll turn 42 in 2018. My father died at 46 of a brain tumour... So, meh.

I haven't been to Europe in 20 years & it's never going to get any cheaper for us to go together, unless I wait until I retire in 16 years...

 

[quandrea]

Rack rates, even discounted are almost irrelevant other than for fun unless one would go that route not owning DVC or unless that amount is close to or below a reasonable private rental option.

Apples to oranges if I'm understanding you correctly. For example, some try to erroneously compare a DVC stay using points to a DCL cruise or ABD using points. They are not comparable in that way because they are entirely different. What is comparable in those situations is what the cash price would be compared to how many points to figure out the value per point. For cruises booked in advance, using $7.75 per point as a general reference will get you close. Certainly looking at the cost of a given trip no matter how it's paid for is appropriate. Some trips are just inherently more expensive than others for a given situation. Years ago I planned an AK trip (cruise tour) for the 4 of us and it was somewhere in the range of $21-25K. Part of this was because it was AK and part because it was 4 for, esp for AK since a lot of the child discounts go away once you hit 4 people (at least the land portion). So I put it off until the kids were out. WDW is pretty expensive even with DVC or other timeshares though.

If you put off Alaska until the kids were out, what sort of trips did you do when they were at home? We did Alaska twice. We were lucky to get some really good deals for those two trips.

 

[limace]

Oh man. Yeah, I guess if you compare to a Disney cruise it looks cheap-but that's an insanely expensive way to see Europe. You can have an amazing trip-rent an apartment in Paris and England, for instance, for a fraction of the 40K you're talking about (we did that a couple years ago when airfare was about twice what it is for this summer). We can do two weeks in Maui with airfare for five for $7K or less-we do Disneyland for five for about 3K for a week. Granted, we are in the Pacific Northwest, but that means travel to Europe is extra expensive for us.

 

[Dean]

If you put off Alaska until the kids were out, what sort of trips did you do when they were at home? We did Alaska twice. We were lucky to get some really good deals for those two trips.

Disney, LV, Williamsburg, DC, HH (many times), West Palm, PCB/Destin, DC, Nashville, Gatlinburg, many cruises from FL, HI several times, DL, San Antonio, Charleston, St. Augustine, Marco Island/Naples, Daytona Beach, St. Pete Beach, SF, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta with the kids at home. More of those plus Aruba x3, more HI, Cancun & AK since the kids were out. It's not that we couldn't have done it but that we made the decision that our $$$ could be better spent elsewhere. In retrospect it was the right decision, we have little to no regrets on our vacation choices other than maybe PV. When we went to AK it was for our 30th and we made a conscious choice between HI and Europe.

Oh man. Yeah, I guess if you compare to a Disney cruise it looks cheap-but that's an insanely expensive way to see Europe. You can have an amazing trip-rent an apartment in Paris and England, for instance, for a fraction of the 40K you're talking about (we did that a couple years ago when airfare was about twice what it is for this summer). We can do two weeks in Maui with airfare for five for $7K or less-we do Disneyland for five for about 3K for a week. Granted, we are in the Pacific Northwest, but that means travel to Europe is extra expensive for us.

There are almost always options and often better ones than the first or easiest thought. When I go to plan a trip, esp something that's new or different, I look at all options starting with timeshare options. But I don't box myself in to just using the timeshares that I have or to what's available for exchange when I'm early in planning. I look at many options but I also evaluatate the options using multiples routes and methods. For us planning AK, the air and that fact that you lost the child price at 4 people were the big differences. We could have done it cheaper but didn't have FF miles at the time and we knew how we wanted to structure the trip.

In general there are so many things we want to do but also many of those things are easier and cheaper than some of the others. We don't get set on one thing, we just enjoy doing things. Our family trips are our best vacations and they're pretty low key for the types of places we're talking. Plus we try to get back to HI every 4-6 years since I was stationed there for 3 yrs and my daughter was born there (2018). Fortunately the timeshares have been very good to us giving us good and reasonably priced options to accomplish these trips. We could never cover the family trips otherwise. But there's never enough time and money to do everything we want, esp since taking off 2 weeks from work is tough though not impossible so I try to limit those trips (mostly HI).

 

[ldo]

i find DVC a good value, esp. if purchased resale. We find 1BR DVCs with sleeper chairs+sofabed works really well for our family of 5. With eating breakfast and most dinners in unit, we save a lot of $ over meals out, plus my kids prefer coming back for a swim/relax/dinner before going back to the parks for the night.
RE. Europe, for 5 persons, consider saving some $ with DIY for easy ports--naples-pompeii is easy and under 100 euros for family of 5, inlcuding a gelato stop. no need to take dcl or even private excursions in many ports with a few hours of online research and a rick steves book.

for family trips: HHI, Hawaii, smugglers notch resort, vt, san diego area+3 days LA, banff, canada, williamsburg, europe.

 

[Madame]

Oh man. Yeah, I guess if you compare to a Disney cruise it looks cheap-but that's an insanely expensive way to see Europe. You can have an amazing trip-rent an apartment in Paris and England, for instance, for a fraction of the 40K you're talking about (we did that a couple years ago when airfare was about twice what it is for this summer). We can do two weeks in Maui with airfare for five for $7K or less-we do Disneyland for five for about 3K for a week. Granted, we are in the Pacific Northwest, but that means travel to Europe is extra expensive for us.

For sure we could do Europe that way & for cheaper. RCCL will shortly be releasing summer '18 & I'll see if the savings would be significant to jump ship. I've also done Europe via youth hostels/cheap hotels many times.

I don't, however, want to clean & make meals & pack & repack (Paris is nice, but I've been there at least a dozen times - same with London - so spending even a wk in one city holds no appeal). Also, as the Mom & the more organized/detail-oriented partner, these duties naturally fall on me. I work full time & am at home alone with the kids over every break. I want a break too kwim .

 

[limace]

For sure we could do Europe that way & for cheaper. RCCL will shortly be releasing summer '18 & I'll see if the savings would be significant to jump ship. I've also done Europe via youth hostels/cheap hotels many times.

I don't, however, want to clean & make meals & pack & repack (Paris is nice, but I've been there at least a dozen times - same with London - so spending even a wk in one city holds no appeal). Also, as the Mom & the more organized/detail-oriented partner, these duties naturally fall on me. I work full time & am at home alone with the kids over every break. I want a break too kwim .

I hear you-full time work and mom of three myself. When we looked at Scandinavian cruises recently, RCCL was half the price of Disney for a week. I think for us a cruise isn't an ideal way to take kids to Europe-with the exception, perhaps, of Scandinavia which is so expensive. Next year we will probably do Spain and Portugal-my preference is to do five days or a week in two or three places and really get to spend some time, rather than a few hours in port. It's also much cheaper than cruising and since we only do carry on, packing and hauling luggage isn't crazy. Love the advent of VRBO-being able to rent an apartment for cheaper than a hotel room makes this so much easier!

 

[quandrea]

For sure we could do Europe that way & for cheaper. RCCL will shortly be releasing summer '18 & I'll see if the savings would be significant to jump ship. I've also done Europe via youth hostels/cheap hotels many times.

I don't, however, want to clean & make meals & pack & repack (Paris is nice, but I've been there at least a dozen times - same with London - so spending even a wk in one city holds no appeal). Also, as the Mom & the more organized/detail-oriented partner, these duties naturally fall on me. I work full time & am at home alone with the kids over every break. I want a break too kwim .

You may want to check out Celebrity too. That's who we sailed with for Russia and Scandinavia. They have these wonderful family cabins that are all the way forward on the ship. Very reasonable.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

I don't do the scientific comparisons, but DW took her mother and grandmother to Aulani. I remember looking up the room via cash on the Disney webite and the room alone was 6K+. The entire trip would have cost over 15K in cash. We only paid out of pocket about 4K including airfare (which was almost all of that). I can't say for sure how much the DVC points cost us, but I am sure they were not 11K.

That trip alone ended up paying for a good portion of our DVC membership.

I remember when we purchased in, DVC told us at the time that the break even point was about 7 trips. I suspect however it's gotten better than that.

 

[jerseyduke]

A point of clarification: Even after inventory is declared by DVD to the condominium association's inventory, DVD still owns those points until it sells them to the general public. DVD can do what they want with the points it owns, which includes renting them out for cash reservations.

Is this true? I understand that once declared into inventory, DVD still owns the points, but I thought they were "in the system". If what you say is the case, why not just declare 100% into inventory on Day 1. What would be the disadvantage for DVD if they could still rent them for cash? There has to be a difference, just want to be clear on what it is...

 

[wdrl]

Is this true? I understand that once declared into inventory, DVD still owns the points, but I thought they were "in the system". If what you say is the case, why not just declare 100% into inventory on Day 1. What would be the disadvantage for DVD if they could still rent them for cash? There has to be a difference, just want to be clear on what it is...

Declared inventory can be booked using points by any member, not just by DVD. If DVD declared all 184 vacation homes at Copper Creek today, then that would mean that every villa could be booked by DVC members. Even though DVD would have ownership of over 3.5 million points at Copper Creek, it would have to compete with other members for the available space. By only declaring about a fourth of Copper Creek's inventory (48 out of 184 vacation homes) DVC members can only book one-fourth of the resort; the remaining three-fourths belongs to DVD.

 

[miTnosnhoJ]

Declared inventory can be booked using points by any member, not just by DVD. If DVD declared all 184 vacation homes at Copper Creek today, then that would mean that every villa could be booked by DVC members. Even though DVD would have ownership of over 3.5 million points at Copper Creek, it would have to compete with other members for the available space. By only declaring about a fourth of Copper Creek's inventory (48 out of 184 vacation homes) DVC members can only book one-fourth of the resort; the remaining three-fourths belongs to DVD.

I wonder if there is also a tax component? When declared, that portion is fully online for property tax purposes, whereas the undeclared portion is not fully productive, so taxed at a lower rate - like it would be during construction. However, this is a question, not a statement of fact. Does anybody know? It seems to me that DVD would not want to pick up the property taxes on unsold inventory - at least when a good lobbyist could save them from it. And they control Reedy Creek.

It could also impact financial reporting.

 

[wdrl]

I wonder if there is also a tax component? When declared, that portion is fully online for property tax purposes, whereas the undeclared portion is not fully productive, so taxed at a lower rate - like it would be during construction. However, this is a question, not a statement of fact. Does anybody know? It seems to me that DVD would not want to pick up the property taxes on unsold inventory - at least when a good lobbyist could save them from it. And they control Reedy Creek.

It could also impact financial reporting.

I'm sure there are many taxing and financial accounting issues that come into play when Disney shifts inventory from Walt Disney Parks & Resorts to a DVC condominium association. However, the mere fact that inventory is not declared doesn't mean it is unproductive. Only 74.1% of PVB is declared for the DVC inventory, but the other 25.9% is being used for cash reservations by WDP&R.

 

[lancermom]

For sure we could do Europe that way & for cheaper. RCCL will shortly be releasing summer '18 & I'll see if the savings would be significant to jump ship. I've also done Europe via youth hostels/cheap hotels many times.

I don't, however, want to clean & make meals & pack & repack (Paris is nice, but I've been there at least a dozen times - same with London - so spending even a wk in one city holds no appeal). Also, as the Mom & the more organized/detail-oriented partner, these duties naturally fall on me. I work full time & am at home alone with the kids over every break. I want a break too kwim .

My family and are going on a 7 night Greek Cruise on Royal Caribbean this summer. Our 2 cabins - an inside and a balcony across from each other - cost $5,600.

 

[Madame]

My family and are going on a 7 night Greek Cruise on Royal Caribbean this summer. Our 2 cabins - an inside and a balcony across from each other - cost $5,600.

Sounds awesome! Yep, there is an upcharge to sail DCL for sure. To break it down, we have 2 adjoining insides...

5 night Med
$7638.70 USD

7 night Western
$9867.70

I'm going to check out RCCL's offerings for sure.

 

[msjprincess]

Sounds awesome! Yep, there is an upcharge to sail DCL for sure. To break it down, we have 2 adjoining insides...

5 night Med
$7638.70 USD

7 night Western
$9867.70

I'm going to check out RCCL's offerings for sure.

I would look at their newest ship, Symphony. You could probably book something comparable for half the price. Unfortunately the website has been crashing all day because Symphony itineraries just went on sale today.

 

[DVCMinnie2532]

Agreed! Since I am out of points and look for a vacation other than Disney....when planning pricing and weighing out the type of vacation we like ...united states etc . It alwaysss ends up a Disney vacation. It always prices less than other options I would consider.