Taking a DVC tour.

RonaldBravo

RonaldBravo
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
14
On our next WDW trip we are considering setting up a tour of the DVC properties at one of the kiosks. Everything I have read says it will take upwards of two hours or more to go through the tour and ask questions. That is a big chunk of our time. I know in the past that they would set you up with fastpasses but now with our established PIN numbers and magicbands my wife and I are unsure if they could even offer that type of deal anymore. Two plus hours is a big chunk of our time in the parks and this is a concern for us. Any idea if they will work with us on this? Thanks for any tips or advice.
 
What is it you are asking for? A shorter tour? Fastpasses?

Why is it you want to take the tour, are you ready to buy in or are you just interested?
 
If the two hours is a concern for you, then maybe this isn't the right time for you and DVC. DVC is a major purchase and two hours is nothing in the whole scheme of things. Knowledge of how DVC works is very important if you are interested in purchasing. Maybe you should wait until you are more serious about the program. If you are not interested in purchasing than I wouldn't waste the time and enjoy your time in the parks.
 
We are ready to buy but would like to take the tour and talk. We are planners and if it takes like half the morning or afternoon to take the tour then I will have to adjust. Not looking for extra fastpasses or anything but if the tour infringes on one or two of our fastpasses we have reserved it would be cool if they could set it up for another time earlier or later in the day.
 

We are ready to buy but would like to take the tour and talk. We are planners...

frankly, you'll get better info doing some research on this board than talking to the guides. (i own 2 different timeshares and have never taken any of the tours.)

but from the bigger picture perspective, you will be spending tens (possibly hundreds, counting annual dues) of thousands of dollars on DVC. assuming that is a good plan for you, you will be visiting wdw to stay in DVC resorts for the next several decades. compared to that, what is half a day in a park on this trip?

take your time (both here and on the tour) and make a good decision.
 
I would just plan on a time of day that you are willing to not be in the parks. You can set up a tour and will know what time/day ahead of time. If you have fastpasses, you can change them yourself online for another day or later in the day so there is no need for DVC to do it for you. With the new MDE it is easy to change the fastpass day and time.

Have fun on your tour and ask lots of questions. If you have more questions or confusions, come back on here after your tour and everyone will help explain things. Good Luck! Hopefully we can be saying "welcome home" soon.
 
DVC will not shorten the SSR preview center tour.

FP+ are easy to change for both time and attraction choice from your smart phone, but for headliner rides it's best to do it before "day of" as availability is limited.

If you just want to see a DVC room in person without the whole 2 hour (plus transport time) tour, I would suggest you either walk out the Epcot international gate and go over to see the DVC model at BWV; or hop off the resort monorail at the Grand and see a DVC room there. Either can be done without doing the preview center tour. Either can be done in less than an hour.

I would strongly second the post above that disboards is a far superior resource to a DVC "guide" to get questions answered. Consider the motivations. Disboards members are simply here to discuss an interest that we all share.

With the exception of the occasional poster discussing their current issues with listing their membership for resale, no one here is wanting to sell anything. "Guides" are simply there to sell you a very expensive timeshare. It is their whole source of income/employment.

Not to say the "guides" are necessarily dishonest. Several are reported to be fantastic. But you can guarantee that they will do everything they legally can to get you to sign the line and over-pay for direct points. Including depicting DVC fully covered in Pixie dust and sprinkled with wishes...
 
frankly, you'll get better info doing some research on this board than talking to the guides. (i own 2 different timeshares and have never taken any of the tours.)

That is a good point, I have done most of my research on the internets and haven't even ordered the dvd thingy, maybe that is dumb but I wanted to get at the meat of the matter without any of the sugar coating I guess.
 
One thing to note, the DVC courtesy shuttle does not have to drop you off when you're finished at your original starting point, it seemed like you could take it anywhere on property. So in our case, they picked up my mother from our hotel and when the tour was done, they took her to MK to meet up with us.

She said she really enjoyed the tour.
 
We did the tour in Sept 2011 and scheduled it for a 2pm pick-up at Animal Kingdom. That gave us time to do what we wanted to in the park, take the tour at SSR, and get back to our resort in time to get ready for the HDDR. They will transport you to/from wherever you want to go on Disney property to make it work for you. Seems like we got a Disney gift card, not fp.
 
I think the biggest plus in taking the tour is to see the model rooms. And talking to a guide who will give you exact figures for what you are thinking about buying. But you can talk to a guide via the phone if you live in the United States and they can give you a quote and send you information.

I have not heard about any perks like FPs anymore. I don't know what they will come up with instead. Maybe in the future they'll be able to give you some extra FP+s for taking the tour.
 
When you sign up for the tour do they take you to any DVC property that you want to see, or is it just the newer ones that they are currently selling? And what if you have kids with you, will it bore them to tears? We've been stalking the DVC boards here and are looking at buying a resale sometime in the next 6-8 months. So we are planning on adding a day on our June trip just to check out the resorts and maybe do the DVD presentation. My boys are 7 and 11 and almost always well behaved plus they are interested in seeing the resorts so I'm not too worried about taking them, but if it is a whole lot of talking and only a little bit of seeing they will be bored. Thanks!!!
 
We talked to a DVC guide last month and requested a tour of a villa at Kidani. AKV is our home resort, but we always stay at Jambo and had never been inside a Kidani villa. We ended up adding 50 more points, but there was no offer of fast passes or anything. We were given a free soft drink when we arrived at our appointment and a new DVC tote bag when we purchased more points. We call it my $7,500 tote bag, and it is very nice. It took us over a year to decide to buy our first contract, but we've added points three times in less than 6 years.
 
When you sign up for the tour do they take you to any DVC property that you want to see, or is it just the newer ones that they are currently selling? And what if you have kids with you, will it bore them to tears? We've been stalking the DVC boards here and are looking at buying a resale sometime in the next 6-8 months. So we are planning on adding a day on our June trip just to check out the resorts and maybe do the DVD presentation. My boys are 7 and 11 and almost always well behaved plus they are interested in seeing the resorts so I'm not too worried about taking them, but if it is a whole lot of talking and only a little bit of seeing they will be bored. Thanks!!!

The DVC tour is at SSR and they show you a room there, and at the time of our tour (Sept 2011) they also had a mock-up of an Aulani room at SSR. They don't actually take you to any of the other DVC resorts, as far as I know. I think a couple of the resorts may have rooms to view. There was a room to see at BWV and we asked to see a room at Beach Club, but all of the villas were booked so they showed us a regular hotel room. But all of that was us visiting the resorts on our own.

At the tour at SSR, they have a child care area, and although our kids aren't fond of child care (even at Disney), they managed to stay there through the tour. They were 9 and 7 at the time, I think. They also have ice cream when you are done with the tour (or at least they used to). Sitting through the discussion with the guide would have been completely boring for our kids.
 
This thread is the closest I've seen that somewhat asks this question, but what "incentive" is being offered now for the DVC tour (if any)? When I went 3 years ago we received a choice between VIP Fastpasses or a $100 gift card. Now that the FP+ system is in full swing and legacy machines are removed, do they still offer some sort of VIP FP card/paper ticket to use in addition to the pre-selected FP+?

I am helping someone plan their trip and if they did a mid-day/evening tour, they would be interested in having additional FP options for that night or another day if offered.
 
Please at least look into resale before you agree to buy through Disney. You will pay about 60% of the cost of buying directly through Disney so it is at least worth considering. There are some restrictions on resale pionts but those restrictions are only for things that are not necessarily a good value for your points usage. For us, personally, the restrictions are on things we would never use so buying resale made the most sense. We bought our first three contracts through Disney back in the 90s but bought our last three via resale.

The resale restrictions include not being able to use your points for Disney Cruise Line, Disney resorts outside of the DVC properties, Adventures by Disney and the Concierge Collection. You can still trade out through RCI.

Again, you may end up deciding to buy through Disney, but at least make sure resale won't work for you before spending so much extra money.
 
I have received the videos, pamphlets and even spoken to a guide on the phone and corresponded by email, but no one can ever answer my questions of: 1) Why is there limited maid service if you are a DVC member? Seems like it should be the other way around - DVC full service, vacationers a few times a week; 2) If you are 11 months from the time you want to schedule your next vacation at your home resort, but your "new" points don't start for a few more months, can you schedule or do you have to wait for the "new" points? Thanks for any help. We are really considering buying while our girls are still young, but it is a lot of money, so we are taking the decision seriously!princess:
 
1) We, as members, pay the housekeeping staff. If we increased maid service to every day, we'd have to hire more people, which means we'd have to increase the annual dues to cover the expense.

2) All your points, from now until the end if your contract, are in your account. They are restricted to when they can be used. They have to be valid for the time of the reservation, not at the time you make the reservation.
 
1) Why is there limited maid service if you are a DVC member? Seems like it should be the other way around - DVC full service, vacationers a few times a week

DVC is a timeshare. we are owners who share in the cost of upkeep and maintenance. most timeshares don't have any maid service at all (like all of the marriotts i have stayed at except for one in the caribbean which had a midweek tidy).

if you prefer, you can pay extra to get daily housekeeping if it's worth it to you (but most of the rest of us like not having strangers in the room while we are gone).

this issue of ownership also shows up when DVC resorts are not refurbed as often as the wdw hotels - again, we pay the cost, so the terms and expectations are different.

it's a home-away-from-home concept - not a hotel equivalent. if you prefer deluxe hotels, you might not particularly enjoy the trade-offs that come from timeshare ownership.

2) If you are 11 months from the time you want to schedule your next vacation at your home resort, but your "new" points don't start for a few more months, can you schedule or do you have to wait for the "new" points?

let's say i bought a resale with an oct UY and the pts are "stripped" such that the first year i get pts is in the oct 2015 UY.

pts can only be banked or borrowed to move them up or back one use year, so the earliest i could use these pts would be if i borrowed them into my oct 2014 UY for a stay that begins on oct 1, 2014.

i can book that oct 1, 2014 stay at 11 months out based on home resort - nothing at all do with use year - so the earliest i could book anything with that contract would be nov 1, 2013. so i could call on nov 1, 2013 to book a stay for oct 1, 2014 even though my pts don't technically "start" until oct 1, 2015.

alternatively, if i bought a contract that was "loaded" and had all 2014 and 2015 UY pts, i could book a stay that takes place in my 2015 UY (which runs from oct 1, 2015 to sept 30, 2016) and use banked 2014 UY pts + current 2015 UY pts + borrowed 2016 UY pts (up to 3 years worth of pts) to stay longer or in larger accommodations. and again, i could use all of those pts based on the dates of the stay - i can still call in at 11 months out for my home resort with access to all 3 years of pts.
 
Just to add to what others said on housekeeping...if it was offered daily EVERYONE would be sharing the cost. ALL owners would be paying higher dues.

Instead the housekeeping schedule is more limited and only those who wish added services can pay for it.

A limited housekeeping schedule is pretty standard in the timeshare industry. DVC's trash & towel service and the added full cleaning for stays of 8+ nights is more generous than many. There are timeshares which stock housekeeping supplies in-room and owners are expected to tidy up themselves before they depart.
 











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