The "What I wish someone had told me as a new member" Thread

[courtneylauren]

We are new members and I thought this would be a good thread to start.

Is there anything you wish someone had told you when you were a new member? Something you should have done or brought?

Please post it here and help your fellow DIS DVC members!

Hopefully this thread will help some people out!

 

[hellerjw]

I wish someone would have told me that there is no such thing as enough points and addonitis will hit you the minute you try to book your first stay.

I also wish someone would have told me how addictive the Disboards are so I would quit checking them 5 or 6 times a day. I know a lot of "honey do" items have been neglected in order for me to get my DIS fix.

 

[Crystal_27]

Not really...I did a lot of research prior to buying into DVC so I don't feel like I really missed anything in terms of buying in that I know now that I didn't know then. If I have one regret it would be that I was so blinded by BLT being on the monorail that I didn't fully investigate other resort options. Had I been a bit more informed as to the other resorts, I might have purchased less points at BLT in favor of BCV. But, I'm happy at BLT and it is the resort we want to stay at the most, so even that's not really a big deal.

 

[NewmanFamily6]

Buy where you want to stay. Sometimes it is hard to get other resorts at 7 months out.

 

[WonderlandsMostWantd]

We JUST bougth a few months ago! But, there's already one I can think of:

**I wish someone would have told me before we purchased that we could split our initial purchase (200 points) into multiple, smaller contractacts that equal 200 points.**

In retrospect, it would have been nice to have like 3 - 50 point contracts, and 2 - 25 point contracts - if we ever wanted or needed to sell off a small portion we could - as it stands, with all 200 points on one contract, we'd have to sell the whole thing if we decided we no longer needed all 200 points every year. Not that we want to right now of course! But, if the time ever came where all 200 weren't necessry or affordable, we would have at least had an option.

 

[BWV2001]

I wish someone had told me to buy more points on the resale market. I've owned since 2000 and have never added on, but I certainly wish I had when the points were cheaper.

 

[cseca]

Well when I bought, I didn't know anything about timeshares. All I know was that I could stay at Boardwalk for a week for less than $1000/year. Considering at that time I just paid almost $2k staying at WL, I jumped at the chance.
Things that I wished I had looked into:

1. Use year... know how it affects your vacation habit. (although they changed the banking rule recently, so even if I had known it probably wouldn't matter too much).
2. Buying in smaller chunks.
3. Look in your crystal ball... no really... think about what you might need 10-15-20 years down the road. I recently realized that I don't have enough points to stay in a 1br for a week for any of my home resorts (except for GCV)... ... If I had known I would've bought more early on.

 

[ChiSoxKeith]

I wish I would have known to buy sooner.

I wish I would have gotten a couple of extra smaller point contracts.

 

[bytheblood]

Buy where you want to stay. Sometimes it is hard to get other resorts at 7 months out.

As for the main question - I waited almost 7 months after the tour to make sure I had all my ducks in a row.

 

[El&Asmom]

Be careful when offering to bring guests. They don't always appreciate your investment or the points you are required to use to bring them along.

 

[mousefan1972]

We JUST bougth a few months ago! But, there's already one I can think of:

**I wish someone would have told me before we purchased that we could split our initial purchase (200 points) into multiple, smaller contractacts that equal 200 points.**

In retrospect, it would have been nice to have like 3 - 50 point contracts, and 2 - 25 point contracts - if we ever wanted or needed to sell off a small portion we could - as it stands, with all 200 points on one contract, we'd have to sell the whole thing if we decided we no longer needed all 200 points every year. Not that we want to right now of course! But, if the time ever came where all 200 weren't necessry or affordable, we would have at least had an option.

Your guide should have told you about splitting your contract up. We bought BLT last month and ours advised us to split our 450 point purchase into smaller contracts. We ended up with 2, 225 point contracts as that way both of our 2 kids can have one passed down to them.

 

[dizfan]

If you want to try a non-home resort, be on the phone right when they open. If that doesn't work, make sure to get on the wait list. (We had a BCV F&W wait list come through last month, so even wait lists at difficult resorts can come through).

If you want to change resorts at 7 months, beware if you don't have extra points. For example, we had a reservation at BLT for October. At 7 months, we changed to BWV. The CM warned us she would have to cancel our existing reservation to switch to BWV. It all worked out for us, but we have heard of people losing out on their existing reservation and not getting the resort they wanted.

 

[DebbieB]

I would have split my 250 points into 150 and 100. I would then now sell the 100 and buy GCV.

 

[3DisneyKids]

I echo the buy in smaller chunks plan. We are ok in that our largest contract is 150 points, so not too huge. Still, I wish it was 100 and 50. All of our add-ons are 100 pointers.

Also, I would be careful about sharing the good news of "we just bought a timeshare on Disney property!!!" with friends and maybe even with relatives. Many folks may end up asking you if they can use it (since they won't understand how it works) and then you are in the awkward position of having to say no. That is one of the many reasons I love the the DIS boards! I can share my excitement and love of DVC without the questions and even negative comments I get from folks at home.

The other thing is--be careful! DVC spoils you! We have now stayed in several other timeshares (Hilton Vacation Club, Marriott Vacation Club, Wyndham, etc.) and assumed that they would be comparable. Not even close! Not nearly as nice as any of the DVC resorts. Now, I admit that I am not an owner nor expert on any of these other companies. I assume they must have "levels" of properties and maybe we just ended up staying at the "no frills" ones. Maybe they have other ones that are more upscale. However, one of the reasons we keep going back (besides loving Disney, of course) is that we just don't find as nice accommodations anywhere else. The just pale in comparison.

 

[Eeyore's Pal]

As so many others have already said...

I wish we had bought more points in the first place
I wish we've had the money to add on

 

[WonderlandsMostWantd]

Your guide should have told you about splitting your contract up. We bought BLT last month and ours advised us to split our 450 point purchase into smaller contracts. We ended up with 2, 225 point contracts as that way both of our 2 kids can have one passed down to them.

From what I've caught on in reading up here a bit, the offer to split it up into smaller chunks usually comes somewhere after the "do you have any kids" part of the conversation with the guides. We don't have kids; it's just my husband and I, so I'm assuming she didn't figure we'd have a reason to need to split it. I didn't know it was even an option to split the initial purchase into smaller chunks like that. Hence, this being the bit of information I wish I'd known sooner.

That's ok, guess we'll just have to keep all of our points!

 

[Mickey'sApprentice]

I wish I had known about Hilton Head. Its awesome!

 

[wdwnut]

1-buy sooner (93 would have been great!)

2- split into smaller contracts

3- resale can save big bucks

 

[daisyduck123]

Wish DH & I had known when AKV would be opening up....we bought into SSR without knowing that if we had just waited a couple of months we could have had AKV as our home resort instead.

 

[edk35]

We JUST bougth a few months ago! But, there's already one I can think of:

**I wish someone would have told me before we purchased that we could split our initial purchase (200 points) into multiple, smaller contractacts that equal 200 points.**

In retrospect, it would have been nice to have like 3 - 50 point contracts, and 2 - 25 point contracts - if we ever wanted or needed to sell off a small portion we could - as it stands, with all 200 points on one contract, we'd have to sell the whole thing if we decided we no longer needed all 200 points every year. Not that we want to right now of course! But, if the time ever came where all 200 weren't necessry or affordable, we would have at least had an option.

Our guide told us about splitting. We split our initial contract of 300 points into three 100 point contracts. We did it so that each of our kids would get a 100 point contract. Then we added on another 100. I am sure our dd will lay claim to that one day in the future.