Thinking of buying. Need advice.

[shady]

Hey folks, hope some of you can point me in the right direction.

My family or 3 (3 year old child) will have stayed on property a total of 22 nights from Mar 03-Mar 04. Everywhere from FW to Allstars to WL/AKL and all in between.

Im assuming that I would get a better deal if I bought a DVC. I should also say that we havent paid more than the FLA RES rate for any night. (109 at Del, 49 at Val).

Is there anyway to easily figure out if I will save money? And is there a good starting point. (Ive read the FAQ board).

Also, any advice if we choose to buy a resale?

Thanks, Im sure this is brought up alot, hope you dont mind.

 

[todsue99]

I will give you a simple little answer to this question. If you are happy staying in the All Stars and Fort Wilderness then there is not anyway you can save money. If you want to stay in the other places than maybe. I do not think that DVC is for saving money. Although in the long run you probably do. We puchased for the accommodations. We have stayed in Fort Wilderness many times before we bought and loved every minute and will do it again someday. We just wanted to be able to go to Disney and stay in 1 and 2 bedrooms and not spend the outragous pricing to do so. I will not spend let's just say $800/night to stay in any Hotel room, but for 30 points I'll stay anywhere. So anyway if you want the flexability of waking up and making breakfast and doing laundry in your room this is the way to go.

I know so much for the short version.

As for the resales I do not. We purchased both times through Disney. Good luck and have fun deciding. We love every minute of our DVC.

 

[Deb & Bill]

DVC does not save you money. It allows you to take prepaid vacations (prepaid lodging). We spend more money now on vacations since we go to WDW twice a year. Before that, we didn't do many vacations.

But we love it.

 

[Pa@okw95]

DEb and Bill are correct DVC does not save you money. It costs you big time. You will find yourself going a lot more than you would and trips to WDW are very expensive. Do not buy to save all you are doing is leasing points to spend in the future on vacations. The biggest myth on this board is that DVC is a savings.

 

[pumpkinboy]

According to my calculations, our DVC purchase will pay for itself in just over 6 years paying cash or 1 yr financing, 7-8 yrs if financing >1 yr. Since you are going every year, it will take less than a decade for your DVC to "pay for itself" in terms of savings over my control group (WDW Moderates - tho these are not really comparable, they and Deluxe on sale were where we would allow ourselves to stay pre-DVC).

Here was my methodology: first of all it is a present value calculation; the cost of money (discount rate, accounts for opportunity costs) is my home equity line rate of 3.75%; term was 38 yrs (50 at SSR); and the stream of payments was calculated at an average of "moderate" resorts and "deluxe" on sale (these rise at current rate of inflation) less estimated maintenence fees (subtracting the tax deduction, and rising at historical averages), and interest costs (adjusted for tax).
Of course using different assumptions would yield a different result: using "value" rates as the control group, you'd never break even, but "deluxe" even on sale, yields an even shorter break-even period.

Of course it depends on what you compare to. In the near term, it is not going to save you money. It will however allow you and your family to stay in more spacious and comfortable lodgings at WDW (and VB and HHI of course), and probably stay for longer than you otherwise would have. So if you are going every year, or even once every three years (with banking and borrowing), it will cost you no more than what you are already paying (assuming you aren't staying in the "value" resorts), and over the longer term you might save some money, but only in the most theoretical sense, since you'll spend plenty more at WDW.

 

[calypso*a*go-go]

shady,
Take a look at the dates you travelled during your 22 days and use the points calculator available through this website to determine how many points you need to stay at DVC. Use OKW as it has some of the lowest point requirements. Also use a studio as that would be the closest accomodation to the WDW hotels.

As an example:
22 days in a studio @ OKW during Adventure season would run approx. 250 pts.

Buying into DVC @ OKW would run approx. $17,000 ($68.00/pt) for 250 pts. The yearly maint. fees would currently be $920. If you applied the $1,280 you saved towards the $17,000 investment, it would take about 13 years to pay for the membership.

There are also many things that could change: Maintanence fees increase, nightly rates @ WDW Hotels increase, the number of days you travel, the time of accomodations you need, etc.

Bottomline - are you willing to pay a lot of money upfront to secure premium accomodations @ WDW for the next 38 to 50 years (depending on which resort you buy into)?

If you are, then go for it. If not, then continue booking @ WDW hotels.

Hope this helps!!!

 

[shady]

Thanks for the help folks.

I ran the points calculations and it seems like it would be 15+ years to make it worthwhile.

Doesnt seem to be worth it.

Appreciate the input.

 

[pumpkinboy]

Another thought would be to rent some points some time and see if the DVC model suits you. You will always have the option of buying in via resale later.

Also a caveat, you know how we all tell you that you will spend more money? Well that is compared to what we were spending at WDW before DVC. But the fact is, WDW just takes up more of our vacation time than before, so therefore it gets a lager slice of our total pie. I believe we are spending about the same or less for vacations now than before DVC; we're just spending more of it in Orlando (and Vero and...)

 

[SleepyatDVC]

shady,

Another thing to consider since you are a Florida resident, weekend points at DVC are much higher.

So, if a lot of your trips this past year were for long weekend trips, then you were probably SAVING money by using FL resident codes INSTEAD of using DVC points!!!

Enjoy your trips!

 

[jodifla]

As fellow Florida residents, we feel we got a great deal by purchasing 150 DVC points in 1996. We paid it off in five years, it's worth more now than when we bought it, it's incredibly flexible and we can bring friends and family to vacation with us since we have access to larger accommodations. And our financial situation has changed now. We're down to one income, and we have a DS. No way would we spend the kind of major money that nice hotel rooms cost, in addition to food, theme park tickets, etc.

We do stay away from weekends, or stay in studios on the weekends.

For example, we just got back from a 1 night stay at Vero for our anniversary. I was trying to book other nice hotels in the state, and they wanted $300 a night!!! We simply spent 13 points and had a terrific little getaway in an ocean view room.

My decision is confirmed every time I visit the resorts board and see the mad scramble for discount codes. Now that Disney hotels are booked solid, deals are going to be hard to come by. (Also don't forget that the taxes rachet up the nightly cost of a room quite a bit.)

We'll spend about 15 nights in deluxe accommodations this year for our $700 worth of dues.

 

[DebbieB]

What I love about DVC is the luxury and spaciousness of the 1 bedroom. Rack rate is about $400 per night. That is what I used as my benchmark when deciding to buy DVC. I certainly didn't want to spend $400 per night x 6 nights x 2 times a year even if I could get discounts. I've had 8 DVC stays since joining, most 6 nights each and I figured I've hit my purchase price when comparing to rack rate. So all that is left is about $1,000 per year in dues. Not bad for 11 or 12 nights a year in a 1 bedroom. Plus I could probably recoup my purchase price if I sold (bought in 1999 @ $65/pt before magical beginings, $59 after).

 

[Dean]

There are many ways to "value" DVC. I think most people do it by taking the cost of what they got with DVC and comparing that to the points. IMO, this is the least realitic method as most people wouldn't pay cash for a DVC type unit consistently, though some would. I think comparing to the moderates and value and/or comparing to what you'd actually use is the best. In this case you know excatly what it is. Don't forget to figure in the interst if financed and the time value of money if you pay cash. I'd also suspect you did some weekends. DVC will never pay for itself if this is a frequent trip method.

 

[rocketriter]

Each familiy's use pattern is different, before and after purchasing DVC. That's part of what makes generalizing about DVC savings so difficult. Our family always came to WDW every other year, and we always stayed in top-of-the-line accomodations on the grounds: 2 adjoining rooms at the Poly or the YC, a junior suite at WL and so forth. Against that use pattern, the DVC will give us slightly more room and slightly better accomodations for significantly less money. But we can't presume to promise the same for another family, unless their use pattern is the same as ours.

 

[disneycrazed139]

There are definitely other less expensive ways to do Disney. Use discount codes, AAA discount on rooms, 7 for 4 packages, priceline or hotwire rooms for downtown disney.

However, DVC is probably the best way to do deluxe accomodations within Disney. If you would be spending money on deluxe accomodations anyway, DVC is a bargain. For example, we're planning a 9 day trip with five nights in a 2 bedroom and 4 nights in a studio. Total cost of the accomodations if you were going to pay rack rate I think would be about 4500 plus tax, so about $4800. I haven't even made a monthly payment yet on DVC so I feel like I'm getting a pretty good deal. In the end, I will be shelling out just about the same amount I do anyway on accomodations annually--perhaps just slightly more. However, in exchange for paying slightly more annually I'm getting significantly better accomodations. I wouldn't be able to afford deluxe resorts with any sort of regularity otherwise.