Thoughts on recent DVC purchase

[JohnW]

I just thought I would share some thoughts on our recent DVC purchase for anyone who, like I was, is reading posts thinking about buying in.

We were in Orlando during October and I had in my mind that I would finally follow up my interest in DVC that had been going since I first found out the details back in 2000. The reasons being that the exchange rate is so heavily in our favour and also I once read on these boards that DVC is a great way to use some spare cash, which we fortunately happened to have. My first advice on DVC, back in 2000, came from Vernon, who a lot of you will remember used to post on here until he started to work for Disney. So, I thought I would keep my eyes open and see if I could see Vernon on a DVC booth and if I did I would go and say hello and see if we could get some more info etc. Anyway, I wasn’t sure if Vernon was still working on DVC and as the holiday went on there was no sign of him. So, when we got talking to a CM in the Magic Kingdom one day who told us about the DVC presentation that they have in a room at the side of Tony’s on Main Street we decided to sit through it. The prospect of three free fast passes per person sounded compensation enough for an hour in the cool air conditioning. I have always been reluctant to plan the tour into our precious vacation time but the presentation was happening a few minutes later so it was a case of now or never. The presentation was quite interesting although I knew most of the information already as I had researched DVC so much before. At the end we decided to sign up for the tour as we thought this would enable to decide once and for all.

We turned up at Saratoga Springs a few days later to take the tour and it was really good, we had a look around the rooms and also around the pool area, Spa, Artist’s Palette, Turf Club etc. The tour concluded with us sitting down with our guide and working through some numbers. There was absolutely no hard sell, in fact our guide suggested we probably didn’t need as many points as we were thinking and he also suggested we went away and had a think about things and called him with our decision. Not the sort of tactics I had feared might be used, but then I think they know it sells itself Needless to see we decided to purchase and now we are looking to sort out next years vacation.

On my return I saw in Kevin Stringers (excellent) trip report that Vernon was indeed still working for DVC so I PM’d Vernon on the off chance that he is still lurking. I am kicking myself now because sure enough Vernon is still around on the boards and he would have been a great introduction to DVC. As it happens, we are happy with our guide and our purchase, but if we hadn’t got talking to the CM in MK and done the presentation we would still be “umming and aahing” over DVC.

Hopefully this might help anyone thinking about DVC and if you are looking to get more info on an upcoming visit, try getting in touch with Vernon if would like to talk to someone with a UK background

 

[Merylj]

Well done for taking the plunge We`ve done the tour, read up about it etc etc and even though we think it`s a great idea we still need to make that purchase.
I agree with what you say about the tour - a good experience and no pressure.

 

[Kevin Stringer]

Good advice John. Vernon is a lovely bloke and he'll help out any way he can, especially if you offer to buy him a beer!

Kev

 

[UKDEB]

Thanks for your post, John. We keep in touch with Vernon and PM him prior to each trip for his itinerary so that we can drop by and catch up with him. We'd pretty much convinced ourselves that DVC wasn't for us, but decided to do the tour this time - partly out of sheer nosiness and partly because we established that it would help Vernon.

For reasons that I've explained in another thread here, we made the decision to sign up. I just had a call tonight welcoming me to the DVC family .

 

[El Tel]

JohnW - thanks for this reassuring post.

Vernon is certainly still around and working for DVC. I met him at the UK Disers meet at th R&C in Epcot a few weeks ago.

I had heard about the DVC before but really wasn't sure about 'timeshares' even though I could tell that the Disney product was likely to be top class and above board. However, I didn't really consider it seriously until I chatted with Vernon. He was really helpful and friendly, and corrected a few misconceptions. I got a presentation invite from him but unfortunately we met on the evening before we had to fly home so had no time. I'm now kicking myself that I didn't go to a presentation earlier in the holiday.

I PM'd Vernon on Disboards when I got home to try to find out more - I want to be well prepared to make a decision when I go back to WDW (never soon enough!)

I'm likely to be asking a few questions on this forum when I get my DVC DVD in the post. I'll be very interested in everyone's experiences and tips.

Cheers