vacation club dilemma

[ryley44]

help any info on vacation club versus marriott and price differences my wife likes marroitt i prefer disney I'm a disney freak my wife and kids love disney to but my wife concerned about taking non disney resort vacations and ease of use to trade to other nondisney resorts

 

[Maistre Gracey]

Hi ryley44, and welcome to the DIS Boards!
Perhaps this thread can help...

 

[KyBill]

First...Welcome to the DVC board.
I will only mention a couple of things. I will leave the Marriott to our resident expert Dean.
It makes sense to join DVC to go to Disney World and stay at the DVC resorts. There are four at DW and soon to be five and off-site resorts at Hilton Head and Vero Beach. You would not want to join DVC to stay at WD resort hotels. The accomodations are not as good compared to DVC and it is not an effecient use of points. Nor should your primary reason to join be to trade out to resorts around the world. In the latter case Marriott should be the better choice.
If you go to DW at least once a year or every other year DVC could be for you. I really depends on what type of accomodations you want. Also the size of your family could make a difference.

 

[Lisa P.]

If your family:
--- expects to visit WDW at least every other year for many years
--- likes the DVC resort locations
--- strongly prefers onsite accommodations at WDW
--- would pay for Disney deluxe hotel rooms (maybe moderate)
--- avoids Christmas/New Year's/Easter weeks at WDW
--- avoids spending mostly just weekends (Fri/Sat nts, more pts)
--- plans to use DVC points primarily for DVC resort stays, taking advantage of internal reservations
--- can afford DVC
Then consider buying enough points for your DVC vacations, banking and borrowing as needed. Don't consider it a good value for frequent trading outside of DVC since it's usually not.

If your family:
--- expects to visit Marriott destinations at least every other year for many years
--- likes the Marriott resort locations
--- enjoys WDW vacations while staying in Disney value hotels or offsite accommodations
--- sometimes needs Christmas/New Year's/Easter holiday weeks in Orlando
--- usually vacations for a full week, at least once a year
--- plans to trade to other Marriott destinations, planning to take advantage of internal trading priority through II
--- can afford Marriott (learn more about resales - see TUG!)
Then consider Marriott or another quality timeshare.

It may not be as important to see which timeshare has the "better" product. Other people's opinions (including mine) may or may not be useful to you. It's really most important to look at how your family will likely use it and whether a particular timeshare is well suited to your/their needs, when considering the alternatives (in cash or other product purchase).

We sold both - DVC & Marriott - and kept a different one, which we just love. It suits our particular family's needs the best. As you may have noticed, some people own more than one, including DVC & Marriott, to suit their different needs. They enjoy them a great deal. HTH!

 

[laceemouse]

Hi! We own another t/s in Williamsburg,Va. We trade it through RCI and have been very pleased. We have never had any problem getting what we want when we want. We always need a 2 bedroom, travel when school is out, etc. We have stayed at Vistana, Hilton, and Fairfield resorts, as well as lots of other nice places. We just bought DVC at BCV a few weeks ago so that we can stay at Disney when we go to Disney every year or two. We exchange our other t/s to go other places every year. It works well for us. We are a family of 6 and would always need 2 hotel rooms. Once you stay in a t/s you get spoiled with the kitchen, washer/dryer, and more space. Good luck....Lacee

 

[Cruelladeville]

I own both DVC and Marriott, which I bought on resale after visiting the resort I was interested in. I cannot stress strongly enough that you should NOT buy Marriott at full price. You will regret it if you have to sell; there are very few Marriott resorts that don't lose a lot of $$$ in the resale market. Disney is unusual in that respect--the cost of their pts has gone up in resale. That means that by selling my DVC after 7 years I would recover my initial investment PLUS maintenance fees. Fortuneately, I bought Marriott on resale, at a savings of $9000 over the cost when new--my contract was only 2 years old when I bought it from the original owner. This is something to consider, in addition to the other things that the other posters have mentioned. In my case, I bought Marriott in preparation for retirement when I will be able to travel all over the world.

 

[Tiggery]

You want to somewhere other than Disney....how does that work?

 

[Cruelladeville]

I don't understand your question--what are you asking??

 

[ryley44]

i'm asking if you would use one of the disney collections how hard is it sorry for my vagueness

 

[Happy Birthday Cat]

Lisa P: I agree with your points except one.

avoids Christmas/New Year's/Easter weeks at WDW

We always go over the vacation periods and DVC has saved us thousands of dollars. These are the times when regular rooms are the most expensive but DVC remains stable. Next year we are going for Christmas and New Year's. For two deluxe hotel rooms at the Beach Club, we would have to pay around $10,000.00 total to fit our family of six. With DVC, we can go at a time of year that we otherwise couldn't afford to.


ryley44: It isn't hard to trade outside of DVC but it usually isn't the best value for the points. I did one trade for a Mariott at Hilton Head and have also used points for the Concierge Collection.

HBC