You are not alone. It was definitely not a spontaneous decision on our part. We agonized over the pros and cons, reviewed the spreadsheet breakdowns, etc., and took the tour. Even then we continued to waffle. What finally pushed us over was more an emotional evaluation than a fiscal rationalization. It was when my father, then my uncle, after saving for years for retirement, suffered a physically and mentally horrible quality of life when they could finally retire. I realized that it was time to, as shallow as it sounds, "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die," mindset. We purchased a resale at a bargain price that had a combination of banked and borrowed points. We then purchased a resale add on in which the seller paid the first years maintenance fees. Perhaps we just lucked out. Here's a little more information than you really need but, what the heck. Prior to joining DVC we stayed at the Value Resorts (All-Stars) exclusively. We have 6 children so we always required 2 rooms. Since we've worked our way up from absolutely nothing to a state of extreme poverty paying the rack rate for a "home away from home" was clearly out of our budget. I'm giving the Cliff Notes version. We decided to take money from our retirement savings to "practice retirement" now rather than wait until we were too old to enjoy it. It's only money. You can't take it with you after you die. In this case it was the purchase of DVC. From our experience what we quickly discovered was that it did not lower the cost of what we were spending when we stayed at the Value resorts. We ended up spending the same amount of money. The difference, for us, was that we were now stayng twice as long in much nicer accomodations.
We anticipated that things would change as the kids moved out and we required less when we visited WDW. Now we visit WDW twice a year instead of once a year since we are so close to becoming empty nesters. Usually one or two of the older kids will come with us. No more two bedrooms. The points go farther now!!! Oh yes, and the cost? More fun than investing in the stock market. What can you do with stock certificates anyway? Stare at them?
As far as OKW being our "Home Resort." We love it. Since we visit so often we no longer have the commando mentality we had prior to joining DVC. We savor our visits. We do visit the other resorts as a diversion but we always come back to OKW to relax. With the multiple visits we do notice the "gradual" upgrades in the rooms. These are subtle and, depending on your expectations, may or may not be important. OKW was early in the transition from VCR to DVD. For us that was not important since we really didn't feel like traveling 1300 miles to do something we could stay home and do. The transition to flat panel will be a little more challenging since OKW was designed at a time when CRT was the standard. It will require a change in furniture design. That doesn't bother us since watching TV is not one of our desired activities, unless there's a good game and then we'll go to the ESPN Zone at Boardwalk -- something we can't do at home. With smart phones and free internet access for DVC members we can get the information we need, eg. weather, without watching and waiting for it to appear on the television. The current iPhone apps lets us check park hours, ride wait times, show, etc. without the need for a TV of any kind. But that's us.
Several posters have stated that OKW appears "dated." That is a relative term. Since the theme is Turn-of-the-century( 19th to 20th century) Key West I would expect it to appear "dated" by today's standards. I would be disappointed if it wasn't. Old Key West has received designation in the Florida Green Lodging Program. In the United States, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia have implemented certification programs to identify facilities which have implemented continuing programs to conserve natural resources, reduce waste and minimizing pollution. Old Key West is one of those. I doubt if our home could come close to meeting those standards.
This is obvously one family's perspective. Others may feel differently. We spent a large chunk of change for this and, so far, we are still happy with our decision. When you visit go ahead and take time for the sales spiel. If you think it could be for you check out the resales and compare them to the DVC incentives.
So far DVC, and especially OKW, has been a positive for us.
And hey, you can't beat the space!!!
