Was there a "final straw" that made you buy?

[ppony]

I know for us, buying into DVC was a culmination of many things. The rising costs of deluxe rates and the large percentage of meals eaten out that we thought weren't even close to being worth the money. BLAH food was probably our last straw that pushed me over the DVC edge. Not that I'll be cooking often but paying $100 for breakfast of cold eggs, cold waffles, limp bacon...you get the idea. I'd rather have some oatmeal or cereal in my room and be off. No "we need to be here at a certain time" in the morning, just get up when you're ready, grab a bite in your room and go.
(NOTE: I'm just saying this was my last straw, not the main reason we bought in)

So I was wondering of others had similar experiecnes.

 

[ClarabelleCow]

I know for us, buying into DVC was a culmination of many things. The rising costs of deluxe rates and the large percentage of meals eaten out that we thought weren't even close to being worth the money. BLAH food was probably our last straw that pushed me over the DVC edge. Not that I'll be cooking often but paying $100 for breakfast of cold eggs, cold waffles, limp bacon...you get the idea. I'd rather have some oatmeal or cereal in my room and be off. No "we need to be here at a certain time" in the morning, just get up when you're ready, grab a bite in your room and go.
(NOTE: I'm just saying this was my last straw, not the main reason we bought in)

So I was wondering of others had similar experiecnes.

We are right there, I think we have only done 2-3 character breakfasts over a 15 year span, and 2 were since 2001 when we bought. We hate going out for breakfast, seems like a waste of time. Coffee, english muffins, fruit, yougart, cereal, etc. in the room in the morning. Sure occassionally pick up a pastry depending on where we are. Lunch almost never in the room, and at times dinner, or left overs, but we don't really cook, will order a pizza, or takeout. We almost never have a car, I just order groceries from the resort itself, or I used to get it from Goodings. We also like SPACE!! Not uncommon for us to get a 2 bedroom for just the 4 of us. (we also have two weeks in St. Maarten and its a 3 bedroom!!), so the space make the vacation also!

 

[bwvBound]

Related thread: One thing that made you take the plunge?, Sept 2009

 

[ppony]

Related thread: One thing that made you take the plunge?, Sept 2009

My apologies for repeating a thread from Sept/Oct. Hey, at least it wasn't a "What's the BEST xxxx" thread!

 

[bwvBound]

No apology needed for repeating a thread. I was only trying to help you find more info on similar topic.

 

[MinnieGirl33]

Stayed in a 2BR at OKW

Made DH never want to stay in a regular hotel room again

 

[ppony]

No apology needed for repeating a thread. I was only trying to help you find more info on similar topic.

 

[keishashadow]

spent a week with cheerleaders @ AS Mo

 

[daisygirl902]

I had been debating for years, and a few things really made me take the plunge back in August. I am a bit strange in the fact that I LOVE value resorts, for the food courts, the pools, and the atmosphere...but....

1. Since turing 30 a couple of years ago I am starting to value luxury, and had asked for a king sized bed the past 3 trips...each time was told "It shouldn't be a problem" only to show up and find that they had none available. I kind of fell in love with the BLT sample room that I saw when I saw the king sized bed AND the jacuzzi tub.

2. I like to start my day with a pretty simple breakfast, and it seems foolish to spend $8 on a side of eggs and a side of bacon...plus I really prefer ham or "canadian bacon" to regular bacon, which you can't get at the food court. Between myself and my fiance we will save a significant amount just by eating breakfast in our room.

3. We are getting married at Disney in Sept 2010, and are paying for his parents to come down for the trip. We were going to get 2 rooms at POP Century for the trip, but when I saw the savings that we could incur by doing DVC and staying in a 2 bdrm I was totally sold (although I must say the guide overestimated the savings, as I was starry eyed and didn't quite think about the fact that I would be paying for their park tickets and DDP at regular price). It made me realize that it's better to take the plunge now instead of waiting until after the wedding trip.

I am happy to have pre-paid deluxe accomodations for the next 50 years at today's price...I love that I can rest assured in knowing that I get my own little piece of the world guaranteed every year! There are things that I will miss about my old life at value resorts (it will be strange to stay at a different esort than my family!)...but I am totally happy with my decision.

 

[ead79]

I think for us the final straw was the ever rising rates at the deluxe resorts.

I had been going to WDW regularly beginning in 2000 when I was still in college. Once DH and I got married in 2003, we continued the regular visits. I'm admittedly a bit high maintenance when it comes to hotels, LOL, so we typically stayed in deluxe resorts. We also often stayed concierge level for at least part of our trips. It was a special splurge that we really looked forward to that was nothing like our regular standard of living . However, back when the economy was doing well, the discounts really dried up. And of course Disney is keen on increasing their resort rates every year.

So when faced with the prospect of having to pay rack rate or close to it at one of Disney's deluxe resorts with their ever-increasing prices, DVC became more and more attractive. When DVC announced Animal Kingdom Villas, we really became interested, as AKL was our favorite resort.

We are now thrilled that we joined DVC since now our vacations are protected from Disney's increasing resort prices. Plus, we love the extra space of a DVC villa.

 

[pilgrimr]

I think for us it was that we realized that we were going almost every year so lets pay so we stay at a nice place. The size of the rooms and different resorts also helped very much.

 

[dvcdisney]

For us, it was the first onsite stay at AKL which convinced us that we only want to stay onsite from now on!

 

[DisneySJB]

For me, it was planning our next trip. When I realized what we would be paying for a Deluxe resort would be a very nice downpayment for DVC, I made the call. Having friends who had raved about DVC for years certainly helped. But, it came down to the cost of vacation in 2008.

 

[WendyinNC]

Definately the birth of our 4th child and the fact that, as a family of 6, we could no longer fit in a hotel room. Since we were going to need to stay in a 2BR DVC unit we may as well buy in.

 

[Blonde Princess]

We traveled to Disney for a 9 night trip in 2001 over July 4th. We booked through Disney Vacations at WL courtyard view with ultimate park hopper tickets for 10 days for 2 adults and 2 kids. We did airfare through them, town car pickup drop off at airport. That plus dining out etc cost us nearly $7,000.00 At that rate our DVC membership paid for itself in about 3 trips.

 

[LovetheMouse12302]

DVC allows us to stay at resorts we otherwise never would have and travel twice a year instead of once. Although this trip is our first trip as a DVC member we are thrilled at having more space! I'm actually excited about having a kitchen to cook in. We don't eat out a lot at home and we get tired of eating out when we are on vacations, by the end of the trip we are all usually craving a home cooked meal.

 

[SusieBea]

spent a week with cheerleaders @ AS Mo

That'd do it! What a marketing ploy!

 

[JimmyJam838]

I've been waiting for a DVC on the west coast since we go to the Disneyland Resort 3 or 4 times a year for 3-4 days at a time. Once they finally built VGC, we bought in.

 

[hakepb]

rising rates or lack of decent PIN codes for Values (I think in 3 years we went from $59 to $79 to $89/night) and thought at this rate of increases, we won't be able to afford a value in the future, we need to lock in future prices..

 

[LilGMom]

I think our 'straw' was when we booked our last OOP stay pre-DVC, which would have been either 2005 or 2006. We had wanted to stay at WL but decided that we were going to try to save some money that trip so we booked POR. We had a water view room booked (could hear one of the pools if everything was quiet and you strained) at POR at a FL resident rate and the room was bad, the A/C was bad, the fridge was bad, etc. So we called WL the next morning to check availability and DH got sticker shock on the cost. They didn't have any FL resident or AP rate rooms available and that day was the beginning of Peak Season (this was when your rate was decided by what day you checked in). We moved to WL but that $250+/- per night was a hard pill to swallow. We were happier in the WL but realized that we were feeling the bite of the deluxe room rates, discount or no discount, so we looked into DVC after halfway considering it for a couple of years.