What about us (4 nights buys 7)?

[goofyboyzmom]

What ticket is there a discount on?

 

[Deb & Bill]

What ticket is there a discount on?

Annual passes, premium annual passes or any ticket through Underground Tickets or other resellers.

I guess some of you newer DVC members haven't heard there is no free lunch with DVC yet. They have you and your money already.

 

[MARY-IN-OH]

You don't have to pay as much for your ticket. So you save money. Thus your discount. If you save $10 a ticket by buying through a reseller (or use those older tickets with no expiration or got the $100 off AP), you divide your savings by the number of nights you are getting the DDP. Subtract that from the cost of the DDP and you got a discounted DDP.

And, with DVC, you don't have to have park tickets of any kind to do the dining plan, right? That is, as long as your meals are at other places like resorts, and DTD.
Just making sure that's right since that is my plan in January!
-mary

 

[goofyboyzmom]

Annual passes, premium annual passes or any ticket through Underground Tickets or other resellers.

I guess some of you newer DVC members haven't heard there is no free lunch with DVC yet. They have you and your money already.

Unfortunately, for those of us who can only go once a year and cannot time it within the same 12 month window, the discount on the Annual Pass means nothing to us so discount the tickets another way (like they apparently used to) or discount the dining or something. And five years into the DVC is not exactly "newer". I am not expecting a "free lunch", they should just not forget about the people who have already spent $20,000 - ?????.

 

[MARY-IN-OH]

Unfortunately, for those of us who can only go once a year and cannot time it within the same 12 month window, the discount on the Annual Pass means nothing to us so discount the tickets another way (like they apparently used to) or discount the dining or something. And five years into the DVC is not exactly "newer". I am not expecting a "free lunch", they should just not forget about the people who have already spent $20,000 - ?????.

Would buying non expiring 10 day tickets help you? You could use them over 2 (or 3) trips? You can add waterpark/disney quest to add more things to it, which would be like 20 "days" of things to do, and that ticket never expires.
-mary

 

[goofyboyzmom]

Would buying non expiring 10 day tickets help you? You could use them over 2 (or 3) trips? You can add waterpark/disney quest to add more things to it, which would be like 20 "days" of things to do, and that ticket never expires.
-mary

Thank you, Mary, but the 10-day does not generally work for us, because we tend to do 7-8 days at a time.

 

[Brian Noble]

I am not expecting a "free lunch", they should just not forget about the people who have already spent $20,000 - ?????.

Disney does not offer promotions and discounts to be nice to people, or to reward loyalty. They offer promotions and discounts to encourage people to spend even more money with the Mouse instead of on some competing discretionary purpose. Most DVC Members are already "locked in"---they are coming no matter what, because they have paid for their lodging in advance.

 

[starwood]

We drive. It saves us a ton of money and it isn't a hardship at all...plus we then have our car with us. We are in NE CT and the drive takes us 20 hours, door-to-door. From Northern NJ it would be 16-17. We leave at 2am and arrive at WDW at 10pm. It's perfect!

I figure that it will cost us approximately $350 to drive, round trip, to FL in December. Compare that to the $1000 for airfare and you can see that we get nearly 3 driving trips for the same cost as flying once.

I know that many people refuse to even try the drive, but I'd definitely recommend trying it. We've been doing it since our DD was 2 years old (our kids are now 16 and 13) and never had a problem.

I drove once - when the Magic Kingdom first opened. It was my parents, my brother and myself. We left at 4 am and stopped in South Carolina the first night. We arrived in Florida the second night and the Magic Kingdom the next day. I should also mention it was July and we had a car with NO air conditioning. Not fond memories.

I also have a bad back and I don't think I could possibly sit in a car that long without severe pain (although the airplane isn't much better - with delays).

Maybe Disney will form their own airline.

 

[goofyboyzmom]

Disney does not offer promotions and discounts to be nice to people, or to reward loyalty. They offer promotions and discounts to encourage people to spend even more money with the Mouse instead of on some competing discretionary purpose. Most DVC Members are already "locked in"---they are coming no matter what, because they have paid for their lodging in advance.

But, see, we are only locked into the resort portion. If you read over on the other boards, such as the Budget Board, you will see that people are using their DVC points to stay at the resort and only use resort amenities such as the pool and they are taking advantage of Universal's deals (one recent one was "play for 5 days for the price of 1", Sea World, Cirque, and everything else that Orlando has to offer. They are even eating off property, because it is cheaper.

 

[Brian Noble]

Sure, but the Budget Boarders are practically a species unto themselves. I doubt very much that the "average" DVCer is thinking in this way.

And, as I've mentioned before, the ancillary spending can be stimulated by offering "upsell discounts".

What I would expect are other promotions that are really upsells in disguise. For example, a break on the Deluxe Dining Plan, or a deeper discount on the Tables In Woderland card, or an extension of merchandise discounts. These all end up getting you spending *more* than you otherwise would, even though the *more* is a nice value.

Anyone who thinks about this even for a few minutes will realize that DVC Members are pretty close to the last people on earth that Disney will need to offer "real" discounts to to get them to come and spend money.

 

[corpcomp]

One of our friends going with us to Disney President's week just saved $1200 today by cancelling and rebooking her week at the Yacht Club with the special deal. I called member services to see if we could get any part of the deal and she just said no deals for DVC members. Rats! Not even the $200 gift card.

But as many of you have already said, they have our money and don't need to give us any breaks.

Just hope its empty President's week.

PS I've been on a wait list for two months to get a room at BCV, we are currently booked in BWV but they keep telling us that BCV is booked completely in Feb.

 

[Starr W.]

Sure, but the Budget Boarders are practically a species unto themselves. I doubt very much that the "average" DVCer is thinking in this way.

And, as I've mentioned before, the ancillary spending can be stimulated by offering "upsell discounts".



Anyone who thinks about this even for a few minutes will realize that DVC Members are pretty close to the last people on earth that Disney will need to offer "real" discounts to to get them to come and spend money.

Yep, us DVC'ers have already drank the Kool Aid.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

Disney does not offer promotions and discounts to be nice to people, or to reward loyalty. They offer promotions and discounts to encourage people to spend even more money with the Mouse instead of on some competing discretionary purpose. Most DVC Members are already "locked in"---they are coming no matter what, because they have paid for their lodging in advance.

You're right. It's a most excellent place to stay to visit central FL... Universal, SeaWorld, WnW, NASA, Busch Gardens...

Edit: I responded to your post and hadn't even seen the similar post already above before I responded to yours. I don't visit the budget boards forum either. I was sincere in my reply. Maybe we did drink the koolaid (another post above I hadn't seen until after this reply). We sort of locked ourselves into Disney for our last 3-5 trips of our own choosing without even realizing it.

We used to go down and visit those other places all the time. Maybe it really is time to revisit how we vacation in central FL since we don't have to pay for accomodations anymore. Really. Whoever's got the best deal baby!

Ya'll keep believing other DVCers won't think of this too with deals like the Universal one listed above going on. EndEdit

 

[Brian Noble]

Hey, it's no skin off my nose whether folks do or don't give their extra discretionary income to the Mouse. I'm not a shareholder (at least, not directly---I do own some index funds which have Disney as part of their indices.)

But, if I were a betting man, I'd be betting against serious discounting for DVCers beyond what there is right now, for all the reasons I've mentioned.

 

[CraftyMouse]

Maybe Disney will form their own airline.

Maybe they will...but I highly doubt that flying on it will be less expensive!

 

[SuzanneSLO]

With our Disneyland APs now expired, we have no plans to go back to the California parks anytime soon. If there was a good deal on AP's, it might entice us to schedule a trip or two for 2009. I think that discounts on APs for both DL and WDW would help to bring DVCers who may be banking up points now, wanting to save on vacation expenditures.

Although it is OT to this thread, the Costco deal on Deluxe DL APs plus a $50 gift card for $260 looks like a pretty good deal. You save $30 over the DVC discounted rate. I think you need to activate thsoe APs before Easter week, but I may be wrong. And with the AP8 rates for PP hotel in 2009 starting at $139/night, there are some pretty nice deals out there. -- Suzanne

 

[DeeCee735]

We bought DVC in 2000, didn't finance. It paid for itself in the first 4 trips easy. The first trip alone was almost 1/2 our initial buy in cost (did a couple of add ons), because we did the land/sea vacation, and that would have been a lot of $$ had we paid cash for it. Add that to the other 10 trips, and it already equals a good value. Not to mention the next 33 years without having to worry about inflation in room prices. Temporary downturns, and the discounts offered during such times are what help insure Disney will survive for the next 33 years.....the discounted rooms are nice for those paying cash, but these are value/moderate rooms. We stay in 1 and 2 bedrooms, with kitchens, washers, dryers, dvd players, jacquzzi tubs and balconies - big difference than a discount on a regular room in a value or moderate resort.

Granted it's still expensive with food and ticket prices rising, but we choose to repeatedly visit the mouse, and we chose to buy DVC. We could just as easily be spending $$$ anywhere else. Most vacations are expensive - like Atlantis , or travelling overseas and touring, or Hawaii. I was just in Vegas and that was more expensive than I thought it would be, even with a discount on a room. Dining, entertainment, transportation, etc. cost more every year no matter where we go.

On the other hand, because we are "repeat customers" it wouldn't hurt to see discounts on MYW tickets, or good discounted dining (don't consider the DDP to be such). The AP discount is nice, but the implementation of this discount was more to benefit the mouse, making AP DVC holders want to visit multiple times in a 12 month period to get the most of their pass......meaning more money being spent while there on all the other incidentals. To truly be a benefit to DVC'ers would be to discount MYW tickets, not just the AP's. I wouldn't mind seeing something like buy a 3 day pass and get 2 days free, but I know that'll not likely ever happen.

In order to save money, we'll do the parks less and probably go back to once a year trips, instead of 2 or 3, instead of waiting for Disney to give us any kind of break. I will say that I was a bit surprised at the increase in food prices, I couldn't believe how much I spent on dining this past October , and unfortunately I don't think the DDP helps much with that at all.

We have a trip coming up in January and I think after that, I'll rent the 3 night trip I have planned for beginning of March, and hold off on returning with the family until next year....

 

[Deb & Bill]

Thank you, Mary, but the 10-day does not generally work for us, because we tend to do 7-8 days at a time.

That's about what we do as well and we only go once a year. But we plan our trips so we get two trips out of one AP, so it's a lot cheaper than two 10 day passes. For example, last year we went the second week of June. This year we head to WDW at the end of May. Thus, two trips on one AP. And a money saver for us.

You might try and see if you can work out your once a year trips like this and get one AP for two trips.

 

[DebbieB]

Getting deals for DVC members has always been long in coming. It was years of members asking for an AP discount before we finally got it. The current dining plan was around for over a year before DVC members could add it to points stays. As was previously mentioned, DVC is a separate entity from theme parks. DVC is in the business of selling timeshares and will only want to get involved with theme park discounts/deals if it will help them sell timeshares.

 

[Kiderak]

I'm sure all of us are more than welcome to purchase nights at the advertised rate according to the terms they set out. We aren't excluded from spending money just because we are DVC members.

Also, just because we are members and would stay on resort, doesn't mean we have to go to Disney. There are several other parks in the area.