What do you save by renting DVC vs other options?

[Leolyss]

We own a few timeshare weeks through Starwood so I understand the timeshare concept. We cannot trade via II so my only option would be to rent DVC points from this or other similar forum. We tare advantage of our other timeshares by renting a car, buying local groceries, cooking our own meals.
We have stayed at Sheraton Vistana Villages in Orlando and took our own food into the park and then returned home in the evening for dinner.
I‘d like my family to have the on-property experience in fall 2020 and am considering renting DVC points or just renting a resort hotel room. I’m thinking a hotel room is out of the running because we are used to the separate bedrooms and additional space of a timeshare (the cost of a suite is out of our budget) plus I don’t want to be forced to eat all of our meals in restaurants (for cost reasons and for the sheer convenience of taking packed lunches into the park and eating when it suits us). So I am left with the DVC rental option or just returning to the Sheraton (off-property) Timeshare.
My question is: is there truly cost savings by staying at a DVC resort if I still rent a car, get groceries, cook most of my own meals? I’m trying to learn and calculate the cost of renting DVC points but I am new to this so any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[meriface11]

cost savings over what? You will of course save money if you cook all your own meals in the villa and bring food in, but sounds like you do that in your own timeshare. You can save money by NOT renting a car. You don‘t need one if you are staying on property and can take magical express from the airport. You can take an Uber for groceries or use a delivery service or instacart. You can rent DVC points through the DVC boards here or through a third party like David’s.

 

[omniscientmommy]

Yeah how much do you want to spend? I just got a quote for 8 days at Old Key West for a 1 bedroom and for 8 days it was $3842 to rent, end of August. This was a 3rd party(middleman) site but the cost to rent DVC has gone up a lot. My husband hates the buses! We have to have our own car, the cost of Uber or Lyft was the same price each day as having a rental car, so for us paying an additional $20 a night to have our own car is a no go.

 

[kymom99]

You could stay at Sheraton most if the nights and then do a couple nights on property in a regular room.

 

[mountdew1]

There are several services that will do local grocery delivery in the Orlando area, so having a rental car is not a requirement, even if you plan on doing alot of cooking in a DVC unit. DVC vs local timeshare is really similar to staying on property vs staying off property. Through DVC you can do DME, use Disney resort transit, things like Extra Magic Hours and get free MagicBands. Non DVC timeshare will almost always be cheaper (especially if you can trade in), but you will need to figure out transit and don't get the other perks of staying on property. You also take your chances with the quality of the timeshare. DVC is a known quantity, but unless you have already stayed at your selected off property, or have trusted reviews, it's a mixed bag. I've stayed at timeshares where the pictures/descriptions most definitely did not match the current quality of the timeshare.

 

[kathy884]

When I have done the math (and do note that this was for high season times), renting DVC points for me for a two bedroom would have been triple the cost of renting a great two bedroom condo offsite. As a traveler who is usually a budget traveler when it comes to Orlando -- I almost always stay offsite in a great timeshare condo. I think a lot of people to make onsite in budget sometimes get the studios instead of a two bedroom and/or many will stay at Key West (most love it there) which is more of a downtown Disney location and not going to be as expensive points wise as timeshares near some of the deluxe properties (by Contemporary, Polynesian, Animal Kingdom, etc.). It all depends on what you are looking for in that onsite experience, I guess, as I think it would be fun to stay near the deluxe properties and my number crunching was for those not Key West in my comparison. There is a whole forum about renting points. DVC rent/trade for you to maybe look at.

Another option you might want to look at, and no it's not a timeshare (DVC), would be an Art of Animation Little Mermaid Suite. It would give you a little more room than a hotel room. All in all there is a big premium to stay onsite. I have only stayed onsite when DH has had a seminar at one of the Disney hotels (usually the Contemporary) and his company was paying for the majority of the nights with sometimes our paying for one extra night at a convention rate. Also, as a kid with parents with a motorhome, we often did an onsite campsite at Fort Wilderness. I just find the offsite timeshare condos to be such a great deal looking at the quality for the price that time and time again that is usually my choice for acommodations.

 

[Minniesgal]

It is unclear what you are comparing your costs savings to.

DVC rental will never be as cheap as the Sheraton but it's not the same experience.

 

[MrsPete]

I‘d like my family to have the on-property experience in fall 2020 and am considering renting DVC points or just renting a resort hotel room. I’m thinking a hotel room is out of the running because we are used to the separate bedrooms and additional space of a timeshare (the cost of a suite is out of our budget) plus I don’t want to be forced to eat all of our meals in restaurants (for cost reasons and for the sheer convenience of taking packed lunches into the park and eating when it suits us).

I think you're trying to have two different experiences here: 1) the onsite, close-to-the-magic experience AND 2) the spread-out-in-a-nice condo /cook-our-own-meals /have-family-time experience. What are YOUR GOALS for this trip? Do you want to hit the parks hard? If so, onsite is the deal, but probably not DVC. Or do you want to sleep in, hang by the pool with the family, and -- yeah, we'll work in some park time too? If so, opt for the condo.

Our next trip will be a celebration of our retirement (fall, like you), and we're treating our kids. We're renting a 4-bedroom/3 bath house with a private pool for around $1200/week. Half that space would be 3Xs the cost in DVC terms.

My question is: is there truly cost savings by staying at a DVC resort if I still rent a car, get groceries, cook most of my own meals? I’m trying to learn and calculate the cost of renting DVC points but I am new to this so any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

If you use "fuzzy math" or "Disney math", you may justify renting DVC points, but if you're looking at honest numbers, an off-site hotel /house /condo will cost less every time. Every. Single. Time. If you opt to stay in a DVC place, you're not doing it for financial reasons.

If you want to stay onsite, your cheapest option is to get two adjoining rooms in a value or moderate hotel. This'll give you two connected rooms, two bathrooms, and Disney transportation (which is great -- no getting lost, no walking across a large parking lot to get into your hot car). You can bring just snacks and drinks for the room /eat out every meal and still pay less than renting DVC points.

You could stay at Sheraton most if the nights and then do a couple nights on property in a regular room.

That's a good idea. You can rent DVC points for just a couple days mid-trip. Moving between hotel rooms will be a bummer, but it would allow you the best of both worlds: low price and high style ... just on different days.

 

[Pesky]

Agree it is more of an experience question. Off site will usually be cheaper so goes back to what you want the experience to be and at what cost point does it change. I have rented points but only for a studio as I find going up in room size tends to degrade any cost savings. The older resorts with DVC will be cheaper. Also if you are comparing on-site hotels, it depends on the classification. As MrsPete points out, value or moderate will still be cheaper. Renting DVC points can be cheaper than renting the same room at a deluxe but only really in that category. And within the deluxe category there will be price differences as well. I don't think there is an easy answer, but a lot of options available. Just depends on your budget, goals, and desired experience. Any way you cut it, it'll still be a great vacation!

 

[Drdani226]

I thought she was asking if it was cheaper to rent DVC points (plus rent a car and cook most of their own meals) vs. staying at a resort on-property. I don’t know the answer lol, but it seems as if everyone thought she was asking about DVC vs. offsite (which she may have been), but it seems she was trying to decide between on property experiences.

 

[Brett Wyman]

Based on your needs you should just rent a home from VRBO or similar.

 

[Judique]

We own a few timeshare weeks through Starwood so I understand the timeshare concept. We cannot trade via II so my only option would be to rent DVC points from this or other similar forum. We tare advantage of our other timeshares by renting a car, buying local groceries, cooking our own meals.
We have stayed at Sheraton Vistana Villages in Orlando and took our own food into the park and then returned home in the evening for dinner.
I‘d like my family to have the on-property experience in fall 2020 and am considering renting DVC points or just renting a resort hotel room. I’m thinking a hotel room is out of the running because we are used to the separate bedrooms and additional space of a timeshare (the cost of a suite is out of our budget) plus I don’t want to be forced to eat all of our meals in restaurants (for cost reasons and for the sheer convenience of taking packed lunches into the park and eating when it suits us). So I am left with the DVC rental option or just returning to the Sheraton (off-property) Timeshare.
My question is: is there truly cost savings by staying at a DVC resort if I still rent a car, get groceries, cook most of my own meals? I’m trying to learn and calculate the cost of renting DVC points but I am new to this so any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

Some questions:
Which DVC resort would you want to rent? Some resorts are walking distance to parks.
What size unit would you want to rent? Cooking - 1 bedroom to 3 bedroom or cabin/treehouse. Studios have a mini fridge, microwave, toaster and coffee maker plus bar sized sink.
How many people? and ages? All villas are not the same. Some one bedrooms have 2 baths, some don't. Some sleep 5 and some sleep 4. All 1 bedrooms will have a king and a sofa bed.

Some info - DVC in October/November/ December is a time that fills up fast at some of the more popular resorts - faster than Xmas due to nice weather, food and wine festival, marathons. So if you are doing this you want to get on it.

The bottom line is it can be a great experience, but it's definitely not a cheap one.

Cost - you can figure out cost on here, by looking at the points charts for the various resorts. The DVCStore. com has a tab on their site for them. Some options will already be gone.

 

[Hokie2005]

We own a few timeshare weeks through Starwood so I understand the timeshare concept. We cannot trade via II so my only option would be to rent DVC points from this or other similar forum. We tare advantage of our other timeshares by renting a car, buying local groceries, cooking our own meals.
We have stayed at Sheraton Vistana Villages in Orlando and took our own food into the park and then returned home in the evening for dinner.
I‘d like my family to have the on-property experience in fall 2020 and am considering renting DVC points or just renting a resort hotel room. I’m thinking a hotel room is out of the running because we are used to the separate bedrooms and additional space of a timeshare (the cost of a suite is out of our budget) plus I don’t want to be forced to eat all of our meals in restaurants (for cost reasons and for the sheer convenience of taking packed lunches into the park and eating when it suits us). So I am left with the DVC rental option or just returning to the Sheraton (off-property) Timeshare.
My question is: is there truly cost savings by staying at a DVC resort if I still rent a car, get groceries, cook most of my own meals? I’m trying to learn and calculate the cost of renting DVC points but I am new to this so any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

You can get a good idea of the cost of renting DVC by looking at David's Vacation Club Rentals site at https://dvcrequest.com/dvc-guests/cost-calculator . You can toggle between the number of points it would take along with the cost. David's is a very easy process to rent from although they are going to charge you $18/pt for the better resorts plus an extra $1/pt for the opportunity to book 7+ months out which is pretty much required these days. So $19/point total. As an owner, I've rented points before via David's and always had positive experiences. I think any renters would also speak highly of David's based on posts I've seen. I've also recently rented points via the rental board here on DISboards. You could save yourself a buck or two (or maybe more) per point going through the forum here.

 

[mjkacmom]

Renting DVC points is going to be significantly more expense than similar off site accommodations. It is cheaper than paying just cash for the villas, and in our case, a 2 bedroom villa was the same price as 2 moderate rooms.