We wish we had known:
(a) that having a third child would mean needing more points.
(b) that our trip timing would change (value points season and kid's school and sports calendars often conflict with each other!)
(c) that family would ALWAYS want to go with us!
(d) that you can rent (we lost a few pts our second year, due to our 3rd child's birth, then 9/11, then a series of cancellations... I still mourn for those pts! It was our pre-DIS days, though, and we didn't know renting was even an option...)
(e) that the
DVC points are not nearly as expensive as the trips those points facilitate (we are "moderate" spenders, but we budget about $6K for our 2 week trips for our party of five, and that's driving our own car down, not flying and/or renting a car...)
(f) that we would want more points even when we know we haven't the vacation time nor slush money to use them! It's a weird sort of points=power struggle! I known in my heart that our 30 pt add-on was perfect, according to all the math... but right after it was complete, I wanted another. I think Disney talked to the folks at Phillip Morris when they set up DVC -- it's a strange addiction. Wodner if they make a DVC "points-patch" that would curb the urge?
(g) that we could have bought a smaller contract with an add-on initially so that the points were in small bundles. Would make it easier to either sell-off later (yeah, right, like that's gonna happen, but if it ever did....) or perhaps split up between our kids.
(h) that not all guides are created equal, and that we have the right to get a different guide. Ours was not so very helpful.
(i) that we could have bought resale. This is right up there with the renting issue for us. For our add-on last year, it didn't make sense, but man, had we knwon we could have gotten a resale, well, we would probably have never needed that add-on -- we could have gotten what we wanted and more -- for less.
(j) that we could have some choice over use year. We were offered June and took it, which has, thankfully, worked out for us, but I think if we had been given the choice, Dec would have been more to our liking.
(k) that we would want big long trips, instead of weekly annual trips. We now go every other year, which reduces our travel time / expenses (it's a 15 hr drive), and then we stay for 2 weeks. In our initial planning, we had thought we would go for 5 days (Sun-Fri) in January, every year. Doing 2 weeks (that includes weekends) in the summer (higher points) is more pts-costly, obviously, so we compromise by going every other year.
Good luck as you make your own decisions -- hope to give you a Welcome Home in the near future!
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