What's a Californian to do?

[calpacagal]

Hi there,
DH and I are mulling over the idea of joining DVC. We live in CA and have only been to Fl once to go on a DCL cruise last summer. We tend to stay on the West coast for vacations but DVC seems like a smart thing to do. We've never even been to WDW!

My question to you all is this. Are there any plans for a resort being built in CA? We're assuming the price will go up if and when that happpens and we would be kicking ourselves for not buying now.

We would use some of our points at the Disneyland hotel and Grand Californian but would hope to get out to FL every couple of years.

We have 4 kids (10, 8, 6, and 2).

Are there any other Californians out there? How do you use your points?

Thanks so much!

 

[fkj2]

Let me first disclaim that I've never been to Disneyland, so I'm not sure how it compares to the park in Florida.

I would think your best bet would be to plan a vacation to Disneyworld so you can see firsthand all that's offered there. It would be difficult to imagine the size of WDW and all there is to see and do there. I'm not trying to sell Disneyland short but if you're thinking of investing all that money in DVC, I'd recommend finding some reasonable flights and see the parks/resorts firsthand.

Plus, there's always the concierge collection to exchange DVC points into as well.

 

[Diznut84]

Your best bet is probably to wait and see if DVC opens up in CA. If it doesn't, I would not recommend buying into DVC unless you plan to go to FL at least every other year. Using your points at non-DVC resorts is not a good idea IMHO.

Greg

 

[bwvBound]

San Diego, here. We use our DVC points exclusively for DVC-resort stays. Our annual visit is a work-related conference followed by a couple play days to "unwind." Indeed, for us, DVC is a "smart thing to do."

However -- for west coast vacations I'd highly recommend looking at Worldmark the Club (WM). It is a points-based system with 50+ resort locations. Similar to DVC, WM allows you to book any size unit you need, at any location, for (almost) any length of stay. We are owners and have enjoyed great success with their program.

 

[SandyCA]

Checking in from the Inland Empire and putting in my two cents. We just bought into DVC last month and I feel it was a good buy for us. I go to WDW at least once a year, either with my husband or my sister and would use my points for DVC stays. However, I will also use my points for stays at Disneyland resort hotels, a DCL cruise, or maybe an exchange through Interval International for Hawaii.

The use of points for other than DVC stays is probably not wise, but I like having those other choices available besides WDW. I would like to see DVC at the Grand Californian, if that happens great, but it is not the reason I bought into DVC.

I will say that this decision was not made overnight, I had been looking into buying a timeshare for a few years and have spent many hours on this website and the TUG boards. I purchased DVC because I love Disney, it is a fairly easy system to use and understand and was right for us.

I do agree with the others, that you should go to WDW and see if it is for you before you buy.

P.S. I did hear that one of the new ships Disney has being built will be for the west coast - that would be awesome if true

 

[Lynne M]

If you only go to WDW every other year, you're still a good candidate for a DVC membership. You can bank your points, and have twice your annual allotment of points available for those trips.

Just a word of warning about using points at non-DVC resorts like the DL resorts.....the number of points it takes for a night at a DVC resort is somewhat fixed for the life of the contract. For non-DVC resorts, though - the point requirements are not fixed at all; they're renegotiated every year. The DL resort points have been pretty reasonable lately, but they could go up dramatically at any time.

 

[mattnday]

We are owners of 2 memberships, Vero and Saratoga, totaling 390 points and we live in Northern California. So far we have only used points at the Grand Californian and not in WDW. Because we own several other timeshares in cluding WorldMark and Hilton Grand Vacation Club we always maximize our weeks by taking advantage of the best values.

In the case of DVC we intend to use our point at WDW or cruise and Disneyland in 2008 as well as rent some to offset some of the maintenance fees.

Our view is like this, DVC has continued to rise in value ever since we first looked almost 10 years ago. We are going to take advantage of all the DVC benefits as long as the market stays strong with ROFR or we get closer to not needing the DVC anymore as our 5 year old gets older. Either way DVC rents real easily when we don't use it and we had nothing to lose by buying our memberships at the prices we did.

 

[Grumpy Grandma]

DVC works for us - make at least one trip per year - some years even manage two trips. We don't plan to use our points for DLC, Disneyland or to trade thru II. Just doesn't make sense for us to use our points that way. We do own two other timeshares that we can trade thru II if we so desire.