Who has purchased sight unseen?

[bwvBound]

LOL -- we buy LOTS of stuff (and timeshare) sight-unseen. To your question, YES, we purchased SSR, pre-opening, sight-unseen, over the phone, from California.

But we also bought ...

• Worldmark the Club, our first and mostly-favorite timeshare, sight unseen from a sales presentation at a shopping center. We use WM Club properties between 4-8 times every year, have stayed at over 40 resort locations and LOVE IT. Great choice to buy into this Club (timeshare).
• South Africa timeshare. Yep, bought that one in a "group buy" over on the TUG website. Didn't actually travel to South Africa until some 12 years later ... but sure did well trading our little 2BR-Red-Season-RCI property with low dues!
• Warner Springs Ranch -- my all time favorite timeshare. We tried visiting the property -- but they stopped us at the gate, "No visitors w/out an owner escort." We visited the sales office requesting a tour -- but they refused us, "You wouldn't like it here." Really? So, I bought a share on eBay and we arrived a few months later to pick up our Owner's Cards and gain access. Loved that place like crazy for about 10 years before they closed operations. Sad, sad, sad.
• An RV ... out of state over eBay. Flew in, trusted the seller to meet us at the airport, spent the night in the RV in his driveway and drove out the following early morning. The most difficult part was getting the vehicle registered in CA due to CARB (emissions board). The present engine wasn't the original or even the original type (originally 4 cyl and now 6 cyl) and I needed to *everything* about the conversion. The CARB dude grilled me ... and thought he had his poison arrow, "You probably won't know this, but I'll ask you anyway to give you a chance before I fail the vehicle, ...." Ha! I knew the answer and he PASSED the vehicle (with a rather sour expression).
• Our current house. Ok, I peeked around from the outside a bit -- but we submitted our offer to the realtor before he would give us a tour. (What is the world coming to!?!) That was just before the SoCal Real Estate market crash ...

I s'pose I'm a risk taker.

 

[EvilDrPorkchop21]

Just bought AKV this summer without being to WDW since I was a little kid. First trip back was a few weeks ago to VWL and will be doing trips to BLT and AKV in a few months. Im confident well like it, I feel like i've exhausted reading every available resource online so I'm happy with my purchase.

 

[DreamsAgent.Lisa]

We purchased our first resort, BW, site unseen and have been thrilled with DVC ever since.

 

[bumbershoot]

How many of you have purchase your DVC resort contract having never actually stayed or visited that particular resort? Any regrets in do this?

Ha! I can beat all the responders. (DVC-wise...not the unseen car or house people, can't beat those)

Bought DVC, Bay Lake specifically, without ever having been to WDW. DH and DS had never been to Florida. But we knew we wanted to buy in and knew we did NOT like the Grand Californian and since there are so many good hotels in the DLR area we wouldn't want it for Anaheim...so we bought. Had a choice between Bay Lake and AKV; DH wanted AKV, I didn't...we went with Bay Lake. We've stayed at both Jambo and Kidani since then; hate the place! (love AK, hate AKL) (yes, hate) Still haven't stayed at Bay Lake.

I'm staying there with my cousin for Princess, so we'll see then! By then we'll be just about done paying off the loan (yep, financed, nope, didn't pay it off as soon as we intended to, but we'll still be a few years early) and we've gotten some really good resort stays from it that we NEVER would have gotten otherwise...so it's all good.

In retrospect we should have held out for OKW or SSR points...but it's OK. No regrets.

 

[Minniesgal]

We hadn't stayed at any of the resorts ever when we bought DVC. We had however always had a resort day on each of our trips and tours end the resorts. We were very familiar with the monorail resorts and have always loved the Contemporary lobby probably because we Have wonderful memories of our kids when little being there excited for chef mickeys or buying toys which became very special over the years in the lobby.

We thought for years about buying and I was thinking BLT but the year we bought we went for dinner at Sanaa one night and I fell in love and told my husband this is where we want to buy so we did. We watched them build VGF and bought there without seeing the rooms but know the resorts and we bought VGC again without staying but after visiting for lunch.

 

[jnjhuddle]

We bought OKW sight unseen, had our first trip last month and love it. That being said, we have always been happy to be on site at WDW, whether it's Pop Century, AoA, POR, AKL,etc. So we knew when purchasing that we would likely be happy with any of the DVC resorts.

As far as sight unseen...I met my husband after seeing his ad on a dating web site 17 years ago. Does this count? Lol. Not that we got married the day we met, but this was definitely a bigger investment in my future then my DVC purchase.

 

[jillmc40]

This is a fun thread

We bought VGF site unseen. I had seen some pictures online, but I just LOVE GF! I had brought my dd there once for a girls weekend, and thought that was the only time I would ever be able to afford to stay there. One day I looked into the price of VGF (as they were advertising it about to go on sale) and something clicked! Call me crazy, but it didn't seem THAT expensive (as in too much for us to afford). I started small with 100 pts, and am now in ROFR for 160 more. We used to always stay off site in our Marriott timeshare, but now we have been to Aulani (Love it), rented points at AKL (before we were owners - Love It!), BWV(DH was upset I booked us here, turns out now we ALL Love It), VWL(Love it - only 1 night but we want to go back). I have no interest in BLT, and after visiting BCV to eat, I don't really care to stay there either (although I thought I would). I would actually like to try SSR at some point, and watched a video of OKW and that didn't appeal to me either. I don't care for Poly.

I think as you acquire points, and then start visiting, you will suddenly be surprised at what you do and don't like Good luck! We LOVE AKL and are staying there one night this coming trip (scored a Value studio), just so we can have easy access to the food - hahaha!!!

 

[supersnoop]

I purchased BLT and SSR sight unseen (along with three of the four cars I've owned in my lifetime). I figure, what's the worst that could happen? I guess I'd lose about 10%-15% if I had to sell to get out of them. It's been worth the risk to me. Both DVC and my latest car have increased in value dramatically since I purchased them.

 

[suebeelin]

Purchased BWV after having stayed at the inn.

Purchased BLT after visiting TOW.

Stayed at BWV 3 times since. Love the location.

First BLT trip is December 2016. Staying st poly in January

 

[kniquy]

It is nice to know that i am not the only crazy one here. I'd like to think that our AKV purchase was fairly inexpensive (little over 9K) compared to direct pricing and some of the other larger resale contract prices.

I honestly had never visited WDW prior to our trip for New Years last year. I totally felt the magic and think about that trip more than any other trip that i have ever taken. I had only really come to be interested in WDW from all the stories that my husband has told me about his trips when he was younger. Good thing he loves WDW so it was pretty easy to convince him we should make the purchase.

 

[GrumpyInPhilly]

We purchased at BCV without having stayed there but we had stayed at the Yacht Club for cash.

 

[AMCSquared]

Does ogling at all the pictures people post beforehand count as "sight unseen"?

We bought Aulani last year without ever been to the Ko Olina side of Oahu. Not only that, I convinced another relative's family to buy their own contract with us at the same time (both families travel together for vacation all the time). We all have been to Oahu before, but have never visited AUL specifically.

We took the advise of buying where we wanted to stay. WDW overall is nice, but Hawaii is nicer. AUL is an option for us since we are located on the West Coast, so it takes about the same amount of flying to go to either Hawaii or WDW.

We (both families) just went to AUL for the first time staying at the 3 bedroom GV. We are now spoiled and are counting points to determine when we can go back! Definitely a much more relaxing vacation when compared to the hustle-n-bustle of Waikiki or WDW.

 

[chalee94]

purchased sight unseen for both of my timeshares.

the pics for the DVC resorts were extremely helpful, though.

 

[ustasmom]

While we have stayed at a few DVC resorts, we've never stayed at BLT, which is where we just purchased. We've never even stepped foot in the building. When we finally made the decision to buy DVC, the choice of home resort was purely based on numbers and calculations.

I also had a spreadsheet of calculations. I used the average CPP (which is significantly higher this month) the amount of time left in the contract, and the MF. I also calculated lifetime yearly cost and if we only kept it for 15 years but this number doesn't include resale.

SSR came out number 1 in both scenarios. That being said, we didn't buy there. BLT came out second in the long run but OKW was second for the 15 year model. And AKV came out third in both models.

We were not interested in SSR or OKW at all.

We bought a small contract at BLT. I don't necessarily want to stay there (even though I've only been on the monorail through it, that rooftop advantage sounded like a huge positive, and I wanted to make sure that I could access that feature if it were to ever get shut down to other DVC members (like BCV pool.)

We also have a contract for AKV. That is the one that I knew my kids would absolutely love. And I wanted to be able to book the value rooms 11 months out.

That being said, not including properties not in WDW, there was still only less than a $250 per year difference between the properties.

 

[lovin'fl]

In 2006, we bought OKW without ever having set foot there. First time there wasn't until 2009. Our add-ons were bought after having stayed there. But when we bought the OKW we had only been to WDW twice (off site once and POR once). We went with OKW to get the most points for our money.

 

[DougEMG]

We bought our contracts all sight on seen. At the time I didn't have a strong preference and while I now only ever book at an Epcot or Monorail resort, I'd be okay staying somewhere else.

So far we've managed to stay at all the WDW resorts other than VWL and have enjoyed staying at all of them.

 

[cedricandsophie]

We bought Aulani just based on pictures. So much better than the pictures. Have been there 4 times and will go back next summer. My husband could happily live there full time.

 

[Phatscott25]

We are in the estoppel phase for an AKV purchase and have never been to WDW. To me, it was a no-brainer. I've wanted to take the family for quite some time and began preliminary planning for our first visit (September, 2016). My family is large (myself, DGF, DS11, DS11, DS8, DD7) and we're traveling with my parents who will be celebrating their 40th anniversary while we're there and haven't been to WDW since their honeymoon.

I've always wanted to stay onsite in a deluxe accommodation. Paying rack rates for a room that can accommodate 8 was ridiculous. Had never heard of DVC until I heard about renting points to save money. Being the type that firmly believes that renting anything is only building on someone else's wealth I looked into buying and discovered that resale prices are definitely a good value (especially for AKV).

After doing my research I really wanted to buy at BLT, but ultimately the kids wanting to be by the animals won out. And of course the 30% price difference helped their cause lol.

 

[bwang123]

we bought AKV without visiting but did research on the property upfront. Now that we have stayed at most of the resorts, it is our favorite. We like booking the value rooms so it is good we own there.

 

[glamdring269]

We sort of bought sight unseen. Were staying at Jambo House on rented points and decided to check out some of the DVC resorts. Walked into VWL and thought it was awesome enough to be on the short list of resorts we would purchase if a good contract with the right UY and low points popped up. Snagged a 75 point contract at VWL and used it last year at BWV during F&W (miracle) but do plan to stay there next October during F&W depending on how the construction is going. Otherwise we will try to get lucky at BWV again or go back to AKL as we really liked Jambo and the distance didn't bother us at all.