Why is DVC NOT for you?

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

There are a few reasons we haven't bought in.

1 - The cost is so heavily front loaded it would be tough for us to make those payments. We can't pay cash up front, we would have to finance. Until it was paid in full we would be in kind of deep.

2 - We LOVE deluxe rooms. 2 queen beds or a queen & bunks is PERFECT for us. I have a problem with sofa beds, so I am not loving the studios.

3 - We never pay rack rate for rooms. We have AAA, Disney Visa, and APs to use for discounts. We also stay Value for short trips. For some reason we are able to save up for our trips just fine, whereas making monthly DVC payments would present a problem. We almost wouldn't be able to go to WDW until the whole DVC was paid off!

4- We have not ruled out buying resale at some point. We'll just see how it goes.

 

[zagafi]

For a family of five, it's simply cost prohibitive. Before the twins came along we planned to buy, but when we went from 3 to 5, and would have had to plan for a 2br there was no way to justify the cost. I'm a teacher so off-season isn't an option and the number of points we would need are pretty high.

 

[GinnyFavers]

It's gotten so crowded with owners (a lot of whom bought I think at SSR and want to stay anywhere but there) that you can no longer count on traveling where and when you want to, in many cases, without booking at the 11 month and 7 month windows.

This has always been the bane of time shares, too little inventory to meet demand, and up until they built SSR, DVC seemed to have escaped it. Now I'm afraid it's the same old story as other time shares -- plan way in advance or you're pretty much out of luck.

We just don't travel like that, we like to plan our trips about three months ahead of time, and sometimes we like to go on a whim. Now that I think about it, our trips are usually precipitated by Ding! fares on Southwest! They come out about 2 to 4 months in advance.

I won't even go into the fact that we DON'T HAVE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS LAYING AROUND! LOL We can't figure out where everyone is getting it???

 

[Colleen27]

For us, it is just that we don't want to be tied to all Disney, all the time. We like to go every couple-few years, but one of the things we want in a vacation ownership program is more flexibility than DVC offers.

 

[AdWayInc]

Maintenance fees are tax detuctable as a vacation home... also we had a great home equity loan to finance ours... Love our DVC membership.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Maintenance fees are tax detuctable as a vacation home... also we had a great home equity loan to finance ours... Love our DVC membership.

Only the property tax portion of the dues.

 

[camdensmom]

DH and I are surprised at how quickly we have become "Disney People" and now go at least 2x a year. We contemplated DVC, but decided against it for the following reasons:

Flexibility in when we go

flexibility in where we stay

the fact that we do shorter trips (typically 4-5 days) and so we don't tire of a hotel room or restaurants the way we might if we were there longer

while I am sure it is nice to have the option to do so, I do not want to even think about cooking or laundry also, it gives me a good excuse to buy a new outfit for each day of the trip. lol

commitment issues...we LOVE LOVE LOVE going to Disney right now. It is the perfect vacation for us since it is an easy flight and a safe environment that we know like the back of our hand. With a toddler and hopes of having another baby soon, this will surely be our vacation of choice for the next few years. However, as our son gets older we may want to explore other options like cruising, etc.

location...I may just not know enough about them, but my understanding are that the DVC properties are tucked out of the way and not as in the action as say the poly.

It seems like DVC member do love it so it really comes down to personal choice.

 

[Markstudy]

It's gotten so crowded with owners (a lot of whom bought I think at SSR and want to stay anywhere but there)

This has always been the bane of time shares, too little inventory to meet demand, and up until they built SSR, DVC seemed to have escaped it.

That's some very interesting info... Why did SSR change the balance so much?

What will happen when the new building next to Comtempary(sp?) opens?

 

[Esmerelda]

I realize you did ask "why is DVC not for you" in your post. I have read everyone's complaints/concerns posted.

Here is why DVC WAS for us (maybe this will shed some other light on it)

We normally go to Disney and stay in a deluxe room for at least 6 days per year. (WL is my favorite resort) We have two sons, teens that enjoy going but we all like our space. Normally, we were staying at the WL for 6 nites so my post reflects these prices for 2008 and DVC points for 2008.

6 nites @WL in a courtyard room for June of 2008 $2,229

if we stayed at the 08 prices @WL for the next 50 years (length of our current SSR contract) we would spend over those years a grand total of
$111,450.- (yikes!)

Our current contract with DVC cost us around $13,200 for 180 points and was purchased in summer of 2004. Our annual dues run @ about $725.00 per year.

this works out too: $13,200 total contract
36,250 total for dues at 08 prices for 50 yrs of dues
total $49,450.-

If we paid cash at SSR for our 1 bedroom each year at 08 prices we would spend a total of $145,150 for the next 50 years. (yikes again)

As I stated, I based my math on the 08 prices but that is as far as I can go at this point. As we all know, the room rates will rise as well as the dues but the dues have only minimally risen (or at least for us)

The other advantages it the tax write off and the fact that its a deeded property we can will it to our boys if anything happens to us. We will have years and years to enjoy it. Plus the options for exchanges are endless. We have plans for Hawaii in 2 years. Also, we have never had ANY trouble staying whereever we want. We plan ahead at 11 months or 7 months and sometimes 2 months.

As you can see DVC DOES work out to be money saving. If you plan to do Disney each year at least once or do what we do. We do Disney E/O year and take a cruise E/O year. We absolutely love it.

It is a lot to think about and only you know your family and your finance and what you want in the future. For us, it was a no brainer for the money we were giving to Disney each stay in the years past. Our contract will be paid off in the next 2 years and then we will pay just our dues. If it comes to paying $2229 for 6 nites in a resort room or $725 for annual dues and having a beautiful condo with tons of space/kitchen/washer/dryer....I'll take the dues anyday.

best of luck to the OP on ALL their future vacations,
Esmerelda

 

[DisneyDotty]

I'm intrigued by this thread. We have become Disney freaks, and pretty much can count on visiting Disney at least once a year. Fortunately, I too have a friend who is a CM and willing to get us rooms using his wonderful discount. Would DVC be a saving measure over CM discounts and/or teacher discounts at the S/D?

We often go weekends/summers/holidays, and I'm wondering if DVC is for us because of that. Are those times more expensive? Are they harder to book four months (or so) out?

Can we get a good deal with our DVC points out in Disneyland?

Also, we like our two queens in the deluxes. Does DVC offer something comparable? Can I still stay in the CRTower rooms using my DVC points? Or is that "wasting" my points?

Like other posters, I'm not interested in a kitchen or laundry room. I like my monorail resorts and the flexibility to try new resorts. That's why I'm not sure DVC is for me. I'd love to hear from any seasoned DVCers who could offer some feedback/answers!

(I really wish we had bought back in '93 when we toured OKW and they still offered free park passes. We thought $8000 was too much then! Think of how many times we've spent that $8000 on our Disney vacations since then! )

 

[karylrocks]

We spend an average of one week every 2-3 years at WDW with lodging costs of about $1000 each time. Kids are now 27, 25, and 15 so we will probably only be making one or two more trips out there. Buying was never an affordable option for us, we just finally bought a house 4 years ago after renting forever. We have rented points and are again next year - that has been a great option for us. If we went for at least a week every year, I can see that it would be a good investment especially if you had the cash and did not have to finance.

 

[eliza61]

. Would DVC be a saving measure over CM discounts and/or teacher discounts at the S/D?

We often go weekends/summers/holidays, and I'm wondering if DVC is for us because of that. Are those times more expensive? Are they harder to book four months (or so) out?

Can we get a good deal with our DVC points out in Disneyland?

Also, we like our two queens in the deluxes. Does DVC offer something comparable? Can I still stay in the CRTower rooms using my DVC points? Or is that "wasting" my points?

Like other posters, I'm not interested in a kitchen or laundry room. I like my monorail resorts and the flexibility to try new resorts. That's why I'm not sure DVC is for me. I'd love to hear from any seasoned DVCers who could offer some feedback/answers!

(I really wish we had bought back in '93 when we toured OKW and they still offered free park passes. We thought $8000 was too much then! Think of how many times we've spent that $8000 on our Disney vacations since then! )

I don't know how much of a discount you get with the cm's and teachers rate so I can't answer that. I'll give you my 2 cents.
1) I've never had any problems booking my home resort 4 months out. WL and I bet AKL are pretty hard to get into during the holidays because they are so popular (hence the old motto "buy where you want to stay").

2) I always go during the summer and the weekends so when I purchased my points I calculated the cost of staying onsite over the weekend. I'm not the type of vacationer to calculate the "worth" of something just on the $ figure. I want to stay in my villa over the weekend so the points I use are worth it too me. I use my points to trade to other places, other people feel that does not give you the full "value" of the points. I don't feel that way. I have the vacation I want, that's the value for me. ( I'm using my points for an "Adventures by Disney" vacation next year. I can't wait!)

3) So far I'm making my way through the dvc resorts: I've had no problems getting space. So far I've done OKW, BCV (my home resort), WL (my favorite) 3X's and BWV's. Next up will be SSR. That's been pretty flexible.

 

[Tinkerdreams]

I just bought into DVC a couple of months ago. I based my decision on a couple of things.

1. We love going to Disney and staying at the mods or deluxes.

2. Disney announced a while ago that it was planning to build resorts at selected locations around the world.

3. I'm not a big beach person and laying by the pool only goes so far with us, so buying Disney DVC (timeshare) gives us a number of activities that we can engage in.

 

[ead79]

I've been considering buying DVC off and on for over 5 years now, and we just finally bought this month at AKV. Here are my reasons/thoughts:

--Before we bought DVC we wanted to try out many of Disney's resorts. We didn't want to limit ourselves to just the DVC properties. Now that we've tried a bunch of Disney's resorts, a few favorites have risen to the top of the list. One of our very favorites is AKL, so when they announced AKV, it became much more appealing to us. Also, now that there are quite a few DVC resorts, we still can resort hop and enjoy the various DVC resorts. And since DVC is proving so popular, I think we'll see even more DVC resorts built in the years to come.

--We used to get great discounts on our resort via our annual passes, AAA, codes, etc. I've noticed that the availability of those discounts and the discount percentage off have really decreased lately. We like the fact that paying for DVC gets us a guaranteed discount of sorts and makes our vacations more inflation proof. No more stressing over when AP rates will be released and whether or not I'll get them at the resort of my choice!

--We don't have kids yet, but when we do, I think we'll really enjoy the extra space a 1 BR offers compared to a regular resort room. Plus, while our child is still a baby, a studio would work well since the pack and play crib could go over by the sleeper sofa and take up less of the room than if it had 2 queen beds. Also, a kitchen and washer/dryer will be handy with kids.

--We like to pamper ourselves with concierge occasionally. AKV offers concierge units. Although there aren't very many of them so I'm sure they'll be hard to get, it's still nice to know that we can treat ourselves with concierge every now and again without using cash to do so.

For a long time we didn't buy in because the monthly payments would've been a stretch for us. It didn't make sense when that was the case. But now that we can make our payments without stressing ourselves out, it really made more sense for us.

 

[Esmerelda]

Wow...I forgot to add on my post the $100 savings per annual pass that we now get! That saves us $400.

We normally buy them late in June, early July one year. Then the next year, if we return to Disney, we reuse them a 2nd time in early to mid June so we definitely get our moneys worth.

Plus not to mention all the other perks that DVC gives us, this is one of our favorites!

good day,
Esmerelda

 

[tjkraz]

It's gotten so crowded with owners (a lot of whom bought I think at SSR and want to stay anywhere but there) that you can no longer count on traveling where and when you want to, in many cases, without booking at the 11 month and 7 month windows.

This has always been the bane of time shares, too little inventory to meet demand, and up until they built SSR, DVC seemed to have escaped it. Now I'm afraid it's the same old story as other time shares -- plan way in advance or you're pretty much out of luck.

DVC is no more "crowded with owners" now than it was 5 or 10 years ago. There are limits on the number of points that can be legally sold per unit, and DVC adheres to those limits.

As for SSR upsetting the balance, I disagree with that for the most part. The biggest problem, if you want to call it that, is that DVC members have gotten much more aggressive in booking their reservations. You don't have to spend much time reading the DVC forums without seeing things like:

* "Buy where you want to stay"
* People advocating making reservations day-by-day
* People who buy multiple small contracts to get the 11-month advantage at multiple resorts

Members' fear, uncertainty and doubt over the inability to get specific accommodations has become a self-fulling prophecy. Now it really IS hard to get certain rooms/resorts/dates because people are calling exactly 11 months out to book. It has nothing to do with SSR owners given that they wouldn't have access to the same room for nearly 4 months. Now people are concerned that they will get blocked-out by even their fellow resort owners. Check the forums in early January to see all of the posts from people calling 11-months out, day-by-day for December '08.

I've been following DVC since at least 2002 and in my mind the biggest change in attitude came about in 2004. Back then SSR had less than 200 rooms and new owners were flocking to try their Home resort for the first time. (During our first stay we couldn't get into SSR and had to take the BoardWalk instead.)

So, I'm not sure how a >200 room complex could be the driving force behind such a shift in attitude. Based upon my observations, I think it's mostly a case of members getting more aggressive in doing what they feel they need to do in order to get their rooms. Whether that aggression was grounded in reality is open to debate.

 

[Markstudy]

I keep looking at the idea....in my mind I've broken it down to its most basic logic. Reminds me of buying a futures contract.

You give them your money now and bet that prices will go up.

A simple trade....they control your money via contract and you get a savings.

The question you have to ask yourself is = Am I willnig to give someone control of my money in exchange for a savings in the future?

The downside is they control your money and they make the rules.
Its a matter of trust for me. Do I feel they hold too much power witht the ability to change the rules after they've got my money?

 

[NMW]

Well, I can tell you why it wasn't for us. I have the unique perspective of having bought DVC and then sold it 3 years later. It wasn't the cost. We bought a BWV resale and paid cash. It wasn't the maint fees. I had them deducted from our checking acct every month and didn't even notice them.

For us it was a lot of other little things. First of all, we really ONLY liked our home resort and the BCV. We mostly stayed in the Epcot deluxe hotels pre-DVC and had zero interest in SSR, OKW, HH, Vero, VWL. So, we would book BWV and after 3 trips, it got a little old. I would have booked BCV, but called at 7 mos once and found out I'd have to go straight on a waiting list-no thanks. That would completely freak me out. I like knowing where I am staying way, way ahead of time.

I also really missed the set up of the deluxe hotel rooms. We have 3 kids and like the 2 queens and daybead set-up. I thought the king was a total waste of space and I sleep on one at home! I hated the sofa bed/king setup of the 1 bedrooms-we stayed in them twice. The 2 bedroom was nice but a lot more points and not really worth it to us. I would have much prefered one hotel room in the BWI. We don't cook on vacation, ever. We have the deluxe meal plan booked for our May 08 BC stay. So, the kitchen meant nothing to us.

I hated feeling locked into the BWV for every Disney trip. I wanted to stay at the other Deluxe hotels-POLY, YC, BC, GF. I felt "trapped" almost by DVC. I know some people may find this odd. We ate Dinner at the POLY during our last DVC trip (Oct 06) and I was depressed. My son and daughter were asking if we could stay here next trip (they don't understand the whole DVC point thing). I told them that "no, it's not a DVC resort and not the best/smartest use of our points." I felt really upset by this. I WANT to be able to stay at the POLY for our next trip, or anywhere else for that matter. The GF is not my top 3 resorts, but I may want to stay there SOMEDAY. With DVC I never would, ever.

I also really, REALLY missed the daily maid service. I kept thinking I would get used to it, but I didn't. I also got sick of doing/folding luandry. I felt like I was at home! With all the towels we had to wash (no daily maid service!!), I felt like was doing laundry every time I stepped into the room.

I want to go to Aruba next year. I don't want to just hope for a good trade. I want to research all the hotels and call and book the one I like best. I think we have decided on 2 hotel rooms at the Marriot. That's how I like to book vacations. It works for us.

I was thinking of doing a Disney cruise next year (until we decided on Aruba). I knew that we could not use our DVC points for that. We need the stateroom that sleeps 5 and that is like a gagillion points! Then, if we didn't use DVC, we have to bank the points and I would feel like I was paying maint fees on something I wasn't even using. Again, I felt "trapped" by DVC. Should we go on the cruise, or not waste the DVC points and just stay at the BWV again?

We would have had to buy more points to stay in May. It works better with our kids school, and I just didn't want to do it. DH felt the same way. We sold our contract in 2 weeks at the Timeshare store-they are awesome by the way.

The first thing I did was call the WDW travel company and book a room only trip at the POLY for May 08-(the 08 packages weren't out yet). I was completely harrassed by my husband (and the 2 kids he got on his side) to switch to the BC, so I did! When the packages came out, I switched to the Deluxe meal plan which we LOVE and added our tickets. I can't tell you how happy I am with this trip we have planned.

For me, not owning DVC seems like a relief. We are now completely free to book any vacation we want, anywhere we want. I am not slamming the DVC program. It's a well run program and we have good friends who own it and love it. It's perfect for them, but it wan't perfect for us. In retrospect, I thought the BWV would be the same experience as staying at the BWI hotel, but it wasn't. It just wasn't a perfect fit for us. I probably should have done more research before we bought, but I had know way of knowing I would feel this way. All of my reasons for selling DVC are not problems with DVC itself, but my personal feelings.

 

[tomandrobin]

I hated feeling locked into the BWV for every Disney trip. I wanted to stay at the other Deluxe hotels-POLY, YC, BC, GF.

We have friends that go to Disney twice a year, October and February. They having been doing this every year. They do not own DVC, even though it could save them money. The reason they won't buy DVC is they prefer to stay at the Yacht Club, Club level. No other resort will do for them.

Similarily, we have friends who go to Aruba at least once a year, sometimes twice. They use to own a Marriott time share in Aruba, but sold it. Why...cause they had a hard time reserving the room they wanted, at the time of year they wanted to travel. By paying cash, they always get the room/view they want.

So, for some its not always about saving money, on pre-paid vacations. Its control, room choice and the ultimate flexibility of choice.

 

[disney54us]

We have friends that go to Disney twice a year, October and February. They having been doing this every year. They do not own DVC, even though it could save them money. The reason they won't buy DVC is they prefer to stay at the Yacht Club, Club level. No other resort will do for them.

Similarily, we have friends who go to Aruba at least once a year, sometimes twice. They use to own a Marriott time share in Aruba, but sold it. Why...cause they had a hard time reserving the room they wanted, at the time of year they wanted to travel. By paying cash, they always get the room/view they want.

So, for some its not always about saving money, on pre-paid vacations. Its control, room choice and the ultimate flexibility of choice.

Well Said!