Why not Vero or HH

[CowgirlTN]

Our family of three will be going to DW in Feb 18 for our 2nd visit in 2 years for 4 nights. I want to sell my husband on buying into resell DVC. We have a 5 year old daughter and we always take vacations. We are open to all the DW properties and don't have a set time of year we like to go. Since contracts at Vero and HH seem the cheapest. Why wouldn't we buy there?

Thank you for your advice. Kristi

 

[tnicks]

High maintenance fees, low resell value / higher depreciation, short contract length, and lack of a home property where you primarily plan to vacation. If you run the numbers, those contracts will have a much higher total cost of ownership. When you factor all of this in, assuming you don't want a contract ending in 2042, Saratoga Springs, Bay Lake Tower, and Animal Kingdom Lodge are top value resorts for WDW.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

1. High dues. They have the highest dues of any of the DVC properties.

2. Buying VB or HHI, you will never have 11-month access to DW, and for many weekends and times of year, always relying on 7-month can be an issue.

If you don't care where you stay on property, the best value is Saratoga Springs.

 

[CowgirlTN]

Since we are going in Feb 2018 do I need to pay attention to a use year?

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Since we are going in Feb 2018 do I need to pay attention to a use year?

You're only going once? Even a short contract still has 25 years left. UY is worth considering.

 

[mustinjourney]

Use year (UY) is really only important if you plan on taking vacations the same times every year. If you're going to go in February one year, then summer the next, and December the next year, then UY is not all that important.

If you are planning on vacationing each February -- then a FEB UY is the best, followed by DEC and OCT (there is no NOV UY).

 

[mustinjourney]

and if you're only going to be vacationing one time -- there's no sense in buying DVC. Just rent the points.

 

[CowgirlTN]

You're only going once? Even a short contract still has 25 years left. UY is worth considering.

No this is will be our 2nd trip in 2 years. We stayed in a BCV studio the 1st time. Our daughter is 5 so I picture us going several more times. We loved it!

 

[_auroraborealis_]

My point is really that for one-time use, buying DVC is not going to be cost-effective, and that as a timeshare with 25-50 years of use life, looking at UY for a single trip is not strategic. You really need to be committing to 10+ years of use to make most DVC cost-effective, and have to factor in annual dues as part of the long term cost.

You'll rarely get BCV without waitlists on VB or HHI points, FWIW.

 

[supersnoop]

Since we are going in Feb 2018 do I need to pay attention to a use year?

Yes. Use year should be a big part of your decision making process when purchasing DVC.

 

[kboo]

We made our decision at around the same time (ODD was 5)... because having schoool vacations meant we couldn't always just pick the cheapest dates to go and we wanted to "lock in" a reasonable value vacation at least once a year. If that is partly your motivation, then look at which times you're likely to travel most - we figured February and April vacations to get warm weather, and summer (3 of 4 people in our family have summer birthdays) and so a Feb UY worked for us. And BLT because of the $ factors above and proximity to MK.

 

[Deb & Bill]

If you plan to buy into DVC, buy the resort where you won't mind staying if you cannot change your reservation at seven months out. It is getting harder to book at seven months out. Also, if you can't plan a trip more than seven or eight months out, you might always be disappointed if you can't get anywhere but OKW, SSR or AKV. Then you don't want to buy DVC at all.

If you want an Epcot resort during F&W, you want to buy one of those resorts. If you like to be able to walk to MK, you'll want BLT (but be aware that the BLT studio is really small).

If your trips are only four nights or less, every few years, you might just want to stick with renting points.

 

[Dean]

Since we are going in Feb 2018 do I need to pay attention to a use year?

UY is important to many and when it's not, those people are taking more risk and should consider whether buying at all is reasonable. As noted, VB & HH are more expensive long term and they do not give you an 11 month window for WDW, SSR will be the cheapest long term. To stay at HH or VB a significant portion of the time they can be reasonable buys but not just as a points cow to get to WDW.