confused on the draw to DVC

I can never wrap my head around why spending $500 vs $150 for a nicer room is worth it. <snip>
... no one really clues in WHY they chose it.
Finances are, certainly, part of the decision process. The $500 rate you see advertised via Disney's Central Reservation system isn't what we are paying nightly. Owning DVC does require both a huge commitment of up-front capital (the buy-in) and ongoing dues ... but there is the idea that one can sell, later down the road, to recoup expenditure. Some who purchased very early and sold at a good point in the market have recouped a great deal of their expenses and possibly made a profit. This is the notion that tends to draw us in. Yes, I'm spending money now ... but someday this might pan out and I'll have been vacationing for free. It is a lovely dream.
 
Thanks, All!

Of course, I don't enjoy the value resort stay, I just bear it and focus on the parks! I'd LOVE to stay in a deluxe, are you kidding me?! We often walk through the deluxe resorts and my son will see the magnificent pools and want to use them, but can't!!! I can see the perks, but man, the cost blows my mind!

Thanks! So, with DVC it doesn't actually cost $500 a night, gotcha. Thanks!!!
 
We usually opt to stay at value/moderate hotels since we view it as a way to just hang our heads at night, spending most of our time at the parks.

I feel like I'm in the dark with DVC - why do you have it? Am I missing something on why it's worth it to stay at a deluxe hotel?

Different people place different value on proximity to (some) theme parks, enhanced resort amenities, and larger/better equipped rooms. For some people, those intangibles are worth serious money. Others don't care much.

If you are in the came of "don't care much," and find values/moderates to be perfectly acceptable, it is unlikely that DVC will save you money. If you aren't staying almost exclusively at moderates, DVC will almost certainly cost you more in lodging alone. So, it might not be right for you!

That's perfectly fine. For me, the important thing was having the space and amenities of a villa, and precisely where it was located was less important. So, I've sometimes stayed in offsite timeshare condos, many of which are as nice or nicer than DVC villas, but significantly less expensive.
 
Our focus was being able to walk to the parks. That 5 yo isn't gonna walk so save $$ and stay in the value/moderate. We didn't purchase DVC until the kids were grown and mostly out of the house.
 


Thanks, All!

Of course, I don't enjoy the value resort stay, I just bear it and focus on the parks! I'd LOVE to stay in a deluxe, are you kidding me?! We often walk through the deluxe resorts and my son will see the magnificent pools and want to use them, but can't!!! I can see the perks, but man, the cost blows my mind!

Thanks! So, with DVC it doesn't actually cost $500 a night, gotcha. Thanks!!!

DVC is points based. So you buy a set of points and then use those points to book a room at. DVC resort, based on the number of points needed for each night. Different nights and room sizes, as well as different times of year are all different,

For example, I own both SSR and BWV right now. In January, I can book a studio room with a SV for 10 points a night. The BW view rooms are a little more..maybe 14. If I want to stay at the Poly or Grand Florida’s it will cost me more points...like in the 20,s..

For us, we were a family of 5 so had to stay deluxe. But even when we went without everyone, we preferred deluxe. Just less people and we always spent afternoons at the resort,

When we bought in 2009, we realized it made sense because we would be going for years to come. Now I have just retired and plan to go a lot, so having DVC is what makes it possible.
 
We did it as once we had a child we didn't want just 1 room. We found at bedtime for her we wanted to stay up and do something. So the 1 bedrooms with lounge, kitchen and laundry were perfect for us. Once we had 3 children the 2 bedrooms were perfect.

It has nothing to do with deluxe resorts it has to do with the room types size and amenities.
 
Thanks, All!

Of course, I don't enjoy the value resort stay, I just bear it and focus on the parks! I'd LOVE to stay in a deluxe, are you kidding me?! We often walk through the deluxe resorts and my son will see the magnificent pools and want to use them, but can't!!! I can see the perks, but man, the cost blows my mind!

Thanks! So, with DVC it doesn't actually cost $500 a night, gotcha. Thanks!!!

With DVC, if you do it right, it should not cost more than $200 a night. We are talking about studios of course, not 1 bedroom units or larger. My strategy has it costing around $100 to $150 per night. Like I mentioned before, the math can work out still with DVC over values/moderate resorts. But this is long term calculation over 30-40 years. It will cost you much more than that if you can't keep DVC long term, or re-coup your buy-in cost at resale when the time comes.

Great3
 
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I see, so the basics would be to buy a cheap resale and keep it as long as possible?

Yeah, for the most part, and by cheap resale, I don't mean the non-WDW resort. This usually means SSR, which for me, it's perfect, it works out as long as I am onsite and get on-site benefits. For others, location and other factor matters, just not to me.

Take a look at this report: https://www.dvcresalemarket.com/blog/best-economical-dvc-resort-to-purchase-spring-2019/ . Although there are many that argue the flaws in those calculations (doesn't account for inflation, etc), it at least give a general good idea / cost baseline.

If SSR cost about $10 a point in the long term, and you have to go at fairly high season for about 110-130 points for the week, that's less than $200 a night. However, if you can go at low season where you only need about 90 points for the week, that works out to $130 a night.

I brought Aulani subsidized contract, so my per night cost is less, but I don't recommend buying any non-WDW resort, period, if you mainly plan to go to WDW. My plan is mainly Hawaii and Aulani, WDW is just an added bonus of owning DVC.

Great3
 
My apologies on the misuse of "forced"...what I meant by it is that (it appears) value resorts may have limits on the number of people in each room if that is the case?
 
Ok, now I understand, so it's due to the family size that you guys basically are forced to book deluxe, gotcha! thank you!!!!

We are just a family of two when we bought in and like staying at deluxe hotels for the amenities and locations. Has nothing to do with family size. We bought into DVC because it offered a bit of savings over paying rack rate even with discounts. Now we are expecting one on the way and am happy we have DVC to fall back on when we take him to Disney.
 
Thanks! So, with DVC it doesn't actually cost $500 a night, gotcha. Thanks!!!

DVC is a point system. When you buy in, you buy a contract that has a certain number of points allocated to it. The points act as currency. Each DVC resort has a point chart that lists out the cost per night in points based on things like, time of year, day of the week, view, room type, etc.... You can see the 2019 & 2020 point charts here https://www.wdwinfo.com/disney-vacation-club/dvcpoints.shtml

So lets say you buy an Animal Kingdom contract with 100 points for $115 per point, you would pay $115 x 100 = $11,500 upfront for your contract. This means, every year you would get 100 points to play with. If you look at the point chart, you will see that if you traveled during Dream Season every year, you can stay in a Standard Studio room for 1 week for the cost of 95 points.

A few things to keep in mind:

- You pay the contract price upfront. This is a one time cost
- Every year you pay annual dues in January. Animal Kingdom's 2019 annual dues for example are $7.44 per point. So if you have a 100 point contract, you would have paid $744 in January 2019. Annual dues usually increase marginally every year.
- You can book at your "home resort" 11 months out from your date of travel. At 7 months out, your free to book at any of the DVC resorts (there are a few restrictions that were put in place earlier this year that you should know before buying, but I won't get into that here). This means, DVC doesn't necessarily mean you have to stay at the same resort every single year.
- Every DVC contract has an expiration date. For example, Animal Kingdom's contract expires in 2057. After that expiration date, the contract goes back to Disney.
- You are allowed to bank points into next year, and borrow points from the following year. This means, technically you can use up to 3 years worth of points on a single vacation. Theoretically, if you travel during Dream Season once every 3 years, you could buy a 35 point contract and have enough for a week, once every 3 years.

So here is a very very very simplified version of the math involved. If you are really interested in DVC, I suggest you do more advanced calculations than this. However, this is a basic illustration just to give you an idea.

Animal Kingdom 7 night trip in Dream Season annually.

- Buy contract for $11,500 upfront
- pay annual dues every year of $744 per year
- get 7 nights annually

Total cost = 11,500 + (744 x 37 years) = $39,028
Nights = 37 years x 7 nights per year = 259 nights
Cost per night = 39,028 / 259 = $150.69 per night.

So as you can see, DVC is much cheaper than the normal rack rates you see on Disney's website. Of course, it will actually end up costing more than $150 per night because annual dues do increase every year. You also have to pay a bunch of cash upfront that could otherwise been invested. But this simple calculation should atleast get you in the ballpark of the real cost of DVC.
 
1. We like having a kitchen. It saves us money on meals.
2. A washer and dryer in the room is a life saver with little kids.
3. We travel with extended family, so we like the ability to stay in 2-bedrooms.
4. We are not all-day park warriors. We like hanging around the pool and the resort for a while during the day, so deluxes make a little more sense that way.
5. Buying into DVC could be a hedge against rising hotel rates in the future.

Everyone travels differently. For some people, DVC works. For others, it doesn’t. Some people prefer to stay off property. Some people don’t like Disney at all. All ways are equally valid. :) Hope that helps.
 
I love the value resorts, especially AOA. When we signed up for DVC, they offered to show me a "deluxe room" tour, but I had to catch a flight and declined, knowing that since I was thrilled with the value resorts, I could only be pleased with the deluxe ones. We got DVC because it accommodates the whole extended family including cousins and Nana. As kids grow, they like to bring friends on vacation or sleep in their own bed/room/watch their own tv/have their own shower. And I'm not fond of trekking with laundry to the laundry room. Plus this guarantees vacations that everyone will enjoy. I've traveled the world, and Disney remains my favorite destination outside of one place I will not divulge but is too expensive to do every year and requires a change of time zone.
 
We finally bought DVC after ignoring the salespeople for a decade or 2. We stayed at moderates for the most part over the last 15 years and one of the things that had us considering DVC, was the increase in the cost of moderates. So our last trip, we decided to rent points for our first taste of a deluxe DVC resort. The nightly cost was comparable to the moderates and the rooms were significantly better in all ways.

You might want to try a visit on rented points and see what you think. At the low times, cost might be similar to your moderate stay anyway.
 
We were about your ages when we bought in 1997. Our son was four, Bill was 44 and I was 47. We bought at OKW since it was between OKW and BWV and we just like OKW better. We still like vacationing other places, but we really enjoyed coming as a family to WDW. Now we are retired and living in SW FL, so we can come for shorter stays, like four or five nights (or even fewer nights). We enjoy coming for the festivals in Epcot, but we still like to go to the other parks, too. On our early trips, we made plans (with spreadsheets) and got to the parks at park opening, came back to the resort mid-day and headed back to another park that evening. Now, we get up when we get up, hop a bus to a park, do a few things, look around, maybe get something to eat and then we go back to the resort. We might go to an evening show, or we might just stay in and watch television. We've long since made back the original money we spent (maybe, because we surely wouldn't have gone as many time without buying DVC). It's just something we look forward to now.

We live about 1.7 miles from the Gulf of Mexico on an island. So we have plenty of time at the beach or Everglades or just being at home. We like that with DVC we can get a one bedroom villa and sleep in a king sized bed. And if I stay up later or get up earlier, I can head to the living room to watch television or sit out on the porch or read a book without disturbing my husband who is still sleeping. We don't just use our DVC villa as a place to sleep in between going to the parks. It changes when you get older and just like to do something else. As our son was growing up, he got the sleeper sofa in the living room (or the sleeper chair once they introduced those at OKW, BLT and AKV). Now he doesn't go with us very often but he will drive up to Orlando to visit with some of his friends who still work there (he worked there for two years).

So DVC is just a timeshare that it's best to use just for DVC and not trade out (we had two weeks at a timeshare on our island before we moved here - we love it here, that's why we moved here). You might want to rent an owner's points to try a stay in a DVC resort. But if you go for a one bedroom, you'll never go back to a studio with three of you. It's nice for Mom & Dad to have a room to themselves and children get the living room.
 
Ok, now I understand, so it's due to the family size that you guys basically are forced to book deluxe, gotcha! thank you!!!!

Well, no. I mean, that’s the case for the few people who had answered you by this response, but by no means is that THE case.

My family was only 3 people and now it’s 2, and we bought. And I was just turning 40 when we bought.


So, with DVC it doesn't actually cost $500 a night, gotcha.

Hard to tell but it’s unlikely. It’s a calculation that can only be done at the end of your membership, really.

Of course, I don't enjoy the value resort stay, I just bear it

I’m sorry.
Maybe you should do some deep reading of the resources here about the costs and realities, to see if it might work for you.

Everyone travels differently. For some people, DVC works. For others, it doesn’t

Yep.
 

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