DVC - For couples or for families?

Louise Potts

Mouseketeer
Joined
Aug 2, 2016
Hello everyone!

My Husband and I have not been fortunate to have children together despite a lot of money, heartache and years spent having IVF, however my Husband does have a daughter (aged 10) who lives with us half the week and who I ADORE and we are soon due to have our 2nd wonderful trip together to WDW.

But my question is this - being in the DVC has always been on my bucket list but is it more of an investment for people with large families and lots of kids?

When I look at the accommodation options the minimum sleep is 5 however I suspect once my Step Daughter is a bit older (she is 11 this year) it may just be me and my Husband using the points.

We love Disney and would definitely use the points and enjoy the more adult side of Disney trips (boardwalk, springs, meals, bars etc) but is it a pointless investment for just a couple?

Welcome any opinions on this at all....

Thanks!
 
Firstly, sorry to hear of your struggle. I can’t begin to imagine how difficult that’s been.

Definitely not a pointless investment. All the occupancies are deliberately listed large to show how many people you can squeeze in to justify the cost for larger parties.

You guys can be super flexible. Bear in mind however the studios do tend to go fast, so make sure you pick your home resort wisely.

Definitely do it though, you won’t regret it.
 


We are a family of five and bought DVC but firmly in our minds was using it for 1 bedrooms for just the two of us once the kids are all grown.
 
Hey Louise,

We have no kids. I took my partner on what was supposed to be a one-off “holiday of a lifetime” - three weeks in Walt Disney World and we just did the best of everything - flew out Virgin Upper Class, staying at the Polynesian in club level, opted for the Deluxue Dining Plan for those 3 weeks. That was back in 2015. When we got back to the UK, we were still in awe of what an incredible time we had. There was no way we could repeat that same holiday in any regular way - the cost, as you can imagine, was crazy high. I set about researching and in 2016 we purchased DVC at the Polynesian and had our first stay on points in 2017. We are all booked again for later this year.

We actually find having no kids and being UK based gives us a significant advantage! Firstly, being Brits, we tend to plan our vacations well in advance - that works great for timeshares. No issues on availability and having to plan around expensive school holidays! Secondly, the dining plan works great for us, because a big part of our holiday is about the food, so we get our $ worth out of the plan - because we only have to buy it for the two of us, and not a whole family! This year cocktails/alcohol is now included, so we’ll both be having a Bloody Mary at breakfast... We have been a bit clever about tickets; when DVC had that ‘platinum for gold’ annual pass offer, we purchased the pass on our 2017 trip. We will activate them for our October 2018 trip and then we will go a month earlier next year (2019) to get two uses out of them. This less than halves the cost of the ticket price vs standard UK tickets.

Of course, being just the two of you means that you can just purchase the points required for a studio and you’ll have *loads* of room. We opted for the exact number of points required for Poly lake view room and I’m glad we did. We underestimated how much we actually enjoyed just sitting on the balcony overlooking the lagoon and watching the (Disney) world go by. We don’t look at it as an investment - but as an affordable way we can keep going back year after year. As an added bonus, when we’re either too old or decided to move on to sometime else, we will probably be able to sell it for around the same as our buy-in cost (or more it keeps trending in the same direction as it has). This could mean that our accommodation cost was equivalent to our annual dues. Though given the cash price for a room - even if we didn’t sell - it would have been great value.

So yes, DVC works great for couples!
 


DVC resale is great for the Boardwalk, for the adult only trips. Me and the wife prefer the Boardwalk due to is location near some of our favorite places to eat on site. Disney with kids can be a fun trip, but I still prefer Disney as a adult only trip. If you can afford DVC buy it, never assume Disneys sales pitch as "the traditional 2.5 kids" is the optimum market for DVC, really the optimal market for DVC is whoever wants to part with the larger percentage of there money to Disney. So buy it and enjoy
 
DVC is the best thing ever! We only wished we'd have purchased years earlier. You won't regret it.

We purchased on board the Disney cruise line and got a great deal so for us this means that we can also use our points at other hotels. So far we've only used them at the Disneyland in California but it saved us a fortune.
 
Hey Louise,

We have no kids. I took my partner on what was supposed to be a one-off “holiday of a lifetime” - three weeks in Walt Disney World and we just did the best of everything - flew out Virgin Upper Class, staying at the Polynesian in club level, opted for the Deluxue Dining Plan for those 3 weeks. That was back in 2015. When we got back to the UK, we were still in awe of what an incredible time we had. There was no way we could repeat that same holiday in any regular way - the cost, as you can imagine, was crazy high. I set about researching and in 2016 we purchased DVC at the Polynesian and had our first stay on points in 2017. We are all booked again for later this year.

We actually find having no kids and being UK based gives us a significant advantage! Firstly, being Brits, we tend to plan our vacations well in advance - that works great for timeshares. No issues on availability and having to plan around expensive school holidays! Secondly, the dining plan works great for us, because a big part of our holiday is about the food, so we get our $ worth out of the plan - because we only have to buy it for the two of us, and not a whole family! This year cocktails/alcohol is now included, so we’ll both be having a Bloody Mary at breakfast... We have been a bit clever about tickets; when DVC had that ‘platinum for gold’ annual pass offer, we purchased the pass on our 2017 trip. We will activate them for our October 2018 trip and then we will go a month earlier next year (2019) to get two uses out of them. This less than halves the cost of the ticket price vs standard UK tickets.

Of course, being just the two of you means that you can just purchase the points required for a studio and you’ll have *loads* of room. We opted for the exact number of points required for Poly lake view room and I’m glad we did. We underestimated how much we actually enjoyed just sitting on the balcony overlooking the lagoon and watching the (Disney) world go by. We don’t look at it as an investment - but as an affordable way we can keep going back year after year. As an added bonus, when we’re either too old or decided to move on to sometime else, we will probably be able to sell it for around the same as our buy-in cost (or more it keeps trending in the same direction as it has). This could mean that our accommodation cost was equivalent to our annual dues. Though given the cash price for a room - even if we didn’t sell - it would have been great value.

So yes, DVC works great for couples!

Hi Ross,

Sorry for such a late reply, thanks so much for sharing all of that information - sitting on the balcony together at the Poly sounds like absolute BLISS and it is lovely to hear that DVC is for couples too, thanks so much for replying

Lou
 
Hi
My Husband and I have not been lucky enough to have children either. We joined DVC in 2014 and it's the best thing we ever did.
If you know you're always going to go to Disney, every year, like we did, then it's a no brainer!
 
Thank you both for your advice! We are going to book a tour on our next trip and fingers crossed join up!
I purchased my DVC points when I was married and had two teenagers. Now I'm not married, and the teenagers have grown up. I don't regret buying at all. You should know I'm in Canada. Why am I lurking on the UK forums? I'm from Scotland, and trying to get my Scottish family to join me in Florida. Boy they're a tough sell. So as a couple who enjoy WDW I think it's a great thing. My advice, consider resale. Unless you can go more than once a year, the annual pass discount may not pay off, and using your points for non DVC hotels is a waste of points. For the points price of a room at the moderates, you can stay in a 1 bedroom unit with a full kitchen in a great resort location. So don't be swayed by the sales pitch about the advantages of buying direct. Do your research on the Purchasing DVC forum and make the decision that truly works for you. Happy researching.
 
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I purchased my DVC points when I was married and had two teenagers. No I'm not married, and the teenagers have grown up. I don't regret buying at all. You should know I'm in Canada. Why am I lurking on the UK forums? I'm from Scotland, and trying to get my Scottish family to join me in Florida. Boy they're a tough sell. So as a couple who enjoy WDW I think it's a great thing. My advice, consider resale. Unless you can go more than once a year, the annual pass discount may not pay off, and using your points for non DVC hotels is a waste of points. For the points price of a room at the moderates, you can stay in a 1 bedroom unit with a full kitchen in a great resort location. So don't be swayed by the sales pitch about the advantages of buying direct. Do your research on the Purchasing DVC forum and make the decision that truly works for you. Happy researching.

Thanks so much x
 
Hi
My Husband and I have not been lucky enough to have children either. We joined DVC in 2014 and it's the best thing we ever did.
If you know you're always going to go to Disney, every year, like we did, then it's a no brainer!

We are deffo going to look at resale next year - DVC can be my substitute baby! Thanks so much for your reply x
 
DVC is by far the best investment we ever made. Just like you, we are a couple without kids. (We practiced lots but never got it right lol) It means we can use the studios and still have loads of room. We have 250 points (150 SSR, 100BLT) which means that we can go for 2 and a half weeks a year (ish) or miss a year every now and again, get a room at Universal for a few days and go for 3-4 weeks 3 times out of every 4 years. We would never have been able to afford so many trips without DVC. If you have the £££, and you REALLY love WDW, go for it. This is our 15th time. We have worked out that we've spent a year of our lives in WDW. We are working on making it 2.
 

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